Interviews are not required for any of the online programs so I only needed to interview with Kellogg and Booth. Unfortunately (fortunately) those interviews meant two trips up to Chicago.
Kellogg
I flew up to Chicago on 1/15 to interview with Northwestern. Most schools allow prospective students to visit a class, so I had that lined up for my Kellogg visit, too. As an added bonus, I found out that there is a guy who works for Slalom Chicago who is an alum of the Part-Time program at Kellogg and a solid Christian (woohoo!) so I set-up a meeting with him, as well.
My time at Kellogg was great - I had a great conversation with the Slalom guy, he was so kind and helpful. He gave me a list of some great churches in the area and also offered to help connect Mike with some people in the Chicago area should we decide to move (yay for helping my husband find a job!). I enjoyed the class that I attended, as well. The class was a Decisions class so we namely worked in Excel but I think the professor did a great job of engaging the class in discussion and explaining things as we went along. I had a student ambassador who is a current student in the class and hosted me during my time visiting. The student ambassador was really nice and checked in with me to make sure I was getting the right answers to the problems (I was, yipee!) which was very kind.
I interviewed the next day (1/16) with a woman who is both an alum and a member of the AdCom (b-school speak for Admissions Committee, we like abbreviations). The lady was very nice and the interview flowed quite nicely. She seemed to smile and nod a lot and she took a lot of notes, I'm not sure if that is just her style or if I spoke that much. I left the interview feeling very confident and definitely more interested in Kellogg - up until my on-campus visit I was becoming increasingly less interested in Kellogg, so I felt re-engaged with the school.
I had a few hours before my flight took off so I wandered around the city. I've been to Chicago a few times before but since it had been a few years I felt like taking a stroll through Millennium Park. For those unfamiliar with Chicago, Millennium Park is where the iconic bean sculpture is but it is also a massive park right in the middle of the city. Gorgeous! I grabbed a burger at Rudy's (owned by the same people as Pizzano's, I had Gino's the night before so I didn't want another pizza) and then headed off to the airport. On my way in from the airport I took the train and while the process itself is very simple (Chicago has great public transportation) it was not so easy with my hanging clothes, suitcase, and laptop bag/purse. So, I took a car back to the airport. Much better.
Quick shot of the bean while passing through Millennium Park.
Booth
My Booth interview and class visit were scheduled for 1/24. I flew up on Friday (1/23) and was able to grab dinner with a current student who the school put me in contact with. We had good conversation and she was really helpful but for some reason I left dinner feeling a little bit uncertain. Looking back I am going to blame the cold that was rearing its head and settled in full force on Saturday afternoon. I went back to the room, took some Nyquil, and prayed that God would make it abundantly clear the next day if Booth was the right fit.
My interview with Booth went amazingly well. I arrived at the Gleacher Center (Chicago Booth's downtown campus where the part-time program is housed - it is right off the Magnificent Mile) a few minutes early and found out that it was considered a "Super Saturday" interview day so there were several others waiting for their interview, as well. I chit chatted with some of the other students and the lady in the room who was coordinating all of us (she was super awesome and likes really great music - turns out that she is also the Admissions Director!). We had great conversation about music festivals, bands, and live venues while I waited for my interviewer to wrap up her earlier interview. When I met my interviewer I knew immediately that the interview was going to go well - she was really nice and dressed in beautiful, bright colors (b-school is full of a lot of black, white, and gray). We had a really great conversation together and she asked some great, insightful questions. The interviewer assignment was first-come, first-serve (as in when you arrived at the interview location) but it could not have been a better fit - she is a former student, exactly my age, has a background in IT, and transitioned to Operations Management after concentrating in it at Booth. God answered my prayer from the night before in a big way - pretty exciting!
I had a few hours after my interview so I went back to my hotel to change then I went to grab some food (it was now after 11 and I hadn't eaten anything yet). I wanted some Wildberry pancakes so badly but (as expected) the wait was 40-45 minutes for a table for 1. I was going to be pushing it to get a table, eat, and make it back at the Gleacher Center in time for the class I was going to visit so I opted for Chipotle instead. Since Chipotle takes no time at all to make and eat I had some time left so I wandered around the halls of the Gleacher Center - Booth is known for having a lot of Nobel prize winners on staff and they showcase some of their work in the hallways. It was amazing to read about these amazing men (unfortunately, no women...yet!) who have made such huge contributions to the world (especially in the area of economics) and realize that they could be my professors.
The class visit at Booth was great. Another guy who was interviewing at the same time I was also came to the class with me. We had a really great student host who talked about his experiences, classes, why he chose Booth, etc. He was currently taking Goolsbee's class so we were excited to hear about that, too! (Austan Goolsbee was the Chief Economic Advisor to Obama and is a professor at Booth - pretty legit!)
I was invited to grab drinks with some current students after class. I learned so much from talking to them and hearing about their experiences. My favorite question that I ask anyone I can is, "Why did you choose Booth?" The responses vary yet have so many similarities - and resemble a lot of the reasons why I am so interested in Booth. I spent the rest of the evening back at the hotel, nursing my cold :(
Overall, both of my interviews went extremely well and I am thankful I had the opportunity to go on campus and spend some time getting to know the current students. I actually do have some answers back from the schools already but we are going to keep you in waiting a little bit longer on that bit of news.
Prayer requests:
- Confirmation from God that we are moving down the right path and within His will
- God to work out logistics, big and small
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