MBA or bust.

I’ve been nominated for Clear Admit’s Best of Blogging! Voting happens in the next week or so…

But I’m leaving for a two week vacation tomorrow. I’m flying on American but on the 757s which aren’t affected by the groundings. Hopefully I get to my destination without any trouble. I’ve got some zip lining through the rain forest, hot spring soaks, volcano hikes, ATV adventures, and lots of beach time with my girl friends scheduled. I’m also using this trip as a test run for packing light. I actually have extra room in my backpack. However, I’ve been known to stuff extra clothes in at the last moment when there is space.

My Europe trip is falling into place. I’ve got this spreadsheet that probably makes me appear crazy outlining my destinations, transportation costs, hotel reservations, etc. I don’t have my restaurants and activities planned, but I do like to keep track of my expenses as well as know where I’m going to be, how I’m going to get there, and where I’m going to sleep.

There probably won’t be too much blogging here moving forward. I’ll leave this site up since I found reading other peoples’ experiences from the previous years really helped me prepare my application this year. If you have any questions please feel free to email me. Good luck to the incoming class of 2010 and to next year’s applicants for class of 2011!

Oh yes, and I officially gave notice of my resignation earlier this week. YAY! Only six weeks of work left after I return from vacation.

…besides work:

• Plan my Costa Rica/Belize trip. Still not sure what we want to do on the tail end of our Costa Rica trip yet. So far, we’re going to be in Arenal and Monteverde swimming in hot springs, hiking to volcanoes, and zip lining through the rainforest canopies.
• Play Scrabble & Boggle on Facebook
• Plan my European trip. Flights have been purchased! Now I just have to finalize my agenda. The first few weeks overlap with the Eurocup, which should be fun, but makes Salzburg and Vienna a little more expensive and difficult to secure housing. I’ve never stayed in hostels before, so Austria will be my first time. I’ve booked two days of hostel respite in Vienna via my Starwood Points, and then a few more days of hostel living in Bratislava before I meet my friend in Budapest. We’ll be watching the Eurocup Quarterfinals in Budapest and Zagreb. The final match will be somewhere on the Dalmation Coast. And then onwards to Greece and the Cyclades before I return home. Still gotta research ferries, train schedules, hotels, etc…but its all falling into place. I’ve been a bit obsessed with this trip for the past week…took a while to iron out the details of my solo Austrian leg. For you Greece/Croatia experts, do you suggest we prebook accommodations given we’ll be there late June and all of July?
• Ponder my last day in the office. I think it’ll be June 5.
• Pass my work on to my direct report…transition planning!

I looked through my financial aid package today…seems like I’ll have to take $33k in Grad Plus loans (8.5% adjustable w/3% down). This is definitely more than I have in cash, so I’m not sure how they’re figuring I have that much to spend during my first year of school (they calculated 401ks, idiots). Luckily, I got a small scholarship/grant/whatever. It is not as sizeable as Duke’s offer, but still better than nothing.

My bf is faxing a signed copy of my Evanston lease to the landlord tomorrow. Money is just flying out of my coffers left and right. I’ve been in Orlando for the past week. Oh, and I made Premier status on United last year. That was a nice surprise.

Today and tomorrow I’ll be tied up with jury duty. Jury duty is not unlike high school detention…except I have wireless access (yay SF!).

My summer travels are slowly being fleshed out. My last day in the office will be June 6. I have a wedding June 7th in LA and then I’m free to leave whenever is convenient. I don’t have to be back in SF until the first weekend of August. I’ve cut out Tanzania (cost-prohibitive) but Egypt is still a possibility (~$500 flight from Athens). Right now, it looks to be a 6-7 week backpacking trip through Czech, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Greece, Turkey…and who knows what else with a budget of $5-7k (transatlantic flight will be booked on miles). I’ll stay with a high school friend in Prague, do the Austria leg by myself (unless anyone out there on the internets wants to relive the Sound of Music with me in Salzburg? or watch the Eurocup?), and then meet up with a friend for the remainder of the trip. My fingers are crossed that this works out since it would be VERY nice to have a buddy to travel with for a month.

DAK was awesome! I met a bunch of really great potential classmates. I was awed by how down-to-earth everyone is. One even lent me his jacket for the evening after my luggage was delayed. I’m totally drinking the kool-aid:

• My Kellogg deposit is in the mail
• Income taxes have been filed
• FAFSA completed
• Broke up with Duke this afternoon. Too bad Kellogg isn’t giving me the same kind of $$ (or any at all, for that matter)
• The bf (or JV in Kellogg-speak) is also drinking the juice. He’s looking forward to the KWEST trip this summer and has started studying for the GMAT.
• I met with a healthcare professor and can’t wait to take his classes. Next year, I’m going to look into producing better communications/marketing materials for prospective students interested in healthcare at Kellogg. While the program is strong, it is really really hard to find backup materials that make you feel the program is comparable to Haas, Duke, and Wharton. It is a little bit flaky mostly because there isn’t much information on how the program is run, there aren’t any statistics, and information available isn’t as in-depth as the other schools. After talking to the professor, I’m confident in the strength of this program.

