Rainy day update

I'm in sort of a lazy mood today, and the gray rainy weather isn't helping anything. It's a good thing I don't have much to do other than some laundry and grocery shopping. On the business school front, I've been thinking a lot lately about what recruiting will hold in store for me and others in the class of 2011. There's been a pretty steady stream of bad news on MBA employment lately (see here and here as examples). But at the same time most of the students I talk to say that while recruiting is definitely harder than in the past, and some industries, especially finance, are especially hard hit, most of their classmates are still successfully finding internships and full-time offers, many having more than one offer to choose from. So I don't know what to think. I'm hopeful that the employment market will improve somewhat next year, and think that the sorts of healthcare jobs I'm interest in are still available, but guess I won't know for certain until recruiting starts this fall.

I talked to my future landlord, and he said my credit checks and everything were ok so he's putting a lease in the mail for me to sign. I'm pretty excited, I liked this building the most of the ones I saw in Evanston, and it'll be good to get this off the to-do list. I was talking with a few other R1 Kellogg admits the other day and they all had signed leases already in a building just down the street. I had thought I was getting housing done very early, but I guess not.

Financial Aid

I got my provisional financial aid award late last week and I am very happy with it. I got a bit of merit/need based scholarship and subsidized Stafford loans in addition to the unsubsized Stafford and GradPLUS loans I was expecting. This was just the provisional award though, it won't be finalized until the 2009-2010 student budget is finalized in a few months. That's when I'll actually apply for loans and sign all the paperwork that will let me pay for all this.

Next up on the to-do list: finalizing a lease with my future landlord (when he responds to my lease application) and digging up my old medical records for immunizations.

Update

Wow it's been a while since I updated, but to be honest things have been pretty routine. A few odds and ends:

I sent in a rental application for an apartment in Evanston. It's for one of the buildings I visited at DAK so I have a general idea of what the apartment will look like, but it's a little weird to sign a lease on an apartment I've never seen. Not weird enough though to justify another trip to Evanston. The landlord said I would get one of two apartments (the first option may not work because the current resident is trying to renegotiate his lease ending date) both of which are on one of the top floors (6 or 7) and have a nice view of Chicago, so that would be nice. As soon as they receive my application fees later this week, they'll process the application so hopefully I'll have a signed lease within the next few weeks and I can cross that off my to-do list. Now I can shift my focus to getting my current condo sold. (If anyone is interested in buying a very nice 2 bedroom, 2 bath condo in central NJ send me an email.)

I'm still waiting on my Kellogg financial aid information. I got an email earlier this week from the financial aid office with some follow up questions on what I submitted to them, so I'm planning to follow up with them today to make sure they have everything they need. I'm not expecting much, but I'd like to know what my package will look like.

I think that's about it for now. The NYC Kellogg admits are planning another happy hour in a few weeks. I'm excited to see the R1 admits again, and to meet the R2 admits.

It's official

During lunch today I went to the post office and put two envelopes in the mail. One was a thin envelope heading to Duke, letting them know I will not be enrolling in their program. The other was a thicker envelope sending my official transcripts and tuition deposit to Kellogg. Hard to believe that my application adventure, which started in July 2007, is now officially done. I am a member of the Kellogg 2Y MBA Class of 2011. I'm excited...only 192 days until KWEST trips start!

Post-DAK thoughts

After an intense weekend at Kellogg ("drinking from the firehose" is the term many students and admin used), it's a little strange to be back at home and at work. It absolutely was a great experience. From Day 1 of my application journey I had heard about the teamwork culture at Kellogg, but until this weekend I hadn't really known exactly what that meant. The people I met were incredible - they were all very smart and successful, but also very down to earth and friendly. In the opening session on Friday, Beth Flye (Asst. Dean for admissions) gave an overview of the R1 admits. The average GMAT and GPA were 719 and 3.62. There were entrepreneurs, teachers, military people, people from non-profits and government, and of course the bankers and consultants. For nearly 10 minutes she read accomplishments people had written about in their essays, and I found myself wondering how exactly I had managed to get admitted since I had never started my own company or NGO or launched a multimillion dollar product line.

I was curious before this weekend what it would look like to take 200 or so Type-A MBA aspirants from a variety of backgrounds and stick them together for a weekend. Well, what happened was that as soon as the admitted students started meeting each other Thursday night at the welcome receptions, people started becoming friends - and it continued throughout the weekend. I really hope that everyone I met decides to come to Kellogg (most had already decided that they will be back in the fall, but a few were still considering other offers). Based on this weekend, I know that Kellogg is the right fit for me and will be sending in my deposit and breaking up with Duke this week. I can't wait for KWEST trips and the start of school in August. Somehow I need to find a way to concentrate on work for a few more months, because my mind has already moved to Evanston.

Another item off the to-do list

Guess what? It's snowing again. I'll be so glad to escape this climate in a few months and move to, er...Chicago. Nevermind. I guess I better get used to this weather.

I got to cross another item off my Kellogg to-do list. Over the weekend I finished my taxes, filed my FAFSA and completed the online Kellogg financial aid application. Yesterday I mailed Kellogg the other financial aid paperwork they requested (tax forms, resume and a 2 page application that looked suspiciously like the form I filled out at my interview). So now I just sit back and wait to see what Kellogg is offering. According to their website, I should hear back in early March. With financial aid out of the way, I've started doing some early looking at housing. Some of the places I've found look pretty nice and are reasonably priced, and I'm hoping that I can leave DAK with a good short list of buildings I'm interested in.

