Motown - November/December Updates

Since I missed the boat on writing out my November updates I’m going to combine both month’s milestones. In November I had the chance to visit and interview with Kellogg which I recapped HERE. Then my work travel schedule finally died down which really helped me finally focus on essays. In my personal life, I had my wisdom teeth pulled which honestly knocked me out for a week for recovery and just celebrating Thanksgiving. In hindsight, I don’t know if I would do that all over again. As a lesson learned, schedule any medical/dental things BEFORE the height of b-school season (if you can…). I somewhat feel like I’m still catching up from that week I lost.

Anyhow, since Thanksgiving I’ve been in a hardcore essay mode. I was forced to modify my school list and reduced it to 5 schools. This past Saturday I started my Consortium school deck, which is my second to last school deck!!!! Just one more school and then I’m ALMOST done. There are still some small logistics I need to complete like sending off my GMAT scores and transcripts which is ON my to-do list this week. Also, all my recommenders got all their recommendations in (except one who will get his in by Christmas)!! So I’m really glad that burden is released.

I’m also still taking this self-paced financial accounting course. My final exam was two days ago….I’m glad its over. But I still have a class project hanging over my head due by 12/31. In hindsight, I really wish I took this course a long time ago, but due to some logistics I wasn’t able to.

More in my personal life, I ended up rescuing a kitten within the last 3 weeks. My coworker found a kitten at our job and had no one to take it in…so I took it in..which now adds another distraction to this somewhat stressful season!

Anyhow, once that is over I’ll be home in Michigan for the holidays while also trying to complete this homestretch of applications. In the midst of all of this some of my R1 friends have gotten acceptances to Booth, Johnson and Kellogg!! Congrats to them!!! I’m sure there are more acceptances but I’ve kinda been off the radar socially because I’ve been feeling so swamped…so please forgive my head and not my heart.

Also, my good friend MktgBadger will be discussing her journey from application to acceptance and pre-matriculation at Kellogg in an upcoming post. So PLEASE tune in for that. CONGRATS AGAIN!!!!!!

Anyhow – I’m sure this will be my last post of the year until I resurrect myself post-submission. So I wanted to wish you all Happy Holidays and GOOD LUCK submitting R2 applications!! You can do it!!!!

oh yes...and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

-Motown

My kitten with her Kellogg Lanyard (her fave toy)...wishing all the Kellogg Admits a Congrats :-)

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Response to Did I do the math right? Part 2

Just wanted to highlight Accepted.com's response to my recent post: here

Enjoy!

-Motown

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Recommender Update

So I told all my recommenders (except one) that I would like my recs in by 12/9. Even though they had since August to prepare…only one person has officially submitted. Now the rat race begins.

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Luckily when I got to work, one contacted me before I could reach out. So I’m positive at least another one will be in by the end of the week. Two have not started at all. And another one, who I’m pretty cool with – we will probably talk about it over the holidays, so I’m not too worried. This is just something I wish I WASN’T doing while I’m writing essays :-/

Long story short, I'm looking at 1 out of 5 completed recommendations right now :-/

As a piece of advice to future applicants,  pulse your recommenders every 2-3 weeks….maybe that’s excessive..but then it won’t be hanging over your head. Any one have all their recs in already? (CONGRATS!) or anyone in this rat race with me?
-Motown

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Did I do the Math right? Part 2

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So now that my school list is finally final… My total count for essays has come to ::drum roll:: 21 essays!!

So far I have completed (all in varied draft modes) – 11 essays meaning which equates to 3 schools that are on their way to being “finalized”.
So that leaves 10 more essays left! Yikes!!!

To my surprise, my hardest essay’s have been the ones around: Why MBA/What are you professional goals?/What do you envision for your career.
Throughout this process, I knew exactly my ST and LT goals…but to articulate in 300 - 600 words is a different story. I’ve spent a lot of time just trying to hone that down…even soliciting feedback from friends/family whose opinions I never asked previously for anything (but its ALLLLL been appreciated ☺ )

Anyways, so this weekend, I’m still going to hone in on finalizing one/two on the school …and starting next week…..I’ll be starting a new school deck to kick off the last 3 schools and 10 essays I need to focus on.

