Sara Fay - Advice to My Pre-Application Self

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

What would I tell my future self grad school is hard and they're gonna need coffee. I know the grad school gets overwhelming, it gets so chaotic. You have work coming at you from all sides, you want to join clubs, you want to be able to hang out with your new, really fun friends, but it's also important to just make time to breathe, to hang out with your grad school friends, to hang out with your undergrad friends, to hang out with your friends from home, just to speak to other people. It's just a nice breather and a really good way to relax is what I found in other terms. What did I do when applying? So let's talk about my essay. My essay was centered around who do I most want to have dinner with in the entire world. So I think my high school english teacher monoxide keyboard, she's the coolest person I've ever met. So in my essay, I focused on how I'd love to have dinner with her. I'd love to hear what she thinks just about what's going on in the world about books she's read recently and a lot of other different things. Then I actually ended up emailing my essay to her to our old high school email and she replied and answered all the questions that I would have wanted to talk to about her for dinner and it was just super cute and now we have an email exchange going. In terms of the video that we're supposed to talk about your brand, All I did was just walk around my room, my undergrad university and show how I decorated it. My room is decorated with everything that made up my personality, which at the end of the day is all Georgetown wants to see. They want to know who you are and how you'll fit into their program. So don't ever think that my brand video just be yourself. It sounds silly, but that actually is all they want. I can just say what I personally focused on in my essay, I personally focused on my own curiosity. I'm that weird geeky kid that spends all of christmas break doing lots of online classes and different topics because I just want to know what I like and I like learning about tons of different things and so that was a big thing in my application as I talked about how the min program allows you to try out so many different classes and to see so many different facets of business and that was what I was drawn to about. It is I wanted to be able to get a base in finance and get a base in micro and a base of operations and just see what I liked and kind of taste test all these different types of classes and so that was what I focused on. My professors are from all over the world as are my peers, which is really cool. It makes it the insights that you're getting from students are real time and they're usually kids who either know someone in that industry or have worked in that industry or worked in that country or from that country. I think that that's something, especially with Georgetown's like focus on the world. I'm on the International that we really wanted to focus on in the glass. I know this sounds silly, but it's a rolling application basis. So the sooner you get it into your app gets looked at and the sooner you can breathe applying to grad schools is really, really stressful as is figuring out what you're trying to do next year, the sooner you know what you're going to be doing, the sooner you can just relax and enjoy the rest of your undergrad. So get your app in early two. I think my interview actually went for like an hour because we ended up having a really long conversation about the history of Georgetown and how interested I was in its history because that was part of my undergrad degree. We did part of the interview in french because my interviewer spoke fluent french as do I. It was just the funnest our talk really, it didn't even feel like an interview, it just felt like I was getting to know someone and someone was getting to know me. So the admission staff really couldn't be nicer, Do not panic for your interview. I think those are probably my first and second biggest pieces of advice for the app. Lastly, when choosing a program, what did you think about do your research? It sounds so obvious and silly, but speak to students that are in the program. I've had a couple of students reach out to me to ask me what I think of it. What I think is the classes, the professors, the students and I'm always happy to help and I think most of the kids in my cohort would be as well. What do you like about the program? I think in addition to that search, the website, I memorized, the website, I took virtual tours of Georgetown, like the virtual little walking tours. It was very silly, but I had a lot of fun and it made me feel like I was sort of involved and I knew what I was getting myself into, so I think that's super important and just do every bit of research that you can possibly manage because it might all come in handy. Also make sure that you pick a program that aligns with how you want to grow. That sounds like a really silly question and an idea that you should focus on. Let me explain, I'm currently involved in looking for a job doing all these different networking things. One of the big advice questions that my career coach told me to ask was how did the company that the person I'm talking to work that help them grow? Why was he there in the end? You're choosing a grad school because you want to continue to develop as a person. So by choosing a grad school that's going to help you grow the most, That's the grad school that's benefiting you the most. Yes, you're getting a piece of paper and you're getting an experience, but you also want to come out the other side, the more of the person that you wanted to be when you entered into it. So focus a lot on that and I think you'll be fine, good luck and see you next time.