I met a few more admitted students who were all really great, and I'm really looking forward to getting to meet more of my future classmates this weekend at DAK. I also got a call from a current student in the Healthcare and Biotech Club, and we had a really good discussion about healthcare at Kellogg. With all this Kellogg excitement, it's getting harder and harder to focus on work. I can't wait to get these next few months behind me and move on to being a Kellogg student.

Only 51 days until spring

Well we're supposed to get another snow storm today and tomorrow. Have I mentioned before that I've had just about enough of the cold and snow? This may be the biggest storm yet this year; they're forecasting between 6-8 inches of snow. I guess on the plus side it gives me an excuse to work from home.

Still not much news on the school front. Last week I was officially denied by HBS, which I expected since I hadn't gotten an interview invite. It really didn't bother me at all. By this point I had already gotten so used to the idea that I'll be at Kellogg next year that the denial from HBS was almost just another item on my to-do list for heading to Evanston. I've started focusing a bit more on financial aid and loans, but there's not much I can do until I finish my taxes. Hopefully I'll get my W-2s this week, so I can file my taxes and start working on the FAFSA and Kellogg financial aid application.

An early Christmas gift from Kellogg

I received my admissions package this morning from a none-too-merry UPS guy. I can't imagine how busy those guys are this week. But anyway, the admissions package. It contained my official admissions letter from Beth Flye, some information from student affairs, a letter from IT about the admitted student website/email/etc., a Kellogg-branded laptop sleeve, and Kellogg-branded wireless mouse. Oh, and the remittance form for sending in the $1500 tuition deposit. I think I'm about ready to make my commitment to Kellogg. I've pretty much decided that regardless of the financial package Duke may or may not give me, I just can't pass up the opportunity to go to Kellogg. I'll give HBS the opportunity for formally reject me in a few weeks (although I did contemplate the "quit-before-you're-fired" move of withdrawing my HBS application), then send in the deposit to Kellogg.

This will probably be my last post before I take some time off for the holidays, so I hope everyone's holidays are happy, and good luck to everyone still waiting to hear R1 decisions.

DAK

Took the time to register for DAK yesterday, which will be Feb. 6-8. I guess it'll be a good introduction to what I should expect from the Chicago winters. Nonetheless, I'm really excited to go. I had a great visit to the school when I applied, so I think I'm more excited about meeting my potential classmates than about seeing what the school has to offer. The schedule looks like it'll provide a lot of time for socializing and getting to know both the current students and the incoming students, which will be nice. A few current students have said it's a good idea to try and get housing somewhat organized during DAK weekend, so I'll be trying to do that as well - if only to save me another trip to Evanston later in the spring/summer to find housing.

My plan is to relax through the holidays and not think about bschool at all. After New Year's though, I'll have to start on the to-do list...and pretty close to the top of that list is to meet with a realtor about the possibility of selling my apartment in NJ. I can't wait to hear what they have to say.

Still waiting

So, you ask, what's it like to be a newly admitted MBA student? Well it's much less stressful, to be sure, than to not have an admit yet. But it still involves quite a bit of waiting. I've already read through the entirety of the Kellogg admitted students portal, but it's still too early to make an enrollment decision. I like Kellogg a lot, but also like Chicago a lot so at a minimum I am going to wait until next week's Chicago decision. If I do get accepted to Chicago, then I probably won't be making a decision until after both schools' admitted students weekend. If I don't get into Chicago, then my decision becomes easier since I haven't gotten an interview invite from HBS.

What about Duke and Columbia? Well, this week I'm going to withdraw my application to Columbia. I just never got as excited about Columbia as I did about the other schools I applied to. I was really impressed by Duke when I visited. It's got a solid healthcare program, the students were incredibly friendly, everything seemed very well run, and the facilities were very impressive. But, I wasn't excited about the possibility of living in Durham, NC, and while the quality of the program is very high, it doesn't match Kellogg. But with the decision date so close, and with the impressive campus visit, I plan to see what the outcome is before making any final decisions on Duke.

I know it's premature to start weighing Kellogg vs. Chicago vs. Duke since I've only actually been admitted to one school. Quite possibly, I won't have a decision to make. But with nothing else to do for admissions, I can only wait, and think about what if's?

I'm Back!

Wow it's been a while, and a lot has happened since the last time I posted. The weather has turned wintery cold (there was even a dusting of snow on the ground when I woke up this morning). After two years of dominating the news, the Presidential Election finally ended. There were holidays and vacations. The New York Giants are off to their best start in franchise history. I applied to 5 schools in round 1 (not exactly the list I wrote about in my last post). Oh, yeah, and I WAS ADMITTED TO KELLOGG!

So why have I decided to restart this blog now? Well, I think I lost the inspiration to blog through my application experience because I had been here before, last year. But now, with the admit call, my excitement is back. The experience is new again. My ambitious plan is to blog right through until I graduate, both to keep a journal of sorts for myself, but also to share the experience with my family and friends. Of course, any other interested people who care to read about my experiences are more than welcome here.

So welcome back, and stay tuned.