Marquis' Weblog

Conclusion of the Stanford Admit weekend wrap-up

OK, I know I'm really slacking on the Stanford Admit Weekend update, so here is the final chapter in that series. The past few weeks have been really hectic and it has been hard to take the time to sit down and get a good summary of it all typed out...

OK, I know I'm really slacking on the Stanford Admit Weekend update, so here is the final chapter in that series. The past few weeks have been really hectic and it has been hard to take the time to sit down and get a good summary of it all typed out...

Sunday and Monday:

It is hard to describe the Admit Weekend in a concise manner because there was just so much that got me excited about knowing that I'll be going to school there in the Fall. In order to organize my thoughts, I decided to break everything up into categories and talk about each separately:

1. The Campus:
I had heard that Stanford's campus was beautiful, but I wasn't ready for what I saw when my SuperShuttle rolled up to it. There were roads lines with palm trees, foliage everywhere, and an overall pristine environment. The weather was unseasonably cold, but everything looked so good that I really didn't even care that I was freezing my butt off for most of the weekend.

The first building I saw was the Schwab Residential Center where I'll be living next year. That place is like a resort hotel. Everything has an old school southwestern-type look to it and the courtyards are very well done (one had palm trees, one had pine trees, and one had a nice open area with a shallow, decorative pool). The rooms at Schwab are pretty small, but the center of social life for MBA1's is there, so I decided that living there would have to be the move so I could get as integrated into the culture as possible. Plus, Schwab is a short 5 minute walk to the business school building, so it's extra convenient too. The business school building itself was OK, but nothing about it jumped out at me too much. Everything else around it did jump out at me though. There is a huge fountain outside of it that drew my attention (check the MBADIversity.com photo album for pictures of it) and there are trees all over the place, which made it seem very calming to me. I still believe that Princeton has the most beautiful campus I've ever seen, but Stanford's is a very close second.

2. The Events:
The Admit Weekend was planned by current students and it was very apparent that they put a lot of planning into the weekend. None of the students had a break from classes and work during the weekend, but they still took the time to volunteer their time and serve as guides, presenters, and organizers, which showed me a lot about the culture at the school. There was a wide range of events, so I won't list them all, but some highlights were:

- Dinners on Saturday night held by special interest groups
- Welcome LPF on Saturday night
- Welcome breakfast and presentations
- Student Life panel
- A "Get to know your classmates" lunch session
- Mock study group session and class (The people in my study group were SO on point)
- Alumni dinner where the Admits were seated with a current student and 2-3 alums with a similar background as their own

This is the only business school admitted student weekend that I have and will attend, so I have nothing to compare Stanford's weekend to, but the events that they had for us were off the chain and I can't wait to get involved with planning and execution of the Admit weekends for the Class of 2007.

3. The Administrators
Although, the weekend was planned and run by students, the administrators were out therein full force to show their support and help us understand what we had waiting for us in terms of academics and programs. There was an especially good panel with one of the school's top professor and the Dean of student life for the GSB that gave a lot of information about the overall structure that we should expect to see at the GSB.

While each of the administrators I met was cool, I've got to give a special shout out to Tiffany Showell (Asst. Director of Admissions) and Derrick Bolton (Director of Admissions). Back in September, I spoke with Tiffany to ask some questions about Stanford and she couldn't fit me in until the very end of her work day. I tried to make the conversation as quick as possible because I didn't want to hold her there after hours, but she told me that it wasn't a problem to talk longer. We ended up chatting for over an hour and, at the end of that conversation, Stanford became my #1 choice school. I first spoke to Derrick Bolton back in November at the Washington DC 10 Schools event. He was mobbed by a bunch of folks who were interested in Stanford and he took the time to answer each and every question posed to him. The one thing that struck him about me was that he had a genuine love for the GSB, but he wasn't there trying to hype it up. At the Welcome LPF during Admit weekend, I introduced myself to Derrick to thank him for letting me be the "admissions mistake" and he remembered me from that event in November. Plus, he remembered stuff about my application that shocked me because I know that he had to have read over thousands of them. Derrick and Tiffany are great examples of the love that the administrators at Stanford have for the school, the students, and the people who are interested in the program.

4. The Admits and Current Students:
The best part of the Admit weekend was meeting the other admits and the current students. I knew that the culture at the GSB was tight, but hearing about it and seeing it are two totally different things. These kids were off the chain. I've never met such a group of talented, intelligent, and humble people before and they are the main reason that I wanted to get into Stanford so badly. As I looked around, I was amazed by the diversity of everyone there. There were folks from a wide variety of ethnic, national, educational, and professional backgrounds and I am sure that I will learn a lot from these folks over the next two years. The current students truly held it down for us during the Admit weekend. From start to finish, they made sure that everything ran smoothly, made themselves available to answer questions and kick it, and represented the GSB very well. I know that they had to have been asked the same questions over and over all weekend long, but none of them ever seemed to get annoyed with us and several of them told me that I could contact them if I had any more questions. The other admitted applicants were equally as impressive. I was surprised at how quickly we all gelled as a group. By the end of the weekend, I could already tell that some of the folks there will end up being my peoples for life. Several of the admits went into the weekend trying to make the decision between Stanford and some other top schools, but most of the ones I spoke with knew that they'd be coming back in the Fall by the time it was all said and done. I can't wait to get to Palo Alto in the Fall because I'm going to have the time of my life meeting and building friendships with these people.

OK, that's about it. I'm sorry about the delay in getting this posted up, but I've been incredibly busy. In fact, I'm typing this from my office while I should actually be plugging away at real work. I hope I did a good job of explaining how tight the weekend was. I'm still 5 months away from my trip out West and I'm already more excited about it than I can put into words.

Posted by marquis930 at March 16, 2004 10:46 AM