Hear that? That's my ego deflating.

I got a bit of a dent in my ego today. I sent an email to my undergrad registrar to ask about class rank so I could enter that in the application. Up until this point I hadn't bothered to ask. I accepted a job offer before graduation so by the time graduation rolled around I wasn't too focused on class rank. Within an hour I got a response: I was 167th in my class (the class was close to 900). Ouch. I was 12th in my high school class. I understand the idea of competing against a tougher crowd once you get to university, but still for someone as competitive as I am coming in 167th didn't feel so good. Now I don't think this will hurt too badly with regard to my chances of getting accepted, since my GPA is at or just above the average for the schools I'm applying to and my GMAT is above their averages, so this was just a matter of ego. Even as I confidently say this though, the devil on my shoulder is starting to whisper in my ear: "167th? HAHAHA there's no way someone who was 167th in their class will get admitted to Harvard/Stanford/Chicago!" *sigh*

Now that you're probably all thinking I'm some egomaniac (I'm really not, I swear), on to the update: I finished the draft of Chicago's career goals essay and revised my HBS essays - but didn't get as much accomplished as I had originally hoped. I was surprised at how hard it was to write the Chicago 1,500 word career goal essay. Not because I don't have enough content for the space, but more in trying to make the essay flow without seeming like I'm meandering around different topics or copying and pasting from other essays (I'll admit I borrowed some material from my HBS essays).

Overall I'm pretty happy with where I am though. I still have over a month until the HBS deadline and 7-8 weeks until Chicago and Stanford. Plus there's the long Labor Day weekend coming up, and over the next 2 weeks I'll be spending about 30 hours on planes so I'll have plenty of time to put in some work on essays. Overall though, I'm happy with my progress so far, and I think my HBS essays are starting to be in pretty good shape.