Narrowing-Down Time!

Next year — assuming I get accepted somewhere — I’ll be starting a marketing Ph.D. That’s lead to an extremely busy semester this fall as I:

• Study to take the GMAT again
• Go through the program-identification-and-winnowing process
• Work on having three papers in the publishing pipeline so I can look more impressive upon application

At least the worst test of the semester, classwise, is happening in a couple of weeks. (I’ve had this professor before and I describe the grading on her tests thusly: "A 100% is the sum total of all human knowledge on the subject. It goes down from there.") And then, despite having four classes this semester, it really won’t be that bad.

Speaking of programs, these are the ones I pretty much have decided upon. I want to get it down to ten, simply because the applications are so damnably expensive. Luckily, there’s something that instantly wiped out half the programs in the U.S. for my consideration: a Russian/German background with an Alaskan childhood. So, no, professors. No matter how many times you tell me that Austin seems like a perfect match for my personality, I am not heading that far south the heat and humidity no no no no no no no no no no no.

• University of Edmonton
• Boston University
• University of Colorado, Boulder
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Cornell
• Harvard
• University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• University of Wisconsin, Madison
• University of Oregon
• Syracuse University
• University of Toronto
• University of Utah
• Washington State University

(Chapel Hill might seem like an outlier. It kind of is, and that might be one of the ones to go. But I’ve visited Duke and UNCCH before, really liked the area in the spring, and North Carolina isn’t SO far south.)