June 16, 2008 - July 25, 2010

On Wednesday as I sat in my cubicle listening to my iPod and plugging away at the never-ending pile of work, my cell phone rang. Number unavailable.

I tentatively answered it - the voice on the other end was the admissions counselor from Daniel Webster College regarding the MBA for Aviation Professionals program. He was returning my voice mail and email from earlier that day as well as another email from the week before that had gone unanswered. I was a bit nervous because I hadn't heard back yet, and when I applied in the middle of February I had been advised that it would probably be about 2-3 weeks. That would have landed us at about March 7th with a decision.

I braced for the worst. That must have been what took so long; I'm too green, not enough experience, they don't trust that I won't switch careers to marine biology or something. Maybe the worst wouldn't come, maybe my hopes would come true and I'd get in... but probably not...

And then... he said it...

"I know you're anxious because you have to get approval from your work before you register, so I thought I'd call you ahead of the letters and let you know that you have been accepted. The decision letters are going out today or tomorrow; the reason it took so long is because the start date has been moved from April 14 to June 16".

I let go of the air in my lungs and breathed a sigh of relief. I then listened to him detail that the reason the start date moved for this cycle is because they rearranged some classes for the betterment of the program based on student feedback over the last few years. He then mentioned that the program director had concern about my application because I'm so young in the industry and worry that I'd get lost in all the military and pilot-type people. The counselor told him he'd talked to me about all that, and they decided that my being so young and in a different area of work than most of the people from the industry who take the program that I'd offer a fresh set of eyes and ideas - and that I should never be afraid to speak up in the class.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic. DWC's MBA-AP program is going to own me for the next two years, starting on June 16th. It'll be a lot of work crammed into 2 years and I'm sure I'll be pretty busy - but at the end of it all, I'll have my MBA.

Sweet.