Vacation Reading

Yesterday I finally sat down with the Associate director of Public Affairs at Planned Parenthood. I am really excited to work for her. I'll be starting when I get back from my vacation next week. I think it will be a great learning experience. I expressed to her my desire to really learn how a non-profit runs, particularly one that involves public policy. I also told her that I fully understand that an intern is going to responsible for a lot of grunt work and I'm willing to do that with no complaints as long as I can really get a glimpse into this world of non-profit. I hope its everything I want! If it's not...god only knows what I'm going to do with my life?!

On another note, my week ends with a bit of a wimper. I have decided that I must sacrifice some fun in the sun for the sake of my b-school ambitions. But this sacrifice will begin after next week where I will spend the entire week on a houseboat in Lake Shasta. Wakeboarding, water skiing and probably lots of eating and drinking. But before you get too excited for me, the vacation is with my entire family...aunts, uncles, cousins, mother...let us hope everyone survives. 5 days on a boat with no escape but the vast waters of Lake Shasta. I fear for the life of a family member! :-o

I have compiled a list of reading material for my 5 days on the boat. Exciting stuff...brochures from Stanford, MIT, NYU, Columbia, Wharton and I may throw in The New Yorker and/or Rolling Stone magazines for kicks. And of course the good old O.G. I am determined to get in 1 hour a day (how hard can that be?) of practice problems while on the boat. Wish me luck! Happy 4th of July to all the bloggers from the U.S. and happy weekend to all the rest :-)

Not even close!

Oh my god! I just took my second Princeton practice GMAT and am consequently freaking out! This is NOT OK! After having studied for a couple weeks my score has not improved at ALL??? WTH? My first practice exam before any studying was a 640, 41-Q 37-V which pretty much sucked, I should have done MUCH better on the quant. The verbal I expected to suck at. But I blamed it on the fact that my time management sucked and with a little review and practice I'd do fine the second time around...well it turns out I'm just plain stupid. This time I still got the 640 with a 42-Q and 36-V? I am borderline retarded apparently.

I am going to try really hard to not go crazy over this. I have to hunker down and stop playing so much. It's time to give up the salsa dancing until August. Dammit! I'm going to go take a nap now until I feel better.

Practice makes perfect, right?

This weekend I did a lot of practice problems. Well "a lot" is relative I suppose. I did roughly 10 s.c., 35 C.R., 22 D.S., and 30 P.S. I made 1 mistake on the SC, 4 mistakes on the C.R., 1 on the D.S. and 2 on the P.S. What irritates me about my mistakes is that once I review the problem without knowing the correct answer I can find the correct answer immediately. The mistake I've made is either reading the question wrong or when I narrow my answer choice down to two choices, I pick the incorrect one. Doing each section separately I didn't make any errors until at least 10 to 15 prolems in (accept for the S.C., I made that error on the second question!).

I keep reading about how the Princeton Review is too easy and I'm starting to worrry. Although the practice problems they have me doing are from the O.G. 11, I still worry that I should be doing worse than I am? Or maybe I should just have a little more confidence and assume that my practicing is making me almost perfect ;-) ? I am going to take my second Princeton practice exam tomorrow. My first one didn't go so well (640) but that was done before I did any studying. So I'm hoping this time I'll get at least a 720. Then by my next practice exam I can reach my official target score of 750 and keep that consistent for the following practice exams.

I can't help but wonder if I should be taking more practice exams? At the moment I am only doing what is assigned by the Princeton Review course. Maybe I should start taking 1 practice exam per week? Maybe buy the Kaplan book with the CD of pracitce exams? I can build up my stamina for the real thing? One of my major problems with the GMAT is sitting still for that long. I think I have adult on-set ADD! Even at work I have to get up every 15 to 20 minutes. I just can't sit still for that long.

I'm also starting to worry about applications. I've done nothing in terms of figuring out goals, leadership examples, why now, etc., ...I just can't multitask. I am not the typical woman. I can't balance work, studying, and applications all on top of my regular day to day life. I have my properties to manage, tenants to pacify, a dog that must go on a 5 mile run every day, salsa dancing to do, etc. etc. etc. I guess I could change my priorities around a little bit like all of those other bloggers out there that are complaining of no life but the GMAT, but I just can't do it. I like my life too much. I just need to get teh GMAT out of the way first and then I can focus on apps. I just hope I am not leaving myself too little time for the apps considering I'm not taking the GMAT until the beginning of August? I suppose only time will tell!

