AWA tool

MBA.com has come out with a new tool to help measure your hit-rate on the AWA. The great part is that it will give you your score for 2 essays, the way the official test essays would be checked. The not-so-good part however, is that it aint free. It costs about $30 for a set of 2 essays. Check it out at: http://www.mba.com/mba/Store/products/PreparefortheGMAT/GMATWrite.htm

In other news, looks like the waiting game continues for most Hyderabad ISB R1 candidates! Wow, I still havent submitted my application, but me too can feel the heat.

- MBAlmighty

Of essays and holidays...

Some updates from my side.... the Zumba essay is finally done. It seems fine to me, but certainly doesnt seem "creative" - in fact the output I have produced seems kind of an obvious solution.

I read on Pagalguy i think, when someone claimed that there can be only 1 "creative" solution to this case, and he knows it! Am I too dumb, or does everyone else think that there is only 1 "creatove" solution to this?!?!?!

Anyways, drafts for the first 3 essays are ready, now awaiting my reviewers' comments. Once they arrive, i should be on my way to meet the 1-Dec deadline.

This week will be dedicated to the Cornell Essay# 3, by far the whackiest of the lot. If anyone has any tips, I am all ears! :)

You are the author for the book of Your Life Story. Please write the Table of Contents for the book. (400 word limit)
NOTE: Be creative. Approach this essay in any way you choose; there is no 'right' or 'wrong' response.

For now, I head back home, to aamchi mumbai, in an hour! Cant wait to get there!!! :)

Happy Diwali everyone........ and wish you most success in the coming year!

- MBAlmighty

To Zumba and back...

Needless to say, I am exercising my grey cells on ISB Essay # 3. I am so jealous of all you folks who are done with the ISB R1 applications. It must be such a relief pressing that submit button!

Anyways, since I was so intrigued by this case, I did a little research about Zumba. Here you can take a free ride to Zumba and back.... may help if it comes up in your interviews! :)

Check out the map. Zumba is right at the bottom.

You can check out this blog for more details. Seems like it is a paradise for bird lovers!

BTW this part in his blog that struck me the most !!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

"It should be noted that the area is being deforested quite rapidly and that the endemics will no doubt decrease in number and kind as their habitat is diminished."

The pictures look pretty. Hope to make a trip to Zumba some day! For now, back to the essay....

- MBAlmighty

Ratan Tata Scholarship @ Cornell

Thanks to MissionMBA for posting this piece.

Well from the face of it, no clues whether the scholarship would also apply to the Johnson School. And the fact that it applies to the entire Cornell University makes it all the more competitive.

Anyways, I am applying to Cornell so will find out more about this from the AdCom.

Links:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct08/tataGift.html
http://www.tata.com/ourcommitment/articles/inside.aspx?artid=sVK4EK2YxQw=

Good Luck!
MBAlmighty

Chicago GSB delegation to visit India

Maybe of some interest to folks applying to Chicago GSB. This piece appeared in todays ET.


THE University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB) on Monday announced that it is leading a delegation of alumni and faculty on an entrepreneurial trip to India. The programme conducted first time in the country is designed to educate participants about the Indian market place and form partnerships with the local business community. This includes visits to New Delhi, Mumbai and the team will be in Bangalore on October 22 and 23, said a statement.

In Bangalore, participants will participate in a forum on venture capital with a panel of GSB alumni including Sarath Naru, managing partner of Ventureast and Apidc Venture Capital and engage with a panel of GSB alumni entrepreneurs including Prabhakar Tadepalli, managing director of Tyfone, and Dhiraj Rajaram, founder and CEO of Mu Sigma. Participants will also explore social entrepreneurship and explore IT with alumnus Jeby Cherian, head of the Global Business Solution Centre at IBM.

The trip will engage more than 100 Indiabased GSB alumni as well as others in the local business community. “This trip is providing valuable experiential education and networking opportunities for our participants. It is bringing together alumni from India and other parts of the world with the larger business community to facilitate meaningful partnerships,” the statement quoted GSB’s director of entrepreneurship programmes Linda Darragh.

To all ISB R1 interviiew shorlisted candidates...

I need some information!

From your ISB essay experience, can you please share your thoughts about the following?

1. Did you include an explanation about "Why MBA?", "Why ISB?" and "Why now?" anywhere in the essays?
2. If you did, then where did you put these thoughts?

Certainly none of this can be mentioned in the River Zumba essay. Also, since you have already made it to ISB as per Essay 2 (Presidents speech), it wouldnt make sense there either.

That leaves Essay 1 and the optional essay. I have already composed Essay 1, and somehow I havent been able to get these thoughts across there, with the word-limit constraints and also trying to distiingusih myself. Maybe I can use the optional essay for this purpose - BUT would it be okay? As in, if the sole purpose of the optional essay is to explain resume gaps etc, then I dont want to get on ISB's wrong side! :(

Any thoughts? It would be helpful to understand how all successful folks have done it.

Thanks,
MBAlmighty

New kid on the block

Is this old news? I just heard it, so thought of posting it here -

IIM-Indore has joined the 1-year MBA bandwagon. Their deadline for the 1-year program is Nov-12 and they still dont have a form in place. So much for professionalism.

Their fees are 11 Lakhs, which is still a good 10 Lakhs lesser than what IIM-B is chargng for their 1 year course. Both these schools are new to the 1-year concept, unlike IIM-A which has been doing this for a while now. I wonder how IIM-B and IIM-I justify their prices!

