Calling Chicago GSB 2008 applicants

If I get in for R2 I'll take you up on that. I have always loved the history surrounding ND football.

That's an interesting tidbit on the #s as I actually heard a bit differently from my admit rep when I talked to him Saturday night. He didn't want to get into specifics, but indicated that application rate was up nearly 50% and that acceptance rates were about 15% at best. We can see the number of acceptances in the portal (but not the # of apps)- but I know people are sensitive to this information so I will not disclose.

Again, at this point I'm somewhat hoping my Wharton WL doesn't come through. Had such a great time and love the city of Chicago - prepping for Cubs games already. Did some apartment hunting Sunday morning and saw some great buildings. Only downside of Chicago is that it doesn't appear to be a very pet friendly city! About 75-80% of the places I checked out didn't take small dogs (for full disclosure am looking in Lincoln Park, Gold Coast and Old Town). Anyone around here happen to know dog friendly buildings in the city?

JP - here's hoping that Wharton doesn't come through for you, either. My wife and I really enjoyed meeting both you and Mona!

Thanks Ditto meeting you!

.. actually just put down the deposit and sent in my sloan rejection. Debating just withdrawing from Wharton as I might still take Chicago over Wharton after how much I enjoyed this last weekend

damn straight.

It varies a lot. How big is your dog? Generally speaking, its going to be hard to find a place downtown takes dogs over 25 lbs. Most high rises have these weight limitations. Most people with dogs end up living in Lincoln Park, Lakeview, etc. The options are far greater there. In general, with pets, your best bet is going to be to rent from a private owner. Once you've completely made up your mind your coming, let me know and I'll point you in the right direction.

We ran into the same problem, well our dog isnt exactly small (75lb shepherd mix). Thankfully during DAK, significant others got to go to different condo and apartment buildings...so my wife saw most of the places in Evanston that are popular for Kellogg students and figured out where dogs are allowed. A few of the apartment buildings allowed small dogs but the ONLY places that allowed dogs over 25/30lbs were condos and it was up to the individual owners of the units to make that decision.

My wife found the building she wanted to live in, luckily there were 4 or 5 units listed on the admitted students website so I emailed everyone of them and asked about the dog. I found on where the landlord (a kellogg alum) was fine with our dog, I think the fact she has completed several obedience classes and my wife is doing canine good citizen with her right now helped. Rent will be $25 more a month and a there is a $400 deposit for the dog, $200 of which is non-refundable...overall that is very reasonable to me since a lot of places around me here charge $25-50 more for a cat and $50-100 more for a dog a month (wear and tear I guess).

If there is a list of apartments on your admitted students board it might be a great place to find a place. A lot of 2nd year students at Kellogg post their apartments on there, and I found that to be the best resource. Having my wife pick her ideal building at the start of admit weekend allowed me to check it out on Sunday before we left...now we dont have to pay a bunch of money to fly back out there to apartment hunt, which would be pretty stressful.

JP - to add to Rhyme's and River 's posts on dogs:

I live in Chicago and have 2 fairly large dogs (lab and a boxer). I would say the city is really pet friendly. But - as was mentioned, you will have problems in the high rises downtown / streeterville, RN, along the lake in LP etc. Renting a condo/apt of 3 flat (usually privately owned) or the smaller apt buildings in Lakeview/LP/Bucktown/Etc is usually the easiest route to go. I never had an issue finding a place with my dogs. If you have a larger dog I would recommend looking at the Chicago Park district's website to have an idea where you can leash free parks, etc.

Also - I've heard some of the newer high rises in South Loop are more pet friendly (ie dogs over 25lbs = ok).

Transcript Issue Resolved!

I called earlier today, found out they hadnt received it and resigned to send another notarized copy by overnight mail. An hour later the person I had spoken to earlier from the GSB called me and said that she found it and wanted to save me a trip!!! I guess this is going an extra mile.

Anyone having Chicago GSB's 'going the extra mile' stories?

Ooops. Then i better call them regarding my transcripts.

Ad Weekend 1, March 6-8

Mar/06
Thursday Night Drinking Club (TNDC):
It was in a bar called Durkin's (https://www.mcgeestavern.com/durkins/index.shtml), beer for U$2 for GSBers, talked to many admitted students and current students, talked to dabots, ApolloLuna and rhyme. Got home at 1.30 but I didn't drink too much.

