The Majalo Experience

Wow

2005-09-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it has been nearly two weeks since I posted. Amazing how time flies.

The one thing about business school for which I thought I was really prepared was the amount of time it requires. Every b-school student I talked to warned me about it. The books I read discussed it. But it wasn't real to me until I got here. I spend 16 hours per day at a minimum working on Kellogg stuff. It isn't always classes, but clubs, conferences, and classes combined take up SO much time.

My wife is taking it well, thankfully. Two years isn't very long and then I'll have free time...unless I do investment banking or consulting. :)

CIM Week Results

2005-09-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid that our section didn't fare so well in our CIM Week competition. In fact, we might be pretty close to last in the final rankings. Today we had our CIM Week Olympics and - while we managed to do quite well in the relay races - we had a lot of trouble winning.

My pre-term class about Leadership in Organizations is amazing. The amount of work required actually surprised me. I expected a lot, but not this much. I can only imagine how much work we will have once classes really start this Thursday.

The classes that I will be taking this quarter are as follows.
Marketing Management
Finance I/II (a turbo course combining the first two finance courses)
Business Strategy
Decision Science

I'm looking forward to all of them. I was able to waive out of the first couple of Accounting classes since I have a business background. I also waved out of one Decision Science class and Finance I. However, I decided to back out of my Finance I waiver since I haven't used it recently.

My thoughts about Kellogg so far: more amazing than I thought it would be. What a great place and experience.

A Much Needed Break

2005-09-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today have been a bit of a break from the rigors of pre-term. Yes, we did have class yesterday, but the day was otherwise was unobstructed. We had class today, too, but everything else was optional. Unfortunately, we are now in the midst of a leadership class and I spent much of Sunday and all morning today working on homework for said class.

So far, the comparison between graduate school and my undergraduate business degree has been striking. I am one of the very few Kellogg students (that I have met at least) to have attended a non-exclusive public school as an undergraduate. Interestingly, I haven't found the work to be that much harder, but I have found the instructors to be infinitely more competent. Our section was lucky enough to get one of the highest rated professors at Kellogg for the aforementioned leadership class and she is amazing. Very passionate, very competent, and very well connected. I'm very impressed.

We don't have many section activities this week as our focus is now on class and homework. Section activities will pick up in this weekend, however, and continue into next week.

Something that struck me yesterday: I know over 100 Kellogg students now. It certainly is not all or even most of the incoming class, but I'm amazed at how easily Kellogg has facilitated friendship building.

Famous Classmates

2005-09-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

One thing that I have found fascinating (and intimidating) is the number of classmates that I had heard about before meeting them at Kellogg. Some of them are pretty famous for various things they did before business school. I won't mention any names since I don't know how public that information is, but it is certainly pretty cool from my perspective.

CIM Week

2005-09-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

CIM (Concepts In Management) Week, which is actually closer to two and a half weeks in length, has started. After our one day Labor Day holiday, we got started at 7 am on Tuesday. After opening remarks from several people - including Dean Jain - we split off into smaller groups. At Kellogg, these groups are called Sections, and each Section has a name. Instead of a cooler group name such as the Big Dogs or Highlanders, I was placed in the Section called the Jive Turkeys. Each Section has about 70 people in it.

After we split off into our Jive Turkey group, we started the long process of learning names. Part of CIM Week is a competition between Sections, and one of the competitions is the Name Game. On Friday, one person will be randomly chosen from each section and she/he will have to name every person in their Section. I'm probably 1/2 way there, but I'm banking on the odds that I won't be chosen. :)

After lunch, we were given our first b-school project...something that I didn't quite expect. We had to create a Section Cheer. We actually managed quite nicely - even with my minimal input - and put on a pretty good show. We barely went over the 3 minute time limit, though, and were bumped to fourth place instead of first.

After a very brief reprieve to rest and see our families, we reconvened for the requisite CIM Week bar hopping. I made it to about midnight before I had to call it a day. Others - amazingly - lasted until 4 or 5 am.

Today (Wednesday) we started at 8 am. We had our keynote speaker and then broke off into our Sections to begin preparation for the next major CIM Week competition: the talent show. We've got some ideas, but nothing solid yet. The talent show isn't until Saturday, so we've got a little bit of time still. This afternoon, we had a group case dealing with diversity and how individuals act and react depending upon whether they are in the majority or minority. It was a really good exercise since Kellogg is so team based and so diverse. All of us will be spending a lot of time working on teams that have people from varied backgrounds.

Right now I'm on another brief break. Soon, Mrs. Majalo and I are heading back to campus for another night out, this time in Chicago. After that I'll get a couple of hours of sleep before we start all over again tomorrow at 8 am. I'm already exhausted and we're only on day two.

KAOS - Quick & Dirty

2005-09-05T15:28:00.000-07:00

Wow. What a trip. My first trip to Europe was amazing.

The group was made up of 24 people. Five of those 24 were leaders (4 second year Kellogg students and one wife of one of the second years). Of the rest of us, 17 of us were first year students and two were the significant others of first year students. Some were strictly MBA students, some were JD-MBA, some MMM, etc. The group was also very diverse, which made for some amazing insights and discussions that would otherwise have been lost. I think it was about 1/2 male, 1/2 female and about 50/50 international students and US students, too. Perhaps amazingly, everyone was really nice, really cool, and we all got along.

Sunday, August 28

We spent the morning cleaning and working on a park in northern Chicago. After that, we met up and took a big-yellow school bus to O'Hare. (I've heard that you get to fall back in love with school buses while a Kellogg student.) The flight to Zurich was nonstop - thank goodness - and left around 5:30 pm. I was lucky enough to get stuck with a middle seat. When you're as tall as I am, this does not make for a comfortable flight.

Monday, August 29

The plane arrived in Switzerland at about 8:30 am. We took a combination of trains and buses to get from Zurich to Muren. Once in Muren, we hiked a short distance to our first hut. We had two rooms and there were about 15-20 mattresses in each room (on two levels) from which to choose. This hut had running water, a nice restaurant, friendly staff, and modern bathrooms. Also...SHOWERS! A great place to stay. We spent the night just hanging out and recuperating from the west-east plane flight.

Tuesday, August 30

Our first day on the trail. There were several first time backpackers in the group. (I considered myself a sort-of first timer. I've done a lot of hiking in the past, but never on this scale and never with so much weight on my back.) I don't know the total distance or rate of incline, but we spent most of the day moving higher. We had lunch at a hut along the way while all of the stragglers made it up the trail. The afternoon saw our first major obstacle, as we encountered a sheer hillside that took a toll on all of us. Once we made it over that pass, we still had several hours to make it to the hut for the evening. The hut itself was set on the side of a hill and had a great view of several glaciers. We arrived very late in the day (around 8 pm if I recall correctly). The hut had good food, outhouses, and no showers. Our sleeping arrangements were similar to the previous day. Very tiring day.

Wednesday, August 31

We hiked down from the hut and over the bottom part of a glacier. I had never touched a glacier before. This was pretty cool. The morning was not so difficult as we did a lot of down and then some up. However, I didn't eat anything for lunch. The lack of lunch, fatigue, and the unbelievably steep ascent in the afternoon really put the hurt on me. I stumbled and straggled to the top...but I made it. We were at our highest point at this hut (around 9000 feet). The view from the top was the best of the entire trip...or maybe I was just so tired that it seemed good. :) The people at this hut weren't so nice. At 10 pm, a lady came through with flashlights to see if we were all sleeping in the proper direction (we weren't). They did have modern bathrooms, but no showers.

Thursday, September 1

My favorite day in terms of effort as we went all downhill. One thing I learned on the trip: I'm really fast downhill, but really slow uphill. This hike was a bit shorter than the previous two days and we got to our destination (Kandersteg) relatively early in the afternoon. In Kandersteg, we stayed at a house with...SHOWERS! It also had modern bathrooms. The only bad news is that we had to cook for ourselves (the huts we had stayed at previously had fixed our meals for us).

Friday, September 2

I helped with breakfast. It only took about 3 hours to prepare. What can I say...I'm in b-school not culinary school. :) Most of us then took a chairlift up to a lake we had hiked around the previous day. We rented boats and paddled about a bit, but mainly just recuperated from the previous days of hiking. The perfect weather of the week was broken up by 10 minutes of sprinkles. I suppose I can't complain TOO much.

Saturday, September 3

We took a morning train from Kandersteg to Zurich. This was a direct train; much better than the train, train, bus, train, bus combo that we took on Monday. We spent the afternoon wandering around Zurich. The city has fabulous architecture, great cathedrals, and some great shopping (or so I was told). I'm always amazed when I walk into a building that is older than the United States. In fact, one of the cathedrals was built in the 1100s, so it was old before the US was even an idea. In the evening, we had our final dinner as a group and then went out on the town. We stayed at a decent hotel (showers, modern bathrooms, AND Internet access!).

Sunday, September 4

Back to Evanston. I lucked out and got to sit in an aisle seat. However, I spent almost all of the flight watching movies and talking to help get myself re-acclimated to the central time zone.

Overall, it was a GREAT trip. One of the hardest things I have ever done, but the people made it worthwhile. I'm in awe of the caliber of people with whom I will be attending Kellogg and I sometimes wonder how I made the cut. I think this is going to be a great two years.

I'd like to say that I would write more about KAOS later, but since the next couple of weeks are going to be extraordinarily busy, I doubt I will get to it.

And It FINALLY Begins

2005-08-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

Well more than a year after I started working diligently to get my MBA, I finally did something b-school related with my classmates last night. It was only a happy hour at a local pub, but it was good to meet up with some of the folks that I had previously met at DAK in February. In fact, I've already run across a lot of people that I met at the first admit weekend. So far, it looks like the rate of return from DAK is pretty high.

In truth, I wasn't even invited to last night's event...Mrs. Majalo was and she asked me to tag along with her. She is involved with a group that is made up of the significant others of Kellogg students called Joint Ventures (JV). I think she's already made a group of friends through JV and she seems to be getting along well with her new teaching job (although the kids don't show up until Monday), so I think she will like Evanston.

The second official event of my career as a Kellogg student starts tomorrow night. We have a meeting to discuss the particulars of our KAOS trip to Switzerland...and then Sunday night we board the plane. It is going to involve a LOT of hiking, but I'm still really excited. Just to keep me on edge, though, my parents keep calling and reminding me about all the rain that Switzerland is currently getting.

Once we get back from Switzerland, the fun really begins. And by fun I mean no fun at all. We have two weeks of orientation, get-togethers, and classes called CIM Week. The schedule looks pretty daunting. We're busy from 8 in the morning until past midnight on most days for two full weeks. Including KAOS, there are three weeks in a row that we have "stuff" scheduled in such a way as to force me to miss church. This doesn't sit too well with me, especially since we haven't found a church home in Evanston yet.

I'm off to (hopefully) finish my packing for Switzerland. The bad part of the Swiss trip is that I had to purchase almost $500 worth of equipment to take with me. While a beach trip would have been less fun for me, it certainly would have been cheaper. I guess that in the long run, though, an extra $500 is a drop in the bucket compared to tuition.

I Have Internet Access!