The sun is an obstacle to a 750 GMAT

How on Earth am I expected to sit inside and practice GMAT problems when it's 80 something degrees outside and the sun is calling my name? It's a serious problem! They really have this application process backwards. We should have to take the GMAT at the start of spring. We could study all thru the winter when the days are shorter and there are less fun things to do during the week (weekends are always good for some snowboarding at least ;-). Application deadlines should be at the start of summer. It may be hard to write essays thru the spring due to that damn sun again, but I seem to be more inspired in the spring so in the long run it'd be a benefit. Then we could have our entire summers to mountain bike, run, wakeboard, salsa dance, or just sit on the patio with a margarita listening to some music while adcom did their thing and we waited for word on our fates.

All that being said I did manage to squeeze in a few hours of studying this weekend despite the sun shining in a clear blue sky. I'm pretty happy though because I seem to be gaining that patience I so lacked at the start of the studying. I did about 40 data sufficiency problems and only made 2 careless errors at about 25 questions in. I also did about 35 sentence correction problems but didn't do as well. I missed about 4 of those questions. But once again those mistakes were careless errors so as long as I keep working on my patience I think I'll be fine. I will get that 750 on my GMAT no matter how distracting that sun may be!

Tonight my cousin's boyfriend, a Phd student at Stanford, has put together an event near the Stanford campus to watch the Espana world cup game. UNIVISION (a local spanish channel) will be at the event too. He had a similar event for the other Espana game and the TV crews were there as well. My cousin was the only female there so they forced her to do an on air interview. I fear that this time we will be the only women there and I will have to avoid the cameras like the plague! Anyway, I really couldn't care less about the World Cup but my cousin's boyfriend told me that some of his students (he teaches at the Stanford GSB) will be there and that I could interrogate them about Stanford GSB! Yay!!

Brand Name Whore

I am a brand name whore. I like brand name clothing, sunglasses, jewelry, watches, etc. Don't get me wrong I have plenty of $5 sunglasses and clothing from Target but I do indulge myself on 5th Ave in NY once in a while.

And yes, I want the brand name MBA! One of my best friends tells me that I'm an education snob. But then again he only dates "hot" chicks...so he's not allowed to judge...he likes those girls for their bodies and I like men for their brand name education...I think both of us are probably in the wrong here, but that's a story for another day. Last night I went out with another friend. I've been quite the party girl recently, by Sunday I will have gone out 6 nights this week? Wow, I really should be studying for the GMAT!...but I digress. Back to my story. Some guy was hitting on me at the bar. We got to talking and as soon as he said that he had gone to a community college for a few years and then finally finished his degree up at State (mind you, finally meant that he had taken an additional 4 years to finish at State) I lost all interest. Now it's not completely fair to judge me at this point as I'm not sure I was all that interested in the first place. But I wonder if he had said that he had just finished up at Stanford or Berkeley or any other top school if that would have peaked rather than waned my interest? Regardless, it occurred to me at that moment that brand name in education matters to me. So I decided that I will not settle for getting my MBA at anything less than a top ranked school! Call me what you will, but I am a sucker for brand names and I've just come to accept this about myself. Now I will have to blog anonymously forever because anyone I meet at b-school in the future will have read this and, probably rightly so, will have decided that I am a complete snob!

The Internship and Salsa Dancing

As of right now I am still an engineer but only part time. It's quite a cushy set up I have. I only work about 20 hours a week, I come and go as I please and I get very well compensated. You may be asking yourself "umm why is she only working par time?" Ok so maybe you aren't asking yourself that but I have asked myself that many times...trying to justify my laziness I suppose. I came up with the following excuse: I wanted to have more free time to do my applications and I wanted to find work part time in the non-profit world since that's what I want to go into after getting my MBA. So I did it finally! I got an internship at Planned Parenthood! I am so excited! I'll be working there 20 hours a week in their public affairs and clinic advocacy departments. I'll be working full time now more or less.