I also prioritized my school list…even though I was previously fighting doing that. I did this so that IF I'm burning the midnight oil on Christmas eve I already know what school or two I’m knocking off the list. I don’t want to have to do it! But I don’t want to turn in sloppy essays or waste my time on something sub-par


Note: This is a continuation of my previous post


Anyone else struggling on a particular essay type? Anyone knocked off a school in the interest of time?
-Motown

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My Visit to Kellogg

A month ago I had the chance to visit Evanston, IL for Kellogg’s Diversity weekend. First thing, the campus is beautiful!!! There’s this lake, and then there’s flowers everywhere….it really made me miss being on a campus.

My first day there we all had the opportunity to hear Dean Sally Blount speak. One Word: AMAZING. She was super inspirational. Afterwards we had a marketing class and also heard an admissions panel. That afternoon I interviewed and then made it back in time for a professors panel. That evening there was a sushi happy hour in Chicago and then out in the city.

The next day we had the chance to network with students, participated in an entrepreneurial finance class (awesome!!!) and listened to an alum panel. Finally that evening we had small group dinners.

The best thing about this visit were the ample opportunities to mix and mingle with students. I loved being immersed in Kellogg’s culture and meeting soooooo many students! Also, this was the first school visit I actually stayed with current students which I think helped me really see how busy it is to be an MBA student.
Overall, loved the school and culture. I had a really good time exploring the campus. Also, as a suggestion, if you are in the process of visiting schools, I would HIGHLY suggest staying with students…this is something I wish I took more advantage of and secondly, if you are visiting a school on a large campus, pack walking shoes and carry your dress shoes in your bag….your feet will thank you ☺

Anyone else visit Kellogg?

-Motown

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GO BLUE!!!

No matter where we end up for grad school we will always bleed maize and blue! My freshman year I remember rushing the field after our win against Ohio state, I miss the Big House.

GREAT job Michigan & Coach Brady on the win against Ohio state! IT'S GREAT TO BE A MICHIGAN WOLVERINE!!

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Happy Thanksgiving!!

How are you spending your thanksgiving? After all my school visits I'm way over my bschool budget so this year I won't be going home.  I'm a little sad but at the same time kind of happy. I will have a few days off from work and with no distraction I can really finish up some of my essays/applications. I already made my thanksgiving break checklist ( You know I LOVE checklists) so now I just need to start checking things off and finish up these applications.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!!

-Ms. HR

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Understanding the Value in School Visits

Everyone always talked about visiting schools and how important it was. I now truly understand the value of school visits. If you asked me back in March the rankings of my schools they would be totally different from what my rankings are today. My visits to school definitely changed my rankings.  When I first started this process I thought " No way I'm visiting all the schools I'm applying too. That's to much money spent on just visiting. When I get an interview I will visit."  Someone I met along this bschool process said it best. Would you purchase/apply for a house without seeing it in person? I wouldn't, I would take a tour of the house. Maybe even do a few drive bys to make sure I really like it. lol

I decided if I (or someone else) was going to pay $100k for school I might as well spend a little bit more and visit my list of schools. I'm so glad I was fortunate enough to visit all of the schools I'm applying to.  After each visit I was able to tell if the school would be a good fit for me. The students, professors, admission officers and career center staff all played a different part in how that school fits into my personal rankings.  During my visits I arrived early and usually sat in the common area just to people watch and see how the students interacted with each other.  Not only did I get a chance to experience the schools culture but I also saw/heard specific things I could talk about in my essays.  My visit to each school allowed me to  make the an impactul statement in my essays about why that particular school.

Now let's hope my #1, #2 school choices love me as much as I loved them. For those of you who are starting your bschool journey make sure to budget in school visits. It will definitely be worth it!


