Accepted at the Carlson School of Management.

Last week I got accepted for the Part-Time MBA program at University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management which is ranked between 5 and 12 in different rankings for it's Part-Time MBA program. The classes start in January and am really excited on going back to school after about 5 years. I was planning to do a MBA for a couple of years now but couldn't get myself to do it. Finally in August I decided to take the plunge. First was the GMAT and TOEFL. I had exactly 63 days for my GMAT exam and to make matters worse I couldn't get a TOEFL appointment in Minneapolis and had to go all the way to Duluth for the exam. GMAT just tests your high school maths fundamentals but the way the questions are phrased can make your head spin and the English section is tricky as it could be. After slogging for those 2 months, sleeping for less than 4 hours each day and missing a lot of fun stuff, I scored a respectable 570 on my GMAT. In addition to the GMAT, I had to prepare my admission package for the U. That involved writing some really focussed essays. Thanks to my friends and colleagues who provided valuable inputs, I felt my essays were strong and projected a good idea on what I am and what I wanted to achieve. After the GMAT was done, I had to write the TOEFL a week later. I was a bit confident on this and the only thing I was focusing on was on getting a real good score so that it made a good impact on my admission package. I had to wait a good 3-4 weeks for the TOEFL score to arrive and the admissions committee to make a decision. A couple of weeks later, I got my TOEFL score and it was 107/120 which is in the 95th percentile. I was really nervous waiting for the decision since I didn't want to go to any other school or write the GMAT once again. Like in the movies, I would open my snail mailbox and wait for the letter to see if I have been accepted or not. The university actually sent me an email informing that I have been accepted. That was one of the happiest moments of my life. Normally you slog hard to accomplish difficult things and when you accomplish it, it makes all that effort worthwhile.
My first classes starts in the second week of January and I am really excited about learning new things and meeting new people.

-Muthu.