Georgetown

I was impressed and pleasantly surprised! Georgetown did such an amazing job with their all day Women in Business recruiting event! Everyone I met, alumni, current students, prospective students, Adcom, was so nice and the school was so welcoming! At first I was little concerned that I wouldn't last through the entire day long event (10am-5pm!) since we took the red eye out there and arrived in DC at 7am. But the day flew by!

They started out the day with a little organization fair. Most of the clubs and organizations in the business school had tables set up and we roamed around and spoke with different leaders of the clubs. I was able to learn a lot about the student run internship fund for students taking internships at non-profits and I spoke at length with the students running the NET Impact group that I'm interested in participating. I also spoke at length with a girl who is getting a dual degree MPP/MBA and wants to go into non-profit. It was great learning about the programs form someone actually in them.

I can't remember the exact order of things (remember I took a red eye...and didn't sleep a wink on the plane!) but we had an info session type presentation given my two current students. We had the dean (previously the dean of NYU Stern) speak to us. The director of career services and the director of student affairs also gave little presentations. The highlight for me was listening to a professor presentation. She actually gave us signed copies of her recently published book on globalization! I'm really excited to read it!

After a brief walk thru/tour of the campus (which seemed so small to me) we had a really nice catered lunch with a key note speaker, an alum that now works in the higher ups of Sprint/Nextel. All of these presentations were geared towards women and helping women succeed in business school and industry. They were all done very well too!

After lunch there was an all women alumni panel that we had a Q&A session with. They were really nice, very honest, and just so laid back but still articulate and intelligent. I really was super impressed by all of them. Then they had a little cocktail hour with everyone, current students, alum, adcom, etc.

The Cons: To tell you the truth there weren't many! I sort have an issue with attending a Jesuit school but I could easily get over that. The weather was COLD and I am such a wimp in the cold! The program is really new and doesn't have that "brand name MBA" thing that I tend to be snotty about...but again, something I can and will get over. The facilities are not that great (but they are breaking ground on a new building that is scheduled to be done by the spring semester of 2008)

The Pros: I loved DC (minus the cold). The political opportunities abound! A very good public policy program for me to consider. The people truly were amazing. I do think since they are trying to build the program and they don't have a name for themselves yet that they stress the academics and truly want to make you successful in order for them to climb up those ranking charts. If the new building is actually finished on time there's going to be great facilities in a perfect location!

Now it's just a matter of submitting the application and waiting...again!

In other news, I gave my first sit down television interview yesterday for work. I've done short news interviews that turn into 10 second blurbs on TV. And I've been interviewed by newspaper journalists before. But this interview was 30 minutes. I was incredibly nervous but I managed to hold myself together and I was pretty proud of the result! The program is going to be aired next week. It's just a local program but it was awesome to have a platform to talk about teen pregnancy and what we are doing to combat it and the services we offer at our clinics. It was pretty exciting for me...I never in a million years would have thought I, the dorky, technical, mechanical engineer, would be sitting in a suit on a program discussing teen pregnancy! It was exciting!

Officially Denied

So this process thus far has been quite a blow to my ego. I am a little arrogant I suppose. But up until now I don't think I've ever been denied something I've wanted? Looking back part of me thinks some of this was a little self destructive. Knowing how competitive Stanford and some of the other schools are, I may have purposely done a pretty crappy job on my applications thinking that I would then have a reason for being denied? I could blame it on my lack of effort throughout the process. I don't know. Anyway, I knew long ago that Stanford was a long shot regardless if I put in my best or worst effort. Just seems such a waste of money to be denied. C'est la vie.

In other news I leave tonight on the red eye to Washington D.C. for the event at Georgetown's B-school tomorrow. I hope I like it. My friend has made a list of tourist attractions that we will be seeing while we're there. I'm most excited about the White House and the Capital Building. Policy in motion! And I get to see it! I am a geek deep down inside.

I was surprised to see how many marathoners there are applying to business school! That's exciting! Hopefully I'll end up at a school with a few so I'll have some training partners! What's even more amazing is that I'm not even sore anymore. Seriously I was a little stiff for about 2 days and that's it! Which of course leads me to believe that I definitley did not run as hard and as fast as I could have. There's always Marathon #4!

Good luck to all those admits and all those still waiting and still applying!

Marathon #3

So in the midst of my application stress I decided I wanted to run another marathon. Eventually I plan on qualifying for the Boston marathon but I didn't train hard enough this time around for that. In fact I really didn't train much at all. But luckily it was a flat course and I've been feeling pretty good lately. I beat my last time by 15 minutes. So if I keep that up for my next marathon, which I think will be in San Diego, CA in June, then I should have no problem qualifying for Boston. But for now I have the pain of my knees, hips, and joints to keep my mind off the fact that Yale rejected me and Stanford is bound to do the same any day now. But how many of their b-school students can say they have run 26.2 miles on three different occassions! Damn, I thought maybe that would make me feel better, but alas it did nothing...sigh.

I am going to Washington DC to the Georgetown event to recruit women into their business school. I've never been to DC so I thought this would be a great excuse to go. I'm headed out on the red eye Thursday night and Friday will spend all day at Georgetown. Then Saturday and Sunday my friend, who is coming with me, and I will tour all the sites we possibly can squeeze in to 48 hours! I'm looking forward to it! And please let me like Georgetown because at this point, I fear it may be my only possible acceptance...

UCLA Submitted

I just submitted UCLA. Talk about last minute. I am awful at that! I just have such a hard time writing about myself intelligibly. I was at a friends house late last night while his mother helped me edit my essay to make it sound better. I absolutely hated writing about my family. I am not the greatest communicator when it comes to my personal life. At work I am great, I can make very clear my intentions and thoughts in the office but when it comes to any personal emotion or feeling I freeze up. Believe, this has been an issue with all of my boyfriends in the past. Anyway, it's done. Out of my hands now.

Yale released some decisions before X-Mas and has just said they will release more decisions this week. Wouldn't it be awesome to just get that phone call today. I am already imagining jumping up and down in my office just being happy to have the anxiety over with! Previously I thought I'd be a shoe in at Yale, but I'm not so confident anymore. They're applicant pool has doubled in size. At this point, I'll just be happy to be admitted anywhere. I just really want to know what I'll be doing with my life for the next two years, where I'll be, how I'll manage. I hate this uneasiness of not knowing. I am positive I am not the only one. Can we all just throw ourselves a little pity party (those of us who have not been lucky enough to hear word on our fates yet)?!

Good luck to everyone and I hope you all had an awesome time bringing in 2007!