The waiting game
The best thing to do once you’ve submitted all your applications is to forget about them. Don’t wake up everyday wondering if today is the day you’ll get your admissions decision. Don’t obsessively read blogs to see if other people who applied to the same school have gotten their decisions. And above all, don’t check your email 20 times a day to see if you have news.
I followed none of this advice. Patience may be someone’s virtue, but not mine. After I submitted my last application I went to dinner and a movie with the Boyfriend. By dessert the suspense was killing me. “Do you mind if we swing by my apartment on the way to the movie?” I asked. “I, uh, forgot my phone.” He wasn’t happy about it but we detoured to my place and I ran upstairs while he waited in the car. I waited for my ancient laptop to boot up. After a few minutes my phone rang.
“What are you doing? We’re going to miss the movie,” said the Boyfriend.
“On my way down,” I said, clicking on the email icon.
“You’ve got mail!” announced my computer.
“I KNEW IT!” yelled the Boyfriend. “You’re checking your email!”
“I just wanted to see if there was any news!” I whined.
“But you only applied two hours ago!”
The first problem is that the emails the schools send you don’t actually contain any news. They just tell you that “Your status has changed” with a link to another website for your update. The second problem is that your status is always changing. First they tell you that you’ve successfully submitted your application. Then that they are processing your application. Then that your application is complete. Now multiply all those emails by five—the number of schools I applied to. That’s a lot of heart-palpitation inducing emails popping up in your inbox every day. Especially if you check your email at work. My productivity took a serious nosedive from March to early April. All I could talk about were my status changes. My boss finally gave up and worked it into our staff meetings. “First order of new business,” he would say. “Any status change updates from Caitlin?”
Then came the humiliation. Rejection from Stanford. Rejection from Columbia. Oh god, was I even going to get in to business school? I immediately regretted making the process so public. Even the guy at the deli where I bought my lunch every day now asked me if I’d gotten in. Rejection from Haas. My options were becoming limited. I couldn’t get my mind of fit so I did the only thing there was to do. I took a vacation.
Nothing cures a wandering mind like drinking fruity cocktails all night and sleeping on the beach all day. And that’s exactly what I did for five days with my best friend in Miami. The cold Minnesota weather and my bschool applications all seemed very far away. I checked my email only once when we forgot what time our return flight left. That’s when I saw the email from NYU staring back at me: “Your application status has changed.” It was our last night in Miami. If I clicked on the link and it wasn’t good news, there weren’t enough fruity cocktails in all of South Beach to console me. I clicked.
Status: Accepted.
Bienvenidos a business school.