-Ms. HR

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My Visit to NYU Stern

Seems like I’ve been spending a lot of time on the E. Coast :-) Anyways, last week I had the chance to visit NYU Stern for their Diversity Weekend.  It was also sooo cool.  Every time I get to go to the city I just get a huge Mary Tyler Moore moment and feel like I can do anything.  Also, I like how I don’t have to use a car…and get lost.  First thing, I LOVE Greenwich Village.  It’s SUCH a cute area!! 

Now on to Stern…It started on Thursday afternoon and icebreakers.  It was really cool to know they really wanted us to get to know each other.  Next, we had a mock marketing class.  Once again, I can’t believe how much I learned! It seriously had me yearning for more.  Anyhow, afterwards was dinner and we had the AWESOME opportunity to hear Dean Henry.  I was floored by his speech, openness and availability to talk to us prospective students…oh and the night ended with a Beer Blast which is a Stern Tradition :-)

The next day we worked on our 60-second pitch and then spent the rest of the day at the AABHAS conference. The conference was really informative, I met a lot of current students and heard some dynamic speakers- included Steve Stoute ::drool::  After the conference a happy hour.  :-)

The nxt morning we met at a beautiful venue to recap the week and meet alums.  Great time for networking and helpful hints!

Photo of Stern

Overall, Stern was great and same with NYC!!

-Motown

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My Visit to Johnson (Cornell)

I had the chance to visit cornell a few weeks ago for Johnson Means Business.  Let me tell you the campus is beautiful!  I got to campus a little early just to walk around and explore since it was also my first time to Ithaca. There was a lot of gorges around campus and each one I seen I had to stop and just admire the view. The picture to the right is one I took with my phone while walking across a bridge. The picture doesn't really do it justice but you kind-of get the point. The picture below I'm not sure what building that is lol. I want to say it was sage hall but I'm not sure. I took it when I was walking around. Again the campus was really pretty especially with all the fall colors.  So with this post I'm just going to highlight a few things I loved about visiting Johnson/Ithaca. Actually I loved everything so let me change that statement to things I REALLY REALLY loved. The ODI office did an AMAZING job putting together this event.  In the few days I was up there I learned so much and met so many people.

First, Sage social was really cool! You had faculty, students and their families hanging out enjoying food and drinks. It was a nice chance to network and talk with everyone.  Also the dean of Johnson was walking around talking to everyone. Throughout the weekend that was one thing I notice the dean was really involved with the events on campus.

Second, I sat in a finance and statistics class. The stats class interesting and had interesting sound effects. I guess the teacher is know for having sound effects with his powerpoints.  The finance class was also fun. I love class visits because you really get to see the student faculty relationship, which is always interesting. We actually had one of Johnson's communication teacher host a session on public speaking. She was FABULOUS.  I immediately wished I was a student so I could  sign up for her class.

Lastly, prior to the JMB event, they asked everyone to I had take an MBTI test. During a session we actually talked about the results and how the different personality types could make changes to themselves to effectively work together.  It was a fun interactive team building exercise.

After JMB, there was the diversity symposium. That event was also GREAT. Time permitting, I may do another post just about the diversity symposium. If your just starting your bschool process and Johnson is on your radar. I would definitely recommend going to JMB next year.

Side Note: So for those who have an inner fat kid like me, I had the BEST sandwich from this place called college town bagel. Anyone who's planning on going to visit Johnson try college town bagel!


-Ms. HR

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Articles I'm Reading....

Just wanted to share some articles/blogs I found interesting this week:

• Freakanomics Article about grade non-disclosure
• Interesting blog about acquiring no debt while in an MBA program

I'll keep trying to share these periodically.  Happy Reading!

-Motown

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My Visit to HBS

A few weeks ago I had the chance to spend a day at Harvard Business School, overall it was really cool! Since I happened to be on the E. Coast for work I was totally able to swing by Boston, visit a friend and visit HBS for Prospective Students Day!

