CFA Fever

I seem to start every post with an apology...sorry i haven't posted for so long! Bad case of blogstipation. I've been pre-occupied with my exams which came and went in June by the way. It went well (very well actually) but the problem with the CFA is that its so tricky, you can never be sure u passed! So after the exams, i looked forward to getting back to the real world.....going crazy, partying and painting the town red with my boo! Unfortunately, i developed the post CFA syndrome (refer to http://www.analystforum.com/phorums/read.php?12,1175934 or http://www.leveragedsellout.com/2008/07/chartered-financial-banalyst). I just couldn't be bothered to go all out....apart from a few lame attempts to go paint-balling and go karting! To make matters worse (or better), i got an email from the CFA institute letting me know that results would come a full three weeks earlier this year! Thats on the 26th of July instead of the 16th of August.....in effect, my results would be out in about two weeks! 'Yepa' like my tribesmen would say!

Of course, B school application has taken a back seat to all this. The only development is that i think i have made up my mind on the schools that i would apply to....Oxford (Said Business School), Cambridge (Judge Business School), London Business School and maybe Imperial Business School as a back up. The factors i considered were brand, course duration, location and cost.....and these guys came up trumps in those factors.

I want a school that's recognized in Nigeria....It's all well and good to say Insead is the number one school in Europe according to businessweek but when u have to explain that fact to recruiters and even your enlightened father continues to ask you where Insead is, you start to wonder if that £55,000 outlay is worth it. The cambridge, oxford, london and even imperial brand names definately carry more weight! I can just picture my father boasting to his friends at lunch, 'my son is currently pursuing his masters at oxford!'.

I've also decided to opt for a one year course....two years without a salary? LaiLai!!!!(translated to mean over my dead body (translated further to mean Never))..... Of course the two year courses offer certain benefits such as internships and depth of course content but when transposed against the drawback mentioned above, its a no-brainer. This concern explains one of my attractions to LBS. It offers an attractive variability of course duration (between 15 and 21 months).

Location? Its obvious i want to go to the UK....reason? Visa concerns!

Cost? Here i think cambridge and oxford offer the best branding benefit/cost trade off....they are relatively inexpensive at (less than 30,000 compared to LBS at about 50,000).....

Timing is however the most important issue for me. I want to go to school when the timing is right and i am in a position to derive every possible benefit of the MBA. For me, that would be a situation where i have an absolute mastery of the technical parts of my job and then use the MBA to launch myself into management. I'm not certain that is currently the case. But then again, i might be thinking too much. Finance is also another issue...my father would retire next year and he's hinted that he might not be in a position to provide a bulk of the funds (as is the case now) if my MBA were to meet him in retirement. So thats another consideration. There's also the difficulty in leaving certainty for uncertainty....will i get another job after the mba? would i get paid enough to justify the outlay?

Wahala dey! (Translated to mean ' There's trouble!')

First of many....hopefully!

Who am i? Well, my name is Bayo Babalola, a 26 year old finance professional based in Nigeria. I currently work with a Private equity firm in Nigeria after spending two years as a portfolio manager with an investment boutique. I am also enrolled in the CFA program and scheduled to take (retake...insert red face) the level 2 exam in June.A blog? Why? Well, to tell the truth, i've been exploring the option of going to business school for a couple of years now, spending a lot of time reading student and alumni blogs of various schools. They have been quite helpful and i feel that i should contribute as well by documenting my experiences prior to, during and after business school.

Okay, so where am i now in the admissions process? Well, i have taken the GMAT and scored an almost miserable 670. I have however decided to take my chances with it. I don't feel the gains of a higher score would be worth the additional three months of study time to take the bloody exam again! Not to mention the additional $250! My time would probably be better spent trying to learn french or something.....not sure i can get away with yoruba as a second language in these bi-language schools! I have pretty much looked at every school from Thunderbird to St Gallen (http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/full_time_mba_profiles/) and have finally decided that LBS (London Business School) would probably be the right fit for me. So hopefully, this time next year, i would be celebrating an admit with my loyal readers (or my girlfriend, if as i expect, the former < 1!)

My greatest worry? Money! Money! Money! Let me break down my financial situation. Tution at LBS is currently about £50,000 (i expect this to be up to 55k by next year when i apply), throw in another 30k for living expenses. Moving to the right side of the balance sheet, i currently have a miserable £5k in savings, hopefully, i can miraculously increase that to £15k by the time i'm off to school, Throw in another 15k from my family, that leaves me with a £50k shortfall! Can i get enough in scholarships and loans to finance this? Do i want to leave the MBA with a £50k loan book especially if i have to come back to Nigeria to work? Why do i have to go to LBS? Why not the Thunderbird School of Global Management? After all, they are the best in International Business (or so i hear)! These are some of the questions i hope to have answered over the next year......