Carrie Shuchart - Case Studies & Cocktails: The Now What? Guide to Surviving Business School

We've had incredible help and support in writing this book.

Our student hosts and hostesses as at the schools we visited:

Matt and Dean (Fuqua/Duke), Elizabeth (Kenan-Flagler/UNC), Aderly, Lisa, and Brian (Booth/Chicago), Carrol and Chris (Kellogg/Northwestern), Della and Mike (Haas/Berkeley), Maya (GSB/Stanford), Jim (Marshall /USC), Karen (Anderson/UCLA), Tripp and Jen (Ross/Michigan), Jessie, Tushar, Patty and Paul (Wharton/U Penn), Will and Jason (Sloan/MIT), Carolyn and Ari (HBS/Harvard), Mike and Sharon (CBS/Columbia), Craig (Stern/NYU).

And the administrators and faculty who were kind enough not to turn us away:

Blair Sheppard, Sheryle Dirks, Erin Gasch (Duke/Fuqua), Anna Millar, Catherine Nichols, Susan Brooks, Emily Wilkins, Tim Flood (Kenan-Flagler/UNC), Christine Gramhofer (Booth/Chicago), Susan Corley Judkins, David Cooley, Jennifer Chow Bevan (Anderson/UCLA), Peter Giulioni (Marshall/USC), Heather Byrne, Al Cotrone, Evonne Plantinga (Ross /Michigan), Naomi Tschoegl, Kembrel Jones (Wharton/U Penn), Debbie Berechman, Jenifer Marshall (Sloan/MIT), Marilena Botoulas, Nayla Bahri, Jilliann Rodriguez (CBS/Columbia).

Much love to our b-school alma maters. We hope it's obvious.

Outside of visits to specific schools, others who contributed ideas to the book include Josh Fischer, Greg Fowlkes, Katherine Boas, Laura Nelson, Helena Plater-Zyberk, and Joshua Fisher. Special thanks to Laura Wilcox, formerly of MIT Sloan, for her wonderful insights.

We also must thank the staff of Manhattan GMAT for all of their hard work on this project. Cathy Huang and Dan McNaney did absolutely incredible work to lay out the book from start to finish, create hundreds of complicated diagrams, wrestle with edits and editors, and get the job done. Eric Caballero read numerous drafts, offered great suggestions, and opened his Rolodex wide. Tom Rose, Robert Wilburn, Grace Wang, Sean Murphy, Whitney Garner, Abby Pelcyger, Carrol Chang, Patty Tritipeskul and Chris Brusznicki added valuable thoughts and shared leads. Belen Ferrer, Taniya Wilder, and Erica Busillo deciphered terribly scrawled handwriting and Whitney Garner mustered her statistics diagramming capabilities to push us over the goal line. Evyn Williams designed a fabulous cover (that drink looks good enough to drink), while Jessica Eliav and the rest of the Marketing team guided us to the title and provided important insights. Kelly Faircloth and Elizabeth Krisher gave us incredibly useful feedback, and Beretzi Garcia forced us to meet our deadline. Special thanks to Dan Gonzalez, Tarik Zahzah, Dave Mahler, Dan Bernstein, Gregg Lachow, and Danielle DiCiaccio for taking a fine-toothed comb to our final drafts. Sam Edla and the other IT guys built and steered our web presence. Andrew Yang supported the book from the get-go and provided the resources and space to get it done. And Zeke Vanderhoek made it all possible in the first place.

Carrie: When I first joined Manhattan GMAT as an instructor, I thought I had found a pretty great part-time job. Little did I know how much this company and my experiences as a teacher would change my life. Over the past three years, I have been inspired by my students' passionmaybe not for the GMAT, but for their futuresand I have been awed by my colleagues' dedication to the art of teaching. Never could I have imagined a company more supportive of its employees, as well as its clients, and I am thankful for all of the opportunities Manhattan GMAT has given me, particularly with regard to creating this book. Working with Chris Ryan has been eye-opening; I've never met someone with so much talent, humor, and compassion, and so little ego.

I am endlessly grateful for all of the irrational actors in my life: friends and family who continually support me, no matter how crazy my endeavor or what I ask of them. Marcie Ulin, Tom Halford, and Meredith Lavendar for opening up their homes, Laura Nelson and Katherine Boas for being b-school sounding boards, Matt Lau for pointing out all sorts of errors, Bobbye Tigerman, Dana Lewis, Sugi Ganeshananthan, Carol Creighton, Jessica Sebeok, and Jackie Dechongkit for keeping me sane, and many, many others who have filled my life with humor, compassion, and zeal. A special shout out to cluster H'07 and my CBS Follies family. To Barbara Belmont, for being my friend and my mentor (and my cousin, not that she had much choice in that one). To my parents, John and Stevie, who have always expressed faith in me, even when they probably shouldn't have, and to my brother, Scott, who has served as my primary teacher since the day I came home from the hospital. And lastly, to my nephew Oliver, who has reminded me how amazing it is to learn something new, each and every day.

Chris: it's been a humbling experience writing this book with Carrie. Her exceptional mind is only matched by her spirit, wit, and dedication. We'll miss her much round these parts. An additional metric ton of appreciation goes to all the instructors and staff at Manhattan GMAT, who recover so many of my fumbles and encourage me to play better.

Stepping back, I'd like to thank some of my teachers of yore: Mr. D'Angelo and Fr. Sliben for math and generosity, Mr. Pomeroy for physics and discipline, Sra. Finizio for Italian and joy, Mary Ellen Schauber for singing and more joy. Among others, Larry Murphy at BCDS and Jane Gutsell, Linda Sloan, and Tommy Webb at GDS taught me by deep example. Chris Johnson, Sacha Adam, and Scott Griffith somehow kept b-school funky. Many folks keep me on track, even when they don't know it; among them are Rob Weis, Josh Fischer, and Larry Finer (in it to win it). Vito, Jared, Will, Marsh, Pat, Brian, Neil, Norine, Isabel, Matt, Jon, Don, Ron, Eric C, Eric C, Eric V, Greg, Yissel, Jay, Robert, Jim, as well as wives & husbandsit's an honor.

Since I was raw clay, my parents Justin and Susan and my siblings Justin, Liz, and Tim have taught me to do X for practically all X; I am not who I am without them, and I love them dearly for it. Mark, Charlie, Julia, Caitlin, Duncan (and honoraries Ben & Sam), you're the future's gift to usthanks for keeping us young. Finally, my wife Kathryn teaches me every day what it means to strive and to care. Her courage and love inspire me, and I am dumbly grateful for her presence in my life.

A. Twenty-Five Key Points

1) Befriend second years. They were just in your shoes, have all of the cheat sheets, and have figured out what's really important.

2) Plan to spend a large amount of your day (or all of it) at school. Even if you're only in class for 15 hours a week, you're a full time student, and campus is now your office.

3) If you want to do something about your job search before you go to school, do informational interviewsfind out what people do, why they still do it, and what else they would consider doing.

4) Budget for the summers before, after, and during business school as though you won't have additional income.

5) Don't have the first hook upeveryone will know.

6) Don't get completely wasted too soon. Everyone will know about that, too.

7) Make sure to do a little bit of everything. Sometimes, you