Day 1 of GMAT study

It's 9:15pm on a Sunday and I just finished Day 1 of my GMAT study. Like I think I had stated before, I'm using the website http://outbeat-the-gmat.blogspot.com/. I had planned to set aside six hours and begin at 2pm, but 2pm went to 4pm and I actually began at 6:15pm. The official GMAT website http://www.mba.com was the first stop as I perused the website for an hour or so. Next, I read the introduction to Kaplan's GMAT Premier and then I took a practice test; the test was taken on my iPad using an application called GMAT Club. Although the app worked well, my test taking abilities were sub-par. After 77 out of 111 questions, I bailed. The whole day 1 experience lasted about three hours and, after it was over, I felt like a dumbass.... on to day 2.

My criteria

When I looked through some of the grad school guides, I actually read all of them, there was the raging debate about even getting an advanced degree. With a crap economy and many people with advanced degrees out of work, there are as many proponents of advanced degrees as there are detractors. I have friends with masters degrees who bag my groceries.

I realized that if I was going to do this, I was going to have to swing for the fences. I'm in my 40s and, at best, I have another 30 years of working. I feel I'm a bit behind in my career and I need to have a kick ass school to help me cut a few career corners.

I also figured out that an online degree wouldn't work for me. A good friend who is twenty years my senior and ultra-wealthy, with a great family life, told me that grad school isn't just about the degree; it's about networking and having a peer group that can give you access to resources and opportunities. Also, when you're in classes with people who have amazing potential, they help to raise your game.

There was another thing that concerned me about some programs. The purpose of getting a degree is not just the degree; it's about who you become as a person while working towards that degree. The you that goes in is a better you when you come out the other side. Any program that would try to make things easier or help me take less credits, was out. When talking with NYU/Stern, I was told the degree was 60 credits. I asked if, while waiting to begin at NYU, I could take classes at another local college and if the credits could go toward my NYU degree. I was told "yes." So I said "so that means I would have less classes to take at NYU?" The answer I got was "No. If you're getting your MBA at NYU/Stern, you're taking 60 credits at NYU/Stern. If you take a class at another college, we'll count that towards your NYU degree, but you'll have to take an elective class to make up for it. We're not cheapening our degree to make it easier for you. When you graduate with your NYU MBA, you'll know we gave you the best education possible, and you'll be the better for it." And then there was one.

Willard Marriott said "Good timber does not grow with ease. The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees."

Sifting through the schools

With my new leaner list, I decided to meet with all of them so I could get a real feel for the schools. This list consisted of Pace, New Paltz, Marist, Fordham, and NYU.

I originally had considered all of the Ivy League Schools but chose to ignore this standard based on this archaic gauge using an athletic league from the 1950s. It's odd that some of the best schools aren't on this list such as University of Chicago/Booth and NYU which more than meet the standard set by the Ivy Leagurers.

NYU/Stern's Part-time Lagone Program at the Westchester Campus (can they give this degree any more names?) is on the campus SUNY Purchase, only twenty minutes from my job. The extension campus is really just the end of a hallway at Purchase which has two theater style and totally wired classrooms, a sitting areas with a few tables, two conference rooms, and a handful of offices.

I attended two classes and few months back just to get a feel for the program. Professor Okun's Entrepreneurship class was first on the list. As class started, I was wondering what was the allure of Professor Okun and NYU itself. Ten minutes into class, I still didn't get this guy as he wasn't able to connect with us; and then something miraculous happened. He sprung to life and the remainder of the class was akin to watching Picasso paint.

Later in the week, I visited Professor Mueller's Corporate Finance class. He was twenty minutes late because he was coming from Greenwich Village and got held up by an accident. I later found out that NYU uses the same teachers at both campuses so you get the same quality of education no matter which campus you attend.

The students in the class were all at the top of their game which made class discussions more than interesting. The material wasn't too advanced even though I attended halfway through the semester and I felt I could keep pace with the program. There were a few drawbacks: while attending the part time program at NYU/Stern, you have no access to the career center for job placement or career counseling. NYU's explanation is that part-time students have their jobs paying part of their tuition. And their not going to support you finding a new job when your company is helping to pay for your degree,

Second, a Westchester student has limited access to the NYC campus. If I remember correctly, Westchester students have no access to classes in Greenwich Village for the first year. After that, you get second choice after the NYC students have picked their classes.

And third, the students I met in the classes I attended, were top notch and could help my stretch to increase my potential. I also go the impression that a few of them would and could destroy me if they felt I was a threat.

NYU has a great support system. Everyone I met, including some of the students, seemed to have a business card. There are some students are tasked with reaching out to and connecting with students. I've been invited to other classes, to happy hour, and to exchange emails with the students. I feel as though I'm the best football player in my school and I'm being courted by top NCAA schools.