2005-08-22T20:37:00.000-07:00

We are finally in Evanston and we FINALLY have access to the Internet (more on that later). The trip up here was relatively benign, albeit much more boring than was the trip when we moved our stuff up here. The Majalo family dog - while a very personable and intelligent being in her own right - just can't keep up with the conversation as well as Mrs. Majalo. I really like driving - especially road trips - but driving twelve hours without anyone to talk to gets old.

We actually arrived last Monday (August 15). The past week has been spent getting the house in order and buying necessities. Our biggest purchase was a futon. I hate futons. I've always hated futons and I will continue to hate futons. However, our new place has very narrow doorways (28") and a hallway with a 90 degree turn. A couch simply wouldn't fit. So we now are the proud owners of a futon...I'm so thrilled. :)

The biggest hurdle of the week was getting our Internet connection activated. Other than DirecTV, who has to have the friendliest and most competent customer service department of any company with whom I've dealt, I've never been a huge fan of TV/Internet/telecom providers. The incompetence and unfailing rudeness of nearly every Comcast employee with whom I have dealt is astounding. We were supposed to get service on Wednesday, but the gentleman who was supposed to complete the installation went to the wrong house. On a whim, I went out and asked him if he was supposed to work on our house, too. He "checked" and said, "No, someone else will be out this afternoon." So I waited. Later, after approximately 5 phone calls to Comcast, I discovered that the technician from the morning had gone to the wrong house and had flat out lied to me about it. The said they would send out another technician. He or she never made it to our house, either. Somehow in this process, our installation was marked as complete, so I had to explain that caveat on all future calls. To make a long story short, after several days and dozens of calls to Comast, we are finally connected.

The summer sure flew by fast. I can't believe that KAOS is around the corner and that I'm only days away from classes starting.

The Move

2005-07-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

The move to Evanston went fairly well. We had professional movers unload our UHaul and they only managed to break one item (our TV stand). It could have been much worse, and after having moved 8 times in the last 8 years, I was thrilled to have someone else do the manual labor.

Mrs. Majalo’s parents made the trip with us and helped us get the house in some semblance of order. We still have some boxes to unpack, but we have made a lot of progress. We only stayed in Evanston for two days before starting the trip back to Kansas. We’re certainly in the home stretch of our summer off. I’m still enjoying spending time with our friends and family, but I’m also anxious to get back to Illinois and for classes to start.

Losing My Job

2005-07-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

My leave of absence ran into a bit of a hitch a couple of weeks ago. My vacation ran out in late June, and someone in HR put my paperwork in the wrong pile. Instead of going on a leave of absence I went on a permanent leave (e.g. pink slip time). I didn't notice until I tried to connect to the company network...and was summarily denied. Things were fixed pretty quickly, but the fake termination ended up cancelling our insurance for a couple of days and it was a bit of a pain getting the insurance company and my company on the same page to get us reinsured.

I had a feeling something like this might happen, but it sure was a surprise when it did.

Evanston

2005-07-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

We're finally going to make our way up to Evanston next week. The plan is to leave Kansas on Tuesday morning, get to Evanston on Tuesday evening, and to unload everything on Wednesday. We won't stay in Illinois too long, though. We've got to get back to Kansas for a wedding and a couple of anniversaries. Mrs. Majalo starts her new job on August 17, though, so I guess that we should probably get back up there beforehand.

I'm spending the weekend teaching a GMAT class for the first time in a couple of months. After spending the last six weeks primarily in towns of 1,000 and 50,000, I had forgotten how nice it was to be able to go to a store after 6 p.m.

Being An Applicant

2005-07-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

While playing basketball with some friends of a friend a couple of days ago, I met a gentleman who intends on applying to Kellogg (and some other top schools) this fall. I spent a great deal of time talking to him about it, and it really brought me back to where I was last year at this time: in his position. I knew where I was going to apply - generally - but I had no idea where I would end up. All in all, while I'm glad that I know where I'm going to live in the fall, I enjoyed the process of being an applicant and I kind of envy those who are going to be starting their own applications in the next couple of months.

We're back!

2005-07-13T09:19:00.000-07:00

We are back in Kansas after our Colorado vacation. At some point, I'm going to post about what we did, but I'm not there yet. For now, Mrs. Majalo and I are just trying to get caught back up after being away from the electronic world (phones included) for about two weeks.

Our Big Drive

2005-06-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

Just as wheat harvest in my area of Kansas is finishing and I was expecting to have more time to blog and otherwise peruse the internet...we decided to go on our vacation. Our past plan of going to Big Bend, Carlsbad, and some other southwestern US destinations has been scrapped (or at least postponed). We're tired of the heat. Instead, we are heading to the mountains of Colorado for a (hopefully) relaxing ten days. It isn't quite the backpacking across Europe excursion that many soon to be b-schoolers are taking, but it'll do for us.

As such, I plan to be out of commission, at least electronically, for the next couple of weeks. I promise that as soon as we get back - and as soon as I get a faster-than-21.6 Kbps internet connection - I'll write all about the trip and talk more about Kellogg, KAOS, and all other sorts of fun MBA stuff that is happening.

KAOS

2005-06-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

I received my KAOS trip notification yesterday...I'm going to Switzerland! We (not just me, since I'll be travelling with 20+ of my new best friends) are going to spend about a week there and we'll be pretty active. There is a lot of hiking involved, although it doesn't look like we'll be camping at night. The hikes conveniently end near lodges where we can sleep. I'm actually happy about that since that means we don't have to lug backpacks, tents, etc.

Ah, what a way to start an MBA program: a week long Swiss vacation.

A Job Near Evanston

2005-06-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

The weight of worry is off our back, Mrs. Majalo officially has a job near Evanston! In fact, she'll be closer to the school where she will be teaching than I will be to Kellogg.

Update

2005-06-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Well it has certainly been a busy couple of weeks. I’m officially a member of the unemployed employed. I don’t know that the group is a big one (in fact I’ve never met another member) but I’m happy to be part of it. I now make $0 per year, but still have benefits and am eligible for bonuses. I can’t complain.

I must say that whatever remorse that I had thought might materialize over my last couple days of work never manifested. I will miss a lot of the people that I became friends with over the past three years, but as I got closer and closer to the end of having a 9-5 (for two years at least) I got more and more excited. I walked out Tuesday, June 7, happier than I have been in a long time. I’m excited about having the summer off and I’m even more excited about Kellogg in the fall. We’ve already had the chance to see both of our families, lots of our friends, and I even spent last weekend in New York.

The bad news about the summer is that I’ll be connecting to the internet via a connection that is frequently only 14.4 Kbps and only 26.4 Kbps at maximum. This means that my internet surfing is going to be severely limited. Since I will have plenty of time, though, I’ll be updating my blog more frequently, I just won’t be able so upload pictures, etc. I’ll also drop from checking my email every hour to two or three times per week. Ah, the pleasures of living on a farm.

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

2005-06-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

My lifelong dream* of being on a game show was realized last Thursday. After an uneventful week as an alternate contestant, I was called to play an on-air game for this week's edition of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Hopefully I didn't make too much of a fool of myself. I played the second version of Who's Carl** This Time (direct link to the audio of the segment can be found here) and got all three questions correct.

I haven't listened to it, yet, so I don't know how it comes off, but I did run into a little bit of trouble with one of the panelists. When I went on the air, I didn't yet know who the panelists were (they rotate), and turned out that Kyrie O'Connor was one of them. She works for the Houston Chronicle and took good natured offense at my less than stellar review of my three years living here. Luckily the show was live from Chicago and I had the audience on my side. :) Who knows, none of this may have made the air. I had a great time doing it, though, and I must thank Emily from NPR who helped facilitate my being a contestant and who is just such a wonderful person.

*Okay so it hasn't really been a lifelong dream, but this was fun.

**The Carl in question is Carl Kasell (the newscaster who reads the top of the hour news every day for NPR's Morning Edition. My prize for winning is Carl's voice on our home answering machine. Hey, I knew going in that this wasn't Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Good News for MBA Grads

2005-05-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

Hopefully this trend will continue. Although I find it really interesting that when only 50% of graduates have offers by mid-March it is considered a good year. Why am I getting my MBA again?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/27/AR2005052700276.html

Job Update

2005-05-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

Well, my wife still hasn't heard back as to whether she has a job in Illinois. We're still hopeful, but it is certainly taking longer than expected. She has found a bit of a loophole around the "must live in Chicago to teach in Chicago" rule: if the job is in a traditionally underrepresented field, then you can get a one year exemption. Special education is definitely an area where there are too few teachers, so we're going to pursue said exception. This opens up a much larger area of opportunity for her and it also gives her more options in impoverished areas (her passion and expertise).

After today, I have six more days at work before I'm officially on a leave of absence. I really had thought that I would be sad by now since I have spent three years here. So far, I wouldn't consider myself melancholy at all. Giddy would be a much better description.

And for all the NPR fans out there, I may be one of the contestants on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! this weekend. I'm one of the alternate contestants should someone else not answer their phone. However, if I'm not on this week, I've been promised participation on a future episode. I can't wait to completely flub whatever game they ask me to play.

Benefits of Being a Kellogg Admit

2005-05-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

One of the unforeseen side benefits of now being widely known as a Kellogg admit, is that my coworkers now think I’m a business expert. Whereas I used to just be the kid (I’m 20+ years younger than all of my coworkers), by virtue of having an MBA in the future, I have suddenly become a hot commodity for strategic advice. Previously, when I made a suggestion the response was:

"Oh, you’re just a kid and you haven’t been here very long. We’ve never done it that way, and we see no need to change."

Now it is:

"Hmm. The Kellogg Kid suggests we make a change. He’s going to have an MBA soon, I think we should do what he says."

It isn’t just the people I work with that are doing it either. People from other business units have stopped by my office to ask my thoughts. I feel like the mountaintop guru from the B.C. comic strip. I’m just as competent now as I was six months ago, and most of the things I’ve been asked about are completely out of my area of expertise. It is really quite ridiculous. But still kind of cool.

Job Interview

2005-05-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

My wife is off to Chicago today for a job interview tomorrow. She is a teacher and there are about a dozen open positions for which she is qualified in the district where she is interviewing. We are cautiously optimistic about her getting an offer since it would make life less stressful for us this summer. I have no doubt that she will get a job in Chicago, but we would like to have an offer in hand as soon as possible.

Good luck to my beautiful and talented wife!

KAOS

2005-05-11T18:54:00.000-07:00

I can’t remember if I have broached the topic of KAOS here, so if I have I apologize for being repetitive. KAOS stands for Kellogg Adventures, Outdoor & Service and it is a usually international vacation (coupled with some volunteer work) that the majority of Kellogg students take the week before first year students start orientation. About 20 people go on each KAOS trip, and partners are invited to attend as well. (Unfortunately, my wife will not be able to go.) There were 30+ trips from which to choose and we are asked to rank our top 7 to 10 trips.

