It Ain’t Glam.

I’ve been fortunate enough to incorporate a heapload of travel into my summer internship at UCF (Unnamed Consulting Firm), and I’m sure I could write a novella on the bittersweet symphony that is business travel. However, I think my facebook status updates paint a fairly simple, yet well-developed, chronology of how my recent escapades have been.

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m@ will give you one chance to figure out where he his right now. Those of you stalking him aren’t allowed to play, sorry. 26 May at 08:48

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m@ ….okay, here’s a hint: his sweet tea addiction is pleasantly appeased at his current location. 26 May at 19:51

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m@ Gaaaaaah SWEET TEA CHICK-FIL-A NOM NOM NOM 27 May at 13:39

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m@ ….congrats go out to Todd, correctly guessing that I’m currently in Pyongyang, North Korea, attempting to appease Kim Jong-il. 27 May at 19:27

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m@ isn’t sure who required more courage to wake up at 4am for the trip to BOS: himself or the cab driver. 01 June at 05:01

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m@ is stuck in the first traffic jam Greensboro, North Carolina has seen in years. 04 June at 18:02

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m@ …Boston-London: five hour flying time, two meals, inflight entertainment. Boston-LA: six hour flying time, zero meals, no TVs. Again, does not compute. 07 June at 15:18

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m@ ’s body is finally rebelling. 08 June at 21:30

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m@ …28,552 miles. 14 airports. Hello, past 45 days. 11 June at 20:00

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m@ …is there a word used to describe “a married cougar”? Whatever it is, the Lufthansa lounge is full of ‘em. 13 June at 15:05

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m@ somehow convinced his client — and his manager — to do an Irish jig in downtown Dublin tonight. If anything, he’s learning the art of persuasion this summer. 16 June at 20:35

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m@ has been called many things, but “Viking Boy”, concocted by the waiter at the sushi restaurant in Copenhagen last night, was a new one. Off goes Sven back to America. 22 minutes ago

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I’m Not Dead Yet!

…but given the fact that I typed the title to this post on May 21st and JUST GOT BACK to writing an entry, maybe there’s a bit of irony to that statement.

I’m seriously, seriously swamped. After nine straight working days of travelling away from Boston, 3,000 racked-up airline miles, and a handful of friendly conversations with other jet-setters, my internship with ACF (Anonymous Consulting Firm) is in full swing. A Paul Bunyan Axe swing.

More to come when I catch up on my sleep.

Hail to the (BOB) Victors (Nominates)!

Well, I originally thought I could ride m@’s coattails to ClearAdmit’s BOB victory by joining forces with him here at Rainierisms, and then CA went and nominated the individual bloggers rather than the blog! I’ve been foiled!

In all seriousness, it’s an honor to be nominated for the second year in a row. My idea is to help people get a glimpse of the application process and the b-schrool experience, and I’m sure that the three of us here are better able to do so combined rather than separately. In business school, they call that particular type of smoke and mirrors “synergy.”

MAP

Applicants and matriculants, as well as those still on the fence about Ross, take note: MAP is the best-kept secret at Michigan. Something like 97% (statistic totally made up) of applicants write about MAP in their admissions essays, and everyone looks forward to it all year. But then it happens. You get stuck, at best, in a conference room, and at worst, in a foreign country’s small hotel rooms, restaurants, subways, and offices with the same 5 or 6 people every day for 7 weeks. And it’s difficult. There is great faculty support, but that doesn’t keep you from falling flat on your face if that’s what you would do anyway. It’s a lot of work and not much fun at times.

That said, it’s a great tool. If you come to Ross, you will NOT leave without having improved teamwork and collaboration skills. After building up your core business knowledge over the year, MAP will force you to develop your leadership, and even your PowerPoint and Excel skills. You will learn how to combine your ideas with your marketing, strategy, finance, and accounting knowledge (kind of a, ahem, Yale-style curriculum, but more compact and efficient. ZING!) But son, don’t let admissions fool you that it is seven weeks of fun in the springtime sun.

So that’s MAP. The best of times, the worst of times.

