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Journey to my MBA

Monday, May 31, 2004

Memorial Day

Studied about 5 hours today. Did a major cleaning of the house with Jane. Feels good to have a clean house. Went through Kaplan's math questions in their study book. Yes all of them. The questions are supposed to be harder than Princeton Review questions. I think it's a bit true. But not by a lot. Princeton has some major questions too. One Kaplan question, I still don't understand is:
If x and y are both positive integers and x>=y, what is the units' digit of
( x y)2
(10 - 9 ) That's actually 10 to the x minus 9 to the power of y with the whole equation squared. Would you believe the answer is 1? I honestly think the question is stinking vague as heck.

Bothered me for a couple of days, but I'm over it. Cuz I saw the same kind of question on a Princeton Review test and knew that the goal was to find the last digit of the number. i.e. 931 the unit digit is 1. Maybe if they wanted the 3, they would have said, tenth unit digit.

A Princeton question that really got me today that my wife and I can't figure out is

Which number in set P has a value greater than that of every other member of set P, if all the members of set P are negative integers?
(1) Each member of set P is the product of -1 and a prime number.
(2) At least one member of P is even

(1) Alone is sufficient
(2) Alone is sufficient
(3) Both (1) and (2) are needed
(4) Each alone is sufficient
(5) (1) and (2) together are not sufficient.

I know the answer. I just don't know why it's right. If you want the answer let me know with a comment. Or if you know what the right answer is and why... that would be better.

The Kaplan test I took resulted in 22 right for Math. Assuming equiv verbal.. this would give me about a 530.
The Princeton test I took after another few hours of study resulted in 25 right for Math. Assuming an equiv verbal, this would give me about a 610.

I'd like to see myself getting 720 average minimum on all the tests I take before going in on July 17th for my test.

Read anothers MBA log today and he noted that he felt a 700 score was needed to get one into the HBS tier. I hope that's not true. I have a 3.4 gpa from undergraduate and thought maybe a 630 was what I needed along with my management resume and background. I'm so stinking envious of those that are writing weblogs about what the experience is like. I soooo see myself there. I can totally picture it. That's how those weblogs of others help me. It helps me to visualize it instead of being an obscure thing in the back of my head causing unnecessary anxiety.

Talked to my wife today about considering calling an admissions consulting group to find out how they help and what it costs. I'm rounding off the costs to be about $1000 to $1500. I have a friend who applied 2 years in a row now and didn't get into any of the schools he applied to. I'm guessing he had at least a 3.3 gpa and I know he had a 570 on his highest scoring GMAT. I just don't want to go through that kind of heartache.

Tommorrow I'm going to call my undergraduate and see what they've come up with in approval for the two classes to graduate. The only session at UCSC extension for Microbiology is tommorrow night. Although the class started, they said I could still join the class. Man, I need to pray tonight that I can deal with tommorrow well and with the utmost wisdom and tenacity and not to procrastinate my calls or follow-ups and decisions because the situation is so hard to deal with. I think maybe what I should have been doing all along is contacting schools with Microbiology courses as regular class scheduled sessions and looked at their timing and availability.. and costs instead of giving my anxiety about what to do next. That way, at least I'd know what the worst scenario would entail. I'm remembering what my brother-in-law's father told me last Christmas who bought a $450,000 commercial building 24 years ago which is now being purchased by Costco for a contract valued at over 70 million dollars. He was driving and saw the building sale sign and bought it, knowing the location was a great one next to the freeway. He had a buyers agreement in his shirt pocket with a pre-approved loan amount up to 2 million from the bank. He did this knowing that he never knew when a good opportunity would come up. He said with years of wisdom, "Success favors the prepared person. Chance favors those who make the effort to plan for opportunity."

1 Comments:

Blogger Dave for MBA said...

