Yale interview invitation

The wait's over. Invitation to interview in New Haven has arrived.



Now, maybe I can go back to getting some work done.

a long 30+ days

Kellogg interview is done, and my status went to complete yesterday after I called to help match my transcript. The interview went well, and the alum was great. Very upbeat about the school, very informative about what a big difference Kellogg is making for her 10 years post-MBA.

I saw that decisions started to trickle out last night, but since my file will just go complete this week after the interview report is turned in today or tomorrow morning, I expect a long wait. Then again, I was talking to this guy I know a while ago. He thought he wrote a masterpiece of an application to Kellogg, had a wonderful interview, and then received a prompt ding less than two weeks later! So maybe this means the review order really is random, and someone might read it next week.

In other news, there is no news from Yale, and I set my official date to worry for tomorrow. All of my credentials are in, though, so I don't have to be concerned about missing something on the status update. Unfortunately, I heard that there's a huge backlog of applications, so I'll have to reset my date to keep hope alive on that front. I feel very fortunate for the interview invitations I have received, so perhaps I should focus on those successes and sit tight 'til March 15.

Money for Business School

So I went to do a dry run through my FAFSA since I haven't filed taxes yet, and I was struck once again by the dearth of free money available for a business school education.

Cool

Was looking for inspiration to chill out about the waiting game, and found it:

http://www.westsidestory.com/site/level2/lyrics/cool.html

I love that movie.


Kellogg interview is scheduled for next Wednesday; Haas interview is confirmed. No word from Yale, but am referencing the above link when I am tempted to fret. Since I've internalized the tips to add to my interview repertoire, and now that the first one is out of the way, interview anxiety is much more manageable. As long as I remember that my theme is "truth: the abridged version," I won't psych myself out. Over the years, I really have gotten the best advice from interviewers where the interview did not go well. So all that failure should help me now!

In other news, in my quest to get a life again outside of work, some progress has been made. The application I put in to be a bingo caller was accepted. Oh yeah, who's got the power now? =) I finished two books, and now I'm working on (rather appropriately, I think) Lederman's The God Particle. If only such a thing existed for MBA admissions, the world would be a much simpler place. Alas, no.

Good better best: Interview invite 2 and 3

"Good better best: never let it rest. Until your good becomes better, and your better best."

So lately I've been working on reconstructing a life outside of work and "the community." I thought burn out was for bankers, VC's, doctors, and other known stress professionals. I guess it can happen to us nonprofit people, too. Somehow, when I "get a life," I immediately lose 5-7 pounds and become more productive at work. This has only happened to me twice, but I think two data points should be enough to support my anecdotal conclusion.

In addition to applying to be a bingo caller at a retirement home<--no word back on this yet, I finally picked up my mother-in-law's book about navigating the public school system to raise academically successful kids. It's been sitting around the house for ages, but I have never managed to make it all the way through. So right now, I'm full of ditties like the above.

It's kinda of neat to have my MIL's childrearing best practices distilled into a book. It'll make it easier to navigate if we ever had kids. I received a damn good public education in Illinois without the benefit of a lot of what's needed to get ahead out here in California, and went to the same university she got her kids into, so sometimes, I tend to be a bit clueless.

Anyhow, back to the subject: I got my Super Saturday invitation today from Haas, and I'm pretty psyched about it. Incidentally, I also got the off-campus mandatory interview invite from Kellogg within 2 hours of Haas', so it looks like the universe is giving me a beautiful afternoon today.

No more me as I am. Better Me will arrive at the interviews with agenda firmly implanted. I will not forget that it is an interview, and not just an interesting conversation with some cool person I just met. I will not take too long to explain. I will not be frank. I will suppress my tendency for wisetiy answers.

It's weird, with the pressure of my first interview off, it's like the mystique is gone and it's all very simple now. Sort of like my GMAT experience, but with less of the huge crushing failure the first time.

How to improve to interview again

So in my last post I said I thought it went well. Several days later, I still believe it wasn't too bad, but I have definitely taken some points from the last interview to improve on my next one, should I receive another invitation.

First off, I don't think I ever shared with my interview my long-term goal. I'm not quite certain that my short-term goals even came up. I think when I was asked about my passion, I could have used that as an opportunity to get to my goals, but instead I started talking about how much I care about improving the quality of life for those around me.

Second, when asked to choose my strongest point among general management, being a charismatic and evangelical leader, and my professional network, I chose general management! At the time, I think I thought of management as running projects and keeping an organization up and running. That, I can do. After reflection, though, I realize that general management in the more holistic sense is not my strongest suit among the three. Darnit, that's why I want to go back to school -- to get more of that formal management learning, best practices stuff, and less of the hit the ground and go go go and figure it out at some point along the way. My strongest suit is most probably the network of professionals around me and their diverse skill sets and the resources they bring to the work we do together. D'oh! Let's hope it did not do too much damage.

Summary: must remember to stay on task somehow. Mustn't forget that an interview is also a presentation of myself and my case. I think I expected questions to be more linear (let's talk about your past, why MBA, then about your future) and scripted and less like asking me to open my book of life to a specific page and let's talk about what happened in that chapter. Mustn't get bogged down in the chapter and not forget to address the whole plot of the story!

One interview down, hopefully more to go

I completed one interview today. I think it went well. One thing I wanted to avoid was showing too much of my personality. I don't mean the good part. I mean the too many hand gestures, hold still while I explain it to you stuff. And I think I did. My interviewer started asking me about my motivations for action x, y or z, and I felt the need to passionately explain them to him. Let's hope he thought I just wanted to explain it to him, and not that I was some psycho do gooder with a chip on her shoulder.

No word from any other schools yet.