At Fordham, I had a similar experience although the recruiting process is not as structured as that of NYU. With Fordham, I attended classes for the part-time and EMBA programs. Saying that the part-time program's classes were small is an understatement. The class I attended (and I was warned by the administration that the part-time Westchester classes were quite smalle) had five people in it; and that included me and the teacher. I had a hard time understanding the teacher since English was not his first language. A friend who is in Fordham grad school for a business degree, told me that most of the Fordham graduate professors are foreign. I also go the impression that the Westchester program gets the second string teachers.

The Fordham EMBA program I attended for a full Saturday where two classes split the day. The classes were somewhat larger and in the twenty to twenty five range. There was energy and synergy and the room vibrated. The students were engaging and I connected with them better than with those at NYU. The drawbacks were that the students and the professors weren't of the same caliber as at NYU.

I had a really difficult time with Pace University. I made numerous calls and was forced to leave voice mails; none of these messages were answered. The people who I spoke with, seemed to want to get rid of me and pass me along to someone else. When I finally did get in touch with someone, through a desperate email, I was told "well our offices close at 6pm so you need to get here before then" which, due to my work schedule, I wasn't able to do. I was able to get off early one afternoon to attend and Information Session and, because I was given incomplete instructions, I missed the event altogether. Several phone calls to get the proper information yielded zero results. It's as if they don't want me to attend. When I finally did meet with someone, I was given a tour of the campus and, afterward, I requested to attend a few classes. That was discouraged, because it was the summer session and there are less classes; when I persisted, I was told to "just go to the website." The website didn't bring any relief and rather than fight Pace to get the information I needed, I decided to cross them off the list.

My bachelors degree is from SUNY New Paltz and, since I keep in touch with many of the teachers and administrators, I was encouraged to check out their MBA program. The NP MBA is in the last year of the accreditation process and is still quite young. The director of the program met with me directly. He was quite enthusiastic and represented the program well. In the end, NP didn't have the breadth and the depth that I was looking for.

Marist was the last school I visited. They are fully accredited and have one of the best ranked online programs. I met one on one with a representative and kI was unimpressed as the person I met with, didn't have a masters degree of his own. A few months later, I gave their program another look at and information session. The met with us in a group which had both those seeking their grad and ungrad degrees. Then they divided up into rooms. I wouldn't have minded doing half of my degree in a classroom and the other half on line; and that's what Marist could offer.

With an online degree, I thought there would be videos of actual classes. Or we would all meet online for a virtual class. When I asked, the classes consisted of assignments made by the teachers; students would post in the forums. I would have been more engaging to take a class on Facebook. They also kept pushing the idea of taking the classes online. "Why come to a class when you can learn from home?" It was explained that sometimes classes have low enrollment; and when a class is under-enrolled, they force you to take the class online in an unengaged, flat format. I crossed Marist off the list. And then there were two.

In the beginning

It's 5:19am on some random Saturday in August and tomorrow, I begin my official GMAT study for my graduate business degree. This is something I've procrastinated for years and I've had more than a few false starts. I received my A.S. in Accounting fro Westchester Community College in 1992 and, due to a case on fundsarelow, I was forced to pass on an accounting degree from Pace and made my way into the workplace. I went back to school at age 36 and received my B.A. in English/Creative Writing from SUNY New Paltz with a 3.64 GPA.

I had originally intended to take two years off before I hit grad school but I put it off semester after semester and went from an MBA to a Masters in Publishing and it looks like I'm back to MBA again. My false starts have led me to an ESD (estimated start date) of Spring 2013.

I went to the bookstores and hit the magazine racks which seem to always seem to have stacks of college magazines with titles such as 'Best Grad Schools,' 'Top Colleges,' and 'Grad School Guide.' I picked up a few and pretty much read them from cover to cover. A few tackled the subject of whether to go to grad school at all. With an economy that's in a perpetual stumble, the time and money spent of advanced degrees can be invested better elsewhere.

I got past the fear of not getting enough out of grad school as I have way to many friends who have are doing quite well. Then I had to reason my way past the online line vs in class degree. On my way to see my brother's family in Massachusetts, I pass and endless slue of billboard with claims of me getting me a degree in one year, online, and without leaving the couch.

The Phoenix online commercials are intriguing and I researched online programs which don't seem to carry weigh with employers. And getting a degree online is like my friends who post on Facebook things like 'having a great time at the Superbowl' which makes me know they're not, because if they were, they wouldn't be on their phone.

With the help of the grad school magazines, the Graduate School Guide, friends, the internet, and a map, I formed a list of schools that could work for me. They were, but were not limited to: NYU, Fordham, Marist, Pace, Suny New Paltz, Cornell, Yale, UConn, Baruch, BU, UMass, IE, Princeton, and Rutgers. I eliminated schools that were not easily accessible and were all about the online.

I had a soft spot for SUNY New Paltz, Rutgers, and NYU. My bachelors came from NP and my dad got his ungrad and grad from Rutgers and NYU respectively. Even though I work near the New Jersey border, Rutgers was geographically not accessible and cost prohibitive as it charges non-New Jersey residents a premium. My narrowed down list consisted of Pace, New Paltz, Marist, Fordham, and NYU.