Which is why I was delighted when The Economist reached out to me, asking for help publicizing their online “Which MBA?” fair in February.  This free event, which takes place on February 6 and 7, will give you a chance to chat with deans, admissions officers, current students, and alumni from over 30 business schools, including Sloan and Darden (though not HBS, as far as I can tell).

If you’re interested, you can register for free at the Which MBA? website.

The Harvard MBA says:

The question of when to go for your MBA is a common one.  Back when I was considering going to business school, I remember talking with a friend of mine (a Stanford MBA) who told me, “What do you want to maximize–the number of years before you get an MBA, or the number of years afterwards?”  That was a pretty convincing argument, and I started filling out applications right after that.

53 is older than most students, but to me, your situation warrants the investigation.

1) You have a specific objective that obtaining your MBA will allow you to achieve (teaching part-time).

2) Your school is supportive (to the extent of being willing to pay for your first class), from which I infer that if you get your MBA, you will be given an opportunity to teach.

3) You have a background in both business and academics, which means you have a good foundation for this quest.

According to the Social Security actuarial life table, the average 53-year-old woman can expect to live another 30 years.  Given the current state of Social Security, you can probably expect to keep working at least another 20 of those years, which means that your MBA could be helping you for most of that time.

Besides, if you take the first class and find the schedule too taxing or the work boring, you can always decide not to pursue the MBA full time.  Your iterative approach strikes me as wise and effective.

Ultimately, the decision to get an MBA is emotional and practical.  You should ask yourself, will it help me live a happier life?

You asked me, “Am I crazy?”

Is it crazy to want to fulfill a long-held desire to teach?  To take advantage of a supportive employer who encourages those desires?  To better position yourself for the remaining 20 years of your career?

No, I don’t think you’re crazy.  Good luck, Debbie!

Check out all the details on my personal blog.

–Mark

The Harvard MBA says:

This is an unusual question for me, but since you and your wife agreed that I’d be the tie-breaker, I can hardly refuse!

The good news (for the health of your family at least) is that Lysol is extremely effective.  In this 2000 study available on the NIH web site, researchers at the University of North Carolina Department of Hospital Epidemiology found that Lysol was extremely effective against a broad array of viruses and bacteria:

The following compounds demonstrated excellent antimicrobial activity (>5.6-8.2 log10 reduction) at both exposure times: TBQ, Vesphene, Clorox, ethanol, and Lysol Antibacterial Kitchen Cleaner. Mr. Clean eliminated 4 to >6 logs10 and Lysol Disinfectant approximately 4 logs10 of pathogenic microorganisms at both exposure times. Vinegar eliminated <3 logs10 of S. aureus and E. coli, and baking soda <3 logs10 of all test pathogens. All tested chemical disinfectants completely inactivated both antibiotic-resistant and -susceptible bacteria at both exposure times. Only two disinfectants, Clorox and Lysol, demonstrated excellent activity (>3 log10 reduction) against poliovirus.

Since 99.9% effectiveness is the equivalent of a 3 log10 reduction, Lysol met or exceeded its claimed efficacy for all the pathogens tested, which included Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella choleraesuis, Escherichia coli O157:H7,  Pseudomonas aeruginosa, poliovirus, vancomycin-susceptible and -resistant Enterococcus species, and methicillin-susceptible and -resistant S. aureus.

Let me know who won the bet!

Thoughts?”

–Carl

The Harvard MBA says:

Carl, you have what we like to call a “high-quality problem.”  Most people would love to be wrestling with the challenges of financial success and independence.  But a high-quality problem is still a problem.

Indeed, a number of my friends have made a lot of money either via IPO or sale, and struggled to figure out what to do next.  If you’ve spent your entire career striving to achieve “success,” what do you do once you achieve it?