I'm hoping this internship will give me the chance to develop my leadership skills and show my desire to adcom that I am comitted to this career change to non-profit! Plus now I'll have more fodder for my essays and a greater pool of people to ask for Letters of Rec! Woohoo!

Totally unrelated to my MBA...Salsa dancing is good for the soul. I swear it. Every time I go dancing I leave totally refreshed and happy. Not to mention my ego is very well stroked over the course of the evening :-) I am so easy when dancing..."Eres tan linda, Que hermosa! nos casamos?, bailas tan bien! Increible!". Really they say this to every girl they dance with but I am putty in their hands everytime :-) (only if they are good dancers, of course! I am such a salsa snob, not sure when that happened?). Thank goodness I have my partner in crime to bring me back down to earth. She reminds me that we call them our "salsa boyfriends" for a reason! Not to be taken outside the salsa club! I've made that mistake before and sadly I've lost one of my favorite dancing partners. He won't dance with me anymore :-( I had a salsa crush on him and I thought just maybe the crush would last outside of the salsa club but sadly I was mistaken. And his feelings were hurt...girls who want to find a sensitive man...find a salsero! I swear they were all girls in their past lives! Or if you just need a nice evening of ego boosting...go salsa dancing! And boys, if you want hot, barely clothed girls (not saying I am one of these, but clubs are full of them) hanging all over you...learn to dance! Just my 2 cents worth for today.

The Back Up Plan

I believe congratulations are in order! I've come up with a back up plan just in case Stanford or the others don't want me! My back up plan is to win the lotto. And just in case that doesn't work out I have even thought of a back up back up plan, I will marry a filthy rich man on the verge of death. I feel that my chances of accomplishing my back up plans may be much more likely than getting into Stanford or any other top 10 school.

After reading the billions of blogs and forums and student profiles...I have decided that I am not as impressive as I used to think I was. When comparing oneself to the general public it is quite easy to come out on top. However, start comparing onself to other top 10 b-school applicants and all the sudden it's not such a pretty picture! All of you mba bloggers are so damn accomplished and successful do you really need your MBA? Maybe you should reconsider and let the less successful folk, such as myself have a chance? Gee Thanks! That would be swell! Well I'm not that bad, after all I have run a marathon and I am a pretty good salsa dancer...you think that can compare with those mba applicants that have their own million dollar corporations? Hmmm? I have my doubts.

Yesterday I went car shopping with my mother. She brought a binder full of research that she had done on all the cars she wanted to test drive. She was driving me insane and I told her that she has over researched her car buying process and thus taking all the fun out of it! Maybe that's what I'm doing with this MBA? Ugghhhh now back to sentence correction drills.

Stanford GSB Info Session

Well I had my first "official" info session at an MBA school. I have the sneaky suspicion that after every info session I am going to proclaim my love for that particular school? Anyway, Stanford GSB...

I Live near by Stanford so it reallyis not a problem for me to get there. However, I am directionally challenged and ended up passing up turns in my car while blabbing away on the phone. Once I found visitor parking ($3 for two hours), I ended up running from one end of campus to the other as to not make a late first impression! I walked into the classroom and immediately felt uncomfortable in my incredibly casual attire. I was wearing a tank top, cargo capris, and my flip flops. I live in Cali, I blend in with the general public! There were already 6 or 7 people seated in the exaggerated oval classroom (not sure I like this classroom set up? I'll have to see a class in action to see how the interaction is) and all of them looking quite professional in slacks and shirts. Oops, strike one for first impressions! Then walked in the Assistant Director of Admissions to give the power point pesentation.

She had us all introduce ourselves and a bit about our background. During this time about 5 people walked in late...all of them in casual attire. WooHoo! I wasn't the latest nor the most casual one there!! She began the presentation and I started to fall in love. Is this going to happen everytime I visit a school? Ugghhhh! So these are the immediate things I liked about Stanford:

Small Class Size
Location (I already own a duplex here. I wouldn't have to move. I have friends and family close by to help me take care of Rico, my dog, when need be).
Emphasis on team work and not a competitive environment (this is very important to me since I am extremely competitive. If I were in a competitive environment I imagine I would be less focused on actually learning and more focused on doing better than the guy next to me.
It's Stanford for goodness sake! need I say more?
Access to Professors there are no office hours, just open door arrangements between students and professors.
New Curriculum is more flexible I imagine this can be a negative as well as a positive considering next year's class will be the guinea pig?
Mentor. They are introducing a new mentor program with a second year as well as with a faculty member.
Emphasis on a community and not "networking" I hate that word and apparently, so does Stanford.
Heavily Quantitative based program. Although I don't necessarily want to be an engineer, I am. And I like Quant!

