Ramblings on undergrad, the GMAT, & the MBA search

So, I suppose I've already completely and totally failed at keeping myself accountable to this blog. Shucks.

I have a good reason though, I swear! This past weekend was the University of Iowa MBA Advanced weekend, where they bring all of the admitted students together, throw in some current students and some alcohol and hope you play nice.

I had a great time, and I'll litter this page with some pictures of it shortly I'm sure.

That being said, on Monday Carnegie Mellon contacted me and accepted me! I guess now is as good of a time as any to give my grad school selection story.

I've always been the smart kid in the family, the one who is constantly asked what are they going to do with their lives. For a while, I thought I had some indication to be a writer, but as you can tell from this blog, my writing skills aren't putting the food on the table. Doctor was clearly out, I hate blood, guts and any type of gore. For that measure cross out vet, chef (cooking involving gutting) and law (if you've worked in the law field you know its all blood and gore.)

During undergrad I stumbled through my first few business classes, I was making the awkward transition from awkward high school kid to slightly less socially awkward college girl. Then, one day I was reading my marketing strategy book, and I reached the last page that I was assigned and I was so interested I kept going. I ended up finishing the entire text book that week and became completely enthralled by how various functions of a business sustain and promote each other, and on the flip side destroy each other.

For example, if the marketing department makes a terrible campaign that insults some demographic, the sales department can't move enough products and the factories have to cut labor. Of course this is a very simplified example, but you catch my meaning I hope.

Any way, back on track, so I was hooked on business. I graduated from college thinking I was going to land some fantastic marketing job in some giant company and completely revolutionize the way American's see generic paper towels. So I applied, and I waited. Then I applied some more, and I waited. And well, you see where this is going. Finally I decided I needed to do something to fill my free time, I'm not one who can idly stand around and thats how I ended up working in what was supposed to be a 4 hour a week book keeping position.

 I've been at the office for just over two years, and have put in somewhere around 5,376 hours, but who's counting. I handle everything from client contracts to mass mailing campaigns.  So, thats all well and good but one day, after getting back from visiting a friend who was in his first year of law school I realized I was stuck. I wanted to move forward, but companies simply weren't hiring entry level employees and frankly I desired more knowledge than most entry level employees hold.

Enter the GMAT. I signed up for the GMAT as a way of evaluating if grad school was right for me. I signed up September 14th, and took the test October 11th. I had come up with a range in my head of where I wanted to be to pursue my MBA and miraculously my score came out right where it needed to be.

So, now that I've gone off on a tangent, back to my selection of schools process.
My selection criteria were three fold.
    1. Had to be a top ranked school
    2. Had to have a class size of less than 300
    3. Had to be in a city that had a hockey team.

I'm sure you're sitting there, scratching your head over what hockey team is in Iowa City. There isn't one, but I'm getting there. Hold your horses cowboy.

That being said, I narrowed my choices to the following programs (1 being least favorite, 5 being top choice.)

1. Olin (Washington in St Louis)
2. Kennan-Flagger (UNC Chapel Hill)
3.Owen (Vanderbilt, Nashville)
4. W. P. Carey (ASU, Phoenix)
5. Teper (Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburg)

Note, Iowa wasn't even on the list. So I took the chance to visit UNC with my Aunt and Uncle this fall for their women's workshop. While I absolutely adored the women I met there and truly look forward to seeing them advance their careers and lives, the feel of the program wasn't right. I need a program with a little bit of competition and a little bit of fun. UNC's program felt a little too holistic.

I'm incredibly thankful that I had the chance to visit UNC, not only did I get to rule out the program from my list, I also got my first taste of mba networking, and had a fantastic road trip with my aunt and uncle. But, now I was down a school. I didn't feel comfortable just applying to four school, particularly because I was on the border line for admissions qualifications at several of them. I pulled out all the brochures that I had gotten at an MBA Big 10 fair, and the Iowa caught my eye. I remember really enjoying meeting the alumni from Iowa, but had kind of written it off, I mean there's no hockey team! Also, I had some concerns that the program size of 65 students per class was just a little bit to small for my liking.

But, after investigating further Iowa had a really great growing brand. Their students were going to companies that I wanted to go to, and they were doing a lot of innovative things to create real experience in the classroom. So I applied.

I finished all my applications by Thanksgiving, and then the waiting began. I'd have an interview, and then more waiting.

Finally my first admissions decision came out. Olin sent me an email at 10pm on a Friday night telling me I was waitlisted. While Olin had been my first application, my first interview (where we spent more time talking about Brett Hull and the Blues then my qualifications) and I was still getting some of the bugs out of the system, it still hurt to get the email at 10pm on a Friday waitlisting me.

When Carnegie Mellon waitlisted me, I was a little bit more disappointed. Teper is an amazing program, with cutting edge technology and alumni placed in basically every company on the continent. Plus, it has an incredibly well known brand. Suddenly, I was very worried about getting into programs and ended up sending out a few more, just in case applications.

The unfortunate thing about C Mellons waitlisting me was it was directly before I interviewed with W.P. Carey. If you know me, you know I don't do heat. I'm the girl that gets a sun burn in her car, in the middle of a Michigan winter. Despite all of that, I had myself convinced that ASU was right for me. I had an established social group in Arizona, the program was very impressive, the professors in marketing were doing research that interested me, all good signs. I tanked my interview; and some how, the lowest ranked school on my list was the only one to deny me. Which, in retrospect is for the best, I think my motives for considering the program were more social and less business. It would have been nice to have a close friend within twenty minutes to turn to.

So, I come back from my interview at ASU and receive my admissions notice from Iowa as well as my scholarship offer. I've never been so excited, I kept reading the letter over and over and actually had to leave work because I couldn't possibly focus on anything else. And then Vanderbilt called and offered me admission and suddenly I felt elated.

And then I realized, I was going to have to pick between two amazing schools. I visited Vanderbilt, and attended an alumni dinner in Chicago, and really enjoyed what I learned at both. The students were engaging and motivated, the classes were fascinating and the school itself is beautiful. Not to mention, Nashville has got to be one of my favorite cities in the United States. It has the midwest personality with the hospitality of the south. It also has a much higher price tag than Iowa.

Then I visited Iowa, and I started to become attached. Not only were the students at Iowa engaging and motivated, but they were incredibly welcoming and genuine. The class I sat in was so riveting, I contributed to the discussion and held my own. And the staff was sincerely excited about getting students from where they were to where they wanted to be. I sat down with Mark Winkler, the business director for the marketing academy, and he was telling me all of his plans. I think it was seeing his spark and his dedication that really sealed me in for Iowa. As much as it makes great sense to go to Iowa because of the money, its became more than that. I truly feel apart of the community and look forward to contributing to its success.

So, now that I've told you a 9 page rant about my mba choices, back to the start. On Monday Carnegie Mellon sends me this silly email that offered me admission and a decent scholarship. I'm still a little bit blown away by it, to be honest, I would never had anticipated them accepting me. That may just be my lack of self confidence bubbling to the surface, but I didn't really see it coming. So here I am, choosing between my original first choice and the school that I've completely fallen in love with.

For now, I'm going to leave it at that.