why hellooo, Columbia!

Instant gratification is just boring. Which is why Columbia decided not to give me a real answer and made me wait until now. But I forgive easily, especially after seeing the “Congratulations” on my application status this morning.

I’m in! Clearly today will be an unproductive day.

Happy Valentines Day to you too, Columbia.

…and it continues

I gave myself about two days to do absolutely nothing besides enjoy the thought that I will be going back to school in a few months. I made it through the middle of the second day before I began planning all of the other things I have to tackle before I can really put this whole application process behind me:

• Kroll/Employment Verification – signed/faxed the form, and completed my info online. It seems that Kroll directly and incorrectly pulled the information from my application, because it split each of my work project entries as a separate employer, resulting in two separate employers when I only have one. I quickly sent a clarification email to give a heads up to both the school and my boss, just in case Kroll tries to mess with me. Shouldn’t be a big deal, but I’m nonetheless a bit uneasy.
• FAFSA – I haven’t filled one out since I graduated High School, and even then I think my parents probably did it for me, because up until yesterday I didn’t know what exactly FAFSA is. I directly filled it out online, which was still a pretty tedious process. Here are a few ‘tricks’ that I would have done if I had known in time:
  • FAFSA evaluates your taxable income from the year before. Which means that during 2007, it’d have been wise to squeeze as much of your salary as practicably possible into your 401K to minimize your taxable income.
  • Since FAFSA also looks at your current assets (checking/savings account), make the big purchases that you were planning to make, such as shelling out the $1000-1500 for a laptop, etc. Again, anything to make you seem like the poor student that you will soon become anyway.
• Research and Apply for Loans - I haven’t done a calculation yet of exactly how much debt I’ll be in; I’m assuming normal reasonable beings would have done this before making the commitment to apply to school in the first place. I had decided to defer worrying about money until I actually had a real reason to worry (e.g., an acceptance). And now that it’s here, I realized that I know next to nothing about loans (had parents+scholarship in college, haven’t made any car/house/other loan-requiring purchases). Looking forward to digging into Student Loans for Dummies.
• Set up finances/budget for MBA - I should ease myself from disposable income into poor-student mode slowly and gently. To bid farewell to the end an era, I’ll be treating myself tomorrow to a day spa. :D
• Finish Calculus class - A few months ago I signed up for an online Calculus course. I have yet to open my textbook, and the course is due in less than 3 months. Oops.

Other Things I Should Do:

• Update my resume
• Read the WSJ more regularly
• Research outside scholarships
• Review Finance/Accounting notes from undergrad
• Research post-MBA careers
• Get into an exercise routine again
• Use up my HSA/Health benefits from my company
• Figure out my “exit strategy”
• Shop for laptop, financial calculator, smartphone
• Plan my vacation!