I'll have to make a more comprehensive list as the info sessions continue at different schools. And I'd also like to go back when class is in session to sit in on a class and meet with current students and discuss the environment a little more. I didn't expect to like Stanford all that much but their marketing campaign has dazzled me a bit. But there's always more research to do!

Am I a complete dork for getting so excited about this? Or maybe it's my hangover high from a good night of salsa dancing last night? Who cares, either way there will be a smile on my face all day today!

Grammar?

Last night was my second class in the Princeton Review. Our assignment over the past week was to do some reading and to sit down and take the first of 5 (or 6?) online practice exams. My first practice exam wasn't so impressive, about 80 points short of my target score. The one thing I was happy about was on the verbal I got the first 10 questions correct which is obviously so important on the GMAT. Surprisingly I got 2 of the first 10 questions incorrect on the math! I'm an engineer for god's sake! What the hell? But I'm hopeful that the class and the practice will lead me to my target score.

The first hour and a half of the class the instructor reviewed grammar for sentence correction. The entire time I kept thinking to myself, "self, that year you spent in South America teaching English is so going ot benefit you now!" Seriously, tell me what engineer actually knows what an infinitive is, not to mention the past perfect tense? One of the guy's in the class, also an engineer I believe, speaks English just fine but with an accent. Obviously English is his second language. I felt awful for him. His speaking English really was fine, but how the hell does he know what an idiom is? And considering we speak grammatically incorrect here, how would he ever recognize the mistake? Poor guy! I have a new found respect for ESL speakers taking the GMAT!

In the meantime I am trying to decide if I should fly out to do a tour of the East Coast schools I want to visit in July or should I wait until classes start in Sept? The thing is, I want to figure out what schools I'll be applying to soon so that I can concentrate on those particular essays. But just visiting the campus and not speaking with a student nor sitting in on a class...is that really going to help me decide? I don't know? I suppose this whole B-School process is really going to help me refine my decision making skills.

A Back Up School?

This weekend I was speaking with my uncle about applying to B-schools and as I was listing the schools I was considering applying to he asked me, "Aren't you going to apply to a back-up school?". My response to him was my theory that MBA's are a dime a dozen and in order to shine amongst the thousands of b-school graduates every year your resume better have a top 10 school listed on it! Plus I'm going to spend almost $150k for two years in b-school. To me, an MBA just doesn't seem to be worth the time, effort nor the money if it doesn't come from a big name.

But then I started thinking. What if he was right? What if I'm shooting too high? All of this work and preparation not to mention $$$$ to apply and what if I don't get accepted to a top 10 school? Is it worth going to a lower ranked school? Or maybe Yale is my back up school? Depending upon which ranking you look at, it's not even in the top 20! So now the question begs to be asked, what is considered a back up school? How far down the ranking pole do you have to go to ensure admittance? So back to the rankings I go...more school websites to read, more programs to research...does this process ever get easy?

Miss Domestic!

I can't believe I just cooked...well prepared dinner for 4 people. I have finally started working on my patio. I bought some planter boxes some plants did some much needed gardening. And I just bought a new patio furniture set and decided I must put it to use. I was feeling ambitious and thought I'd try to cook for my friends. Now let me make this clear...I can barely tell the difference between my stove and my oven. Until today my refrigerator had some ketchup, some peanut butter and some corn tortillas (why must corn tortillas come in packs of like 500? seriously!)I DO NOT cook. But today I broke the mold! So now I am awaiting the arrival of a few friends, my patio table is set, my kitchen is clean and the food is waiting to be cooked. I am so impressed with myself and since nobody is here yet to pat me on the back, I must do it myself. I wonder if I could use this experience in my essays? Oh if Adcom only knew what an accomplishment it was for me to be cooking!

Meanwhile my baby, my child, my dog, is begging me to play catch with him and so I will!

Cheers!