Dedicated to all of you who overcame the frustration and tried again. Specially dedicated if you keep trying!
Let me explain you the history of a kid with a strong desire to do a MBA, and little money on his savings account (those savings dwarfed when transformed to pounds and London standards of living).
Luckily for the boy, he happened to be born in a country with a couple of foundations interested in promoting students going abroad. So the boy went on to ask for money, for a scholarship to get his studies funded. He laboriously prepared an application that eagerly sent to the first foundation
But his scholarship application got rejected.
Our protagonist handled the frustration as best as he could, and went on to apply for a second scholarship. The results were the same.
“What have I done wrong? What could I have done differently?” he wondered.
Then, one year later, he reapplied to the first institution. And the results were the same. Thanks, you are great, sorry but no.
Our hero overcame his frustration again, and reapplied. He was applying also for admission to the MBA as well. On the year of MBA application, he applied 8 times: 4 applications for B-schools, 4 for scholarships.
The MBA applications went well and he got into the preeminent global business school, a magic institution that transformed his understanding of the business world. But the foundations still found him not fit for funding. “None of these foundations fund me!” he lamented; “I guess I might not good enough for a scholarship”, he considered.
Defeated, he took the bank road, the road to another global institution, that issued him a big MBA loan at interesting conditions. Still it was a huge pile of money he was asking for!
The future of our hero was financial leverage for the rest of his MBA and the begining of his career.. Not the best, but the MBA was key.
Then, at the begining of last year, he decided that he was not going to take no for an answer. He got into deep meditation (here comes the zen part), analyze his inner strengths and weaknesses of the previous applications, and how to counterbalance. With the help of his strategy professor lessons (and her letter of recommendation), he went on to ask at the golden door.
And this time, after years of curriculum improvement and strategic innovation in the application, the magic doors opened in front of him, to his astonishment!
YUJU! YES! GREAT! 
:D
He was conceded an interview for the scholarship. Flying to Madrid he was all nervous (and £200 pounds more leveraged), but he managed to engage with the interviewer. In three weeks, the results came in, and our hero got his final reward: The scholarship!
As you can imagine, the hero was thrilled! A nice scholarship that paid for his second year tuition plus a monthly allowance for expenses. Financial doom could still be allowed!
YUJU! YIPPPE! :D :D
And our hero lived with minimal leverage and no financial stress until the end of his MBA!
==============
And here comes the moral of the story: even though the final score will forever read:
Denials: 7
Acceptances: 1
I still win!
To all of you who keep trying, congratulations!
Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.
Hal Borland
Be trees, be grass!
May 6th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Congrats! Glad to see you got the scholarship you deserve.
When will you post a how-to about getting a letter of recommendation? =)
Regards, kota.
May 6th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Congratulations! We can learn a lot from this hero. Is this story fact or fiction? ;-))
May 6th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Kota, it’s on the way…
Angie, indeed it is “based on a true story” :p
May 7th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Congratulations and thanks for inspiring post!
May 9th, 2007 at 5:34 am
surely, a great inspirational post. congratulations on the scholarship you so deserve.
May 14th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Congratulations!
It’s really inspiring.
May 17th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Hey Patxi,
First, congratulations on your scholarship. You are extremely awesome!
I could not hold myself back but to share my sympathy here with you. I found myself completely visible in your story.
I always love to do my MBA at a leading global business school and I always said to myself that if i ever do an MBA, it needs to be from a globally recognized school. Coming from a third-world country in Asia, this has even become almost impossible when i can only do an MBA with a scholarship.
I have applied to MBA leading programs, most of them are in the US, in the past 3 years. I always got into good schools but never had full scholarship. I had come to strong determination that I will go to MBA school this year, even with a 100K loan. I applied to 5 schools this year, 4 granted me the admission in early Feb and March with not much scholarship. The last school’s result came in early May, the latest result I am expecting when my hope faded out completely.
To my greatest surprise and my greatest happiness, The admission director greeted me with admission and full scholarship on the phone (free tuition and fees for 2 years study) in a leading MBA program in the US. I could not help but burning into tears …
My persistency, efforts, and determination have finally paid off. I realized for myself that persistency is the only way to what we truly want. Dare to dream what we truly like and keep persistency in pursuing the dream, we will get there!
Just to share my story in the same spirit and keep the inspiration nurtured and spread …
Once again, congrats!
Sunny regards,Thang/TM
P.S By the way, I plan to go for an exchange program to LBS in Fall 2008.
May 20th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
Loved your post! Did you know there is a mentoring program called SmartStart that pays for successfully competing in business related challenges? They have a $1,000 challenge going on now… the questions are posted at www.smartstartcoach.com. Some of the answers are available on the site; others are just common sense. They change the challenges and post the answers when there is a winner. You don’t have to be a program member to take the posted challenge. There are no limits on the number of times you can win!
PS They also have $5,000 and $10,000 challenges but you have to be a program member to participate.
Cheers!
Harley J.