One friend tried retiring at the age of 52 after leading his startup to a successful IPO and running a publicly traded company for a number of years.  He even devoted a significant amount of time to golf lessons!  (I suspect that golf has three major attractions for the wealthy: It’s a fun activity with breathtaking views, it takes up an inordinate amount of time, and it reduces the chance that you’ll run into poor people who will ask you for money.  The ridiculous outfits are just a bonus.)

He found retirement boring, and came out of retirement to found another company.  After selling that company, he does appear to have retired, but this time, he had a secret weapon: Grandchildren.

It sounds like you’re pretty self-aware and that you feel like college may help you find what you think you’ve been missing. On the other hand, it also sounds like you feel some trepidation at going back to school at age 55.

It strikes me that you’re hoping that going back to college will do several things: 1) Allow you to share your experience with young people who will benefit from them, 2) Give you a chance to explore interests and activities long deferred, and 3) Let you earn a college degree.

From a practical standpoint, earning a college degree strikes me as the least important of those goals, though if you discover along the way that you want to pursue a path that requires such a degree (such as obtaining an advanced degree so you can teach), that might change.

Also, there is a great deal of work involved in pursuing full-time studies, ranging from the prosaic (getting your old high school transcripts together) to the unpleasant (taking the SAT) to the absurd (asking people for recommendation letters).  It’s enough work that it might take you some time to get started.

Finally, I’m not certain that 18-year-old freshmen are the ideal folks with who to share your experiences.  They may be more interested in consuming alcohol and pursuing members of the opposite (or same) sex than in hearing about your wealth of business experiences.

Rather than jumping to full-time studies right away, might I suggest tackling your objectives directly?

If you want to share your experiences with young people, seek out the local entrepreneurial community.  These folks will be delighted to hear from a successful software entrepreneur.  If you want to guarantee your popularity, simply hang out your shingle as an angel investor.  Trust me, there will be many people eager to hear your stories!

If you want to explore interests and activities long deferred, jump right in with courses, either through your local college/university, or via clubs and other organizations.  In fact, this might be even more effective than enrolling in a college degree program, since you won’t be stuck taking required courses for a year or two.

If after taking these two steps, you discover that you do want to pursue a degree, you’ll have plenty of new experiences to help you feel confident in your choice.

Do write back and tell us what you decide to do!

So my question for you is: what do you generally recommend I do to get on track toward that goal?

You’ve written before about the importance of having stand out experiences. I’ve lived in China (4 months as a student) and Malaysia (2 months as an intern with a conglomerate), and I may be joining the Peace Corps within the next year, so perhaps I have that area covered already. (?)

But what type of work experience do you think I need prior to applying to the top flight programs? It seems that it would be difficult to go the conventional route you’ve mentioned in other posts (I-banking or consulting) since I’m already out of university and am no longer exposed to their campus recruiting events.

Is this a familiar story? is there hope? Or has the ship already sailed?

–BJ

The Harvard MBA says:

BJ, the good news is that you already have an unusual set of experiences.  But you’re also right that if your only work experience is a single 2-month internship, it will be harder for you to get into business school.

As I’m fond of saying, MBA students are products, not customers.  The school benefits from your achievements as an alum, not from your time at the school.  Therefore, business schools want to admit students that have proven they can succeed in business after graduation.  Your current set of experiences doesn’t offer a lot of evidence to support or contradict that goal.

Given your international focus, I’d recommend that you find some way to get a job in Asia.  Since most of these employers don’t recruit on campus anyways, you’re not losing out by starting your search post-graduation.

Start networking with people you know, contacts from the company where you did your internship, and with alumni of your university.  You don’t need a high-prestige job as the special assistant to the CEO of a billion-dollar company; any reasonable business experience will do.  The fact that it’s occurring in Asia will make you more attractive to schools.

The general rule of thumb is to have 2 years of experience before you apply, but you might be able to get away with 1.  If you’re willing to go through the application process twice, you may want to apply after your first year on the job to accelerate the process.

Good luck with your career plans!

