Until a year ago I only thought about going to business school once. That was when I was working on Zeromillion.com and felt a little inadequate that Ryan had all of these great plans to do with his life and I didn’t have any direction. He now owns iContact.com as I find myself applying to business school. It’s interesting because I feel it in my bones that MY opportunity is coming very shortly.
Last year when I made the decision to go to business school I didn’t have anyone to turn to in order to help me navigate the process. I didn’t know ANYONE who had their MBA, so you can imagine how little I knew about the process. True to Richard Battle-Baxter form though, I knew that this was something that I really wanted to do and immersed myself in the proces. The best thing I did was started researching very early and attending events. At this point last year I hadn’t attended any MBA fairs and still didn’t know any MBA students or people even applying and now you guys see the fruits of my labor.
By getting what some would consider a head start, I was able to form relationships at these events with people who were NOT ONLY getting a headstart, BUT ALSO applying that season. While the people I met who were also getting a headstart are still my friends today, it was the people who were applying last season that have put me in the headspace that I’m in now.
There are two groups of students who are giving me an insiders look into b-school that I never would have access too.
1. ) Witnessing them go through the trials and tribulations of the application process was very educational. Now, the four people I am thinking about are in business school. One friend is at Duke Fuqua - two others whom I met during my visit to Yale are at Michigan Ross - a friend I met at NYU Sterns LGBT event last year is now at NYU Stern.
2.) Having visited so many schools thus far, I have a myriad of then first year students, who are now second year students. I have followed these students from the end of their first years through their internships and now into their 2nd years.
So everyone is in or back in school now and I feel like I’m the lone soldier left on the outside while they’re all in this business school environment, embarking upon this new chapter in their lives, as I peer through a window yearning to be inside with them. While the barriers to entry for business school are very high, I am beginning to see the reason for it. Everyone I has spoken with has echoed one anothers comments that their 2 years at business school was the best time of their lives and they wish they could go back.
It’s interesting to always hear that you have to have a pretty good sense of what you want to accomplish during business school because once you get there you will not have time to think. I thought this was an overstatement, but I now know that... they are correct!
I sent my friend at Duke a message on Facebook and we had this discussion:
Me: i hope you're having fun... although i'm 100% sure you are
Him: Fun is relative my friend...B-school is hard work. It's crazy moving in 100 different directions and still not having any idea what the hell you are actually doing.
Then I decided to email my two friends at Ross just to say Hi and here is the email that I had with one of them.
Me: Just wanted to say that I miss our conversations online! Hope you and _______ are enjoying yourselves! I've been looking at your Football Game pictures on FB and I'll admit that I'm semi-jealous!”
Him: It is very true that I have been on a serious gchat sabbatical. We are BUSY!!! So busy that although I see _______ almost every day, we still haven't been able to coordinate a time to sit down for dinner together. You would've loved my classes today -- there was some intense employment of the Socratic method by our strategy professor.
The students who are second years who I rarely hear from now and I understand that yeah everyone is just as busy as I am, albeit a different kind of busy.
It’s very odd to witness people doing the very thing I wish to be doing 12 months from now. It’s a little surreal.
So in order to get there I’ve been taking a look at the similarities among these people and even those who have just graduated from b-school. I noticed that there is definitely a common language with which they speak. Had I not immersed myself in the process so much to get a sense for what I needed to know, I would not be able to notice AND attempt to adopt these minor language and thought differences between MBA’s and NON-MBA’s. Now I’m sure the same could be said for anyone with a Masters degree, but I’m only speaking about my experience with MBAs.
Being twice removed from the world of the MBA because I haven’t had the luxury of growing up around these subtle differences, has me in a different place than someone who may have worked in I-banking and began adopting the necessary skills or somenoe who may have grown up in a household with parents who had MBA’s. Now, I realize that I could simply be giving more credit than should be due, but again... my blog... my thoughts. :-)
There definitely has to be something there if I can listen to someone think and hear the common attributes of an MBA student - to then only ask them if they have their MBA and they say yes. It is these skills that separate them from those who have not received their MBAs. Now does this make it necessary to get an MBA to acquire this toolbox? Well that's up to the individual, but I can't see that as being a negative effect.
I feel that because I became a student of the process, I have started to adopt some of these characteristics I see consistent among MBA students. I notice it a lot with my language and the way I interpret things. It is for this reason that I see what the GMAT is trying to accomplish. Sure it’s a bunch of numbers... and paragraphs that we all hate, but in studying for the GMAT I find myself at work now - “Well what is the assumption behind what this person is saying about this data? I’m an analyst, so I deal with a lot of numbers.”
With this being said, it’s ironic that B-schools want candidates who have a diversity of thought, but what I think they really mean to say is... to an extent! This commonality of thought is different for each business school, but I do think one exists. The whole “researching b-school” and “fit” is to find out if you share this commonality. If you can convey that you do... then you’ll have the best opportunity for admission. At least that’s what I think.
The more I go through this process and think that I am beginning to see what it really takes for admissions the more I THINK I’m beginning to see that it’s not as much as a black box as people make it out to be. I hope that I’m correct with this statement but only time will tell....and that time is decision week!
I am applying to four schools, and honestly... the more I go through the process and learn about each school the more I realize that I fit better with some more than others. I will not list them out here because there are “EYES” on my blog and I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot. You also may be thinking - “Well I know which school’s you’re talking about.” but I’ll leave it up to the imagination. Sometimes I even wonder if I should take one off the list.
In any event, this has become an extraordinary long post that has taken me an hour to write. So much for attempting to go to sleep at 11pm!
Whew ::wipes forehead:: I’m glad I got that off of my chest!
Time to sleep!
