After following up last week, I received another confirmation back from my coordinator at INSEAD today letting me know that no, the wouldn't be able to provide any feedback, and reminded me that generally reapplications are not successful. We'll see how true that is, but in the mean time they've just pissed me off enough to try twice as hard.
Last night I'd sent emails to my INSEAD alumni interviewers letting them know the outcome and thanking them again for taking the time to meet, and this morning received back a very kind response from the interviewer who I'd thought was least supportive encouraging me to keep going.
So despite everything currently going extremely well at work, b-school in Europe is still going to happen, for a variety of reasons.
- Current Weaknesses: I need a business education of some kind to take this MVT and PTC work to the next stage, mostly for a better understanding of product development and personnel management.
- I'll be financially ready: In the past ten months I've paid off over $29K of debt, fully paid off my car, and by September 2010 I should be entirely debt-free. Perfect timing.
- One Year: All US programs I've found are for two years. Most of the top European programs I've found are for 12 months.
- Growth Potential: I'm still convinced that Europe is going to be where the next big boom in online development and marketing is going to explode.
- Local Interviewing: Getting a job there with an MBA from a school on their continent should make employment there far easier.
So after INSEAD's refusal, the next step was to decide which other programs over there made the most sense for what I'm trying to do. I was pretty quickly able to come up with a short list that in addition to the INSEAD reapp, included a few schools in London, a few outside of London, and a few more in Spain.
Strangely nothing in Germany ranked in the top 35 on the Financial Times 2009 list, and INSEAD and HEC were the only programs that ranked in France. IMD is out as its proximity to Zurich would be overly distracting. Besides, I'm a big fan of minarets.
LBS's incredible campus
London Business School in particular seems to be right up there with INSEAD in terms of quality and international focus, though a longer program and potentially even more selective. IE in Madrid is 12 months and offers a Master's In Digital Marketing Management which could be precisely up my alley. That said, I'm not sure whether the hyperfocus of the degree would be a detriment on a resume and prevent me from expanding into another career path, but it also really couldn't hurt my chances of acceptance. I just wish I knew better whether these schools were familiar to most European agencies and other firms.
Well I've never been to Spain... but I kinda like the music.
So now on to getting the paperwork and transcripts sent as I work my way down through the top five. I suppose I'll have to stagger the apps to give my referrers a break, but the focus now through Christmas will be on London Business School, due January 6, and IE, which takes apps on a rolling basis.
Strangely excited. Should have done this a long, long time ago.
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