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Before I start my recap, I will be honest, my Boston trip was kind of last minute…So I ended up staying at a friends apartment (who was gone on business for a night) and she said I could use her car.   So…my first experience that morning in Boston was conquering Boston traffic in torrential rain.  As I drove in the wrong direction, my contact decided to rip in my eye…OUCH.  So as I’m at a stop light, I throw out my left contact…and decide I’m just going to have one good eye for the day……now on to HBS

Just to recap, it started off with a warm welcome.  We got a presentation from admissions and a warm welcome from students.  From there we had a mock class, which was also super cool.  It was one of the first times I ever sat in a case class. As a person from an engineering background, I was shocked about how much I learned in such a short time and seriously…it was SO INTERESTING.  I should also note that we had to prep a case before.

Next we had lunch with prospective students and current students.  It was also really nice too.  The students were really open and honest about the whole business school application process, not just HBS.  

Following, we had a tour of the school.  So nice to know that there are Bschool dorms and HBS apartments as well.  Also, there are tunnels that connect all the buildings which will be SO convenient in the winter and worked in our favor since it was raining.  Post-tour, we listened to Alum and current student panels which was SOOO open.  I really LOVED the honesty and frankness that everyone exuded.

Finally, the day ended in a reception.  I appreciated how intrigued the students and alums were in my success.  Shocked.  They listened to my goals and even thought about ways I could improve it and hone it to fit the application.

Overall I really enjoyed my experience and the people! Even the prospective students were super cool.  Also, the facilities were fantastic as well and the architecture…uber impressive.

P.S It was raining really bad and I took one photo, and it sucked...also remember..my vision wasn't up to par.  My photo was sideways and gloomy looking…So I had to just use this image instead.

Anyone else visit HBS?  Thoughts?

-Motown

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First Interview of the Season

Last week I had my first bschool interview. Before I tell you about the interview let me tell you about prep. Over this bschool process google and I have become GREAT friends. I feel like google should know my computer's ip address by heart lol. Anyway there are some great tools/websites out there for the interview. The one I used the most was the clear admit wiki. I read ALL the entries and made sure I knew how to answer each question. I also did some mock interviews with a few people and some went well and some were really rocky. Motown can tell you that the first mock interview I did with her was a STRUGGLE!! THANK YOU MOTOWN FOR THE PRACTICE PREP!

Now interview story time (Sorry this wont be best story lol. It all happened so fast I can't remember the details ). I ended up waking up super early. I guess I couldn't sleep because of all the nerves. I arrived at my interview 30 minutes early. I'm the type of person that needs to get there early and get use to my environment.  The interview itself was more so a conversation rather than the "question after question" type interview. Overall I was able to convey the message I wanted to and left feeling good!

One interview down! Hopefully a few more to go. Good luck to you all that have interviews coming up!!


Ms. HR

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Motown - October Updates

This month has been just crazy and ended in a ball of stress.  As I mentioned, I spent a few weeks on the E. Coast for work so I was able to visit some schools and also get some alone time to flush a few essays.  Through all of this…and I’m sure you could tell from my recent posts…I’m about to shake up my school list.  More to come on this after I do a little research.   

Earlier this week, I was talking to a friend about my school selection and realized from ~March to the present, I am now assured what I want in a school…and back in March when I really started, I wasn’t as confident.  So now I know when I go to schools and speak to students I really want to focus on: non-traditional career paths, entrepreneurship, social enterprise and friendliness.  I realized that students being nice is totally different than being friendly and helpful.  

 Anyhow, the next month I will have my FIRST bschool interview (nervous) and I’m getting my wisdom teeth taken out....so that will knock me out at least for a few days for me.  Anyways, I’m just trying to hang in there. 

 ALSO…I wanted to end this post with a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE CONGRATS to my friend that got the Harvard interview invite!!! GOOD LUCK AND CONGRATS!!!!!! I knew your hard work would pay off!

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-Motown 

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Attempts at Writing Essays

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So far I have written ~two and a half essay decks. 

