I know I’ve been getting a bit slow with my posts here, but I’ve been busy with my grad school applications. Apparently applying to grad school takes the most work ever, but I guess that makes sense since it will be hard. I now have all the information I need and have created a schedule of events for the next two months. This schedule involves me studying at all times for the GMAT, which I just schedule for March 21. I’m getting a lot better at my practice problems, escpecially since when I started I was like, “you can’t add fractions!” However, based on that starting point, I still have a while to go to get up to my target score. I took a practice test and performed a tad bid better than average. With some studying, I hope to get my score up some so I can stand out with the super smarties who score an average of 670. These are of course the University of California, Davis (UCD) applicants, but my GPA was 2/10 higher than the average, which means I am awesome. And, my base score was higher than the lowest GMAT score they admitted last year, so I guess that’s something.
I’ve also been coordinating the various requirements of the applications. If I didn’t have a spreadsheet I wouldn’t be able to keep track of it because there are super lots of requirements. Deciphering what needs to go to which school, to where at said school, in what form (electronic or paper), and by when is proving to be challenging. UCD’s info was straight forward, but I had to realllly dig to get requirements for Sac State for some reason. I just hope I am covering all of my basis on both applications, but I am sure I will be okay. So long as I adhere to a fairly strict schedule of doing at least some review and some application task every day, I will be fine. I had to revise my schedule a bit because I was bit too ambitious at first and forgot that I am tired after work and maybe don’t want another four hours worth of activity. In any event, I’ve taken care of the bare minimum requirements and now am working on the application pieces that I write myself.
There is, of course, the matter of financial aid and the economy. I decided to go ahead with the application for an MBA program after doing decently on the GMAT practice test. I figure I should be able to get at least some federal loans. My primary school is UCD, which is almost $20,000 per year for three years. Ouch. Hopefully work would pay for some of it too, but in this economy, you never know. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I am keeping at it. I figure if I do end up getting laid off, I would rather be in school than just unemployed. So my plan is to finance it through federal loans. That’s also another reason why I applied to Sacramento State. It’s quite affordable–especially with assistance–and it may end up being the route I would take when push comes to shove. The thing that really drew me to UCD was the fact that I can customize my entire degree after the core courses. I think that’s amazing, and it just may be worth it…but I don’t know if I want the debt when I’m still paying off undergrad (forever).
Posted by davidryancarr 