T minus 10 days

Since apparently countdowns are a popular theme around this time of year, I'm going join the club.

So I've finally started to pack. Haha. I'm a little delirious at this point. Still can't believe I'm doing this. But only ten days till I move, and my life is going to drastically change.

What's new:

• Signed loan documents and have student account set up with Royal Bank - ready to go financially.
• Finalized housing arrangements - made some atypical choices but I think it'll work for me. (There will be a separate post.) Have place to live for the next 12 months.
• Read all I have to read from the annoying business statistics book, and finished all Excel tutorials.
• Handed in all assignments given by the career centre - forgot if I mentioned this before, we basically had a couple of questionnaires to complete as well as a resume, so that the career centre will be prepared to work with us as soon as the program starts.
• Got a couple of books recommended by the career centre's reading list: Barbara Minto's The Pyramid Principle (but no, I did not exactly spend $125) and Marc Cosentino's Case in Point. The materials presented in these books coincide with my personal interest and intended career in consulting.
• Received schedule for the first week of school, which is similar to last year's schedule.

What's still outstanding:

• Two more chapters of the finance and accounting workbook to go.
• Three more papers/cases to read.
• Would like to get started on economics, since I have no background whatsoever.
• Serious packing!

Now back to the outstanding items.

RBC Line of Credit

A couple of weeks ago, I sent in an application for a student line of credit with the program that Queen's MBA has with Royal bank. (There's a brief description on this page.) The huge advantage of the program is that it's specifically for Queen's MBA students, providing very competitive interest rates, and Queen's pays for all the interest during the time that you're at school.

It took the Kingston branch less than a week to process and approve my application. Today I spoke with the banker in charge of it, and he walked me through some of the logistics. Basically, since I will not be in Kingston before school starts, he will send whatever documents I need to sign to a branch close to where I live. At the same time, he will open a student chequing account for me and mail me a bank card. After I get the card, I can take it to my local branch, who will have received the loan docs, to sign the documents and activate my card, and whatnot.

Towards the end of this month, the banker will pay the first instalment of my tuition for me, directly into my student account at Queen's. This is because I told him that I'd like to use the money to pay this tuition. If I'd rather have the cash instead, I guess either he would just deposit the amount into my new chequing account, or I could use the account to take out money as I need (like any other line of credit).

Technically, you need to pay the bank the interest that's accumulated, on a monthly basis. The first such payment is due at the beginning of June. At this time the bank will charge whatever interest there is, from your new chequing account. Around the same time, Queen's would've gotten a bill from the bank for the students' interests for the month, and the school will also pay the bank at the beginning of the month. After the bank receives payment from the school, it will credit the amount back to the students' chequing accounts.

Therefore, effectively, the students don't pay the interest during the school year, but are just required to have some amount of money available in the account so that it can be debitted first when reimbursement from Queen's comes a few days later. It's a seamless process. RBC also has a very competitive rate - prime + 0% - for the first two years that you're in this loan program. Prime is 2.5% at this time.