My top 7 choices were:

1) Hiking in Switzerland
2) Hiking to Machu Picchu
3) The Mystery Trip*
4) Some beach trip
5) Some beach trip
6) Some beach trip
7) Some beach trip

If my apathy about going to the beach isn’t already obvious, let me make it clear: I am not a beach person. I don’t have anything against the beach per se, except that I find spending time at the beach very boring. I like to be doing things, preferbably outside and preferably interesting and active things. I know I’m in the minority of people who think this way (my wife think I’m nuts for this and for many other reasons), but I was somewhat disappointed in the choice of destinations. To be fair, there were a handful of additional non-beach trips, but the vast many were to somewhere in the US or to somewhere I have already been (Costa Rica & Brazil). I was also somewhat dismayed that the trips are almost all to North or South America. I know that we only have one week, but I have it on good faith that students at similar schools that are taking similar trips had fewer but much more interesting choices.

Even with my complaints, I’m extremely excited about KAOS. It is going to be a great way to meet classmates and to hopefully make some really good friends. I do hope that I get to go on one of my top three trips, but I also realize that the most important experience of KAOS is going to be building relationships with a new group of friends. It is more about the people than the place.

*Apparently, participants in the mystery trip don’t know where they are going to go until they get to the airport. Past trips have been to some really amazing places.

Proof

2005-05-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Corpus Christi

2005-05-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

We spent the weekend in Corpus Christi. It had been on our list of "must see places near Houston" since we moved south, but we had never made the trip. It is only a 2 1/2 hour drive (unless traffic in Houston is horrible...which it was on Friday when we left) so it made for a nice weekend getaway. (On a side note, this weekend was our anniversary weekend.)

We did the usual in Corpus: visited the Texas State Aquarium, drove down to Padre Island National Seashore, and toured the USS Lexington. However, the best part of the weekend - other than spending time with my lovely wife - was the dolphin tour. The tour is located in Ingleside On The Bay (about 20 minutes from Corpus Christi) and has been featured on a number of specials on the Disovery Channel and Animal Planet. We took a small boat out on Corpus Christi Bay and cavorted with wild Atlantic bottlenose dolphins for the better part of an hour. It was amazing. We have seen plenty of dolphins in captivity, but none of those experiences can hold a candle to seeing them as they are meant to be. The weather wasn't the best and the dolphins seemed a bit skittish, but we were still inches away from dozens of the majestic mammals. The tour - the Dolphin Connection - is recommended to everyone.

Flying Time

2005-05-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

Time seems to be just flying recently. I can’t believe it has been a week since I last posted and I can’t believe that I only have 20 more days of work left. And it is only going to get worse. For the most part, we are busy every weekend between now and the day we leave. We’re doing a whirlwind tour of spending as much time as we can with those whom we’ve become close to in the last three years. It is sad that we are doing that as we get ready to leave instead of earlier when we had more time.

The bad news about being busy on the weekends is that we now have to do most of the packing during the week. When we moved to Houston, I actually came first. My wife followed about six months later, so this is our first time moving as a family. Previously I had my things and she had her things. Now we have to go through all of our stuff and decide if it is ours or if it should go to Goodwill (or the trash). With much trepidation, I went ahead and reserved a UHaul trailer for our move. My one experience with UHaul was positive, but I’ve heard so many horror stories about their service. Unfortunately the moving company that I normally use (aka my friend Bush and his wife) will be busy that week with wheat harvest and I won’t be able to use their trailer. So I’m forced to rely on what is almost universally derided as being an amazingly unreliable company.

I had nearly forgotten that I was officially a candidate at Yale, too, until I received an email from them a couple of days ago. I went ahead and had them remove my name from the waitlist; something I would have done a long time ago had I remembered.

Presenting at Career Day

2005-04-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Housman Career Day

2005-04-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

I spent the morning speaking at the annual career day at the school where my wife teaches. To our knowledge, this is the only elementary school in the area that has a career day and I think it is great that they do so. There were about 20 or 30 presenters including the district superintendent and a Houston city council member. The children - third, fourth, and fifth graders - got to choose three presentations to attend, and each speaker was given 20 minutes per group. Combined, about 30 kids attended my presentation and, for the most part, they seemed interested. (I admit that I did stoop to bribery to help keep them happy.)

Early in my childhood I was indoctrinated into the fact that I would inevitably attend college. So were almost all of the kids in the area where I grew up. (In point of fact, probably only 1/2 did, though.) The school where I spoke this morning would be traditionally considered high risk, except that I can't call it high risk since the principal believes that term to be a cop out. Approximately 85% of the children at the school are on a free or reduced lunch program, and I expect that far less than half of the kids I spoke to today will receive any sort of post-high school education. I'm proud of what my wife does there and I think that the principal is doing a phenomenal job of preparing the students for their future.

The underlying message of my presentation centered on how important education is. I hope some of it sunk in to these kids. I'm very thankful of what my parents did in urging me to go to college, and I hope enough people tell these kids the same thing.

Tuition

2005-04-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

I received my official financial aid award letter in the mail yesterday. There was good news and bad news.

The good:

- I'm getting a scholarship.

The bad:

- Said scholarship will be part of my grant money rather than part of my loan money. Translation: the amount of "free" money that I'm getting won't change.

- Tuition for 2005-2006 is going to be nearly $40,000.

Now I've got to figure out what the differences are between an unsubsidized Stafford Loan, a subsidized Stafford Loan, and a Northwestern need based loan. The only part of which I'm 100% sure is that we'll be needy.

I've always been committed to going to business school and accepting of the financial consequences of such a decision, but when it is time to literally put my money where my mouth is...WOW. Eighty thousand dollars (plus living expenses and all the other expenses associated with school) is a LOT of money. When my wife went to school to get her graduate degree I complained about her tuition and it was $2500 per semester. I'm looking at just a little bit more than that at Kellogg.

I plan to keep complaining about this for a long time. I figure that I'm paying for the right to do so. However, I also realize that in the long run the rewards will more than outweigh this upfront cost. At least I hope they do.

The Kitten Part 2

2005-04-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

What I had hoped would turn into a story with a happy ending, did the opposite. Last night, within minutes of being exactly one week since we found him, our kitten died. We had named him Asher late last week.

Asher had his ups and downs, but never could quite get going again. He ate a lot at first, then slowed down, but even at the end he was eating some. He seemed to get over his intestinal bug, too. However, I don’t think his liver ever started functioning properly. His yellow skin color remained and even darkened throughout the week. Various veterinarians told us there wasn’t anything to do except hope and pray that his liver would start working again.

Thankfully he didn’t seem to be in pain ever, as he spent most of Sunday on one of our laps purring. In fact, he was purring yesterday evening when I picked him up so that I could move around. When I put him down, he wasn’t able to stand up. He stayed in our laps the rest of the evening and seemed happy up to the end.

Asher was a tough little bugger but I think we found him a little too late.

The Quick Trip

2005-04-24T17:26:00.000-07:00

Our 24 hour trip to Evanston went quite well. We met our new landlords and we liked them. We saw the place we have rented and we liked it. It is older but in good condition. The neighborhood is very residential and very nice. Although it is three miles from Kellogg, our landlords don't think walking/cycling to campus every day will be unreasonable.

We were able to come reach an agreement about the lease, so we are the legal renters now. The plan is for us to move up in mid-June and to then start our vacation.

The worst part about our trip: it was snowing.

A Kitten

2005-04-21T08:49:00.000-07:00

Our family has expanded…temporarily. Sunday night my wife was walking outside our apartment when she saw a sickly looking stray kitten. She came and got me and I tried to pick it up. When I was ten feet away, the kitten bolted for a nearby bush. Based on this initial impression, I figured it was a feral cat and that there was no way we were going to catch it so we went back inside and tried to forget about it.

Fast forward one hour. My wife and I are walking to get our laundry. We see the kitten again. We assume we’re going to get another vanishing act, especially since we now have our overly friendly 40-pound dog with us. Amazingly, this time the kitten doesn’t run. In fact, he seems excited to be picked up. (I also wonder if the aforementioned bolt exhausted his last energy reserves.)

My initial impression of his condition, based on sight alone, was bad. The truth was much, much worse. He was literally skin and bones. I’ve never seen a living animal this emaciated. We converted our dog’s crate into a makeshift triage unit for the kitten. Our dog, Mia, wasn’t bothered at all. Our permanent cat, Cayenne, made a bit of a fuss at first but soon moved into the “I’m better than you and shall thusly not acknowledge your existence” phase. She hasn’t bothered the kitten since the first day.

Monday morning, I was again impressed by the recovery ability of animals. He could stand without falling over and he could walk some. My wife took him to the veterinarian Monday evening and the prognosis was not good.

He weighed four pounds. I had initially estimated him to be 3 months old based on his size. Turns out he already has his 6-month teeth and has been using them for awhile. The vet thinks he may be 8 months old: the same age as Cayenne who weighs 12 pounds (and is skinny and still growing).
He was dangerously dehydrated and starved, almost to the point of death.
His liver was shutting down due to the above. Indicative of this was his yellow skin.
Otherwise, he was relatively healthy. He had an intestinal bug, but no mites, diseases, or other communicable ailments.

The vet sent him home with us with medicine, special food, and the warning that his survival chances were pretty low. We have fed him the high calorie food (even to the point of putting it on his feet so that he would lick it off) to get more nutrients in his body. Apparently overfeeding an animal with a failing liver may help to get the liver functioning again. He has been drinking lots of water. We’ve also been giving him medicine for the intestinal bug every evening.

Tuesday night I gave him a bath and left him somewhat wet afterward thinking that he would lick it off since cats are such freaks about being clean. He didn’t even attempt to clean himself. His condition Tuesday night was the low point and I wasn’t sure he would make it to morning.

He did. And he looked a lot better. Eating 2 ½ cans of high calorie cat food in 48 hours will do that to you I guess. In fact, he got around 25X the calories that a normal cat should have gotten. Last night (Wednesday) he walked from his cage to the kitchen while resting only one time and without falling. This morning he made it without stopping.The kitten is remarkably friendly. In stark contrast to Cayenne, he loves to sit on laps. The vet’s analysis is that he was a household pet at one point a long, long time ago and that he was put out or lost. We’re going to put up signs once he has recovered a bit more, but I don’t expect to hear from anyone. In order to have his growth stunted so much, he has had to have been starved for several months and even if he is an unintentional stray, I don’t think we’ll be able to find his owner.

So we’re left with finding a home for him. We’ve got a couple of leads, but we haven’t found anyone 100% ready to take him. Nor would we be able to give him up yet. He is doing remarkably better, but he still has a long road of recovery ahead of him. I’m hoping that by the time we are ready to move to Evanston we have found a home for him and that he is healthy. Worst case scenario, we will take him to my parents’ farm and he can live out his days basking in the sun and being overfed.

---

In other news, I gave my official notice at work today. My last day is June 7 and it is finally set in stone.

Work

2005-04-16T16:11:00.000-07:00

The fanfare of leaving my job has been somewhat dissipated by two other recent, surprising changes. There are about 15 people in the company that do what I do. Two weeks ago, one changed jobs internally. Last week, one left the company. In two months, my name will be added to the casualty list.