New Rankings

To me, it all boils down to factors beyond our control. Graduation is two weeks earlier at Ross, so we end up reporting lower job numbers than our peer schools. And, more of our graduates end up in the Midwest, with lower salaries (but in all likelihood, higher standards of living) than our east-coast bretheren. That said, however, coming to Ross by no means dooms you to living in the Midwest. We send people all over the world every year and our alumni network will raise its hands in testimony of that. But for those people who would like to live here, Ross is obviously a great choice, and our salary numbers reflect the hospitable people who make that choice.

So really, while rankings are a great tool, I find no great value in even considering the one that came out today, at least in terms of deciding which school is better than another. It all depends on what you want. Let’s not forget the Michigan Team’s recent victory in the Big Ten case competition! And the three- (or is it four?-) years-running Net Impact Chapter of the Year award, or our Net Impact Student of the Year, or our various other case competition victories. It seems like, when Ross students are given the opportunity to be compared to students from other schools, we really show that we stack up well. That’s good enough for me.

Personal Life

I’ve been absent from Rainierisms for a while, but not without reason. To all b-school matriculants, let me advise you, heed the wise words of Beyonce. If you like it, put a ring on it.

Just understand that b-school will test your relationships. Not just your romantic relationships, either, but your close friendships, and even your family relationships if you let it. And the solution to that challenge is not to pull back or put up a wall. That’s a clear path to losing relationships that are important to you. On the contrary, press in, strengthen your commitments, and take an honest inventory of your relational priorities before coming to school.

Also, take the opportunity b-school provides you to jump off the rat-race treadmill. You won’t have to wear a suit every day, and although you will be busy, your time will be flexible enough that you can explore a new community, with new shops, restaurants, and a cultural scene. This spring, Ann Arbor is hopping, and not just with undergrads playing beer pong. The university Art Museum is newly renovated and features some great new pieces. Detroit’s Auto Show was fantasmo. And there are lots of great little restaurants in this town that you can’t possibly eat at in two years. Unless you go to, um, Tuck (the great, frozen tundra in the North Woods-don’t forget your yak), you should find the same is true at any great b-school.

Lucky Number 13

As you can imagine, many of us are GIDDY about the release of US News’ new rankings, especially as Ross tumbles another two spots (yes, despite the fact that our building is so nice, God uses it as a vacation home) to piggyback the one-slot drop from last year.

I’d like to take a stab at the score criteria US News applies and why Ross may be slipping in each:

Peer Assessment Score (.25) — USN explains that the survey is handed out to a variety of Deans and Directors of b-schools across the country with a “45 percent response rate”. A few questions:

• Are respondents the same year-on-year? What perceived bias do they introduce when completing the survey?
• Is the 1-5 scale sufficient enough? What distinguishes a “5″ rating from a “4″ or even a “3″ rating?
• And furthermore…are Deans being influenced by the economic woes in Detroit and projecting these problems on a school that shares the same name of the state in which Detroit is located?

Recruiter Assessment Score (.15) In my honest assessment, this may be the largest influencer of Ross’ declining ranking between 2007 and 2008. While the WSJ is written off as a shoddy rankings system, it corresponds exactly with this category: how the program is perceived by recruiters. It’s possible that the very same recruiters that completed the WSJ survey filled this one out last year (and this year).

Plus, there’s a slew of things that Ross’ career services organization does marginally compared to its peer schools, in my opinion, that I discussed in my previous post.

Mean Starting Salary and Bonus (.14) This hasn’t changed much. However, if anything — the fact that a majority of Ross alums end up in Chicago may have a continuously strong impact on this score, simply because cost of living adjustments in the midwest are not the same in the northeast corridor.

Employment Rates for Full-time Master’s Program in Business Graduates: Neither has this, but Ross will always be negatively affected by this ranking simply because they finish more than two weeks before every other program in the country. Either way, it’s a wash — it’s always been this way.

Mean GMAT Scores (.1625) Average GMAT score for admitted students has been increasing year on year. But so have the scores of other programs, so this is likely a wash.

Mean Undergraduate GPA (.075) Same here, if not slightly decreasing.

Acceptance Rate (.0125) …it’s been increasing.

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So, if anything — it’s the peers and recruiters likely driving this downturn; I think I threw some points of contention into the former, considering that most b-school deans are busy fixing their own problems. So, they may base their decision partially on 1) Detroit sucking it up at the moment and 2) Michigan having a horrible football season. Sounds shallow, but…hey. It’s business school.