re: What college did you almost attend?

I ended up at Troy for both undergrad and grad school. Grew up in a Bama family, and both my sisters went there, so of course I applied there as well. Also applied at FSU, Auburn, and a few others. I sent my ACT scores to several schools within a few hours of home. Troy offered me an academic scholarship, and it was really hard to turn down free tuition. Even when I enrolled, I was thinking I would go there for free for a year, maybe two, knock out my general studies and then transfer to Alabama. Once I got there, I loved it. Small, walkable campus. Most of my classes were going to be in 2-3 buildings. So I ended up graduating there instead of transferring.

The only thing I look back on now, and sort of wish I had done something different, was grad school. We had an MBA program that got you the required hours for the CPA exam, and the professors really pushed public accounting. Most were CPAs that had practiced for a while before becoming a professor. A couple were recent retirees who taught just a couple of classes to have something to pass the time.

When I took the GMAT, I don't really remember there being an option to send scores out to schools. I just knew I had to take it to get accepted into Troy's MBA program. All of a sudden I am getting letters from all over. The three that stick out the most were Notre Dame, Hawaii, and St Louis University, just because I had never heard of it. I had grown up in the South my entire life, and the thought of going somewhere for a year or two was appealing. But I was recently engaged, and knew I would have a job lined up in Birmingham/Montgomery/Dothan after completing the MBA program.

If I could go back, I would have gone to Hawaii. It would have been awesome to live there for a year in my early 20s. My wife, fiancé at the time, could have lived with me and finished her degree online at Troy. We would have been a long way from home, but you don't get opportunities like that often.