Getting my MBA is a good excuse for me to leave, but truth be told, I would have been changing jobs internally or externally no matter what this summer. The group in which I work is becoming very dysfunctional and I would have definitely looked to ply my trade elsewhere. The opportunity to go to Kellogg just happens to be perfect timing.

Yet Another Decision

2005-04-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Much like the decision as to what school to attend, my wife and I have now been faced with another tough choice. She has a potential job for this summer in Evanston. She hasn't been offered the job yet, but with her qualifications, I don't foresee a situation where she won't be. The good news is that it may lead to a full time position in the full. It would also be some extra money (although if we were that concerned about money, I wouldn't be leaving my job so soon). The bad news is that we would probably have to forego our planned vacationing. I think we are both leaning toward her not taking the job, but I have some definite qualms about turning it down. She shouldn't have trouble getting a different job...but nothing is ever certain. If we turn this down and she can't find a job in Evanston in the fall, we'll be in a tough financial situation. I would hate to put her in that situation. However, this summer may be the last chance we have at an extended vacation until we retire. We've got until Friday to decide.

Another Trip to Evanston

2005-04-10T06:55:00.000-07:00

We've decided to go to Chicago in two weeks to look at our new coach house. Our plan was to save money by not going up there again, but we wanted to get an idea of what we've got ourselves into. We're only going to stay for one night and we're going to be there for less than 24 hours, so it won't disrupt our packing and moving arrangements too much. It will really be nice to be able to preplan our decor, though.

Student Finances

2005-04-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

As I start to budget for the upcoming two years, I'm starting to wonder just how crazy I really am. One of the good things about being married is that we'll still have one income while I'm in school. Unfortunately, that one income won't cover tuition + living expenses + insurance + etc. while I'm out of the workforce. We were almost to the point of being 100% debt free (just a bit left on both of our student loans) and now we're jumping headfirst into a $70,000 commitment.

I keep going back to what one of the speakers at Day At Kellogg said. It wasn't in response to any question that I recall, but was just a statement in general to all admitted students and it centered on the notion that going to a top business school is the most selfish thing a non-single student can do. I agree and I'm amazed my wife has agreed to sacrifice in order for me to get my MBA.

Back to the finances issue, after subtracting our living expenses for the upcoming summer o' fun whilst neither of us is working but are still spending, we're left with precious little savings. I guess I should get back in the student mindset of not spending money because it doesn't look like we're going to have much for awhile.

2006 USNews Top Business Schools Ranking

2005-04-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

The latest USNews ranking of America's Best Graduate Schools (which includes a section ranking business schools) has been released. To access the detailed list you have to pay, but you can see all of the school names and their respective rank. Now that I have a vested interest in these rankings, I was disappointed to see Kellogg anywhere but at number one, but I was happy to see that they moved up a spot from last year and are tied with MIT at number four.

The top five:

1) Harvard
2T) Stanford
2T) Wharton
4T) MIT
4T) Kellogg

A Place to Stay

2005-04-01T20:04:00.000-08:00

We found our home in Evanston! The lease is en route as we speak. It is a 1000 square foot two bedroom coach house about three miles from campus. It has a dishwasher, air conditioning, an in-unit washer and dryer, and hardwood floors. The owners are going to allow both of our pets as well as our satellite TV. We even get a garage.

The best part is that it is only just over twice what we are currently paying in Houston. The worst part is that next winter I'll have a three mile open-air commute. However, we decided that would be worth it to get everything else we want.

Amazingly, we took the place sight unseen. I've lived in a lot of apartments, houses, duplexes, etc. in the past eight years and I have never agreed to live somewhere without having personally visited at least one time. However, we were being pushed by a number of other people wanting to rent the coach house. In fact, we were originally the second people to agree to rent it, but the first person(s) backed out.

Interestingly, after I spent several weeks conversing with numerous rental agencies near Kellogg and perusing the Evanston Review, we had our best luck using the Kellogg Admitted Students Site.

Kellogg Financial Aid

2005-04-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

I finally received some information from Kellogg about the financial aid that I can expect to receive. I’m not sure whether I should be excited or worried. The total expected cost (tuition and living expenses) of the 2004-2005 school year is around $60,000. Kellogg will loan/give me around $36,000 for the year. This means (for all those liberal arts majors out there J) that I’ll have to contribute $24,000. I had hoped for more, but the $36,000 will cover almost 100% of tuition so I can’t complain too much. I’m still waiting to hear about Kellogg specific scholarships, but I’m not counting on that as a source of funding. One nice part is that some of the $24,000 was listed as a grant. There wasn’t much more information in the email, so I’m not sure what kind of a grant it is, but it is still nice to get some free money. Especially since I’ve been so lazy about applying for scholarships.

A caveat at the bottom of the email stated that all of the numbers are based on this year’s tuition, rather than next year’s tuition. As soon as next year’s numbers are set the tuition will go up several percent.

Kellogg Computers Hacked

2005-03-30T09:23:00.000-08:00

I received an email from Kellogg Information Services a few days ago and it seems that a hacker has broken into their network. All user IDs were disabled and new passwords and IDs are being sent via express mail to admitted students. At this point, no personal information has been stolen (or so we have been told). Apparently it has nothing to do with the previous “hacking” debacle involving Harvard, et al., but this is a dangerous lack-of-security precedent being set by the best of the best.

The full story as told by the Chicago Tribune.

Houston Wildlife

2005-03-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

There are SOME things about Texas that I'm going to miss once we move to Chicago. The local wildlife is one of them.

Leave of Absence

2005-03-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

I have been officially granted the leave of absence I talked about previously! This is good - but not great - news. I will still be considered an employee and therefore get insurance coverage. I won't, however, get any financial benefits. The bad part is that I can only be approved for an absence one year at a time, so I will have to re-apply in one year.

After I graduate, I doubt I will return, but the door is more open now than if I were quitting outright.

My parents are coming to Houston this weekend for Easter. In fact, they are probably on the outskirts of town right now. This will be the first holiday that one of our family's has come to us rather than vice versa. It is also the second and final time that they will visit us in Houston. We'll probably be storing a lot of stuff with my parents this summer and while we live in Chicago, so this will also be the first load of "stuff" that we'll be sending to storage. The moving out has commenced.

FAFSA

2005-03-22T19:38:00.000-08:00

Ha! I just heard back from the Kellogg financial aid office and I apparently screwed up something on my FAFSA. I'm not sure how long this will delay my aid package (assuming I get one). Maybe I should start looking for a part-time job in Evanston.

The Big Drive

2005-03-20T11:49:00.000-08:00

One of the things about business school about which I'm really excited, is that I'm not going to work this summer. I have only been working since June 2002 so having the summer off shouldn't be that far in my past...except that while I was in college I never did anything exciting over summer break or summer break. I'm hoping to make up for that this summer. My wife and I are planning to go on an extended road trip covering the western United States. At this point, we are looking at a trip lasting about four weeks and covering 4000 miles. Major stops will include the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. I wanted to extend it a couple of weeks so that we could see California, but my better half said we were already pushing it in terms of time away from home. Either way, I'm almost more excited about this vacation than I am about Kellogg. Almost.

Leave of Absence

2005-03-19T07:31:00.000-08:00

I met with my boss and my boss' boss Friday morning the possibility of me taking a leave of absence while I go back to school. This is really a no-brainer on my part. I wouldn't get any tuition reimbursement nor would I have a guaranteed job after graduation. However, I'm not required to return to the company after graduation, either. Additionally, I continue to receive health benefits and I think that it may affect my vesting in our retirement plan. By going back to school, I had planned to walk away from my retirement plan since I didn't have five years with the company. If given this leave of absence, I may be able to back door my way into becoming vested. Either way, even if all I get is free health care, the fact that I make no commitment is enough to make it an easy decision for me.

Kellogg Admits from Houston Meet Up

2005-03-17T13:48:00.000-08:00

Last night was the first (of which I know at least) attempt for this year's Kellogg admits from Houston to get together. There were only three of us and it never quite got off the ground with a couple of us ending up with work conflicts. I'm definitely hoping we can do it again soon (and acutally, you know, meet up and everything).

So if there are any Kellogg admits from Houston reading this, drop me an email and we'll connect in the coming weeks. And for that matter if there are any local Kellogg alumni or folks who are interested in applying to Kellogg in the future you are welcome to attend as well.

Grandma

2005-03-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

My grandmother passed away just over two weeks ago; that was why I was out of town unexpectedly for several days in early March. She was 99 years old and she lived by herself with minimal extra care required up until her final two-month hospital stay. I was close to my paternal grandparents, and I’ll miss her. She lived a long time, saw a lot of things, and remained mentally strong until the end.

The unfortunate part of living for nearly a century is that she also endured the deaths of many friends and family members. She grew up in a different time, too; one that I can only begin to imagine. Grandpa and Grandma got married during the depression and because of their experience they forever distrusted banks and were always waiting for the next big crash. Both lived through the first Great War and both were persecuted for being German-Americans during World War II. Neither graduated from high school.

As I am slowly starting to prepare for an education from one of the top business schools in the world - a school that is also recognized as being one of the best in numerous other areas as well, I can’t help but wonder about what Grandma (or Grandpa) would think. Both were and would be proud of me. However, as foreign as their childhood was to me, I imagine the last several years of my life to be just as strange to them. The farthest vacation they ever took was their honeymoon to Dallas, TX. Grandma left her home state a total of three times. What always amazed me about her, though, was that if she would have been physically able, she would have visited me in Texas. She would have loved to see the ocean and to fly in an airplane. I’ll miss telling her about life in Houston and I wish I could have told her stories about Chicago.

The Harvard 119

2005-03-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

I’m probably one of the last people to weigh in on this issue, but I felt compelled to talk about the infamous Harvard 119.

A couple of things struck me. First, I don’t consider what these individuals actually did to be hacking. Anyone with any ability at all could have easily browsed to find their decision. Hacking – a term I also think is frequently erroneously used in place of the term “cracking” – would involve some means of a break-in. These potential students did nothing more than cut and paste a URL and then edit the link to represent their own personal information.

Second, the criteria used to either accept or reject these individuals as students at HBS did not change. Yes, all 119 did in fact make an error in judgment. Was it illegal? Not a chance. Was in unethical? Probably, but I’m not sure. I don’t know what each person who accessed the site was thinking. Was Harvard’s decision date already set? I know that Kellogg publishes a date by which you will receive your decision, but often informs individuals much earlier. If Harvard is prone to doing the same thing, then perhaps all 119 could have reasonably assumed that they were acting within their rights as represented by HBS.

Interestingly, I find this very similar to be very similar to the issue of gun control. Recent cases have attacked gun manufacturers for not making guns “safe” enough, which I find similar to finding ApplyYourself most at fault in the Harvard 119 matter. When it comes to guns I’m firmly in the camp of gun owners (in the interest of full disclosure, I am one) and believe that criminals – not guns – should be regulated. Due to my strong belief in individual responsibility, I feel that the most fault should be attributed to the person who uses the gun. In the case of the Harvard 119, I’m not 100% sure that they are truly the ones to blame. I don’t think this is hypocritical, though. The applicants may or may not have known what they were doing to be wrong. An individual using a gun for a nefarious purpose most definitely understands they are violating the law.

