It has been a whirlwind few weeks for me. The madness started at my dad's birthday dinner on August 31st. My brother, Mark, started taking classes at DePaul so my mom was reviewing her benefits to see what they had to do so he could take classes for free. In doing this, she discovered that I still qualified to take graduate level classes there for half-price so long as I registered for them before my 26th birthday. On September 6th, I celebrated my 25th...a year left and counting. I've always intended to get my MBA, I was actually planning to start classes next fall, probably at DePaul. The prospect of saving what would come to $12,000 was too good to pass up so clearly I had to speed up my timeline a bit!
Talking to Christine, my Alpha Chi big sister, in mid-September, we reviewed my plan for the next month. I had to start and finish my DePaul application including 2 recommendation letters and 2 essays by October 1st. I had to register for, study, and take the GMAT shortly thereafter. I wanted to mail my save-the-dates by the 9 month mark (September 21st). This super killer treasury project was FINALLY going live on October 1st. I had to shop for bridesmaid dresses when my maid of honor was in town October 8th-12th. I was getting my wisdom teeth out on October 10th. Then everything else...2 formal events on back-to-back Fridays, starting a new tutoring program I'm piloting for Big Shoulders Fund, assorted other commitments...
On the plus side, Christine didn't feel nearly as overwhelmed by her September 17th deadline anymore!
I am proud to say, that as of October 18th, I've completed all of the above and more. Once again. I have to say I am so incredibly grateful to my supportive friends, family, and coworkers! My manager and the VP of our group commented I was going to be pretty damn busy come January, but never once discouraged me from applying and wrote/submitted my recommendation letters ahead of schedule during a super busy time at work for us all. My friend Amanda was awesome about reviewing my essays on short-notice since I have totally forgotten how to write anything other than business emails and blog posts (thankfully I rediscovered those skills prior to the GMAT). My sister, Erica, and Dan were rockstar save-the-date stuffers and lickers (and thanks to my mom for letting me use her printer!) My local bridesmaids were super flexible about dedicating 2 weekday evenings in a row to bridesmaid dress shopping, didn't mind that I was doing GMAT flashcards on my phone in between dress showings on Tuesday, and gave wisdom teeth advise while we walked around on Wednesday (2 of them had been to the same dentist I was heading to, and all 3 of them got theirs out a normal age). Allison and Erica were snack packing pros for those outings as well!
As much as I dreaded the GMAT, I totally kicked ass getting a 690 overall score (lets not talking about that 50 percentile math score) and just a little more than 2 weeks after submitting my application I got my acceptance letter from DePaul! Of course with my score I'm starting to wonder if I'm selling myself short by not applying to a more difficult school, but I'll work through that soon.
Most importantly, Dan was there through literally everything. Stuffing envelopes, pretending to be interested in bridesmaid dresses, reviewing my essays, easily sleeping through alarm clocks at 2am so I could work with the developers, doing engagement pictures while sick, being my date and for one evening, my purse, practicing football with me so I'm not completely worthless, driving to freaking Addison to look at limos instead of playing GTA V, letting me win the towel color for our registry...I mean everything. Let's not even talk about the whole wisdom teeth situation-I'm not sure Dan's ever been more desperate to leave the apartment. I'll admit that I was crying day 1 because I didn't want to drink my food anymore. In my mind, I'm some diminished version of superwoman, but in reality I would be nothing without everyone who's standing with me. I'm sure this past month is just a very small snapshot of how much I'll be relying on them between January and June!
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