I say this as someone who would very much like to enroll in that year. At that point, I would be above the average admission age of 27 and above the average work experience of 4.5 years.

What are the sort of things I can do in the next 3 years that will significantly increase my chances of getting accepted for a Harvard MBA?”
–T

The Harvard MBA says:

First off, I hope we’re not in the Great Depression II in 2013.  You think the past few years was bad?  During the Great Depression, we had 25% unemployment!

The key to improving your chances of getting accepted are, as with any sales endeavor, to think like your “customer.”

When HBS accepts a student into the MBA program, it’s not signing up a customer.  Rather, it is investing one of its precious 880 annual admissions slots in you.  The school has plenty of money; it’s admissions slots are fixed, and therefore even more valuable.

If you think of yourself as an investment, you’ll develop much better insights into what makes you attractive.  External markers like age, work experience, and GPA are symptoms, not causes.  These characteristics are only useful inasmuch they help the school predict which MBA students will become successful alumni.

Different business schools take different approaches.  HBS is focused on selecting leaders who make an impact.  HBS could certainly afford to only accept students with a 3.9 GPA and above, but it chooses to value certain things more than raw college performance.  More applicants achieve a perfect GMAT score each year than could possibly be admitted to HBS.

The best way to judge if someone is likely to be a leader who makes an impact is to examine whether or not he or she has made an impact prior to business school.  The ideal candidate would combine the standard markers (work success, high college GPA and GMAT score) with clear indications of leadership potential and character.  In theory, this could be achieved through successful entrepreneurship, but the reality is that most successful entrepreneurs can’t afford to go to business school–the opportunity cost is too high.  I’m sure HBS would love to have Zuck as an alum, but I doubt he’s resigning as Facebook CEO to go to school (we’ll have to settle for Sheryl Sandberg ‘95 instead).

In practice, therefore, the best way to prove your leadership potential is to start a new and impactful initiative at your company, or to found or turn around an organization that makes an impact.  Launching a new business unit for your company, or starting a program that educates 100,000 underprivileged kids, for example.

The best way to do this, of course, is to leverage your existing passions and accomplishments.  Seek out positions of leadership, and if they don’t exist, create them.

Most of the people in this world are passive; they may be intelligent and capable, but they only apply themselves to the opportunities that present themselves as neatly wrapped packages (”achievements”).  You can distinguish yourself far more easily by *doing* than by *achieving*.

For example, one of my friends from business school was incredibly intelligent.  He had the grades and test scores, and worked for McKinsey after his undergrad years.  But what really set him apart was something he *did*.  He was fascinated by finance, and sought out every opportunity to connect with folks within and outside McKinsey to learn about the topic.  He did this so well that he ended up writing a book on capital theory with a McKinsey partner who needed a smart partner.

If you were an admissions officer, and you were presented with two candidates, both of whom went to good schools and worked for McKinsey, which would you rather choose–the conventional high achiever, or the guy who wrote a book and was considered one of the world’s leading experts in his field at the age of 24?

Achievement is attractive by unconventional.  Doing something remarkable is the best way to get accepted.

Can a 52 year old woman date a 26 year old man and actually have a fulfilling relationship? How would I know if he really likes me?
–Sheryl

The Harvard MBA says:

Love takes many forms; who am I to criticize any working relationship between two consenting adults?  After all, I covered the first annual Cougar Convention as a reporter.

I’m sure that there are many 50-something women who have fulfilling relationships with 20-something men, though that’s certainly rarer than relationships between people of the same age.

I will say that there are some key items you need to work out if you want this to be a long-term relationship.  First and foremost, you need to make sure that the expectations for the relationship are the same.  Hopefully you both want the same thing.  One key factor is whether or not he wants children.  While it’s possible for a 52-year-old woman to give birth, the odds are definitely against it.  If he wants children, that would place definite limits on the relationship.