I found it remarkable that the professed view most similar to my own is from The Harvard Crimson college newspaper. Their article here echoes my sentiments almost exactly.

Blog Content Update

2005-03-09T14:22:00.000-08:00

I updated my blog description a bit as I plan on posting non-MBA information more frequently than before. For the past year, the prospect of going to business school had been a nearly all-consuming part of my life. Now that I have been accepted and I'm preparing to go to Kellogg, things are slowing down. I know that I should be applying for scholarships, but I'm mentally taking a break from the whole process. Since all necessary forms and the requisite deposit have been sent to Kellogg, my primary concern now is finding housing.

I think a big reason that I'm so reluctant to get engaged in applying for scholarships is that I'm all too aware of how busy I will be once we start to move and once I'm actually going to school. This is my brief reprieve. That and I'm being lazy.

Back To Work

2005-03-08T14:19:00.001-08:00

As much as I am looking forward to leaving my job and going back to school, I still found myself happy to come back to work today after having been gone for nearly a week. There were very few emergencies while I was gone that have not already been resolved, so getting back into my routine will be pretty easy. Also; since this week is Spring Break for most Houston area schools, there are a lot of people on vacation.

BEGIN TANGENT
I have always been struck by the audacity of many of my coworkers who seem to truly believe that the company simply cannot survive without their presence. Perhaps this may be truer at an executive level than in the rank-and-file where I work – though I am hard pressed to believe any one person is indispensable – but my experience is that even the best employee can be replaced. Maybe this is more of an issue at smaller companies where an individual’s contribution is proportionally more important, but at a corporate level the show must always continue…no matter who is absent.
END TANGENT

Today was also the first day that I wore anything Kellogg related (I wore a Kellogg polo). Few people even noticed. In fact, the ones that did already know about my back-to-school plan. Interestingly, for a school that is world renowned for being the marketing school, I can’t find a lot of Kellogg merchandise. I suppose the limited market inhibits demand, but since I’m all about the brand and logo of the school that I’m about to give $60,000+ I’m going overboard in purchasing Kellogg branded products and I'm already reaching the limit to what is available.

Edit: I fixed a couple of things that I had previously fat-fingered.

Quick Update

2005-03-06T21:25:00.000-08:00

I just got back to Houston after a quick, unexpected trip during which I was unable to post. Things should be back to normal on Tuesday; I'll write something more substantial then.

Kellogg Involvement Options

2005-02-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I chose Kellogg is because of all the amazing ways to get involved and to learn in different environments. I realize that other schools have comparable opportunities, but I'm not aware of another school that encourages and allows so much student involvement. In fact, based on what I saw at Day At Kellogg, my impression is that everything is student driven. I love this aspect of Kellogg life. In the real world, instructors and advisers can't just step in and help if something is going astray. This opens up a larger chance of failure, but it also allows for a great deal more student learning (in my opinion that is).

Here are just a few of the things that I want to do while at Kellogg.

Basketball Club
Broad Fellows Program
Business With a Heart
European Business Club
Global Initiatives in Management (GIM)Go-Konnect Networking Club
Government and Business Club
Holy Angels
Innovating Social Change Conference
Kellogg Adventures and Outdoor Service (KAOS)
Kellogg Student Association (KSA)
Kellogg Christian Fellowship
Kellogg Corps
KLiCS
Leadership through Experience and Action Program (LEAP)
Marketing Club
Merger
Neighborhood Business Initiative
Political Issues Club
Prospectus
Ski trip
Social Impact Club
Softball Club
Sports Business Club
Study abroad (hopefully at London Business School)
Texas Club

Obviously I can't take part in all of these, even most of these. Now I just have to cull the list to decide which are most important to me.

Day At Kellogg Part 2

2005-02-25T16:55:00.000-08:00

Continued from a previous post.

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Day 3 (Saturday, February 19, 2005)

We learned the lesson from the previous morning's breakfast and skipped Saturday's breakfast session and slept late. We arrived just in time for the first session, one that was about Kellogg's Career Management Center. I honestly don't remember much about this presentation, but I seem to recall a relatively positive feeling afterward. Next up was our third and final mini-class. This class was on marketing and I learned more about marketing during that hour than I did during an entire class in college.

Next up was an alumni panel discussion. All of the presenters were impressively pedigreed and it was nice to hear from some successful graduates. For lunch, we had the choice of going to a presentation on one of Kellogg's many majors. I chose to go to a General Management presentation to learn a bit more about the major. While the lunch was definitely worthwhile, I wish that I would have had the opportunity to hear all of the lunch presentations. I feel confident in what I want to do with my life, but just the same I would like to know more about my other options.

Post lunch, Dean Jain spoke to us. I was immensely impressed. Once of my concerns going in was that Kellogg couldn't get a "big name" replacement after Dean Jacobs retired. I quickly learned that this was not the case; a big name could have been chosen, but Kellogg instead focused on the best choice. Dean Jain lives Kellogg and is a tremendous asset to the program.

The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to the outside-of-the-classroom Kellogg experience. My wife and I had the opportunity to research many of the clubs with which we could get involved. The only problem is that there are too many things to do at Kellogg and we won't be able to partake in all of them.

In the evening, we were bussed to Chicago (on school busses!) for the closing ceremonies. Normally these events bore me, but I had a great time with some great people. We got to hear from some additional alumni and got to see a slide show (!) of pictures from the previous days of DAK. After dinner we went to a Chicago bar and enjoyed our last official DAK event.

End of Day 3 grade: A

Day 4 (Sunday, February 20, 2005)

Originally we had planned to go on a housing tour, but my wife had already been on a similar tour on Friday so we ended up walking around Evanston. The town is wonderful. We both fell in love.

---

Final thoughts: Day At Kellogg exceeded our expectations. Both of us had a good time, both of us were impressed, and both of us felt at home. I sent in my deposit as soon as we got back to Houston.

DAK Photo #4

2005-02-22T13:29:00.001-08:00

Same Lake Michigan, same beach, different day (DAK Day 4).

DAK Photo #3

2005-02-22T13:29:00.000-08:00

Lake Michigan and the beach on our second day in Chicago (DAK Day 2).

DAK Photo #2

2005-02-22T13:26:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of the front of the Jacobs Center.

DAK Photo #1

2005-02-22T13:24:00.000-08:00

This is the atrium of the Jacobs Center during TG on Friday. It is a mix of current students, potential students, and both of the aforementioned parties' significant others.

Day At Kellogg

2005-02-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

Introduction

I drank the cool aid. I joined the cult. (Brit-Chick is dead on in her post about cult comments, by the way.) The long weekend in Evanston - even with the bad weather - convinced me that Kellogg is the place for me. More importantly, it convinced my wife that Kellogg is the place for her, too.

Periodically I give a grade to Kellogg. This simply represents my feeling in terms of how comfortable I was with the school.

My pre-DAK grade of Kellogg: B (I liked it, but I wasn't 100% sold.)

Day 1 (Thursday, February 17, 2005)

We left Houston on Thursday night and arrived in Chicago around two hours later than scheduled. The announced reason was that the Windy City was a bit too breezy so we weren't able to take off from Houston at our regularly scheduled time. We made it to our hotel in just enough time to grab a bite from Subway and to make it to the only scheduled event of the evening: a welcome dessert. Our first impression was actually a very negative one. We walked in, hung up our coats, and no one greeted us. In fact, the first person to come up to us was an employee of the apartment building where the reception was being held. Ultimately, we met a number of people - current and potential students and their significant others - but we still left with a less than positive impression of Kellogg. Because of this feeling and since each of us was already tired we skipped the post-event bar visit and we went to bed.

End of Day 1 grade: D

Day 2 (Friday, February 18, 2005)

The previous night left each of us with an indelible impression of dread. We were not looking forward to the day's events. However, we were quickly surprised. We arrived at the Jacobs Center (Kellogg's primary building for 2-year MBA students) and were quickly greeted by a first-year student we had met the previous night. He pointed us to the continental breakfast and helped us register. Soon after this we had the pleasure of meeting Brit-Chick in person.

The day continued on a positive note with the opening ceremony and a team building event. Immediately after the opening, my wife went off with the other Joint Ventures (i.e. significant others) for their own DAK program. (In retrospect, I would have liked to have seen the team building event cut and more time given to the presentations on the different majors.) During lunch, we had the option of going to two presentations from a number of different academic areas. I chose to attend discussions on non-profit management and marketing. While both sessions were informative, neither professor blew my socks off. We then rendezvoused with our Joint Ventures and heard a group presentation on academics and financial aid at Kellogg.
Mrs. Majalo then went back to the Joint Ventures world and we were off to sample two mini-classes.

My first class was on decision sciences (statistics) and my second class was on finance. Both professors were simply amazing. I was very impressed. This was my first clue as to how different Kellogg is when compared to my undergraduate school and to other less-stellar MBA programs. The decision sciences professor was relatively junior in the department, but he could make a living as a public speaker. Very engaging, very entertaining, and very funny. Oh and he knew his stuff, too. The finance professor was relatively high up in his department and - while he wasn't quite as much of a showman as the previous professor - was obviously very intelligent and very experienced. Not once during the 2+ hours of mini-classes did I lose interest.

Next, we met back up with our joint ventures and went to the Kellogg Friday tradition: TG. The event... make that the party... was a fun time. We got to meet and mingle with a number of first- and second-year students as well as fellow potential students. After that we got together with a pre-selected group of people (roughly 20) and went out to dinner. The food was okay, the conversation was good. We were exhausted, however, and chose to again skip going to the pub after the meal. This was despite the fact that the pub was directly across the street from our hotel. (We actually intended to go, but went to the hotel to freshen up a bit and promptly fell asleep.)

End of Day 2 grade: B+

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Too much for one post already. To be continued.

Me At Kellogg

2005-02-20T20:30:00.000-08:00

My Final Decision

2005-02-20T20:16:00.000-08:00

DAK

2005-02-17T06:54:00.000-08:00

We are packed and ready to go to DAK. My wife and I are both working half days and our flight leaves Houston around 2:30 this afternoon. We'll get into Chicago in plenty of time (we hope) to go to a Welcome Reception later this evening. The weekend looks pretty heavily booked; we're busy from roughly 8:00 am to 10:00 or 11:00 pm Friday and Saturday. Sunday will be a bit easier since we don't have to meet until 10:00 am. The Joint Ventures group has a pretty busy schedule for my wife as well. Hopefully we'll both get a good taste of Kellogg and Evanston and we'll be ready to take that final step and declare ourselves 100% committed to Kellogg (instead of my previously stated 99%).

Decision

2005-02-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

I'm 99% sure - and this is no surprise - that I'll go to Kellogg. I say only 99% sure because I haven't seen the campus, met that many students/admits in person, and experienced DAK. Making a decision like this without having done the above seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, and while I have almost done that I have reserved that 1% chance that I will go somewhere else. My other two options are both waitlists, however, since mere minutes ago I asked to be moved from the London accepted list to their waitlist. This buys me some time without me having to pay their reservation fee.

