This work is an attempt to provide an answer to the paramount question every prospective student asks, "What is business school really like?" During his first year at Stanford Business School, the author began keeping a journal of his day-to-day impressions which evolved into this book, the writing of which he came to see as a "simple act of decency, like going back to the last calm bend in the river and nailing up a sign that reads 'Waterfall Ahead'". From his initial harrowing days at "maths camp" through the dizzying phalanx of core courses, the frenzy of the exam week, the pitfalls and triumphs of the interview process (including a surreal interview with Robert Maxwell) to being wined and dined by some of the most prestigious companies in the world, Robinson's account is an irreverent story peopled with a wide range of characters.

Reviews

After six years as a White House speechwriter for Reagan and Bush, Robinson enrolled at Stanford Business School, wrestled for two years in perpetual exhaustion with often incomprehensible mathematical, organization and marketing concepts and, upon earning his MBA ``union card for yuppies,'' interviewed in the communications world of Robert Maxwell, Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch (who hired him for a brief stint). In the tradition of Scott Turow's One L for potential students who are curious about Harvard Law School, the author sets out with humor and perception to answer the question that no business school catalogue does: What is business school like? Then Robinson dismisses the value of an MBA degree in the economic downturn after the fat '80s; for him the degree did not pay off as a ``straight and easy road to riches.'' Robinson explains: ``Today I'm back to being what I was before I went to business school, a writer.'' BOMC and Fortune Book Club alternates. (May)