Why I Coach—Drake Pooley

It was August 1, 2012—the hot, Texas summer before my senior year of high school. After two hours of typing away at my computer, I submitted my one and only college application: Auburn University in Alabama. I started a few more, dreaming of schools like UT (Austin), Baylor, Vanderbilt—even Harvard.

Despite those dreams, I just couldn’t bring myself to finish any other applications. There were too many “cants”—can’t afford it, can’t get in, can’t, can’t can’t. So I went to Auburn.

I had a great experience at Auburn—I earned a valuable education, and have so many fond memories. A few years after graduating, though, I checked Harvard’s financial aid calculator. It would have been cheaper for me to attend Harvard than Auburn. I had shut myself off of what was possible because of incorrect assumptions I’d made. This made me think: if my assumption about affordability was wrong, what other assumptions had been wrong?

Not long after, I decided to go back to school—this time for my MBA. And this time, I wanted to challenge my assumptions head on. One by one, I brought my assumptions to mind: You didn’t go to the right undergrad. You don’t work at the right firm. There are a thousand other people like you applying this year. And one by one, by digging a little deeper, I discarded every one of them. I wasn’t going to shut myself out of applying to business school, the way I’d done when entering college.

Once I’d cleared those hurdles, of course, I had to actually tackle the application process. That meant I had to dig deep. What was my story? What was my why? How did everything fit together? I journaled. I reviewed. I scribbled ideas down on pieces of notepaper. I sent myself voice memos. I may have even shed some tears at a coffee shop, when trying to relive some of the most private moments of my life. (I was at the Joe & the Juice in Soho. I’m not sorry about it.) It was incredibly difficult work, but when I finally came out the other side, it was beyond satisfying.

That is, until I sent it to friends, coworkers, and current MBAs, who told me it wasn’t the best it could be. This stung, but more often than not, I knew they were right—so I went back to the drawing board. I’d come this far; I wasn’t going to be deterred. And eventually, I made it. I’d gone from doubting I could get into schools in Texas to earning a spot at my dream school: Stanford’s GSB.

Applying to business school? Yeah, It’s hard. Piecing together your life story and articulating it on a few measly pages, so someone in a conference room far, far away can judge your candidacy? That’s nearly impossible. That’s why we could all use someone to help us: to tell us to throw away our assumptions, to tell us when our essays aren’t the best they can be, to push and challenge and support us on the journey. I had that kind of help on my path. That’s why I coach now—for the people who are on the path themselves, and who need that kind of help as they try and make their way through the world.

—

Interested in working together on your MBA application? Click here for my Leland coaching profile.