Public Opinion

2005-02-15T05:52:00.000-08:00

We went to a party last night where most everyone knew that we plan to move this summer. Not surprisingly, the sentiment as to where we should go was pretty clear: London. I have found this to be true for most people. We tell them our two options and the response is invariably: "Chicago would be nice, but you can always go there... go to London!"

I'm not including any of this as part of my decision process. A decision, I might add, that I must make this week.

Final Decision

2005-02-11T18:19:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like I'm essentially going to be forced to make my decision within the next week. The deadline for deciding on whether or not to go to London is next Friday (February 18). I requested an extension and was denied. I have the option to go on the waitlist for a future round, but I don't want to do that. I could also pay the required fee (well more than $1000) and then back out later, but I don't want to potentially waste that much money.

We are leaving for Chicago next Thursday for Day at Kellogg (DAK). We will have to have decided by then.

On another note, I have been browsing the London Business School admitted students forum and have noticed numerous people complaining about the financial aid process at LBS. In fact, a couple of students weren't able to get any aid last year and had to reapply this year. It hasn't exactly given me a warm and fuzzy feeling about LBS.

Finances

2005-02-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

The whole paying for an MBA is starting to get frustrating. I can't fill out financial aid forms at Kellogg until I complete the FAFSA. I can't complete the FAFSA until we submit our 2004 taxes. We can't submit our taxes until we get all of our W2s, 1099s, etc. The breathtakingly slow rate at which the aforementioned tax statements are arriving in our mailbox is really starting to annoy me. Kellogg's advice of "Apply for Aid Early!" is all fine and good but so far not feasible.

We have started telling people that we are moving soon, too. So far we've got a super lengthy list of places to eat in Chicago... except that both of us have spent a lot of time in Chicago over the years and have hit most of the major places. We're also starting to compile a list of "wonderful little" pubs in London.

Where To Go

2005-02-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

I was called into an impromptu meeting with my former supervisor (the same one who wrote recommendations for me) last Friday. His recommendation to me is to go to LBS.

I trust his judgment and value his opinion a great deal.

Advice for Future Applicants #2

2005-02-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

Start Early

Perhaps an obvious statement, but very true nonetheless. I began working on the applications the very day that one became available. (If I recall correctly, this was Columbia's application, but I could be wrong.) I essentially wrote every essay from scratch, only occasionally cutting and pasting. When I did reuse material, it was never verbatim. I always customized it to the school. Needless to say, completing six applications (the five schools listed on my sidebar and Columbia) takes a lot of time. In all, I think I wrote about 30 essays. Of those essays, I felt comfortable with about 1/2 of them the first time through. The other 1/2 I ended up rewriting and - sometimes - rewriting again.

I found the amount of time it took to fill out each application to be much longer than I had anticipated. Most schools require you to write a little blurb about each job you have had, each extracurricular activity, etc. This took a lot longer than I expected.

However, neither the essays nor the applications took the longest. By far the most time consuming aspect of my applications were the recommendations. I chose my previous supervisor (I had just changed jobs and I felt he could better speak to my qualifications than could my new boss who had known me for all of a week) and my mentor to write my recommendations. I interact with both on a daily basis and I am friends with both outside of work. Additionally, both were seemingly excited to do it and agreed wholeheartedly to help out. Even so, it took them f o r e v e r to complete their recommendations. I understand their situation: five applications with five different recommendation requirements that often contained five unique essays. They completed their recommendations for my five primary schools in enough time so that I could apply in the first round for each school, but it was close for a couple of the schools.

A final reason why I feel it is best to start early is that the earlier you apply, the more time you have to plan your move. My wife and I are already feeling time crunched to get everything done in time for a summer move. I can't imagine trying to get everything done if I had been accepted in the third round. :)

Advice for Future Applicants #1

2005-02-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to post about what I learned during my application experience and this post serves as the first in that series.

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Live Your Gimmick

Whatever you do, make sure you pick one strategy, one idea, one gimmick and go with it throughout all of your applications. For example, every application that I submitted, every essay that I wrote, and every interview that I completed exuded two major things:

1) I'm a farm kid from the middle of nowhere.
2) I want to transition into the entrepreneurial non-profit sector.

Even if the essay was about my greatest accomplishment at work, I managed to bring up the previous two points. Both make my application somewhat unique in that very few farmers go back to school and get an MBA and that most people who have my professional credentials choose to remain in the private sector. Everyone who applies to the top business schools has wonderful leadership skills, a high GMAT score, and plenty of extracurricular activities upon which to build their case. I'm not saying that you should ignore your 800 score on the GMAT or the fact that you volunteer for your church every weekend - in fact I encourage you to embrace these facts - but remember that a small percentage of people every year score an 800 on the GMAT and that a lot of people volunteer at their church. You have to make your application stand out with a gimmick: something that makes the admissions department at the schools to which you applied remember who you are. I'm fairly confident that I was seen primarily as "that farm kid from Kansas" and secondarily as "the guy who wants to start charities."

This helps out in a couple of ways.

First of all, it builds consistency between your applications. If you are applying to more than just one or two schools, you run the risk of blurring the information between the applications unless you present the same exact information each school (which I did). Rather than mold my application to meet what I thought each school wanted, I focused on my strengths and on what I want to do. Not only did this help codify what I really wanted in my own mind, but it made it easier to complete all of my applications. I was never able to cut and paste an entire essay from one application to another, but I was able to recycle ideas.

Second, it makes you stand out. As I already mentioned above, all of the top applicants have very similar characteristics. To rise above the others, you have to focus on whatever aspect(s) make you different. Mine were my agricultural background and my desire to work in non-profit.

Something with which I initially struggled was the idea that I wasn't competing against any given school's preset criteria. I wasn't and neither is anyone else. You are competing against all of the other applicants and you must make yourself unique.

Edit: Added an emphasis in a couple of areas.

Tuition Reimbursement

2005-02-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

I spoke with the head of our training and development department about potentially being sponsored by my company while getting my MBA. The response was interesting, but it didn't surprise me. (As a side note, the individual I just mentioned happens to be a product of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.)

1) We do value MBAs... we just don't encourage employees to go back to school to get them.

2) If the company did decide to sponsor someone, it would be for a part-time program only (at night, weekends, every other Friday, etc).

3) Because the employee gets more benefit out of an MBA than does the company, if an individual does go back to business school full-time, the cost of the program is entirely the responsibility of the employee.

4) Employees are encouraged to get an executive MBA only. Employees are not encouraged to get an MBA unless they are age 35 or older.

I still have another avenue to investigate, but I don't think I'll be getting any support from here.

Quitting

2005-01-30T17:48:00.000-08:00

I had a meeting with my new supervisor last Thursday. In it, I brought up the fact that I have been accepted to two top rate schools and that I'm most likely leaving the company soon. (He just became my supervisor earlier this month and had not previously been aware of my situation... one of my previous supervisors and my mentor provided my recommendation letters.) Not surprisingly, he was somewhat surprised but very supportive. While he is by far my least favorite of the three supervisors I have had at this company, he seems to be on board with my decision. In fact, he suggested that I contact our training and development division to see if they will be willing to support my return to school. I don't think that is likely.

A bit of a background: the company for which I work is one of the largest energy conglomerates in the world. Interestingly, we place little to no value on an MBA. Many of our geoscientists receive time off and monetary support to return to school, but individuals returning to business school must do it on their own time and with not quite so much of the company's fiduciary support. I also find it interesting that we are the only major energy company that does not recruit at the top business schools. We do most of our recruiting at Texas and Oklahoma schools while our competitors are searching for new hires on the campuses of the best schools in the world.

My supervisor's recommendation was nice, but not practical. I will do what he suggested - it was already part of my plan - and ask what options the company offers for individuals who want a full two years time off as well as tuition reimbursement in order to go to business school. I am reasonably sure that I will be rejected. I will emphasize the fact that the school that I will attend is one of the best in the world. This fact won't matter.

The only way that I will get company support is if someone at a relatively high level decides to support me on an individual basis. And even if that happens, I'm not sure I will accept due to the future constraints placed upon me. If I receive company support, I will be required to return to work for at least two years after I graduate. My current plan is to transition to the not-for-profit sector, but if I am enticed to remain in the private sector it will be entirely due to greed. My current company can't compete with the salary that I will demand post-MBA. It has been an educational, interesting, and often frustrating 2 1/2 years in Corporate America. I don't think I will ever return.

The Comparison

2005-01-29T06:15:00.000-08:00

I can finally start the true comparison of Kellogg & LBS. A couple of days ago I received the full information package from Kellogg and yesterday I received my login information for the LBS admitted students website. At least from a website side of things, Kellogg is the winner hands down. However, from a welcome package side of things, LBS is the winner. Maybe I should be looking at things a bit more in depth. :) I've started going through the information - there is a LOT - and I'm learning quite a bit.

I'm still working on the actual cost of living/city comparison.

Philly Update

2005-01-26T14:29:00.000-08:00

No Philadelphia trip for me this weekend. PowerScore was able to find another instructor to take the class so I'm stuck at home for the weekend. Honestly, finding this out didn't break my heart. A great friend of mine might make the trek to Houston this weekend now, and I would much prefer to have some fun with him instead of teaching a class. Although the extra money would have been nice.

I also found out that there is a PowerScore GMAT instructor in Chicago. If I do end up deciding to attend Kellogg, I had hoped to be able to continue teaching GMAT classes on weekends. If they already have an instructor in the area, though, I might not be able to do that. Oh, well, all is not lost: after giving blood this morning, I won a drawing for a $15 gift card to Starbucks. Too bad I hate coffee.

Next up on the PowerScore GMAT class horizon: March classes in Houston and Austin.

Housing

2005-01-25T08:29:00.000-08:00

I noticed that Brit-Chick wrote about this very subject yesterday. It is something that is plaguing me right now, too. We currently live in a relatively nice, moderately sized, wonderfully priced apartment in Houston. In fact, with utilities included, we pay less than $700 per month. I'm very aware that this is going to change drastically with our upcoming move.

Brit-Chick mentions MBA Properties in Evanston in her entry from yesterday as well. I have been in contact with them already and they have been quite helpful. For example, I have already learned that our goal of paying less than double what we do now may be farfetched. Apartments near Kellogg that allow pets and that have a washer and dryer in the apartment are few and far between. Those that we have found are going to run up to three times what we pay now. Add in the fact that we'll be losing 65% of our income and incurring a $60,000+ bill from a graduate school over the next two years and the prospect of increasing our living expenses is quite daunting. Plus, I am absolutely amazed that parking is not included in rent for many of the properties. One complex charged $125 per month for parking. I guess the good ol' country boy in me is going to have to get used to the city life... fast.

I haven't even started to do in-depth research about London. I think the results may give me a coronary.

Responding to Being Waitlisted

2005-01-24T17:04:00.000-08:00

I'm still debating on how to respond to being waitlisted by Yale. I want to go to Yale, I really do. However, I don't know if I want to go to Yale more than I want to go to Kellogg or London. And even if I did want to go to Yale more than to Kellogg or London, I don't know if want to deal with the stress of waiting to get off Yale's waitlist and into the accepted student pool. I'm well aware that waitlisted students don't usually get accepted until the summer... sometimes late summer.

