Tuesday, January 8, 2008

So I booked our trip to Chicago for the Day at Kellogg, which is actually a weekend but that’s not important. I am looking forward to getting away from work and things around here for a at least a weekend. I think at least once a day someone asks me when I am leaving for school, its gotten old already because how can someone who attended college and has kids in college not know school doesn’t begin until the fall. So it will actually be nice to take the next step in the process, sitting around and waiting for this to move forward is getting boring.

The only stressful thing at this point is selling out house, since it is such a bad real estate market. Luckily our house is totally reno vated or soon will be, and is in a town where sales have held pretty strong. We do have a fair amount of equity but at this point its going to be more important to get it sold than to squeeze every last dollar out of it. Ob viously it would be great to make a large profit on the house, it would make trying to live on just one income the next two years much easier to do.

There are so many things that need to get done before we move and just thinking about it is very daunting. I have another 6 mont hs or so at work, and that gets tougher everyday since I know that I am leaving. I was doing the scheduling for our next project (this one will end about the time I graduate) and the initial due dates aren’t even until after I will be gone. I feel bad in a way because I do a lot of work and there is no one here now who understands my systems…they have been very slow about bringing someone else in from a different area too. I guess it shouldn’t bother me since they pretty much will have had a years notice which is far more than the 2-4 weeks most people give when leaving a job.

While it is stressful and rather nerve wracking to think about moving and what school will be like, I am really looking forward to it. Not so much the class work or anything since I have nev er been the most studious person, but just the whole b-school experience. I have met a lot of great people during the application process, both during visits and events, and discussing the process online. I think coming from an undergrad experience that while it is great to reflect back on really was not fun when I went through it, the military aspect of it and the fact no one really stuck around on weekends pretty much eliminated any normal college experience. I am definitely not looking for the experience of a 20 year old college kid but it will be nice not having to march around in a uniform or spend two months sailing the oceans this time around.

Having the good fortune of being admitted extremely early in the process I have been able to watch the results come in without much worry. Yesterday was the final day for Kellogg admissions, it seems like almost everyone was WL…there were a few admits and dings here and there but overall it was a bunch of people getting WL. Its amazing that some people behave the way they do. I know its stressful and its upsetting when you don’t get in, heck I will admit I was disappointed when I didn’t get into Chicago even though I preferred Kellogg. It probably has a lot to do with competitive nature of the highly accomplished people who are applying to the top schools. But seriously if people can’t handle the application process how are they going to handle recruiting, group members relying on them for a vital part of a huge project, or even worse a high pressure work environment post grad. Seriously if someone giving themselves an ulcer during the application season then business school and the corporate world probably aren’t for them.