There are only a handful of essays I’m really happy about and the others are just okay.   I know that you can be your harshest critique but geez…I have a ways to go.  

I sat in front of my laptop with a blank stare the other day and gave up (just for the night)….b/c I really feel like I need to go back to the drawing board sometimes and think about two main things.  What is the theme of my essay deck and what does the school care about? 

To me that is the hardest part.

Last week I reviewed an essay deck with a friend and basically I realized that I needed to delete an entire essay and rewrite another one.  They just weren’t the right message.  So I started a Word-doc called “extra-writing”…where I throw in stories and paragraphs that get deleted.  I’m hoping I can eventually dig these up and use them later, but right now they are in a temporary garbage.  So far my “extra-writing ”doc  is 6 pages lol….just to let you know how much I’ve thrown out.

Anyways, so right now I’m just stepping back, reviewing the Excel document where I typed up my entire life, and asking…What stories does this school care about?

Good luck writing your essays!

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Will I get in?

Since I’m only applying to two Consortium schools, I’m debating adding one more school.   I’ve had a school on my mind for a while butttt I realized that applying to more than 6 schools may not be wise. 

As I shared my school list with a few of my close friends, some of them ask me, “Which one is your safety?”  Well, I do have 3 safety schools in which my GMAT fits in their 80% range and I’m within their GPA range as well, but these schools still have acceptance rates hovering around 25%.  So my questions to myself are: Will I get in? Am I overconfident?

While I do have faith that everything happens for a reason, I (guess) I’m okay not getting into any school.... as long as I put forth 100% effort into my applications.  Yet at the same time, am I short changing myself by selecting schools that are all pretty selective?

Anyhow, so the school I have in mind,  I researched extensively in the spring.  I really really really liked the students, alums and AOs that I met but was not sure that the school could really fulfill my ST and LT goals.  So…I took it off my list but always felt bad about taking it off…ARGH!!! What to do?! 

-Motown

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It finally hit me.....

Things are getting so real now.  Back when I was studying and researching business schools it seemed like just a goal that was so far away.  It finally hit me this week that yes I'm applying to business school. Just a little recap of this past week.  At the end of last week I received and email stating that I was admitted to Johnson Means Business (Cornell's diversity weekend).  I was actually writing essays in the library with one of my friends (future_JD) . We were talking about different school I planned on visiting and I realized that I didn't know when I would hear back from Cornell.  I called the ODI phone number they had listed on the website  and  the lady who answer the phone said "actually we will be sending out notifications today".  I tried to get back to writing essays but I couldn't stay focus  because I found myself checking my email every 5 mins. During my compulsive email checking, Future_JD thought it was funny to send me an email saying "boo"  ... not funny at all, I had to give her the side eye.  Finally at 5:11 PM I saw the email  that I had been accepted (YAAY!!)

Then this week I asked a key recommender for a recommendation. I was really nervous about asking this one because I had no idea how it would go. Needless to say everything went smoothly.  All smiles here! I did a lot of worrying over this recommender for nothing.

Its pretty much mid October I can't believe where the time has gone. I have about 2.5 months before R2 deadlines. So now its time to finish essays, interview prep and book travel for my last few school visits. Wish me luck!  

Ms.HR

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MLT

So there is ANOTHER application process going on besides business school.....its for MLT MBA Prep Program!!!!

I've been pretty mute about it so I really wanted to make a special post about it.  For the record, I would NOT be where I am today or have the mindset that I do without MLT.

For those of you that don't know what MLT is it is: Management Leadership for Tomorrow has a program called MBA Prep which helps underrepresented minorities (like myself) with the business school application process.  You can learn more about the specifics about the program here.

Through MLT I have been able to really think through this process.  I've been pushed to make sure that I understand my ST and LT goals and do research behind them.  My coach never just let me say "yea I wanna be a consultant and own a non-profit".  I was told to research.  That meant speaking with MBA students who had similar goals to mine and alums as well.  Although it was alot of work, my coach helped me through and now I feel wayyyy more confident writing alllll of these essays, meeting AO's and eventually interviewing.

