Confirmation of Attendance

The next weekday after I received the message from Queen's, I got a FedEx package of the official letter of acceptance and scholarship letter. Since I was to provide a "passport style" photo when I sign back my offer, it took me a few days to arrange to get it done. I also signed up for all three days of the pre-MBA warm up. I figured it wouldn't hurt, and $375 is not too much to spend compared with the tuition and living expenses I'm about to pay.

I mailed my stuff back to them around boxing day, and come January 5th they emailed to say that they had received my material. Now I had yet another letter FedEx'd to me, confirming that I am indeed attending Queen's.

The Unexpected

I had the day to work from home. I turned on my cellphone mid-morning to find a message from the associate director at Queen's.

"I have some great news," she says. I thought to myself, here we go, I'm about to get interviewed. This was expected. But, what she did say after was not expected at all.

"We'd like to offer you a seat in our program that starts in May 2009. Additionally, the admissions committee would also like to award you with a $20,000 scholarship."

What in the WORLD? I couldn't believe it. Whatever happened to the phone interview? I was so ecstatic though, I started to cry. I'm going to Queen's. My life is about to change.

The rest of the message said that she was also going to email me. I looked into my personal email and found two messages. One was from her with the same information as she'd just told me on the phone, and one from her staff, with the word version of the official letters they were going to send, and asking me to confirm my mailing address.

(I had a very merry Christmas.)

Messages Regarding Application

Queen's staff sent me three emails (that were not automatically generated) after I submitted my application.

The first one was to acknowledge that they have received my application, and are still expecting some items, namely one of my references and my undergrad transcript. I knew that they were on their way.

Each of the latter emails was to say that they had received one of the items that they were expecting.

Application Submitted

After several weeks of essay-writing and revising and getting very very neurotic over them, I finally submitted my application for Queen's before the first round deadline of November 29. They had been accepting applications since June, so I had planned on submitting way before the deadline, but trying to perfect the essays held me up.

In addition, rumour has it that people who submit really early are usually the most qualified and conscientious applicants who did all their homework and are way ahead of the game than us "normal" people. So, you want to submit early enough to ensure full consideration for both the application and possibly a scholarship, but not so early such that you're competing with all the best of applicants.

Unlike a lot of other schools, Queen's only asks for a resume, and has no detailed work experience or activities section on the application where you can elaborate up to 4000 characters per activity. Therefore, it goes without saying that it's extremely important to write a good resume. I thought it was actually good practice, because there was no pressure to write a lot, and you can choose the most important things to write for each job.

The students' advice of "really work on your essays" was very important as well. Instead of trying to impress the admissions committee, you should write with your own voice and present yourself as a whole person. I won't elaborate much here, there are many websites and articles that tells you how to write a good application.