Waiting for Godot, meeting some classmates, and a date in NYC

It took awhile, but things are finally starting to move with Wharton. Lemme explain. I requested early admission and have known for a few months that I was admitted into the program. To secure a spot, I had to submit a not so insignificant (IMO anyway) deposit. So between the time I sent my check and now, not much happened (I called this the waiting for godot period). I sent some emails and made some phone calls to the office to confirm my deposit, and inquired about getting some materials early, and getting financial aid info and perhaps getting the contact info for other admits. Well, I guess they are not in a position to do any of those things before the schedule time frame. So not much happened other than the fact that I was short about 5K.

Well no more. The last week or so, has been a fury of activity. First, normal admission decisions went out towards the end of March. (Kudos to the Wharton Adcom for finishing ahead of schedule and releasing the decisions, and congrats to all the admits!) Then I received an email from Wharton introducing the class manager, and which included a request for additional info to add to my profile and an invite to the three receptions that are being held prior to starting the program. I have RSVP’d for the NYC reception. There was another email with an invite to join the Class 33 east online group. I signed up for that and when I visited the group site, I saw that some of the other classmates had already started to introduce themselves. Not one to be outdone, I quickly fired off my intro. So over the last few days, it has been exciting to read the profiles of my classmates. I am humbled by the diverse and accomplished qualifications of the class (Kudos again to Wharton Adcom on assembling a fine looking class 33!). From the profiles I’ve read so far, I can see there is a plethora of industries and profession represented. In addition to “traditional” MBA candidates such as accountants, financiers, consultants and bankers, I have seen scientist, lawyers, engineers, lobbyists, entrepreneurs, and even a nuclear (or is that nukular?) physicist represented. Such diversity and this is only about half the class so far! I am definitely looking forward to meeting some of them at the NYC reception (which I hope to report on) and the rest of the class when the program begins at the end of May.

I also recently received instructions on setting up my Wharton accounts which I responded to immediately, and went online to set them up. Even though the instructions stated the accounts wouldn’t be ready until a few days later, I did not have problems with the setup. So I now have a cool looking wharton.upenn.edu email address and have access to some of the Wharton sites limited to Wharton students and faculty. I have not had much time to look over the available websites and databases, but will give a synopsis when I’ve had a chance to.

NYC coming up!