The question on every applicant's mind, following last week.
Wow, what a week last week was. It felt like the B-Schools were printing out 'dings' faster than the Zimbabwean government prints money. I would dare even say it was like an axe murderer had run rampant on all the applicants' dreams. With the thump of HBS making R1 admission only a vague possibility for the many, Wharton sliced and diced many of the blogosphere's finest. For one applicant, even her job was axed. Perhaps it is like this every year, but for me it was a shocking week.
Things started well for the blogosphere - Tieny and Max celebrated early admission to Columbia. Pretty soon afterwards, my first whiff that something odd was in the air occurred when HappyBunny's blog vanished into thin air. We soon heard that Columbia had started to send out a slew of denials. It sounded bad, but how bad could it be? After a few weeks of silence, last week hit us.
So what is going on? Are the bankers now applying in their droves to business schools? My brother works at one of the two remaining old time US investment banks. A few weeks back he told me that they've only axed the people with negative Proft/Loss in their net trading for the year (which is most of the people, but thankfully not him). I'd rather think the ones taking our places were the ones in profit, but I'm sure even those ones face the cut! I suggested to my brother that he should consider applying for B Schools. He said he doesn't have time - he is too busy practically running the desk. In hindsight, I'm all too glad to have one less competitor.
Maybe it is not all bankers rushing in... Perhaps the credit crunch has filtered into consulting? Perhaps there are now people applying in their droves from all parts of the economy? Whatever the case, I can see this crunch going on for a while. I'm glad I'm not applying next year.
| Follow any responses to this entry through the |