Still to do/in progress (mostly stuff I can’t do since I don’t have a fax machine at home):

• Drop calculus
• Financial aid/scholarship paperwork almost done (gotta fax it in tomorrow…why do they want to know how much is in my 401k?? I am not liquidating that for school)
• Housing application almost complete (I don’t have a fax at home so gotta wait til I get to work). Once that’s done, I’ll send a furniture deposit to the student who currently resides in the apartment. All I really have to do in August is bring my clothes, TV, Tivo, and wireless router. YAY!
• Figure out if my tires are all season. Hopefully they are so I don’t have to buy a set of new ones.

Aside from being cold, poor, and back in school…all this purple will be an adjustment. Since 1st grade, I’ve always been blue and gold. Yesterday, I walked into the very small student store in downtown Evanston and was incredibly overwhelmed by the purple. It looked like Barney had exploded into a space the size of two office cubicles. The best I can do right now is grey with purple lettering. A hoodie will probably be my first on-campus purchase this fall.

Random: The admissions director mentioned that Kellogg’s Round 1 admits had an average GMAT score of 721 and an average GPA of 3.5. I’m dragging down the GMAT but raising the GPA numbers.

As much as I travel, I really dislike packing and unpacking. I never actually unpacked from my last trip to Orlando…I’m just rearranging things for my trip to Evanston for DAK. I’ll be home for a few days and then I’ll probably rearrange things again for my trip BACK to Orlando.

I hate being limited to the items that I bring. I never pack efficiently (it would take too much time to repack) so I’m always embarassed of the size of my suitcase. I’m even more embarassed when I travel to colder climates. I’m ALWAYS cold so I have to pack lots of warm clothes…which take up a lot of space. I work mostly with boys and its amazing how many days of suits they can fit into a small carryon bag. Although I’m not a major girly girl, I still need shoe options. Oh, and my toiletries take up a lot of space.

How am I going to fit everything I need for six weeks in Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, and East Africa all in one backpack? That will be a challenge.

I can’t wait to get into a bikini. Hawaii has been canceled, but Belize and Costa Rica aren’t too far away!

I got my scholarship letter from Duke last week. It was SIGNIFICANTLY more than I expected, but not significant enough to change my mind. I’m going to break up with Fuqua and send my deposit to Kellogg after I return from DAK.

With the final decision in via email this morning, I close out my application season with a .500 hit rate (and 100% interview rate…not bad!).

I had a pretty good hunch I wasn’t going to get the admit from Cal during my interview. My interviewer asked me some pretty tough questions that I didn’t really have good answers for. Perhaps if I had prepared at all (I pretty much just relied on my previous preparation…two months prior) I could have done better. However, with a Kellogg admit in my pocket, my heart wasn’t really into Cal. While I know Cal would have made academic and financial sense, I am really in this not just for the education, but for the experience.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that my phone beeped TWICE during my interview. I had it on silent, so it shouldn’t have beeped (yeah, I’d forgotten about the Wharton debacle already and forgot to turn my phone off), so that was another omen of the impending DING.

What have I learned? If my heart isn’t into something, I am fairly obvious…even if I try not to be. Wharton read my dislike of Philly and Cal probably read my “been there, done that…and I’ve got an admit already” attitude. I never claimed to be good at poker.

There’s a scholarship letter on its way to me via USPS from Duke. However, I doubt it will be enough to sway me.

Evanston here I come!

Last night, my bf & I caught the one night showing of Spirit of the Marathon, a documentary that follows several runners (some elite, some average) through their training leading up to the 2005 Chicago Marathon. If you are a runner, I highly recommend this movie. After my IT band setback while training for the 2007 Marine Corps Marathon, I put another marathon out of my mind. However, watching this movie has inspired me for another marathon: Chicago or New York 2010. Why not sooner? I have my whole life to run marathons. I’m not hampering my business school experience with the discipline required for 20-mile training runs. This morning, we made plans to run a marathon in three years…TOGETHER.

Watching the runners train and race around Chicago made me super excited for my impending move to the (suburbs of) the Windy City. I kept grabbing my bf and telling him, “I know exactly where that is! I’ll take you there when you come out and visit me!” and “We’ll run the Lakeshore too!”

While I don’t plan on running the Chicago Marathon in 2008, maybe I can volunteer at an aid station. At the very least, I’ll be a spectator. I couldn’t help but tear up when the runners crossed the finish (yes, my bf made fun of me for that). I remembered my own feelings when I crossed the finish line of my first (and only) marathon…the sense of accomplishment and the knowledge that with some effort and discipline, one can knock off something as seemingly impossible as running 26.2 miles…or getting into a top 10 business school.

Oh, and the truth is, I didn’t just cry when I crossed the finish line. I may have cried the last four miles. My legs were shot.

I didn’t fall in love at Super Saturday. While I really liked all the students and prospectives I met, I realized the Berkeley experience is something I’ve already done. Time for something new. The dual-degree program, age range, and cost of Haas may suit me better. However, Kellogg is a new experience. At the end of the day, they’re both great MBA programs and I already have the Berkeley brand on my resume.

I’ll just have to add some purple to my wardrobe next year. And watch Cal football from afar. And get a super thick warm coat. BRRRRR…

Got the news via email this morning. Got a phonecall from my student interviewer shortly after. However, they want me to take Calculus. You all know how I feel about Calculus…*blech*

Gotta review my application for Haas’ Super Saturday today. No doubt they would also make me take Calculus…and maybe economics.