Going out of business sale…

I’ve finally begun selling my stuff. The first thing to go was my mountain bike. Next a router that I used exactly one time to make exactly one picture frame, which is exactly how I did not financially justify the $300 purchase to myself…the one saving grace is that the $325 (+materials) frame turned out quite nice. My sofa/chair, coffee table, and TV are likely next to go. Once one of these major items is gone, I should feel the reality of moving my life much more than I do now. Regarding what I’ll miss most…pretty sure my car and cat. I’ve had both for almost exactly the same amount of time - 3 years - and I have grown quite fond of both.

By the time I’m through, I hope to have widdled my life down to 3 suitcases, 1 tube of art work/prints, a kick-a** small Persian rug, and 1 box of photos/mementos. As I’ve inventoried my belonging, I’ve realized that I’ve inadvertently amassed a lot of stuff (and that I’ve used “I’ve” way too many times in this posting). For example, I’ve...got two sets of golf clubs, china/crystal dishware, a pair of crutches, a box of baseball cards from when I was 10 years old, 5 suitcases/bags, 5 coats, a guitar I’ve played maybe ten times, the aforementioned router, etc., etc., etc. What? Why? No clue. Realizing that I own all this stuff makes me feel really weighed down; ergo, I’m looking forward to lightening up. My mom cautions me that I shouldn’t sell any major things until I'VE secured my student visa; but, I’m not too worried about it even in the unlikely event that a visa doesn’t work out.

In other news, I just wrapped up a two hour lunch (short-timing would be an understatement for my work days right now) where I watched Germany beat Argentina in penalty kicks. Great game and I’m sure the Argentine coach will get fired for pulling Crespo and Riquelme out of the game. Tomorrow at 9am I’m heading to a great pub to watch the England v Portugal and Brazil v France games… I LOVE the World Cup...and my car and cat.

Going Abroad

A good series of articles describing the experience of an Indian student going abroad to study for an MBA at Duke: pagalguy

Laptop…check

After a lot of going back and forth, I’ve finally purchased an HP dv5040us laptop. It’s has way more hp’s than I need with a 2.2GHz AMD Turion 64 processor and 2048MB's of RAM and I got a screaming deal on it at Ubid because it was refurbished by the manufacturer. What made my decision a bit difficult is that it has a 15.4” screen so it weighs 6.6lbs, 1.5lbs more than the lower performance IBM that I was also considering. In the end, I decided that trading a little size & weight for a lot of performance will be worth it in the long run.

Straight Cash & LBS Schedule

I’m very happy to have finally received verbal confirmation today that my HSBC loan has been approved. Once I get an official loan document, I can apply for my student visa and then finalize both my quit and move dates. The student visa application seems to be fairly straightforward and I will likely fly to LA to apply in person.

Moving forward, I’ve been trying to figure out what my days will be like during the first year at London Business School. The following is what I’ve figured out so far…

Orientation (Aug 28-Sep 29)
Strategic Problem Solving
Understanding General Management
Global Leadership and Assessment for Managers
Business Statistics
Business Communications
Class time: M-F: 9-5

Autumn Term (Oct 2 - Dec 15)
Finance
Managerial Economics
Financial Accounting
Strategy
Ethics
Class time: M: 2-5, T: 9-12, W: 9-12 & 2-5, U: 2-5, F: free

Spring Term (Jan 8 - Mar 23)
Managing Organisational Behaviour
Finance (continued)
Marketing
Decision and Risk Analysis
Discovering Opportunities for Value Creation
1-3 Electives (possibly: Spanish, Bottom-Up Strategy, Fin Eng & Risk Mgmt)

Summer Term (Apr 10 - Jun 15)
MarkStrat (Marketing Simulation)
Operations and Technology Management
Management Accounting
Understanding the International Macroeconomy
1-3 Electives (possibly: Spanish, Adv Corp Finance, Intl Finance)

Internship (July - Sept)

Updates

Only 7 weeks to go…

1. June 16 – Boating in Dallas
2. June 23 – Kansas City
3. June 30 – Likely LA, if not, camping or NYC
4. July 07 – Wyoming
5. July 14 – Dallas for my going away party
6. July 21 – Finish packing & selling my stuff
7. July 28 – Hopefully last day of work/Move to London
8. Aug 04 – Flat hunt/explore London
9. Aug 11 – Flat hunt/explore London
10. Aug 18 – Visit friends in Cambridge
11. Aug 25 – Last weekend before start of school

While moving to the UK/London presents some challenges, I’ve found the schools portal to be an invaluable source of information. Topics addressed by admits and the larger school community range from voltage adapters to short-term accommodations, summer travel ideas to UK student visa application experiences, and scholarship announcements to next year’s sporting opportunities. Student classifieds (eg, sublets, laptops), flatshare profiles, and all things school related also make London Business School’s communication channels very helpful compared to what my other friends have available to them as admits to other business schools.