The answer to the data suff. Q was actually C, both are needed. I actually chose A. My reasoning was that Choice A states that each member is a product of -1 and is also a prime number. I included prime numbers 1,2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23 etc. You'll notice that I included 2 as a prime number... because it is. Choice 2 states that even numbers are included. You'll also notice that all the prime numbers I listed are odd except for 2. So, If I just stuck with choice A, I'd get 1*-1 = -1 as my largest number. However, if you remove 1 as a choice and take choice (2) into account, then your next largest number would be 2*-1=-2. Choice A according to me is a prime number and one shouldn't need to mention prime numbers plus the one even number one. So my confusion is... 1) why does one have to state prime numbers plus the even one. 2) Is 2 not really a prime number by some math definition that I don't know about? I define a prime number as a number divisible by ONLY and itself.

3:37 PM  

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Sunday, May 30, 2004

May 29,2004

Studied at the library for 3.5 hrs today. Went through Kaplan sample tests and Kaplan math section. Kaplan questions have been the toughest questions I've encountered thus far. The wording of the questions is the poorest among all the sample tests I've seen. Out of 28 questions, I felt that 5 were very difficult in the wording of the question. Good grammer was not used. Reminded me of my high school text books.

Wife is seeing just how serious I am about the GMAT. She saw me playing a computer game after getting home from the library and was upset about my not taking this test more seriously. I thought the game was a reward for studying. Guess she felt that a reward wasn't deserved until I studied the whole night away or a whole week before reward was given. In a way, I think I might agree. Too many rewards probably makes my discipline weak.


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May 29, 2004

Finished studying Princeton Review 2004 Math section. I'm doing ok. My errors appear to be primarily due to 1) carelessness in reading the question fully 2) lack of familiarity with question format. Just when I think I'm getting a handle on certain types of questions, I see a new type of permutation that occasionally throws me for a loop. Studied about 5 hrs today. Plan on studying for another hour. I need to stay more focused on priorities. I get easily side tracked by my wife watching TV or by an ultra hard question that I got wrong and I get up to take my mind off of how dumb my mistake was or how hard the question really was.

For fun, I saw Shrek 2 and Raising Helen with my wife. Watched the 2nd to the last stage of the Giro de Italia bike race on TV. We have Tivo and were able to record it while we were at the movies.

My wife Jane was so helpful today in encouraging me to stay focused on my studies when I would wander out of our study room. I can see that she respects me more if I stay on my studies without her seeing me wander mentally of physically from my desk.

To keep me focused on studies and from fiddling with the computer, a couple of months ago, I setup a round conference table in my study and removed a bookshelf. It really helps a lot to have a study table with little distraction from other things I may tend to want to do that aren't a priority.

It appears that math is my weak point. On prelim tests, I was getting 7 or 8 wrong on math and 2 or 3 wrong on verbal.

Thinking about some focused tests or study material to drill me more on math. I think Princeton has a math only study book. I'll consider that next week. I have the Kaplan book, so I'm going to start on the math part in that book next. I went to a GMAT Manhatten seminar where they introduced the GMAT concepts with some good tips. They did some sample questions and walked through the correct answer. Since they are based out of New York, they only have private or semi-private tutoring for an hourly rate they sell in groups of 5 hrs or the like. At $180 to $200 an hour, I was reluctant to sign up. Told my wife a while back that I would try it on my own and that if I didn't do well that I would bring up costs for tutoring or someother test prep class like from Princeton. But you know, Princeton will probably just go over what I went through in their book.

I have yet to do a full blown GMAT test simulation. I'm thinking I should do one by Thursday.

Still no job. Waiting to hear from a recruiter this week.
Talked to my undergraduate school. They are reviewing the class outline at UC Santa Cruz extension to see if it qualifies for my Microbiology requirement. I pray to God that they take it. Otherwise, I may have to not take a job and attend a real school for a quarter just for that class as a part time student. As I'm 7 hrs away from my undergrad school, I may have to apply to a local school like UCSF, UC Berkely, Stanford or UC Santa Cruz. God, this will be tough on us financially. Please let this hurdle of finances not be so tough.

Jane just got in a car accident last weekend and the deductable is $500. We have maybe $700 in money a month for food and entertainment and my studies. I'm seriously considering taking an equity home loan out to deal with upcoming B-School application costs and GMAT study costs... even the costs of interviews is going to be tough. I'm sure others have it worse. At least, we are able to have a reasonable home and have food on the table with no problems.

