Caught Red Handed!

As much as Daisy and Cody try to hide it, they've come to enjoy one another. They may fight every once and a while, but what siblings don't? I've finally managed to catch them on camera sharing the dog bed. They both enjoy the bed but will usually only use it if the other is not already doing so. Every so often though one will plop him or herself next to the other one. The bed can comfortably handle both of them and lucky for them they don't have to fight over who's hogging the covers!

MBA or Bust! Part Deux

I just got off the phone about 5 minutes ago with the University of Florida Professional MBA Director of Admissions. I was calling to make sure they received all of the application materials I had submitted when the person on the phone told me, "Congratulations, let me transfer you to the director". I figured that meant I was accepted, and once I spoke with the director I found out the admissions board had just recently met and made the acceptance decision. Woo Hoo!!! That is one less stressful thing to worry about. I was actually a bit surprised because their website says they don't give acceptance information over the phone. I guess that makes it easier to deal with people who weren't accepted.

Now that I've been accepted into both schools I applied to, I need to make a decision. After much prayer and thought, I think I'm going to UF. Before I make that commitment though, I would like to visit the campus and check out the school of business and the hotel where the MBA students stay for the weekend. If that all checks out--and I'm sure it probably will--that is where I'll end up. Considering that they are both excellent schools with highly ranked MBA programs on the national scale, the decision came down to mostly two things: time and money.

I applied for the Saturday MBA program at Rollins which means that I would have class every Saturday with only a few weekends off per year (pretty much Thanksgiving and Christmas). The benefit is that the program is only 19 months which is really short, but you are sacrificing your social life, etc... which is really unappealing after already finishing one Master's Degree. UF's Professional MBA program is 27 months long but you only go to class one weekend a month. Although that requires more discipline to study those other 3 weeks it's a lot more flexible.

As far as the money, UF's program is $32,000 vs. Rollins' $55,000 but UF requires a lengthy commute, staying in a hotel plus food, etc... Accounting for the differences I calculated the total UF cost was about $40,000, which is still quite a bit cheaper than Rollins and I could pay for those additional costs out of my regular budget. Student loans are how I plan on paying for the tuition minus how much my job contributes, which is still to be determined.