Revista MBA

Let me preface this [rant] by saying that plenty of my ex-pat friends from China and India have given me absolutely no sympathy on this.  When I complain about Campus France, they roll their eyes and ask, “do you have any idea what it took to get into the US?”  

I’m at the moment on a bus that has internet.  Now, we may not have high speed rail in America, our bridges may be on the verge of collapse, our 60-year old crumbling interstate highways may be over capacity with all our 12mpg SUVs, but we have buses with internet.  That’s 21st century.  Take that, Europe!

I’m taking this bus to visit some dear friends but also to attempt to defraud the French visa process by applying at a less meticulous consulate than the one in my current city.  When applying for the Visa, it’s not enough that you have to fill out multiple applications, notorize statements that your parents will support to the tune of $600 per month (what does 400 EUR/month get you these days?  a baguette?), plus provide their bank statement, take copies of your college diploma in addition to copies of your INSEAD admission letter (that one, with the typo about the tuition amount).  Blah blah blah…

You also have to register with a delightful organization called Campus France.  They help you pick out a program to attend!  

That’s great, you say, but I already have a program to attend.  

Oh, in that case, we’ll just take your money.  In fact, we’ll double the amount.  

As far as I can tell, Campus France is geared toward high school and college kids who are going on a year abroad.  This organization asks you to list all of your grades (since high school), list your awards and write essays about why you want to study abroad in France.  It wouldn’t be quite so painful, if the forms you had to fill out didn’t require another 5 page document just to decipher it and all the error messages didn’t come up in French.  ”Next click on icon of pencil,”  then “click on paperclip”  Do you remember what internet used to be like back in the days when we had all-numeric addresses? 104621.1250@compuserve.com?  Well, that form may have been created by the same genius designers writing code for Compuserve.  And the best part, is that after you write essays about your future aspirations in a sort of omniscient future tense, you get to send Campus France a money order for $120 and wait two weeks to get a response.  A money order?  I thought money orders were for people who bought things on late-night QVC.  

It’s not the expense of it.  When spending 50K EUR on tuition, I’m not really worried about $120 for Campus France here, $700 for medical insurance there, some $2K for business attire and accessories.  The fee is small change.   It’s the principle of it all – an organization created with no other purpose than to take money without providing a single service.

I’m done ranting.  All better now.

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