With that said....you should def apply for MLT if you are in the beginning stages of your business school application process.  I applied last year, Fall 2010 and spoke to people who were in in MLT and who "graduated" from MLT to see what I was getting myself into.  If you have any questions about MLT please contact me here and I would LOVE to talk to you more about it.

FYI the R1 deadline already passed but the R2 deadline is  October 30, 2011 and the R3 deadline is November 20, 2011 (As space is available).

I hope this helps!

-Motown

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It's Great to be a Michigan Wolverine!

I <3 Michigan. Visiting Ross reminded me why I chose University of Michigan for undergrad. First things first, ann arbor is such a cute town. Football was amazing. During this busy trip to Michigan I made sure to attend a football game. All the Michigan Alumni you must go back and visit the Big House, it is so much better!  The Big House was great before but its amazing now. The student section had a new chant and the DJ was 100x better.

Okay now to the good stuff , Ross! I too signed up on their website. I paid to park in a parking structure that was like a 3 min walk from the bschool. Parking was really cheap from like 8am-1pm it was only $5.   I enjoyed the two 2nd years students they had at Q&A session. Both were really straight forward with their answers. One thing I noticed and liked about the Ross visit is that they had a lot of classes to choose from. Since the classes where throughout the day you could potential go to more than one class.

I have to co-sign with Motown, the building was absolutely AMAZING! The 6th floor view is breathtaking.

The highlight of my visit to Ross was definitely the class I attended.  I went to a class called "Persuasive Management Communication". During the class they had to give a 5 min presentation on any persuasive topic.  The students  gave presentations on various different topics. A few of my favorite were  "Why to go to Thailand for New years" , "say no to kindle dxg" and my favortite one was "why you need to own a koozie".  Not only do the topics show so much personality but during the Q&A section after each presentation the students asked witty and funny questions.  If this class represents the entire bschool class I can definitely see myself fitting in.

I was not able to connect with anyone who wanted to do  HR post MBA but everyone I asked gave me their contact information and said they would put me in contact with someone who was doing. I'm in Michigan a few more days so hopefully I'll connect with someone before I leave


-Ms. Hr

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Rosswesome

Overall my visit to Ross was pretty pleasant. I just did a VIP visit though the website, so it was not affiliated with a diversity/special event.  This was the first time I did a visit like this. It was nice seeing the school as “authentic” as possible.

Anyhow heres my play by play.

So first, parking was not easy to find…and I am pretty familiar with ann arbor. I looked for some parking in student neighborhoods and eventually just caved in and parked in a structure. Just a heads up for anyone planning a visit, leave early b/c I probably walked about 3-5 blocks to get to the school. It was really nice and reminded me of my life on campus. However keep in mind, I knew where I was going…so if you aren’t familiar with the twists and turns of the campus…leave early!

I was in disbelief how beautiful the school was.  From what I understand, Ross got its new building in 2009, which was after I graduated. I totally felt like I was not at Michigan….which was great for me b/c I could feel that it would be something ‘new’ for me if I ended up going to Ross.

Anyways so when I got there I signed up and went spent about an hour with two students in a Q&A. They were all friendly and pretty candid. I could not believe how honestly they answered my questions about financial aid. Afterwards we went on a campus tour. Once again, I was soooo impressed by the facilities. It’s super state-of-the-art! We went to the 6th floor of Ross and you could see the skyline of Ross. I realized, after spending 5 years at Michigan, I never had seen the campus from a rooftop. I literally was drooling at how pretty the campus was and the fact you could see the Big House in the background.

Anyhow, after the tour I went to a Corporate Strategy course which is apart of the core. So the students had only been in class 3 weeks but their insights seemed (at least to me) pretty solid. I didn’t see the case, but it was pretty easy to catch on and interesting. I also took a few random notes and looked around. I saw that most people weren’t on laptops or phones (so really engaged in the class discussion) and also most students raised their hands to speak....and usually spoke for about 45 secs to 1 min. So I thought they were engaged but also like not trying to hog the spotlight..which is cool. Also, the demographics of the class were pretty mixed. There were like ~80 students and it looked like a mix from all over the world with a (kind of) even number of men and women.

