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.
I almost forgot to make a post about the news that I got on Friday morning. I got the call from Walt C. at Tuck that I'd been accepted and they came through with a major financial aid package. He said so many good things about me that I didn't stop grinning for a good 10 minutes after talking to him. I know that my mind is made up about heading out West in the Fall, but I couldn't help feeling good about getting that call from Tuck.
Also, I know that I'm late on posting the synopsis of my last two days at Stanford, so i'm going to try to knock that out today.
I'm sorry for the delay in continuing with the run-down of my weekend in Stanford. Here's the next portion...
Saturday:
I spent the first part of Saturday at the Stanford BBSA conference and it was a treat...except for the 9:00am start time. After staying out until 3:00am the night before, it was almost impossible to get up early enough to make the conference on time, but I was somehow able to drag myself up and make it there only about 15 minutes late. The conference was totally planned by a group of BBSA students and they did a great job of lining up some interesting panels. There were panels on the Technology industry, Black leadership, the Marketing/Advertising industry, and investment in public works initiatives and a riveting keynote speech by a Class of '77 alum who had started her own international marketing consultancy. One of the highlights of the conference was the inclusion of Ward Connelly on the Black leaderhip panel, which had me like "WTF!?!??!!?" when I first heard about it. I went into his panel with many preconceived notions about him because of his views, but, by the time the panel had finished, I couldn't help but respect the man for being willing to come into a hostile environment and sticking with his views. One thing that disappointed me about the conference was the lack of alumni support. I believe that there were only 8-10 BBSA alumni in attendance, which shocked me because I thought more would have come out and represented such they are memebers of such a small group. Overall the BBSA conference was very well planned and executed and was well worth arriving in Palo Alto a day early.
That night, the BBSA and HBSA sponsored a dinner for some of the Black and Latino Admitted applicants at the home of a member of the Class of 2004. During this dinner, I was able to spend more time kickin' it with my future classmates of color and getting the perspectives of current students to gain insight to what I'd have to look forward to in the Fall. Plus, I can't front on a good meal when i don't have to pay for it (yeah, I know that's ghetto, but I'm about to go into a LOT of debt, so I've got to be smart with mine). After dinner, we rolled over to a bar where the GSB had rented out the top floor and was hosted a Welcome LPF for the Admitted students. I met a bunch of my classmates there and the socializing, drinking, and getting to know each other started. I was amazed at the variety of people that I saw in the room. There were people of a variety of races, nationalities, ages, and backgrounds crammed into a space that was too small for us and everybody was just focused on meeting the folks with whom they'd be spending the next two years in school. I even got a chance to thank Derrick Bolton (Director of Admissions) for allowing me to become "the admissions mistake" for my class and setting me out on the road to "big baller" status. Following the LPF, a few of us rolled over to another spot that was part bar, part hip-hop club, and part pool hall...unfortunately, the male to female ratio was not benefical, so it basically became all wack very quickly. We closed out the night by hitting up a GSB party at some random guy's house that was basically made up of a bunch of people packed into a house and/or out in the pool out back (in 40 degree weather..what the hell were those cats thinking???). By the time I got back to my host's room, it was 3:00am...again...and I crashed hard on his floor.
Dang, I've still got two more days to talk about and I've already written a novel. At least you guys are getting a real sense of how much fun I had out there. I'll put a description of Sunday and Monday up soon.
I know that I'm a few days late on putting up my recap of the Stanford Admit Weekend, but the jet lag took a little longer than I thought to get over. Now, I'm well-rested and have some time to put my thoughts down, so I might as well get to it...
Friday afternoon and evening:
Let me start by sending a huge shout out to my boys Detavio and Shawn who ended up being my roll-dogs for the entire weekend from Friday through Monday night and to my host for the weekend, Charles (GSB '05).
Although the Admit weekend didn't officially start until Saturday night, I arrived on Friday afternoon so I could attend the BBSA conference and all of the activities that preceded it. My arrival on campus that day was the first time I'd ever seen the Stanford campus and all I could say when I saw it was "WOW!!!!". While I still think Princeton's capus is the most beautiful I've ever seen, Stanford's a VERY close second. There are palm trees everywhere, wide open spaces, and all of the buildings looked more like houses in a community than university buildings on a campus. One of the nicest places on the GSB campus is the new Schwab Residential Center (opened in '99) where the majority of the first year students live. Schwab was more of an apartment complex full of small suites than a univeristy dorm. One of the downsides to Schwab is the price to live there (~$1200/month), but it serves as the center of social life for MBA1's and I decided that it would be the best place for me to live next year.
On Friday evening, Detavio, Shawn, and I were able to take part in one of the GSB's weekly rituals, the Liquidity Preference Function (LPF). The LPF is basically a gathering of many of the GSB students after classes on Fridays where they socialize, drink, and listen to a variety of performances. I was able to meet quite a few of the current students at the LPF and I started getting a sense of the culture at the school. After the LPF, we attended a reception sponsored by the BBSA for current members and alumni. Since all three of us had just arrived from the East Coast earlier that day, we were starving, went straight for the food, and huddled up in a corner so we could get our grub on. I was fully expecting for everyone there to shy away from us because we'd pretty much secluded ourselves in that corner, but a bunch of the current students started taking turns coming over to talk to us and welcome us into the GSB family. These students answered a lot of our questions, shared their experiences, and let us know why the GSB was such a special place. At that point, I really started feeling the love.
Later that night, the three of us rolled out to San Francisco with three first year students to hit a club. It took a while to find a place, but we ended up going to a place called "One Eighty One" that was completely wack. The DJ in that joint was spinning HOT GARBAGE and I'd never seen such poor dancers in a club as the ones I saw that night. Let me provide an example...when we first entered the floor with the DJ, he was spinning Beyonce's "Crazy in love", so I thought the club had a chance to be OK even though I saw that there was a contagious case of "no-rhythm-itis" floating around the dance floor. My opinion changed when the DJ put on the next song and it was a techno remix of "Sweet Home Alabama"...I was like "WTF!?!?!?! but the other patrons of the club were getting crunk off of it. That's when I knew that it was time to start drinking and I was about that work when it came to that. Despite the wack music, I had a good time kickin' it with the first years who'd brought us to the club, which surprised me because a wack DJ is usually enough to kill my high when I go out. We ended up getting back to campus at about 3:00am and I crashed on my host's floor like a drunk driver when I got in.
OK, that's all I can put down for now because I've got to hit the gym. I'll write up my experiences from Saturday when I get back.