One thing that I have heard from a couple of people is that Yale may have waitlisted me because they thought I would get accepted into a "better" school and that I would not attend Yale even if I was accepted. Based upon my interaction with Yale students, faculty, and alumni, I don't think this is the case. All individuals associated with Yale seem to truly believe that Yale is one of the top two schools (the other being Harvard). Even though the rankings don't support this view, I can't fault legitimate and deserved loyalty to your school/employer. For whatever reason, I just wasn't viewed as a good fit for the school. My application obviously wasn't perfect - hence the rejections from Wharton & Harvard. In fact, since I will only have three years of work experience upon matriculation, I would not have been surprised to have been rejected by all five schools to which I applied.

Tomorrow I plan on contacting Yale for the first time since my waitlist notification. I'm going to check and see what kind of contact they want from me since I have heard that some schools want zero communication from waitlisted applicants. If they allow me to provide more information, I plan on giving them as much as I can.

Philadelphia

2005-01-24T08:19:00.000-08:00

I generally teach two PowerScore GMAT Prep classes every other month. These are almost always the Houston class and the Austin class. I have the option to travel, but I usually don't since it can get really tiring if I teach three weekends in a row. This month, however, the Austin class was cancelled, so I only taught the Houston class. Due to the winter storms in the northeast, however, the Philadelphia class that was supposed to be this past weekend was postponed. I might get a chance to go to Philly this upcoming weekend to teach the rescheduled course. I have never been to Pennsylvania and I'm looking forward to going... even though I'll only have 1/2 day to see the sights in Philadelphia. Now if only PowerScore can just find a plane ticket that is cheap and that meets my schedule.

The Next Test I'm Going to Take

2005-01-22T14:19:00.000-08:00

For whatever reason, I had a less-than-brilliant idea just before my last year in college: I decided to take the LSAT. I can't remember the exact reasoning behind this, but I place most of the blame on an overzealous business law professor from the previous semester. Taking the test was a definite mistake. I didn't bother studying at all. I didn't even know what type of questions were going to be on the test! (The logic games came out of nowhere... imagine taking the GMAT completely cold and having never seen a Data Sufficiency question!) Needless to say I scored accordingly. My overall score was a 157; I don't remember the percentile. This score will follow/haunt me forever, so I have decided to retake the LSAT.

While my hurt pride is one driving factor, I can't deny that I also think that a law degree would be very beneficial in the business world. One of my regrets is that I didn't get a law degree during my three years in Houston. The University of Houston has a very good program and I could have completed it while still working. I very seriously considered getting a joint JD/MBA degree, too. It didn't feel right, though, I think mainly because I would have to stay out of the workforce for three years instead of two. Eventually I'd like to get a Juris Doctor and to do that I'll have to take the LSAT. Now is as good of a time as any.

Note: prior to this post I added a lot of new information on my sidebar. One of the sections gives links to the books that I'm using to prepare for the LSAT and a different link directs to the website of the company for whom I teach GMAT classes. Theoretically, if I score well enough on the LSAT, I could teach LSAT classes for PowerScore as well.

MBA Ranking Comparison: Part Two

2005-01-21T23:33:00.000-08:00

Continuing from the previous post...

The five schools to which I applied (presented alphabetically): Harvard Business School (HBS), London Business School (LBS), Northwestern University (Kellogg), University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), and Yale University (Yale).

The five rankings that I used to compare the five schools (presented alphabetically) followed by the year with the latest available information for each ranking: Business Week (2004), Financial Times (2004), Forbes (2003), USNews & World Report (2004), and the Wall Street Journal (2004).

The raw data is shown in the image file contained in my previous post.

I found it interesting that there is such a huge discrepancy between the rankings. For example, Business Week ranks Kellogg as the best school in the US. However, according to the Financial Times, Kellogg isn't even a top ten school. The biggest discrepancy is for Yale. Business Week ranks Yale at number 22, yet Forbes ranks them at number five. (And yes I know that each respective ranking was compiled using different methodologies. For my comparison I chose to assume that each ranking was equal.) Interestingly, the most consistent school - excluding LBS - on my list is Wharton which is ranked between one and six inclusively.

I don't know if I expected to learn anything from this comparison or not. It is evident that the rankings, while informative, are by no means the definitive method by which to choose a school. One man's number one school is another man's number 13th ranked school. One fact that became readily apparent is that if I were to decide between Kellogg and LBS based purely on the rankings, I would be lost. There are so few comparisons of all business schools
(International and US schools) that I find the data to be inconclusive.

Just as an FYI, here is where I gathered my info.

Business Week
Financial Times (PDF)
Forbes
US News & World Report
Wall Street Journal (US)
Wall Street Journal (International)

And finally, for what it is worth, I throw my support behind US News & World Report as the "best" MBA rankings.

Edit: Due to formatting issues, I changed all of the links contained in the post to tinyurl.com links.

MBA Ranking Comparison: Part One

2005-01-21T23:29:00.000-08:00

Out of curiosity, I decided to compare the five schools to which I applied by only using what I considered to be the most respected business school rankings. Here is the chart that I created using the aforementioned information.

Click on the chart to view it in a higher quality format.

London's Welcome Kit

2005-01-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

The long-awaited second communication from London Business School arrived by DHL today. Before today, my only correspondence was an acceptance email. The welcome kit that I received today more than made up for the delay. Not only did it have all the relevant info that Kellogg provided - albeit sans the handwritten note that Kellogg included - but it also had a very nice leather London Business School portfolio. Spiffy!

I'm a sucker for free stuff.

Addendum: And by free I mean that I spent $222.97 to apply and got a portfolio in return. I'm not complaining... Kellogg didn't send anything quite that cool.

Edit: Corrected the amount that I paid to LBS.

My Picture

2005-01-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

I just added a picture to my profile. I'm not sure why, except that all the cool kids were doing it so I jumped on the bandwagon. The picture is from early December 2004 when my wife and I went on our Yale campus visit/interview. I interviewed on a Monday and we spent the preceeding weekend in New York City. The photo was taken in Central Park.

2005-01-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

majalo

Persistence of Kellogg

2005-01-21T06:07:00.000-08:00

In my previous post, I forgot to mention that Kellogg contacted me again yesterday. This time it was by email instead of by phone, but their pleasant persistence in trying to get me to go to school in Evanston has been uplifting. The more they say they want me, the more I want to attend Kellogg.

At this point, with only two offers in hand, I would say that there is a 70% chance that I will go to Kellogg and a 30% chance that I will go to London Business School.

Decision Variety

2005-01-21T05:56:00.000-08:00

I guess the good news is that I have now experienced the full spectrum of possible business school application decisions: Yale has waitlisted me. This makes the final tally 2 yes, 2 no, and 1 maybe.

The notification gave me a chance to either accept or reject the waitlist. I chose to accept it. I'll go through the motions of submitting more information and trying to prove to them that I really want to go to Yale and that it would be a good fit for me. However, unless Yale can give me a decision soon, I will be forced to attend either Kellogg or London. Yale still remains near the top of my list (probably number 1 or 2) of the b-schools that I want to attend, so I do hope to be accepted, but I won't be devastated if I am not.

When I received the email from Yale yesterday, I found myself more excited that when I received my first acceptance phone call (Kellogg). Now that I have decisions from all five of the schools to which I applied - albeit with one being a maybe - I can finally start thinking about where I should go. The feeling of relief and excitement is refreshing.

And the verdict is...

2005-01-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

Mere moments after creating my last entry, I received the word from Harvard. Sometimes it isn't good to be right, because as expected I was not accepted to Harvard Business School. It is unfortunate because I would have liked to have had the opportunity to decided between Kellogg, Harvard, & London. Perhaps it is sour grapes - although I did post about it previously - but given the aforementioned opportunity, I think I would choose Kellogg.

It is interesting to me that most of the schools have held to their posted deadlines. London, Harvard, and Wharton all gave me their decisions (1 good, 2 bad) on the day that they claimed they would. Only Kellogg contacted me early (about one month before their supposed deadline). My understanding going in was that most schools would actually release decisions earlier that what their website said and that the deadline was only the last possible date a decision might be released. I just found it interesting.

Two more days until Yale's deadline. So far I am 2 for 4. A good batting average in baseball, but I don't know how it translates to business school applications.

Kellogg's Timing

2005-01-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if is a coincident or not, but Kellogg seems to have very good timing. The same day that Wharton released their decision, Kellogg called me. In fact, they called me less than an hour after Wharton sent me their admission decision (via email). Even if I had been accepted to Wharton - which I wasn't - Kellogg would have been hot-on-Wharton's-heels with good news.

The second coincidence (or was it) happened last night. A current first year student at Kellogg called me to see if I had any questions about Kellogg. We spoke for a half hour on subjects ranging from financial aid to married life. Interestingly, he was married, from the south, and is interested in the energy sector. Hmm. This call came the day before Harvard is scheduled to announce their decision. I wonder if Kellogg is making sure that they are not out of my mind if I am accepted to Harvard. Which, like I stated before, I feel to be unlikely.

I guess that since Kellogg is widely regarded as the best marketing school on earth all of this makes sense.

I'm flattered by the lengths to which Kellogg is going to convince me to attend school there. It will be very, very hard for me to tell them no: I'm a sucker for people/places who like me (or at least pretend to). :)

The GMAT

2005-01-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

As my hobby/part-time job I teach classes on how to conquer the GMAT. The classes are 16 hours total split equally over a Saturday and Sunday. I usually teach two classes each month that classes are offered (every other month). I taught one in Houston this past weekend and I teach a class in Austin next weekend. I really enjoy doing it. I feel confident in my ability to understand as well communicate the knowledge, and most students seem to get a lot out of the class.

One thing I have found interesting, though, is the number of people who are 100% focused on the GMAT. Countless times I've heard students say something similar to "All I have to do is get a score of XXX on the GMAT and school XXX will accept me!" After having gone through the application process I feel pretty comfortable in saying that the GMAT is an important, but small part of the overall application. A certain score is needed to be considered at certain schools, but no score - no matter how high - will guarantee acceptance. (For example, I scored a 770 but was rejected by Wharton.) When someone tells me this I try to find out some more about what they are trying to do in life as well as what the rest of their application will look like so that I can offer some advice on where their expectations should be.

However, even with the above statements being accurate, we shouldn't underestimate the importance of the GMAT. Otherwise the classes I teach will be empty. :)

And the award goes to...

2005-01-14T13:54:00.000-08:00

I got an email from London Business School yesterday...

…and I'm in!

Now I have to make a decision. Or at least I will have to soon since I'm still waiting on decisions from Harvard and Yale. Currently 75% of me wants to go to Kellogg and 25% of me wants to go to LBS. That is based completely on the schools. If I chose based on city only, London would beat Chicago/Evanston hands down. My wife and I are both concerned over how to move to a foreign country, though. We have a dog and a cat and we have lots of stuff. She would also have to get a job in London, too. Is it more hassle than it is worth? I don't know yet.
The bad news is that LBS requires a decision by February 18. We are supposed to leave for Chicago for Day at Kellogg on February 17. Hopefully Harvard and Yale get back to me soon since it looks like I'll have to make a decision by early February.

