Change of Plans?

"The Plan" for the last 6 months or so has been that I will graduate from UC in June 2008 and then our little family will move down to Austin so that JP can start business school at the Univ. of Texas. As much as I fought it initially (I LOVE Chicago and am not such a big fan of Texas), I've become totally sold on The Plan. I love the firm I'm going to be working for, all of my family is in Texas (all the grandparents, siblings, and most of the aunts, uncles, and cousins) and trying to plan out every holiday next year to see my family in Texas and JP's family in DC is already giving me a headache, and we can buy a house- no more renting little apartments!! So while I give JP a hard time for dragging me back to the land of Republicans and home of Bush, I'm secretly quite happy with The Plan.

Then JP took a practice GMAT on Saturday and did Really Well- like pretty far above the average for any business school in the country. This came as no surprise to me, as I knew that if he ever stopped frantically studying and just took a test, he would do great (and the mountain of GMAT books on our counter could finally disappear), but it raise all sorts of interesting questions about The Plan. There are great b-schools in Chicago, so that would be fine for two more years. )JP is still desperate to get back to the "great state of Texas", so we'll move there as soon as b-school is over regardless of where he goes.) I've never been to Boston, but that sounds like fun. The west coast looks good too- we're going to San Francisco for Spring Break, so maybe we'll fall in love with that area. There's suddenly lots of options.

The only thing holding us back from totally throwing The Plan out the window is that I have a great firm job in Austin, we're going to have a baby and it would be nice to have a house and to be near family, and UT is very inexpensive and we already have all my loans to deal with. The funny thing about a supportive relationship is that you both want what's best for the other- I'm the one pushing him to apply to all the top schools and he's the one saying he'll just go to Texas. I'll admit I'm not thrilled about interviewing as a 3L (and not until he finds out where he gets in, which can be rather late in the year) or taking two bar exams, but I don't think you turn down Harvard Business School. It would be a phenomenal opportunity and I know he'd be on the first plane to Boston if it was me. Besides, once we move back to Texas, we'll probably never leave, so it would be nice to live in one other place besides Chicago.

Anyway, he still has to take the actual test (March 10!) and get in to the different schools, but if anyone has an experience interviewing midway through 3L year or knows the general cost of living in Boston- let me know!