MSBA application experience (Part 2)

Part 2:
🏀Preparing application documents
After I finished the TOEFL in mid-October, I wanted to slip back into relax mode and slowly work on my application documents. Then one morning at work I got a phone call! Military service starting 12/1! I was stunned and panicking. I even asked them why mine came so soon, since I hadn't applied to enlist early (I'd checked the enlistment info, which said the normal enlistment period was February to April, and friends in my cohort hadn't gotten their draft notices yet). In that moment I wondered if I was done for, because there was no way I could finish these documents before enlisting (at that point I hadn't started any of them, and I hadn't even found an editor).

But! I went into crisis mode again. I searched online and read through posts, and after about two or three days I found an editor called “Zane Abroad”. Luckily, I saw that a senior from Chiao Tung University (交大) had also worked with him, so I shamelessly messaged that senior. After talking it over, and with the time pressure, I quickly locked things in with Zane!

Next, using my business analytics program applications as the example, the documents I prepared roughly included an SOP, PS, essays, video essays, recommendation letters and a CV. Below I'll share how I prepared each of them~

SOP:
The SOP (Statement of Purpose) covers your background, why you're applying, why you want to attend this school, what you want to do after graduating and so on. Most people pick one school's SOP as the master draft and then tweak it for the other schools (I suggest using the one with the highest word count as the master, because I think cutting is easier than adding~). Zane helped me with this part. He walks you through one school's SOP, and the way he does it is pretty unusual: he offers three hours of online consultation. But he's a foreigner, so the whole thing is in English. Part of why I chose him was that besides writing the SOP, I could practice my spoken English too. Pretty good deal haha! (To be clear, this isn't sponsored!)

For the first hour, he gives you an outline template in advance and asks you to draft a CV. In the first session he has you introduce yourself, then pulls together your highlights from what you've told him. One key point! He keeps asking what contribution your experience could bring to the school you're applying to, why you're choosing this school, and what else besides these experiences could convince the school to pick you. I think this is super important: first, you have to think about the value of each experience, and second, you keep digging through everything you did in these four years to see what's usable. After the first hour, you'll roughly have a direction for writing a first draft.

I spent three or four days rushing out the first draft (enlistment was close, so I was super efficient), then quickly booked the second session. In the second hour he focuses on editing your draft, going sentence by sentence and asking what you mean by each one. I really liked this, because some online editing services just polish your wording without actually knowing what you're trying to say. During the edits, whenever he sees an experience that isn't convincing enough, he grills you again about what other experiences you could write about. I honestly felt completely drained haha! After the second hour your SOP is about 80% done, with only final changes left.

But, but! Just when you think things are going smoothly, something happens~ I suddenly realized my master draft was for a Master of Business Analytics, since all my other applications were BA programs. But the school I wanted most was a Master of Analytics. The difference is that a Master of Analytics puts more weight on the technical side, while in my BA SOP I'd spent some space on the business courses I took, business competitions… basically it was unusable. That meant, for the school I wanted most (though I didn't get in in the end), I had to squeeze in some extra technical experience and hope to sort it out in the third session~

In the third session I quickly told him I needed to make changes and asked him to look at what I'd revised. Maybe it was an adrenaline rush, but everything I added was usable, so luckily I finished my master SOP within those three hours of consultation.

After that came a whole string of copy-and-paste. For each school, I'd spend some time looking at its courses and what makes the program distinctive, then explain why I wanted to apply there. For example, what stands out at UMN is that its courses go from basic to advanced: building analytics foundations in the first semester, learning analytics tools in the second, and finally hands-on application in the third, which is a way of learning I really like~ UIUC's BA program has a financial track, which interested me a lot~ because my previous project was a financial analysis capstone…

Finally, for the words or paragraphs I tweaked for the other schools, I had Zane edit them too; for this he charges by the word (3元/word). Also, a huge, huge thank you to my classmates 李冠翰, 蔡惟倫 and 黃品岳. While I was preparing these documents, I asked them to critique my SOP objectively, and they gave me a lot of suggestions. 李冠翰 even edited my SOP with me online, 蔡惟倫 gave me pointers on how Americans word things, and 黃品岳 and I encouraged each other and read each other's documents. Thank you all so much!

PS, Essay, Video Essay:

The PS (Personal Statement) tells your personal story. Here you can write more about how you grew up, your family background and some volunteer experience. Guys can also write about their military service and doing their part for the country haha

Essays depend a lot on the program and school you apply to. Some of my programs didn't ask for an SOP, but the essay prompts were just sections of an SOP, so here I mostly copied and pasted too.

