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