Last winter, I took a lob shot from center court…and airballed.  I took the GMAT in late summer and decided to apply to one school-HBS.  My fiance is currently a student at Harvard and we were going to be in the Cambridge area for at least another 2 years, so I thought I would test the waters. 

I had recently started a new job (having left a really bad job situation that I’ll write about in a future post).  I couldn’t ask my new supervisors for a rec, because they wouldn’t be exactly happy I was thinking about leaving.  I asked folks from my past for recs as well as a current supervisor in a volunteer position I held. 

The essays nearly killed me, and though by the end, I felt like I had put together a unique application, I was promptly rejected.  This may have to do with my age–I’m 29.  Harvard seems to like those that figured out business school was for them when they were 14.  I had never heard of an MBA until I was probably 24.  I’m not kidding!  I grew up, the daughter of a farmer and secretary at a John Deere Dealership, in rural, rural Minnesota where the most common topic of conversation was cumulative rainfall.    

Anyway, I know that I want an MBA and I think I’m getting closer and closer to knowing exactly why I want one and this time, because my fiance is finishing up school and we have more geographic flexibility, I am going to be applying to a greater number of b-schools with the hopes that maybe just maybe one of them will admit little ol’ me.