Stanford Visit

I have loads of time I need to take off before the year ends so I decided to take a Personal Day and visit Stanford! I've been to Stanford more times than I can count (one of my best friends went there for Law School and I visited a few times in HS), so I already knew how gorgeous the campus was. Visiting as a prospective MBA student gave me a new perspective.

In HS, I got into Stanford and ultimately decided to go to Harvard because the students at Stanford were a little too excited to be there for me. Typing that makes me sound like a cold hearted meanie, but at the time, I didn't want a California experience. Reading this you might get the idea that Harvard was cold and impersonal but that's not quite the case. I developed lasting friendships during my years there and being apart of the Harvard culture and traditions is something that I am proud of to this day. I wanted something that was totally different on a totally different coast and I got it at Harvard and to be honest Stanford was just too close to home. I had nightmares of my parents popping by casually on the weekends. (These fears were probably unfounded. My little sister is at UCSB now -- just 2 1 /2 hours north of LA instead of 5 -- and my parents never visit her lol).

Now that I'm much much older my motivations for pursuing education and choosing a specific MBA program are much different. Ideally, I'll live in California post MBA and raise a family there. I'd even love to move back to LA sometime in the future to be even closer to them. With that in mind, Stanford is actually an attractive option, and after visiting again at the age of 27, I'm all about the California experience that Stanford offers. Some take aways...

1. The campus is still gorgeous. I didn't bother with the campus tour because I've seen everything already.
2. Students are friendly and welcoming but not overly-so. I sat in on a class and the professor asked the visitors to introduce ourselves. They all gave us a round of applause after we told them what round we'd apply in. I also ran into two people I'd gone to undergrad with and they were of course very helpful and I'm talking with them to get some more info on the GSB and how they came to choose it.
   
3. I do like the case method. I found myself wanting to participate in the discussion and partake in the various role plays.
4. I think I would prefer a small to medium sized program. This is kind of a surprise to me as I tend to prefer larger organizations when it comes to employment. I had a brief stint at an ad agency that had less than 20 people and I was miserable. During my MBA research, I've found myself instantly attracted to smaller programs (Tuck and Stanford for example). I haven't even visited Tuck and was actually prepared not to like it (too small, too cold, too much in the middle of nowhere), but the presentation and alumni testimonials instantly won me over.
   

That said, Stanford is an insanely competitive program and I can see why. I have added it to my long list of schools.