Regarding my “to do” list, I'm a broken record in that I am still waiting to hear back on my HSBC loan application (originally applied in April, had to reapply in May). Until financing is secured, I can not apply for a student visa, which means that I can not officially set a quit date. I was very disappointed to learn that I was not awarded any of the school scholarships this week. As things stand, I have had to make the gut wrenching decision to cash out my 401k so I can hopefully get a loan approved and afford the next two years.

If a loan does not come through, I have one last hope…while my company has not sponsored anyone for an MBA in 30 years, I recently put together a business case for why I should be sponsored and presented it to my VP. Her reaction was a pleasant surprise in that she took my proposal to my company’s HR VP as well as to my Exec VP. I still have not heard back and have been cautioned that it is an unlikely proposal to be approved, but given that I work for a +$20B company, I hope that they can find me $100k in exchange for a two year work commitment.

More Thoughts on Loans

While I wait to hear back on a loan application, I decided to do a quick comparison of several international student loan alternatives that I may have to consider in a few weeks – HSBC, IEFC, Paras/Isloan. While actual terms may vary, if the average terms listed on IEFC's website are applied to a £50,000 loan (assuming a US cosigner), the IEFC-Wachovia loan appears to be the most attractive. I believe that with the exception of US$500-1000 in fees, the Paras has very similar terms so I did not include it separately in my table below. In comparison to the HSBC loan scheme available through London Business School (don't need a cosigner), the Wachovia loan appears to be just slightly less favorable.

Despite these similarities, I believe the IEFC-Wachovia has one distinct advantage over HSBC/Paras – it supposedly only takes 24-48 hours to get an application processed. I was told this over the phone and in comparison to the 4–8 weeks it takes HSBC/Paras to process an application, this is light years faster and more convenient. Furthermore, while IEFC’s website doesn’t explicitly state this, I was told that the US$45,000 max is an annual maximum and that they are willing to provide a letter for student visa purposes stating that the loan will be renewed for up to the same amount assuming the borrower/co-signer’s debt profile doesn’t change significantly. This quick timeline can be very important for those accepted in later admission rounds, for procrastinators, and for those that may have their initial loan applications denied.

Disclaimer: I’m inexperienced with evaluating loan offers – I simply used MS Excel’s FV and PMT functions – so above numbers may not be accurate. Additionally, while I have tried to provide accurate information, only the loan companies can tell you what their official policies are.

Weekend

The five-day trip to the Bay Area this weekend was fantastic. Every time I visit I think about how I would really enjoy living there. San Francisco, especially, has it all. It’s a very large, yet manageable, urban city. There’s access to the ocean and mountains. Other coastal and mountainous regions are very close as are the Napa and Sonoma wine regions. Berkley’s more collegiate/bohemian atmosphere and Marin County’s hills provide fantastic alternates to city living. The climate is tough to beat – at least compared to the 100+ degree Dallas heat. If you like colder/warmer weather, you can live a little more inland and you’d get the seasons. As with most other large cities, it’s difficult and expensive to own a car, but that is a plus and a minus. Anyway, until I can afford an Aston Martin Vanquish, I wouldn’t be too bummed about not driving…although I love my Volvo. Perhaps I can take advantage of LBS' large exchange program and go to Berkeley for a term to try things out. Having family in Berkeley and two friends attending Hass definitely adds to the draw.

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Back to this weekend’s activities. Friday night consisted of milling around Berkeley, all day Saturday and Sunday morning were spent milling around San Francisco, Sausalito and Stinson Beach made up Sunday evening, and finally a ton of wine drinking took place in the hills of Sonoma County (Dry Creek & Russian River Valley) on Monday and Tuesday.