Mar/07
The welcome from Rose Martinelli, Ted Snyder and two alumni started slow (at least for me, I'm a morning person ), but it was fine.
Professor Harry L. Davis talked about leadership and flexible curriculum during 15 minutes, and was followed by John Heaton who gave a mock 1 hour finance class talking about alpha and beta and what fund manager should we hire - for me it was easy - he seemed to be serious but still handling well the "class" and giving good insights.
Then groups were formed in accordance to anyone's goals I went to the Finance panel, were Shikher Bisaria a faculty member and many students gave their insights about the industry and answered questions.

At 1.30 with our "lunch" in hands we went to take another "class" from Nicholas Epley, professor of behavioral science: AMAZING CLASS! I'm sure I'll tackle soft skills at my MBA...

They talked them about the random walks (Thailand, Peru, China, Brazil, etc...)

Then Rose Martinelli, talked a little bit more, showing some of the ppt, some really funny, another one VERY impressive with the whole body, very stylish, cool. There was another with the "Pringle's" problem that I really liked. We could see there that they weren't really looking for your ppt skills, as some of them were kind of basic in therms of visual aspects. I remember something about 35% of increase in application this year, but as I was without a pen, I didn't take note.

Then at the Winter Garden I had some beers, and talked to the Latin Business, European Business, PE/VC/Entrepreneurship, Finance, Investment Management, Ski and some other clubs.

2 hours later at 8.30PM I went to the RockIt bar to gather with rhyme and other admitted and current students, and later we went to Max Bar, were until 1.30 (once again ) I partied...

Mar/08
Started with a breakfest and a message from Rose, and later we had some info sessions about support services and career services.

Then we could start opting Financial Aid or Experiential Learning, I went for the second, were I learnt about some Labs, the Polsky Center, PE, VC, etc. Linda Darragh and Jonatahn Frenzen were the faculty during this activity.

At noon, I had lunch with some folks and a graduated alumnus from some time (not sure how much though it seems like 2 years ago), he was very helpful, answering many questions, and giving some examples, why his class of Happiness Theory at the Psychology Department has been helpful for his career path .

Then we had a speech from Logan McDougal MBA '00, he was very kind and honest, he even told us: "if you got into a top 15 school, now is time to relax, you'll be fine, and if you're choosing between GSB and another of this one no matter where you go, you'll be fine." I really liked the honesty and I share his thoughts.

Panels about housing with Q&As and later a City tour ended the Ad weekend for me.

Hey no, later we had a dinner . I was talking to some current student Jamie Rauch and later we all discovered the guy was a silver medal at the 4x200 at Sydney - we can say that actually he was gold as he lost for Thorpe's team .
But the best part was when Deputy Dean Stacey Kole shared with us her moments at HBS celebration of it's first 100 years. A clear message: GSB wants to be recognized not only at rankings but everywhere as the best B-school, and will make efforts for that.

Later I went with a childhood friend who I hadn't seen for 5 years to some blues bars, I was sold to Chicago as I'm a blues/jazz/soul lover.

I really enjoyed the time I had there, the people there, the school philosophy, and oh MAN THE FACILITIES ROCK, absolutely astonishing. Just didn't like how far the campus is from downtown, but that's a minor con for a bunch of pros...

The students were very helpful, and I could fell that many people after the tour - before the last dinner - were sold to the school, many went to buy shirts, caps, bags, etc, etc, etc. I bought a skull cap

Talk about communication gap. I just now talked to an admissions person at Chicago to get my transcript status resolved. I had so much trouble getting her to note my full name which is 4 words/35 letters long that I asked for her email address and sent her my details. It was so funny to see the person at the other end getting flustered over spelling my name. My g became j for her and so on. It was hilarious.

Soooo... R3 deadline is tomorrow. Anyone gonna jump in the last car of the train?

Hehe .. funny. Well, that's why God invented the NATO/FAA phonetic alphabets:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... Chart2.svg

ps. Although for 35 letters, I'd also prefer to just send an email.

ahh, good for you kwam! so now the question is, if the "other" GSB accepts you... what will you do?

Great debrief Kwam! I hope prospectives for Class of '11 read these admitted student weekend debriefs because they give a different perspective of the school that you can't find in viewbooks and on the website.

dj there's still a day, you can join us mate !!

Kudos for the debrief kwam. I wish I had an admit already !!