B-School: Acceptance Letter (The Reach School)

If I was relieved to get my acceptance letter from Towson/UB, you can imagine I am completely shocked to get one from American University in Washington, DC.  I applied there as my reach school, mostly to see if I could but not really expecting to make the cut, and I am just over the moon about my acceptance.  It's #87 out of the top #100 business programs in the country, in THE COUNTRY.  There were 32 students accepted into their program last year and I could be one of them this year.

With Towson and UB I felt that I had met their qualifications so that's why they accepted me, but with American I honestly feel it's because of my efforts with the essays.  The median GMAT and median GPA were both higher than what I had.  I knew that the essays would have to be some kind of amazing in order to get in and I worked my ass off on them.  I had multiple people read and re-read them until I was satisfied.  Writing truly is one of my greatest strengths and I think I had forgotten that somewhere along the way.  (Yes, I write here and at my job but it's never a concentrated effort to achieve something.)  But more importantly, I set a goal and then followed the steps to get to that goal and it completely paid off.  I accomplished what I set out to do and I did it well.

So I know that, regardless of which program I ultimately decide to go with, I will succeed in this long term goal of earning my Master's Degree.  Yes, going to classes for the next 4-7 years is a longer period of time than the last year I've spent preparing for and applying to grad school.  But I know that I have the tools and the ambition to finish whatever I want to set my mind to.  It's a powerful feeling, I'm not really sure how else to describe it.  I need to bottle this for those times when I feel that the walls are closing in on me. 

So often I feel like I am a great pretender, just going through the motions of what I think people expect, and I don't realize that I really am that talented, intelligent, multi-faceted person.  This acceptance is evidence I can hold in my hand that says I really am that good.  But it's so much bigger than that.  It's all those times when my dad's ex would tell me I was stupid or worthless made infinitely smaller in the bigger picture of my life.  It's me not letting that time period define me or control my future - harnessing that negative energy and turning into something positive for myself.  And, if I can do that, hell, I can do anything.