Goodbyes make me nostalgic. I just finished my MBA summer internship in Seattle, packed up all my belongings, said my goodbyes to new friends and coworkers, and made the bittersweet transition back to Pittsburgh, the home of Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.
Fall is the beginning of a new cycle in MBA programs. Second-year students make their way back to campus after their summer internships. The brand new first-year students are settling into school and eagerly absorbing as much information as they can about Orientation and core courses. The Admissions staff is refreshed and ready to recruit the next batch of business talent – and that could be you!
Choosing a business school is a very personal process. I remember being confused when trying to decipher all the information about MBAs that was available in books, magazines, brochures, and online. I say that you should have actual conversations with alumni and other representatives of various schools. Events like MBA tours and panel discussions let you find many of these people in one place, and let you meet other pre-MBAs who are in the same confusing phase of the research as you are.
I actually discovered my dream school during my first Forté Forum (the MBA fair sponsored by Forte Foundation). I spoke to representatives from about 20 top MBA schools, a few incredibly passionate women in business, and sort of stumbled onto a member of the Tepper Admissions team (when I was waiting in a line to talk to another business school). Even though there was an instant connection (and by the way, I LOVE my school), I kept doing my research for several more months by attending MBA Tours, visiting schools, talking to alumni, and reading about schools.
Just think – if I hadn’t attended that fair, I may have never attended Tepper!
This is such a valid point. I am having a really hard time finding another school which comes close to the my current top choice UNC Kenan-Flagler, but know it is a competitive school so I need to have back up options. The reason this is so hard for me to find though is that there are very few schools which have a sustainable entreprise concentrations.
ReplyDeleteWas it hard to apply to other schools when you werent as excited abuot them?