For the video essay, the school gives you a prompt and asks you to record a 1-2 minute video answering it. Taking my prompts as examples, one asked you to simulate an interview: introduce the company and position you're interviewing for, then your experience…; another asked about the pros and cons of Business Analytics. Basically, think of it as a mini interview, except you can write a script, memorize it, and keep recording until you get it without mistakes. I really have to thank 邱小霈 here, who stayed with me to film 3 video essays. Each was only a minute or two long, but I spent 3 or 4 hours on every one (you read that right, I kept saying things wrong or tripping over my words), and 邱小霈 patiently helped me get them all done~

Recommendation letters:

I had three: one from my capstone professor, one from my department advisor and one from my manager at work. I drafted all of them; apart from my department advisor, who made changes, the others signed and submitted them as is. I suggest planning which strengths each recommender will talk about. In my case, my advisor covered how engaged I was in class and my leadership, my capstone professor covered my business analytics experience, and my manager covered my work attitude, job skills and so on. As for structure, you really just have to search online and shamelessly ask experienced people if they can give you some references.

Also, think early about who you want as recommenders; don't wait until it's time to write. Here's a funny story: honestly, I wasn't very close to my capstone professor, because we only met online once every month or two, and the rest of the time I worked with a senior student. So when I was looking for recommenders, I hesitated over whether to ask him, but he was the one who could best vouch for my technical background. Then! One day I ran into him at the McDonald's on campus. I seized the chance, worked up the courage and asked if he could write me a letter. He had even kind of forgotten who I was, but he agreed without hesitation. I was honestly a bit shocked; the good luck came out of nowhere!

CV:

List your duties and performance as bullet points, quantify your results as much as possible, use fewer subjective words, and remember to basically start each line with a past-tense verb. There are lots of CV formats online you can use as references. Thanks again to 李冠翰, who also made time to edit my CV, which really leveled up its quality, and to 彭耀增, who gave me his nice-looking CV format and font. I think it really made a difference!

Finally, a fun story. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't finish some of my documents before enlisting. But you can't use electronic devices in the military, so I could only write on weekends. So I brought a stack of A4 paper and the files I'd finished before enlisting, and during lunch breaks and rest time I referred to those files and wrote “by hand!” Then on weekends I'd rush to type it into my computer and send it to Zane to edit before heading back to base. This cycle went on about 2-3 times. Every time before heading back, 邱小霈 and I would rush to a 7-11 to print out the revised documents, and I'd take them back to camp to write the next one. Even cooler, among the soldiers next to me in my cohort were Louis, who studies in Boston, and Mel, who grew up in Canada. While I was handwriting, I kept asking them questions haha. When I was memorizing my video essay scripts, I'd even practice with Mel, asking him to listen for any pronunciation problems, and I shamelessly asked him to read it once for me so I could copy his intonation haha~ Anyway, thanks to them too for helping me finish these documents!

🏀Interviews

Interviews come in two kinds: Kira computer interviews and live interviews.

In a Kira interview, it gives you a question and 1 minute to prepare, then you start answering on camera. You only get one take, so whatever you say is what they get. I did two Kira interviews in total. For some schools you can find past questions online, so you can actually prepare in advance~ I still remember being super nervous in my first Kira interview!! (You can watch the video I attached; I still had my military buzz cut haha.) I didn't look at the camera at all (I rarely talk to a camera), and my eyes kept darting around. When I watched the playback afterward I thought it was over and immediately called 黃品岳 to say I was done for. Luckily, I passed that round!

For live interviews, you can find past questions online for many schools' programs too, so you can prepare for this part as well, but you never know how the interviewer will ask or follow up, so you just have to adapt on the spot. I did two live interviews. While preparing for the first one I'd been assigned to my unit, where I could keep my phone on me and had lots of time to use it, so I downloaded those questions, spent a day or two writing scripts, and then started memorizing like crazy: while walking, during military calisthenics, during lunch breaks, at bedtime, running to the bathroom to practice in front of the mirror, that kind of thing. Anyway, it was a really fun experience, watching myself practice for interviews in a military uniform haha. I got an offer a week or two after the first interview, so I did the second one for fun, with zero preparation. But some of the questions were pretty close to the first interview's, so even though I didn't do great, I still got an offer! And just like that, I got into both of the only two schools that interviewed me! (I've put the schools in my admission results.)