Second, you need to make sure that both of you are ready to deal with the consequences of your relationship.  Your friends and family might not be that understanding of the relationship; the same holds true for his friends and loved ones (perhaps even more so–if you’re older than his mom, this will definitely come up).  Are you two willing to put up with anything from idle gossip to active disapproval?

Figuring out if he really likes you is the easy part.  If he’s willing to spend time with you outside the bedroom, he likes you.  Men, especially young men, are unlikely to seek the company of women just for their personalities.

Let me know how it goes with your cub!

P.S. No platitudes.  Answer as though this were your semester final exam; introduction, supporting points with examples.  You will be graded.

–Bonita

The Harvard MBA says:

Bonita, I can empathize with your situation.  One of the reasons it seems so hard is that over the past few decades, the rise in women’s professional and educational attainment (a good thing in general) has made it very difficult for high-achieving women to meet male peers–simply because those peers aren’t there.

I’ve written a piece for one of my other blogs where I detail the fall of men.  One of the telling statistics is that for every 100 college-educated 23-year-old men in America, there 164 college-educated 23-year-old women.  Another is that single young men earn 8% less than their female counterparts–a sharp contrast with the historical income advantage that men held.

In other words, the number of men who can match your education and professional success is depressingly low, and many of those men are probably already married or gay.

But even if the odds are against you, that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed in your goal of meeting an educated, successful, normal man.  The source for my advice will be the classic book, “Why Men Marry Some Women And Not Others“.  (While you haven’t specified marriage as your object, I suspect that your criteria indicate that marriage is your goal)

• Women with a large number of female friends are more likely to marry than women with a large number of male friends
  • Men don’t go out of their way to introduce their female friends to other men
• If you reach 30 and want to get married, you have to make finding a husband a primary goal. Once your friends start getting married, they are less likely to have an active social life with you. Don’t be the last one off the bus!
• The larger the number of single men and women you work with, the better your chances of marrying
• Women with unrealistic expectations often remain single
  • Much of the time, these expectations are imposed by others, who think that the men she brings home aren’t “good enough for her.”
  • Give men a second chance—20% of brides to be said that they didn’t like their husband when they first met him.
• Women who make an effort to seek out the company of single men are more likely to marry
  • Women who marry date more frequently than those who don’t, even it’s Mr. Wrong.
  • Women who marry are three times as likely to participate in masculine activities in which they had no real interest.
  • Women who marry are twice as likely to have made lifestyle sacrifices (changing jobs or moving) to meet eligible men.
• Women who have active social lives are more likely to marry
  • Women who go out twice a week, even just to dine with other women or do volunteer work, are 3x as likely to marry than those who don’t go out.
  • Going out three times a week boosts your chances even further.
  • However, going out more than 5 nights a week decreases your chances.

The book also offers some advice specifically for women over 40, but I think the advice applies to all women:

• The best places to meet eligible men are clubs and groups based on common interests. Join organization that have single men as members.
  • 21% of engaged women over 40 said that they had met their fiancée at an athletic club
  • Sports clubs that focus on activities that attract singles (trips, bicycling) are best
  • Next best are tennis, and golf.
  • Third come professional or social organizations that are overwhelmingly male, like engineering associations or collectors of sports memorabilia.
  • Fourth come organizations that have a singles scene, or sponsor events that give singles a chance to socialize with other club members.
  • Dances, picnics, and charity golf or tennis tournaments are also a good place to meet men.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

The Harvard MBA says:

First of all, congratulations on getting accepted into your Masters program.  That in itself is a good thing.

In terms of your question, if you’re going to get both your MSCS and your MBA, it’s better to get the MSCS first, then the MBA.  The reason is that top-tier MBA programs have outstanding recruiting programs to help you find a great first job.  It’s much easier to get a job coming straight out of b-school than it is at any other time in your life.  If you were to get your MBA first, then your MSCS, you’d be wasting that opportunity.

When you’re done with your MSCS, you’ll still only be 30 or 31, which is well within the normal range of ages for attending business school!