Quitting My Job

2005-01-12T18:38:00.000-08:00

I completed my last performance review at my current job a couple of days ago. Somewhat surprisingly I was named the top employee on my team again. Several of my co-workers know my MBA intentions and I had thought that might affect my chances at being rated highly. Luckily I was wrong. There are a lot of things that I will miss about my job. A great deal of the work I did on my business school applications was done while "working". I'm allowed a great deal of independence in my job and I know that the company values my contributions. However, there are more things that I won't miss. For example, the glacially slow promotion process, not being allowed to do what I do best, and the huge communication gap between leadership and the rank and file. I do not regret my time here, though. It apparently didn't hurt my marketability to top MBA programs (even with only 2.5 years experience) and it has more than paid the bills. That said, I doubt that I'll never work in the energy sector again.

I'm also feeling a bit of senioritis at work. Now that I know that I'm leaving and I have set a date - my last day is in early July - I fear that my performance will decline. I know I won't be fired: as I mentioned before I was named the top employee on my time... there is some room for me to slack off. I don't necessarily want for this to happen, but I know that my focus is already drifting away from the present and to the future.

"Married People Don't Get an MBA"

2005-01-11T08:19:00.000-08:00

I've heard several times, from different people, that if you are married, you don't get an MBA. Even when I was interviewing, some of the interviewers mentioned that being married wasn't necessarily a good thing when it came to business school. Fortunately, I've spoken to enough people who disagree and think that while I won't have the same experience as someone who is single, it will still be some of the best years of my life.

Moving to Illinois

2005-01-09T17:38:00.000-08:00

Since the only school I've been accepted to is Kellogg, my wife and I have been looking at the differences between Houston and Evanston/Chicago. The biggest difference - by far - is the cost of living. One nice thing about Houston is that it is dirt cheap to live here. We spend less than $800 per month on all of our bills (excluding food). It looks like that won't be an option near Kellogg. Additionally, Texas doesn't have a state income tax, but Illinois does. Take out my income (about 2/3 of our total income) and we could struggle for a bit once we move.

Degree Track

2005-01-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

One aspect of my MBA that I'm still debating is what my specialty should be. Right now, today, and at this very minute I'm very much leaning toward non-profit management/entrepreneurship. I want to start charities. I'm not sure if this would be the best idea for a couple of reasons. First, there are a lot of charities already in existence. Maybe I should focus on helping the ones that are already chartered. Second, I want to help people. I really do. However, the average salary of someone who works in the non-profit arena is nowhere near what other graduates make. Will my heart or my greed win? Stay tuned.

Still no word from Yale, Harvard, or LBS.

School Comparison

2005-01-07T07:08:00.000-08:00

When I first started my quest for an MBA, my personal rankings were simple:
1) Harvard
2) The Rest of the Schools

This was based merely on perception. When the non-MBA centric world hears the word "Kellogg" they think cereal. The same goes for many of the other top programs. Only the Harvards and Yales have the name recognition that has permeated the majority of society. However, when I actually started researching the schools, I quickly learned that while Harvard may be ranked number one in some of the rankings, it probably does not give a student the best possible education. Wharton, Kellogg, Stanford, and a couple of other schools have higher quality programs (this is only opinion... there is no way to actually compare the programs). However, where Harvard overcomes all other schools is in the alumni network and in the aforementioned public perception. I'll admit that I am currently struggling with this phenomenon. I've already been accepted to Kellogg, and while I'm still waiting on Harvard's decision, I expect to be rejected. If I do get accepted to Harvard, will I be able to choose Kellogg, which I feel to be a better fit for me and a better overall education, over THE name brand MBA program in the world?

Note: my personal rankings have always been very similar to what I've already posted (Harvard is my number 2 or 3 choice). However, I've always included the caveat that it would be VERY hard for me to decline an invitation to attend Harvard Business School.

The Packet

2005-01-06T06:59:00.000-08:00

I received my official acceptance letter along with a packet of information from Kellogg yesterday. Nothing too surprising was inside. There was some more information about the Joint Ventures (JV) club, though. JV is made up of the spouses and significant others of Kellogg students. I think this would be a wonderful opportunity for my wife to get involved in Evanston should we decide to attend Kellogg.

Also included was the schedule for the first Day at Kellogg (DAK) that takes place February 17-20. We are both planning on going. Having not yet done a campus visit to Kellogg, I'm very much looking forward to attending. I also plan to ask a lot more questions than if I were just an applicant. Now that I'm assured of a spot in the Class of 2007, I feel like I can expend more energy in learning about Kellogg. Before, while I extensively researched each school I considered, there was no guarantee that I would actually be able to attend said school, so I didn't look into every nuance. Once I have all of my acceptances/rejections I can really research my options.

Business School Applicant Interviews

2005-01-05T09:17:00.000-08:00

I was lucky enough to be chosen to interview by each of the five schools to which I applied. (Note: Kellogg interviews all applicants.) The discrepancy between the schools in terms of interviewer quality and question content was amazing.

I had the option to interview onsite for four schools: Yale, Kellogg, Wharton, and London Business School (LBS). Interestingly, Harvard chose to interview me, but told me that my interview would be in Houston. Of the four schools who gave me the option, I chose only to interview onsite at Yale. I interviewed with the other four business schools in Houston.

There was a definite difference between the interview process. Kellogg & Wharton provided me with the names of three individuals and asked me to contact them to arrange the interview. I agree that I should have done the contacting, but I felt that the interviewer should have been preselected. The first person on my list from Kellogg was happy enough to interview me. It took three tries for me to find someone from Wharton willing to meet with me. Both interviewers chose Starbucks to meet. Both interviewers were late. The lady from Kellogg apologized and actually had a good excuse. The lady from Wharton (20 minutes late) didn't even acknowledge her tardiness. Neither had been out of business school for more than a couple of years. Neither had a quality job (in fact, one worked out of her house... hence the interviews being held at a coffee shop) and both had experienced significant periods of unemployment after getting their MBA. They did speak highly of their respective schools, but neither was a very good interviewer. The lady from Wharton asked no probing questions. Her only questions were from my resume (e.g. "Tell me about this experience.") The interviewer from Kellogg asked more in-depth questions, but still based everything off of my resume. The one thing I took from this is that if I ever choose to interview potential applicants after I get my MBA, I will NEVER subject them to an interview at Starbucks. Several times during the Wharton interview we had to sit and wait for some loud coffee machine to quiet. (I'm not a coffee drinker so I don't know what was going on behind the counter, but it sounded like a construction zone.)

On the opposite end of the spectrum were Harvard and LBS. Both schools provided me with a specific individual who would conduct my interview. The gentleman from Harvard invited me to interview at his office. He had been out of school around 15 years and was a senior level executive at an investment firm. He was impressive, the surroundings were impressive (we met in the executive boardroom), and his questions were hard. Unfortunately for me, this interview was after my Wharton & Kellogg interviews. After becoming used to the walk-me-down-your-resume questioning style, I was completely unprepared for this type of interview. We incessantly talked about leadership. Then more leadership. And then leadership again. I didn't want to bring up all of my experiences when talking about leadership only, so I kept waiting for another topic (say business savvy or greatest accomplishments) to use them. The hour ended without my having been able to bring up several of what I consider to be my most impressive experiences. I blew it and for this reason I don't expect to be accepted to Harvard.

The LBS interview was the last one that I completed. It was also done very professionally. I met the interviewer at a club where he is a member. We had a private room and his questions were the best of any of the other interviewers. The interview took the most time as well. We spent an hour on question-answer and then I was asked to present a five minute speech on a topic of his choosing. In total I spent an hour and a half talking to him. He spoke very little about my resume and instead asked about things I had done and what I thought about myself. Unique to his style was that he asked a lot of follow-up questions which I thought spoke very highly of his ability. He was a business owner who had been out of LBS for 20 years.

My Yale experience was completely different. I chose to interview at New Haven. My wife and I spent a wonderful weekend in New York and then drove up to Connecticut for a Monday morning interview. The interview itself was done by a second year MBA student and lasted only 1/2 hour (he was actually timed and could not go over 30 minutes). I had the chance to meet other applicants as well as some professors. We were then given a campus tour and had lunch with a group of current students. It is hard to compare the Yale interview to the previous four because this one was on campus.

My comparison of how well it went (in my opinion) on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best. The schools are listed in the order that I completed the interviews.

Kellogg - 7
Wharton - 2
Harvard - 3
Yale - 9
LBS – 8

With the jury still out on Harvard, Yale, & LBS, I expect to be accepted to Yale & LBS and rejected by Harvard.

And so it begins...

2005-01-05T06:37:00.000-08:00

I'm probably starting this blog about a year too late. My quest to achieve my MBA began in March of 2002, but really picked up steam just after Christmas in early 2003. However, I plan to go back and detail what happened - as best as I can recall - during the past year, if only for my own benefit.

Here is the quick and dirty info that I want to get out of the way first.
Per my profile, I am 26 years old. I graduated with a dual degree in Management Information Systems and Human Resource Management in May 2002. In June 2002, I began working for one of the major integrated energy companies. I have worked for said company for the past 2 1/2 years and I plan to continue to work here until early summer 2005.

I'm just like everyone else: overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated. While I don't regret the past couple of years, if I had to do it all over again, I would have chosen a different path. Perhaps I can detail THAT in another post. Moving on, however, because of my frustration with my employment situation, I decided to do something about it. I wanted an MBA.

Again I shall refer to a post that does not yet exist, but at some point I plan to detail how my confidence in myself had really dropped. My plan was to go to one of the Houston schools (most likely Rice) rather than suffer the embarrassment of being turned down at a "real" business school. Thankfully, when I took the GMAT in March 2002 I scored high enough (770) to convince myself that applying to the top five schools would not be a waste of time.

My plan at that point was to begin applying in the fall of 2004. I followed this plan and I have been working on and submitting applications since August. My original plan was to apply to the following nine schools (you read that right, nine schools).

1) Harvard
2) Stanford
3) Columbia
4) Wharton
5) Kellogg
6) Yale
7) Chicago
8) INSEAD
9) London Business School (LBS)

Luckily, once I began the actual applications, I quickly decided against this part of my plan. Rather than do the whole "throw a bunch of darts and hope one sticks" I decided to focus on a handful of schools. Since post-MBA career will hopefully be in the non-profit entrepreneurial arena, I looked at schools with strong non-profit management (NPM) programs. (Retrospectively, this was a great idea. Each application cost around $200 and took me several weeks to complete.) The schools to which I applied - in order of my original preference - are as follows (with reasoning in parenthesis):

1) Yale (best non-profit management program out there by most accounts)
2) Harvard (good social enterprise program; it would be hard to say no to HBS)
3T) Kellogg (probably the best business school out there and a good NPM program)
3T) LBS (no real NPM program, but a wonderfully diverse, international experience; I couldn't resist)
5) Wharton (also one of the best programs with a good NPM program)

I'm waiting to hear from Yale, Harvard, and LBS.

I was rejected by Wharton.

I was accepted by Kellogg.

More to come.