Sigh of relief

I just finished my first draft for the "What matters most to you and why?" essay. To say that i am relieved now would be an understatement. I feel as if a huge burden has been released off my shoulders. I am pretty sure that this draft is not the final product, but i am sure that this is pretty much what i want to write about. The contents will not change as i have placed them the way i wanted to, there is a decent flow (or so i think) and i guess i have said what i had to say within a single umbrella.

This was definitely the most difficult essay i have written till date. I have given this essay two solid days and i still only have a draft that barely qualifies to satisfy me. Good that Stanford deadlines are the last. There will come a time when i have only the Stanford essays to review and i will have to spend quality time on these essays. I will be working on all essays over the entire duration of September and am hoping to spend a lot of time on this essay again. End of day, i am sure that this will be the one essay every candidate spent the maximum time on.

The question to be asked is "Does this convey all my ideas to a reader who is unaware of who i am?" This will be answered by my reviewers. Speaking of reviewers, i take this opportunity to thank them half way through the process, not for the last time :) I have three reviewers as of now. I have been getting comments from two of them and they have been doing awesome work with my essays. I am sure the third reviewer is gonna be equally good. I remember reading somewhere that it is better to get the essays reviewed by 4 or 5 different reviewers. I don't know if i can reach that figure, i don't intend to. If i can get in touch with good reviewers, and i already have three of them, i would be satisfied. But yeah, i wudnt shy away from sending my essays to another reviewer or two if i come across people. Okie, Update! One of my reviewers has to go on a trip and hence unavailable over the next one month. Another reviewer has just pulled out citing personal reasons. So - there is just one reviewer at present. I have to search for new reviewers now. I know one person who can fit in. Otherwise, the hunt is on :)

I guess i will be able to finish work within deadlines. I am planning to give one more day to this essay. I will re visit this essay tomorrow and make changes wherever required. That gives me three days to work on the Career Goal essay of Stanford. Well, this one needs a lot of research to be done and i am glad i did loads of it before the GMAT preps. I can as such speak about the school. But i am sure i will have to re visit the school site and all the material again during the course of this essay. But yes, this is a lot easy compared to the famous Stan Essay 1. So three days should be fine.

That would mean i finish the fourth school by this Friday. This leaves Chicago to be written. The deadline for finishing Chicago will be Next weekend (Sept 10th). That would give me a full 20 days in September to revisit all the essays again. I am sure i am gonna make changes in many of the essays i wrote earlier. After four schools, i have more focus and clarity reg what i want to say and i guess this is missing in the earlier essays. I have to re-read them a 100 times, make modifications and finalize the essays. Finalizing them is the most difficult part of the process. When it comes to essay writing, enough is never enough!!!

Long post i see. After effects of writing a 2000 word essay :)