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Friday, May 28, 2004

The Beginning of my Journey

I'm 35 yrs old and will be 36 in June 2004. I'm looking to get an MBA by the time I'm 40 and wanted to document my journey so that I can stay focused on my journey and to allow others to be encouraged as well.

So onto some background about myself.....

I've been married now for 3 years with no kids.
I don't have my degree yet. I'm actually two classes short. I just took one and am looking to take my second class here shortly. I actually did take all the classes, but due to financial hardship and irresponsibility, I didn't pay the tuition that quarter and now I'm having to back track to finish the graducation requirements. I should have graduated in 91'.

You may judge me irresponsible, but I really do have some other very personal reasons why I didn't get it done.

I've been in the Information Technology (IT) industry now for nearly 15 years. I'm an IT manager, project manager who is unemployed right now. I live in the heart of Silicon Valley in California and although the market has picked up, management positions are still hard to find. Mostly contract work. I'm waiting on one job application process now as a program manager for an email roll-out project.

I've been doing about 12 years of system administration for Microsoft based servers and networking. I've done it all. From help desk to desktop support.

I worked as a part time staff at my church for 8 years and helped build a college ministry from zero to 200. I trained numerous leaders and read and continue to read many leadership books out today. My favorite has been 1) Spritual Leadership by Sanders 2) 21 Irrefutable laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell and 3) Habits of highly effective leadership by Stephen Covey.

I want to get my MBA with an IT focus. Honestly, I see a lot of poor leaders in IT. Many come from the financial industry with little background in IT. Others come from having been great technical leaders, but not good people or business leaders. I know of probably 2 or 3 personally who are pretty good though.

I want an MBA in IT because Leadership and business are in my blood. I love seeing well run groups of people doing great work. It makes me giddy. When I read books from Jack Welch or Lou Gerstner.. I'm all excited about wanting to be part of that kind of leadership and synergistic growth and sometimes stay awake at night dreaming of leading and being in that kind of organization. Others who work or have worked with me over the last 5 years have honestly encouraged me to take a serious look at my leadership as something I should focus on. I still get calls from people who miss my leadership. I don't want to puff up my story... but I just wanted to be honest about my MBA choice and motivation.

Enough said about the why.....

So what have I been doing then all this time. We'll honestly, I was doing Church about 25 to 30 hours a week for 10 years. It's gone down to about 3-5 hours a week now for the last 2 years. I'm a bit of a workaholic. I tend to work 60-70 hours a week. So I really didn't have time to focus on career path. Just the work and church.

What have I done so far with my MBA prep?
1) Got some books from a friend who applied to his MBA earlier this year.
2) Studied the Princeton Review 2003 and 2004 books. I'm in the middle of going through a slow paced practice exam now in the 2003 book.
3) Taken one of 2 classes I need for my graduation requirements. I'm in conversation right now with the school to see if they'll accept the second class from a local extension school where I live as a the final class. By the way, my degree would be a B.S. in Biological Sciences. I know.. it's a big difference from IT, but I've always loved computers and what they can do for people and always wanted to be a Doctor. I applied twice. Took the MCAT twice. I did get in actually, but elected to not continue my medical direction and did what I enjoyed which was computers. The whole medical school experience turned my hair white. I literally saw 1/4 of my head turn white. Stress really does cause white hair.
4) Starting this weblog journal
5) Signed up to take my GMAT on July 17th, 2004.
6) Trying to figure out the application process right now and the deadlines for application to B-schools.
7) I have a close friend who graduated from wharton about 10 years ago and a cousin-in-law who just graduated from HBS last year. I'm looking to them for some good resources.

I'm interested in applying to Harvard, Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford, Chicago, USC (backup plan), UCLA (backup plan) and about 3 or 4 others. I'm narrowing down my choices now. I'm thinking 10 might be a good number. I'm honestly a bit worried about this graduation issue I'm in and my age. My resume, references and grades are pretty good.

On with the journey...

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