Face Time With MBA Gatekeepers at Wharton, Stanford, Et Al

So Iā€™ve logged quite a bit of face to face time with MBA ad/coms over the past few days. The first opportunity to that end was the Wharton Diversity Info Session held by two of its admissions officers at the Deloitte tower downtown last Thursday.

When I first realized that the event was being held at 6:30pm in downtown LA, I thought, ā€œAre the crazy? Surely they most know how much difficulty people are going to have navigating around the city during rush hourā€“and into downtown, no less!ā€

MBA Applicanteā€™ de la Ghetto

Personally, I left work about an hour early. As I anticipated, both the 105 east and 110 north freeways that I would need to get there from the airport area were jam-packed parking lots. So, I took a not-so-scenic detour through a good portion of the east side ghettos where I knew traffic would not be nearly as intense. Letā€™s just say that the traditional 9 to 5 population isā€¦emmā€¦smaller over there.

Approximately 40 minutes later, I was pulling into the parking structure. It was 6:15 and my Boyz N da Hood detour had been well worth the potholes and unscrupulous pedestrians that I had endured along the way.

Wharton Gets Down with CP Time

 

The parking garage that the directions advised us to use was several blocks away and DOWN a steep hill from the Deloitte tower. While on my way to the tower, I noticed two young, suited-and-booted consultant/banker types making what was clearly a wrong left turn on their (did I mention steep?) uphill trek (oh yeah, and during a heat wave to boot) to where we were going. I tried to flag them down, but they did not respond to my belts, bellows and big waving hands, so I let them continue their merry path, undisturbed.

By the time I had made the hike to the building, signed in, got a name tag, and zipped to the 18th floor it was almost exactly 6:30. When I arrived there were about 5 people there total. I quickly realized that two of the 5 were actually admissions staff. I +1ā€²d this lovely duo when I realized that they had purposefully planned the first hour as an informal meet and greet to allow people a chance to get there.

I found this planning detail both kind and generous. If a 12 year resident that took every back road to get there on time still ended up arriving at the buzzer, I could only imagine what things must have been like for people driving from places like Orange County, the Valley and the Inland Empireā€“not to mention San Diego.

The Usual Suspects + The Angry Old Guy

Over the next hour, the room slowly began to fill up as prospective students from the LA and San Diego areas began to converge on the meeting room. About 20 minutes after my arrival, I noticed the two wayward youngins that I saw going the wrong way earlier enter as well. I was glad they had made it. And they seemed to have taken their 3 block detour in suits and 90 degree weather like great sports. ā€œThatā€™s the spiritā€, I thought.

The usual suspects were in attendance: the bankers, the consultants, the entrepreneurs and entrepreneur wannabes, the non-profit folks, a few military guys and family business peeps, and several college seniors. I also met a guy who must have been all of 42-45 talking about how he was itching to get out of non-profit, couldnā€™t wait to get back into investment banking and was only applying to Ivies; he even turned his nose up at Stanford (wow, who does that?).

I said nothing, but I knew he was probably limiting his chances of going to business school if he continued to think like that. i-Banking is a goals no-no for ā€œmen of a certain age (including me)ā€. I donā€™t know this guy and Iā€™m sure that heā€™s a smart and terrific person, but he came across like an angry, bitter old guy whoā€™s career in non profit hadnā€™t gotten him where he wanted to go; and now he wanted to go for the big bucks by jumping into an all consuming profession perfectly suited for someone 15 or so years younger than he.

Further, the fact that he was being very snobbish (almost infantile, if you ask me) about it made it even worse. In spite of his hubris, I was overcome with compassion and empathy for him and his situation. You couldnā€™t pay me to have to sell THAT story to an ad com.

The actual event was well run, informative and to the point. Due to all of the self study, current student/alumni questioning and introspection that Iā€™ve done at this point of the process, I did not really feel the need to try to dominate the room with a bunch of questions. I was mostly here for face time and to hopefully make a mental imprint on the minds of people who may end up reviewing or discussing my application two months from now.

I found the adcoms from Wharton to be very polished, kind and straightforward in the information they had to deliver. The event was definitely worth my evening to attend.

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