Entrance Exam Day 1

Okay. So today I took the first and second part of my entrance exam for business school here at Tsukuba U. The entire process consist of 3 parts. Foreign Language Exam, Course Specific Exam and an interview. First of all, the Foreign Language Exam is an English Exam. God only KNOWS why an applicant from America has to take an English exam...but I'm trying to get in, so I'm not bucking the system and I need all the points I can get. They gave us 90 minutes for the English exam I was done in 50 minutes. So when I was finished (I was the only non-asian taking the test and finished first) I raised my hand so I could turn in my exam and packed my back to get out of there since we had a 2 hour break for lunch between exams.

When I first handed him my test and started to get up, he gave me this look like I was doing something wrong. So, as not to disturb the other test takers I whispered "Is everything OK?". He was like you can't leave. I looked at the clock and there was still about 35 minutes left in the allotted test time. So I say, "What? Why not? I'm finished" He told me to hold on, went to the front of the class and did the japanese group think thing with the other 2 proctors in the class and came back and said it was alright for me to leave. I get up and quietly make my way to the door, when a hall monitor (yes yall, they have hall monitors outside each classroom door and people at the stairwells and door exits!) stops me and asks me if the proctor of my room said it was okay for me to leave. I told her yes and went on my way. Then got stopped by another hall monitor who JUST saw the other lady stop me and ask me if I had permission to leave and I told her yes and asked her if it was normal for people to say until the end of the allotted test time even when they were finished and she said YES! I really don't get the Japanese process. that's just dumb.

So I went to lunch and talked with a friend from Serbia who was taking the Physics Master Course entrance exam and didn't have such an easy foreign language test and thanked my lucky stars mine had gone so well.

The second part of the test was very similar to one of the sample test questions that I had written up earlier in the week so again it seems as though I lucked up. The only problem is a got a little long winded on the first essay question and wasn't able to wrap up my arguement on the 2nd essay as well as I had hoped.

The best part is that it is now behind me. Tomorrow I have my face-to-face interview with some professors in the business school where I have 5 imnutes to present my research plan and state my case for attending school here. Then they will have 10 minutes to drill me with all types of questions. I feel like I'm as ready as I can be! Wish me LUCK!

Tuesday night, we party!!!