Anyways, so afterwards was lunch. I was honestly starving and the lunch was SO good. They host a restaurant in one area of their Wintergarden (which is their cafeteria area) and this week was a Middle Eastern restaurant. By the way, middle eastern is like my favorite kind of food...I was sososososososososososo happy about the food!

After lunch I broke away from the group to go to the admissions office to get a few questions answered. I was really disappointed that no one was there to answer my questions. I tried financial aid too, and no one was available. So the catch about doing random visits on campus is that it’s kind of hit or miss to be able to connect with admissions reps. Just keep that in mind in the future if you are planning any random visits, not associated with a special event.

Lastly, my takeways from my visit are:

• I’m now 100% comfortable imagining myself at Ross. I don’t think it would be a ‘repeat’ of my undergrad, which was one of my top concerns. I really felt like I was at a different school
• A student told me that, he took advantage of going to school with a college atmosphere since this is probably the last time he would be in a ‘small’ town
• There’s no class on Fridays
• There’s no GPA

Well hope this helped someone out there. Tomorrow check out Ms. HR's post about her visit to Ross

-Motown

Note: the title Rosswesome came from a student’s team name. I thought it was pretty clever and funny….just wanted you to know I was NOT the one that made that up!

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Wharton Student Interview

So during this quest to get my MBA I have spoken to probably at least 20-30 students. All who have given me pretty honest answers about their experiences at school X. So lately, I have been changing my strategy to speak to students that are not interested in social enterprise. I’ve decided to switch it up a bit and see how students outside of social enterprise evaluate programs (in case I ever want to switch when I get to school). So last month I had the chance to speak with a Wharton student in Retail and Luxury goods(one of my back up back up plans…more to come on that later). Below are (some) the details:

This student had a great internship with an R&L company and spoke about the job treks that helped her get this opportunity. As far as academics, she said that the first year at Wharton is grueling with the core courses but at the same time the curriculum is changing to be more focused on leadership for incoming classes.

She also told me about her experience with Wharton Leadership Ventures, which are treks that are generally risky and test how you react in stressful situations. I thought that was sooooo cool. Also, she mentioned how Wharton is going to be changing their curriculum a bit to focus a bit more on leadership.

Wharton is great for the student that wants a very rigorous business school curriculum, but also has great leadership opportunities with plenty of available resources.

Anyone else thinking about Wharton?

-Motown

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Is Anything Free in this Bschool Application Process?

FREE that word usually makes me smile especially during this expensive bschool process.  During the last year I've attended a lot of different webinars about business schools and during some of those webinars they offered complementary services and ebooks. It is amazing all the help that is out there that can be used to help you create the best application possible.  Here's a list of complementary services I've came across since starting this bschool journey.

• Resume Review- You can just google " free MBA Resume review" and plenty of options will come up 
• Admission consulting and/or profile analysis:  Here are a few companies I've used mba mission, admit advantage, and Clear Admit .  As a side note is anyone planning on using a consulting company?
• eBooks on resume, essays, and profile analysis  on different parts of the MBA process 
• Gmat prep- Beat the gmat if you haven't already check them out their  daily questions are extremely helpful!

Ms. HR

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Motown: September Updates

So as you can see, we have been pretty mute this month especially since B-school application process is in gear.

Now that all my applications have gone live, I’ve reached out to all my recommenders and provided each school their email addresses.  I already had one recommender email me and tell me she is almost done! And I had another one finish! (note: The schools didn’t send me a notification that he was done..so FYI check your apps often!) I was NOT expecting my recommenders to be this quick since I told them Dec 1 for all recs.  So NOWWW this weekend I need to source out some thank you gifts. Also, does this mean I may make R1 for some schools? I’m debating that right now.

