You know, I struggled until 2 weeks ago to decide on which school will be my 4th school to apply to. Because I didn’t get a chance to visit my alternate for the fourth school, NYU, I am now unexpectedly applying to Berkeley. I sort of just visited Berkeley in November because I was already out there for the Big Game (football game vs Stanford) and to visit Stanford, so I figured why not, might as well. I spent an entire day with the lunch with student session, an information session, and a class visit session. And I was still not as high on Berkeley as I was on Columbia, Stanford, and UPenn. Perhaps it’s just a change of pace thing, since I had already spent 4 years at Berkeley. But as I’m looking more into it, I’m becoming more and more attracted to its MBA program. Dean Rich Lyons has done a great job of recruiting great faculty members, developing an innovative curriculum, using much more practical “experiential learning” than theoretical “case studies” that Harvard popularized and others are only trying to mimic, developing an international exposure for students to easily take advantage of, and drawing some of the top names in finance, investment, and technology to become lecturers in conferences and guest lecture series that I’ve actually seen some online videos of and have been thoroughly impressed by. In fact, the three I watched online were actually a lot more interesting than almost all of the ones I’ve seen elsewhere. Right now, the only downside is that it’s in Berkeley, which I don’t really want to “double dip” in (getting 2 degrees from the same place, not maximizing the brand value that different schools bring in your resume), but I would still be very happy if I got in. I think it’ll be really engaging and will teach me quite a bit, too. I really didn’t want to like Berkeley. But I can’t help but get drawn to it the more I look into it. It’s a really strong program all the way around. In fact, despite the fact that I can honestly say “I won’t learn anything different” at other schools, I actually can’t say that about Berkeley.
Looking back, I did a horrible job with Columbia essays. I am not expecting an interview. I was really high on Columbia, mostly because of its New York location. I was actually really disappointed at its campus, because it doesn’t really have one. And its classes were packed and compact. I would say about 30% of the students had a really crappy view of the board, and about 10% of them on the sides could not have possibly seen anything at all. But still, the ability to attend conferences that drew some of the top names working locally in New York City, and the ability to network with some of the top minds in the quintessential metropolitan and financial capital of the world is something that I was really, really drawn to. Otherwise, however, I would say that the classes and clubs were not as impressive as I wanted them to be, its faculty wasn’t as good (save for one or two professors I was really interested in… plus, its main investment professor was retiring next year) and its small campus and classrooms were rather disappointing. Still, those weaknesses were very minute and I would have loved to attend Columbia.
I did a lot better with my Wharton one. In fact, I would say that my Wharton one is my strongest one, and I feel very, very confident about it. My recommendations are top notch, and so are my essays. And Wharton’s application actually allowed me to showcase all the different experiences that I’ve had, from the Army, to IBM, House Party, Milal Missionary Choir, Move Inc mentorship program, and even my drive to South America. I would be really surprised if I don’t get an interview. I mean seriously, I did a great job of showing the various perspectives that I would bring for Wharton, and I can’t imagine some investment banker who worked on evaluating numbers on a spreadsheet without a real business experience and without any community involvement get a nod over that. I’m not saying that their work isn’t valuable or meaningful, I do think it is valuable and meaningful. But I’m just saying that I was more multi-dimensional than someone who had to work at a single job 110 hours a week. I’m actually very high on Wharton, especially since I did a great job with my application and because I know I’m not getting into Columbia and probably won’t get into Stanford. And I really liked its campus (the building is brand new, filled with escalators), I liked Philadelphia (because it’s like a mini-New York without the traffic and rent is really cheap) and I really like its brand (companies usually advertise that they’ll get you into H/S/W, for Harvard/Stanford/Wharton). However, for some reason, I was not really drawn to its faculty, and its program doesn’t seem as tightly focused and innovative as Berkeley’s is.
I did a lot better on my Stanford one than my Columbia application, but it wasn’t as strong as my Wharton one. Reason? Essays are top notch. But one of my recommendations didn’t come in nearly as good as I wanted it to be. In the awards section, I left out the fact that I was the Winner in two of the case competitions that I noted, because I ran out of room. So they think I just attended a case competition.. (although if they looked at my resume, they’d know that I won it). Plus I made 2 grammatical mistakes in my job descriptions. If they are able to look over that and say, ok let’s evaluate this guy not on the stupid mistakes he made on an application but how he overcame a lot of adversity and wants to help others overcome adversity, and here are the tools that he’s methodically developed and wants to further develop at Stanford, and he’s been successful at everything he did (Soldier of the Quarter in the Army, getting a 20% raise outside of the raise cycle at House Party, and being a event producer and playing the violin of Milal Missionary Choir’s concert at Carnegie Hall), then I have a shot. If not, and they say he’s Asian, working in Finance in New York, and others with that profile have cured cancer, plus his application has 4 errors, then I’m done. At any rate, it would have been really tough to get in. 7% acceptance rate is never something to be optimistic about.
Which brings me to Harvard. Sadly, I applied last year before I was ready (I know that now) and I did not get in. I didn’t even get an interview invite. There is some regret about that. I applied because I was in a limbo with my job at IBM and I couldn’t imagine what more I could possibly learn after having been a budget coordinator for a $5 billion division. I think I would have at least gotten an interview if I applied now instead because of a few reasons. First, my message would have been much more focused. I flunked the “Why MBA” essay last year. Instead of answering that question, my essay essentially became “here’s my business plan, what do you think.” And, I was an Asian guy working in Finance in New York. And I had only gotten about 3% raise since starting at IBM, even though I was “promoted” to the more prestigious Budget Coordinator role. So what do I have now? Well first, I can better communicate the strengths of the profile that I had when I applied to Harvard; I certainly would not flunk the “Why MBA” essay today. And I have done much more since then, which is actually weird to say because that was only about 15 months ago. At House Party, I earned a 20% raise and learned A LOT financially managing a fledgling entrepreneurial company. I was the event coordinator of the concert at Carnegie Hall and played the violin there. My mentee is about to realize his family’s dream of sending him to college. All the way around, I’m just a much better candidate now than I was a year ago, and also in a much better position to assess why I need an MBA. Alas, Harvard is not very friendly to re-applicants, and I will probably not get in.
After all this, though, what does this mean? Well, pretty much that I”m anxious to find out what will happen to me. The next 2 months will dictate how I spend my next 2 years which will determine the next 2 decades of my life. That’s a pretty stressful thing to think about all the time. Will I have learned anything different at Harvard, Stanford, or Columbia? Absolutely not. With Harvard, I would have gotten instant credibility all around the world, and that’s about it. But since I am planning on staying in the US for the foreseeable future, that is sort of a null asset; in fact, many industry leaders seem to prefer Stanford or Wharton MBA students because they seem to be much better prepared to make an immediate impact.
So I’m organizing my thoughts here, and maybe you find this interesting in the end. I just find it pretty fascinating that somehow, I went from “Harvard or Stanford or bust” to “wow, Berkeley’s MBA program is actually the most complete program I’ve seen.” All because I had to look beyond the public perception about each school based solely on its rankings and I had to do what I didn’t want to do; performing due diligence by sacrificing my vacation days to visit campuses, talking to students, and surfing the web to figure out how to answer each MBA program’s question, “Why us?”