New Balance Sneaks and the Application Process

As a marketer, part of your job is to try to think like other people. It’s a fun exercise. Instead of going into Factory Brand Shoes looking at a pair of white, New Balance old-person sneakers and saying, “Who would buy those?”, you start saying to yourself, “I bet about 30% of men over 65 would be interested in sporting those around The Villages.” 

Just about everything is a brand, and everything has value to someone (except AOL, Kmart, the majority of the airline industry, and anything not Apple). MBA programs have brands, and I’ll never forget the inspiring introduction Alex, Director of the MBA program, gave about this intangible value on the first day of orientation. The University of Phoenix is the Honda Civic of the MBA system. Wharton is the Bentley. The University of Florida… I would put them at the BMW X5 M (color: Monte Carlo Blau Metallic). 

The Economist ranks the University of Florida's MBA program as having the 3^rd best MBA faculty in the world, US News and World Report ranks the UF MBA as one of the country’s best valued programs, and UF’s online MBA is ranked by The Economist as one (of two) of the world’s best programs. Either someone at UF is paying an editor at The Economist a lot of moolah, or this program is legit. I won’t get into how these ratings are achieved, frankly because I have no idea, but I promise you – it’s a laughable process.

Nonetheless, an MBA from the University of Florida has a good brand, especially amongst Floridians. 

The UF MBA application process is like any other admission process, I’d imagine. Enter in a bunch of fields into an online form that you’re nervous will not save your entries, and then write some essays. Oh yah – UF also requires you to take the GMAT. I remember listening in on a virtual recruitment session, and Andy, the SNLish, sometimes-sounds-like-he-just-woke-up-but-seems-like-a-really-cool-guy Director of Admissions said that one of the only ways to get out of the GMAT is to be a doctor. 

After googling ways to become a doctor and ending up on WebMD wondering if I had Fibromyalgia or Rheumatoid Arthritis, I realized that taking the GMAT was inevitable. I studied hard, took a few practice tests, and took the GMAT twice. When I take tests - especially multiple-choice - I sweat profusely, my mind goes blank, and then I sweat profusely some more. Then I shake, throw up (added for drama), cuss at myself, and I’m back in the game! This phenomenon is called test anxiety/panic disorder (just WebMD'd it), and I struggle with it like you wouldn’t believe. It’s funny, I don’t get anxious or stressed out about much, but testing makes me ill. Inevitably, my GMAT scores were not a selling point for my admission. In fact, the reason I took the GMAT twice was because UF asked that I try a second time to improve my scores. I was thrilled (and somewhat unsuccessful).

I was a little nervous about the essay too, because I knew it would have to overcompensate for my back-sweat that made its way onto my GMAT scores. The essay question was open: 

Describe how you would like to see your career develop. Explain how your academic background, prior professional experience and the Florida MBA degree will help you achieve your career goals.

I went into our guest room, dusted off a binder filled with my "career goals," and started typing away at my essay. I wrote about drinking too much wine, moving to Florida, and wanting to become a professor. Here’s a two sentence excerpt from my essay:

After nearly three years of marketing wind energy and carbon credits, my wife and I sat down on a cold, overcast and ugly Friday night at our favorite Italian BYOB in Philadelphia. We popped open a bottle of Pinot Noir, ordered the Antipasto, and had one of those talks that changes everything.  

Two things – (A) when it comes to wine, I really like Pinot Noir (if you haven’t noticed) and (b) I tried to be a tad fun in my essay. I pictured myself as an admissions team member, looking at hundreds of applications and being bored out of my mind, only wanting to think about whether I was getting Sushi-2-Go or a Chipotle burrito for lunch.

Alas, after the essays, the sweat I lost from both sessions of the GMAT, and thinking that the ‘save’ button on the online entry form was going to magically turn into a "Timed Out" screen, I got my little email from the admissions team welcoming me into the MBA program. That night, I stopped at a shady little liquor store near my house, picked up a four-pack of Burton Baton, an oak-barrel aged IPA, and clinked glasses with the wifie. Life was going to change for a little while.  

Next Post: The Beginning of Orientation

Thinking about Applying with a Glass of Pinot

I moved down to Florida a few years ago from the Philly suburbs. People in Philly like the Eagles. They also like stuffing fatty pieces of steamy red meat into bleached white-flower buns, and adding a chemical called Cheez Wiz to the top (or bottom - for the Geno's lovers). It's disgusting, and I love it.

Besides missing the artery-clogging cheesesteaks and the overcast afternoons, I'm glad we moved to Florida. It's sunny and happy, and although the combination of these two elements don't usually make for good indie bands, micro-breweries or coffee shops, happy is fun. Also, I like old people, so I'm in good company.

When I moved down to Florida, I noticed people really only cared about two things - college football, particularly the Gators, and college football, particularly the Seminoles. So, being the counter-cultural, beard wearing hipster that I was, I decided to choose World Cup soccer as my sport of choice. Games are every 2 years, they're only like, 2 - 3 hours, and some of the players look like I'd actually want to sit down and share a Dogfish 90 Minute IPA with. It's perfect.

So when I was accepted into the Working Professional 16 month University of Florida MBA program, I was shocked. Not because I didn't think I was smart enough to get in (although that's questionable), but moreso, because my ignorance of Gator football didn't somehow drip off of the pages of my application essays. I should note that the University of Florida calls this a one-year MBA program, which is plain and simply a lie, as my professional writing professor so elegantly put it. Perhaps the MBA staff has plans to change the world calendar to 16 month years, or maybe they just think they are marketing to sheep. Either way, they sold my whole class, so the UF MBA recruitment team is doing something right (and they're really funny and clever, which is a more attractive draw to the program than the 16-months-is-now-a-year thing).

I didn't do all that great on my GMAT, but I did really good in my undergraduate GPA. This is completely inline with my life story of being a not-so-smart guy that works really hard to catch up to the smart people. For you smart people that are reading this, I hate you. I hate that I have to spend long nights studying while you can go out drinking. I used to think bars were havens for dumb people, but now I know the contrary - bars are where all of the smart people hang out and bask in the glory of not needing to study.

I don't remember what urged me to apply for the UF MBA program - it was the only program I cared to apply to though, and I said if I didn't get in, then I'd have to figure out a new path altogether (or just continue living and working happily in sunny Florida as I had been doing). When I first called my wife and told her I was going back to school, baby crying in the background, she freaked out and told me I was selfish and didn't care about our family. Oh man - if I had a wife like that, I'd probably "stick a sharp object in my eye." Actually, she was amazingly graceful about it, as she always is about everything. She said we needed to get a bottle of Pinot Noir and figure this out. That night, during our 2 hour window of the baby actually sleeping, we made the decision to apply to UF.

Next post: On the Application Process