Also, I have some good news! (for me at least)….I got into the diversity weekend I applied to! Yay! I was worried because the resume I submitted wasn’t the one that I just revised (for the 10th time).  So I was stressed out about that.  Nonetheless, will be at Stern next month.  Now I’ve got to figure out these logistics….

I also, registered for another diversity weekend at Kellogg.  So I have that on my calendar now and looks like I’ll be there as well.  I now have to reach deep deep into my network to find someone to crash with…yet some more logistics.

Finally, my suspicions were verified.  I’ll be doing another long trip for my company.  This will be both good and bad.  It’ll put me closer to some schools that I would like to visit, but also I’m nervous if it will impact my deadline for business school or hinder my chances of being able to attend diversity weekends.  Also, I don’t want the quality of my work to be affected since my trip will be fun yet have some aggressive deadlines.

Also I visited Ross last week...so I will be doing a recap on that next :-)

More to come!
-Motown

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Michigan Time!!

I'm heading to back to Michigan ( GO BLUE!!!! ) this week to help recruit for the company I work for. One of many thing about michigan I loved as an undergrad was all the different career fairs. Each school ( engineering, business, LS&A) all had their own career fair. Even though I will be going to Michigan to help recruit for my company I'm planning a visit to ross.   After I left michigan the new building for Ross opened so I'm excited to see all the new amenities that Ross has. Expect an update of my Ross visit next week!

-Ms.HR

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Bschool Checklist Revisited

It's a been a while since I had the chance to write. Looking back at the dates the last post I wrote was August 8th!  This is the last time I let that much time go by. Sooo looking back at my Bschool-checklist I made in July, lets see what I have accomplished and how much I have to go

• GMAT
• Address any gaps I see in my profile -by this I mean if I'm weak on volunteering, get involved in something I'm passionate about.
• Set budget and save for bschools application process
• Research schools
• Finalized schools which I'm planning on applying too
• Revise resume and get professional feedback on it - I only put this as 1/2 done b/c I would like to go through another round of professional feedback 
• Think about and finalize recommenders list
• Decided which recommenders will do what school
• Make timeline of application deadlines and plan for execution- I have my deadlines set but no plan detailed plan of excution. Just trying to knockout essays.
• My brand - this bullet point deserves to have its very own post

Well I'm happy to see I'm almost finished with this list. As soon as I make my detailed execution plan I'm sure I will have another list to get through.

-Ms. HR

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Interview with Accepted.com

It's been a while since we had a chance to post but take a look at our interview with accepted.com

http://blog.accepted.com/2011/09/09/mba-applicant-blogger-interview-motown-ms-hr-and-mads-moms-journey/

-Fortune800mba team

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Crunched for Time

Source

Earlier this week I was talking to a friend,, who is also applying for business school, and when we finally looked at it…there really isn’t much time at all!!!!

::screams::

 It's only 1.5 months until mid-Oct 1…the R1 deadline and 4.5 months from mid-Jan….R2 deadlines.  So what will I do inbetween then?

Well mostly I will be a writing machine…literally.  Writing/reworking/editing/re-editing/stressing over up to 25 essays.  Anyways, also I will be going to a few diversity weekends at up to 3 schools.  Reality really set in  for me in four distinct moments in August.

1)     I applied for a Diversity weekend (hopefully I get in)

2)     I did some research about moving over my 401K (for when I get my MBA and quit my job)

3)     I mapped out my calendar through October and mapped out internal deadlines for each school I am applying to.  I plan to be done with all apps by Christmas.
4) I realized I can interview for 2 of my schools before I submit my application 

Well I need to figure out which other school’s Diversity weekends I will be going to.  I really want to be strategic about it since I don’t really have that many vacation days.  Also,  it looks like I will be doing another long trip for my job, so I’m not really sure where I will be in the next few months anyways ….So although I’m a planner…looks like I’ll have to wing it a bit too. 

Just trying to stay on top of things….

-Motown

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