Imaginary Engineer - Yale SOM '08

Industrial Engineer dreaming of an MBA

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Go Trojans

Is it wrong that one of my top choices for business schools is USC, partially because of their unbelievable football team? I love football, specifically college football, and I would love to be a student at one of the top football programs in the country... (I think I would look pretty ridiculous if I said that during an interview).

USC's strength, besides Matt Leinhart and Reggie Bush, also lies in its amazing alumni network across Southern California. Seeing how I want to eventually settle in Southern California, a USC MBA may actually open more doors than a Yale or Wharton MBA (I may be delusional but I don't see a big east coast MBA presence in California).

Assuming the planets and stars are lined up and I get into one of the east coast schools plus USC, it'll be a very difficult decision to make...........

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Wharton Interview

Today I finally had my Wharton interview. After getting no responses from 4 alumni in SF, I finally was able to schedule one before Thanksgiving. I'm so glad I chose to do an alumni interview over on-campus because I lucked out and had an interviewer who was also a Boy Scout and also graduated from Berkeley (Cal crushed Stanfurd in the big game last Sat, go bears!). Because we had things in common, the interview started on a positive tone and went very smoothly. The questions were very similar to the Yale interview (why did you choose your school/major? describe chronologically your career path. why an MBA? why Wharton? why now? what would you do if you got rejected? describe professional/personal qualities/achievements...) and there were no hard questions like describe your 3 worst qualities. Another advantage to an alumni interview is you are not necessarily confined to the time constraints as you would be if you had to reserve a specific time slot on-campus. I was fortunate to have a long interview (a little over an hour) that let me get across my main points that I wanted to express. I felt the Yale interview (on campus) was too short and I didn't articulate everything that I intended for the interviewer to learn. The good part is at this point, my application is complete and now the only thing for me to do is wait for a decision. I know I put forth my best effort, so I won't be too crushed if I get rejected everywhere. I'm still nervous because similar to Yale, half of the candidates that get interviewed get rejected. Ahwells, time to flip a coin!

Sunday, November 20, 2005

#Hello World#

Hello Internet surfers and welcome to my brand spanking new blog. After reading other MBA blogs found at http://mbaleague.blogspot.com/, I decided to start my own blog to chronicle the business school application process and perhaps digress at times to other topics. I would be thrilled if I got into any of the schools I'm applying to, and will share the ups and downs I'll feel over the next few months. If you don't like what I post, start your own blog!