Check this out: http://www.iimidr.ac.in/iimi/pages/students/ex-pgp.php

- MBAlmighty

The virtual rankings

Most B-schools have excellent Marketing programs, and since I aspire to major in that domain, I am quite impressed by those who maintain excellent websites. Maybe I am a sucker for good website design, but it certainly makes a lasting impression.

When I first started this search, the one website which impressed me most was of Stanford GSB. Show me one other site where the Admissions folks dole out such awesome information regarding what to write in essays, when best to apply, how to write effective recommendation letters. Its undoubtedly the finest piece of html code in the b-school virtual space. Very subtle, useful and classy!

I think after Harvard introduced its latest website, it too is one of the best links out there. Especially their current students link is really impressive. Wharton's on the other hand is a dud! I think the only valueable information I liked (not the usual marketing mantras) is their general MBA Decision page - when you should do it, from where you should do it etc. Pretty neat. In fact, even Kellogg and Johnson have excellent websites. Naturally I know a bit about these since I am applying here - and not that the decision was taken because of their website skills, but they do have nice features compared to some other schools.

I think by far the not-so-neat links were of MIT Sloan and Haas. Both these seriously seriously need to be reworked!!! ISB is a bare-minimum site frankly, and can definitely do with cool features.

But if any top B-school websites need a complete rehash, it has to be the great IIM-B and other IIM websites!!! Sorry, but I dont think I have seen a more pathetic website than that of IIM-B. They have also introduced a 1-year program, and for almost 2 months did not even have any information about it online. http://www.iimb.ernet.in/iimb/

And while I was thinking about this, Businessweek came out with its own ranking of websites. Check this out!!! :) These rankings are pretty close to my observations! Here is the slideshow -
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/09/0911_admissions/index.htm


- MBAlmighty

Essays... another journey begins....

Probably the last time I wrote an essay was about a decade ago, when I wrote the Class12 English paper. I dont think I even bothered to prepare for essays back then. Oh well, now its adifferent story!

So thats what I am doing these days..... writing essays! Since my 2 upcoming deadlines are for Cornell and ISB, I am breaking my head over those crazy topics. I must say, ISB has the whackiest of essays! But if there is one that beats all those ISB essays, it is Cornell's 3rd essay -

You are the author for the book of Your Life Story. Please write the Table of Contents for the book.(400 word limit).

If anyone can offer me any tips on how to go about this, I'll be eternally greatful!!!

Anyways, coming back to ISB, I am just half-way done. I completed the first drafts of the first 2 essays, and they came out in decent shape as per my reviewers. The weekend is here, and apart from eating some excellent food that my wife plans to cook, I need to merge all those comments and tips to create the near-final drafts of ISB essays 1 and 2. Sunday, I hope to start writing something about building that dam on River Zumba.

Cornell's first 2 essays are relatively straightforward. The usual career-goals essay came out pretty well after some serious soul-searching. Well I am a techie and I aspire to continue in this field (I work in the semiconductor design industry) post-MBA. So I needed to articulate this well, and I think I've done a decent job on this Cornell essay. The other one was related to a professional accompolishment. That is presentable so far, need to fine-tune it.

Over the last month or so, ever since I started working on these essays, I have come across some great tips by a few bloggers. The ones that impressed me most:

http://thembasaga.blogspot.com/search/label/Essays
The best essay-advice compilation I came across. Thanks a bunch Juggler.

http://poweryogi.blogspot.com/2005/05/chicago-essays.html
Nice information.

http://daveformba.blogspot.com/2005/12/will-i-be-proud-to-call-you-fellow.html
Dave is the man when it comes to MBA adivce.

http://tinydancermba.blogspot.com/2008/09/essay-advice.html
Tinydancer @ Wharton gives some succint information on essay writing.

Apart from these, I have been refering to some sample essays which throw light on how things are woven together. Richard Montauk's book no doubt is the first source I went to, but apart from that you can check out MBA Game Plan website - they have some nice sample essays.

So long then, its back to the re-writing the ISB essays now......... congratulations to all those who have got interview calls from ISB!!!

GMAT & beyond

I took the GMAT in September 2008, and thanks to some excellent advice out there on the net, I scored a 750. My scores:

750 - 50Q, 40V, 6.0AWA

I would really like to thank all of my fellow bloggers who have taken time out to write their experiences of this test and how to go about preparing for it. I plan to write my own post sometime where I can offer my 2 cents on this test, but till then here are the best pieces of advice I came across. Thanks a lot guys!!!

http://www.outbeat-the-gmat.blogspot.com/
Lots of awesome information here. This dude seriously has some patience penning down so many tips and tricks! Great job dude!

http://www.integratedlearning.net/gmat/blog_il700.asp
They have some good weekly problems here.

http://missionmba.wordpress.com/category/gmat-journey/
MissionMBA's GMAT journey - very helpful pointers when it comes to comparing how you are doing on those mock tests.

http://stairwaytomba.blogspot.com/search/label/GMAT
Prao's GMAT experience. Extremely helpful and succint! Thanks a bunch Prao!

http://i4iday.blogspot.com/2007/03/3g-months_13.html
Another classy post by Iday @ ChicagoGSB

http://gmatsentencecorrection.blogspot.com/
Something you can practice even while at work!

http://thembasaga.blogspot.com/search/label/GMAT
GMAT advice from a Wharton girl -great strategies.

http://beatthegmat.blogspot.com/2005/08/debriefing-from-guy-who-scored-790.html
790 on the GMAT - need I say more!

Apart from these, I must have consulted a bunch of other blogs, but cant recollect them now. To everyone, a big thanks for these helpful posts! Fiaally as Prao says, there is way too much information out there. So get what you need as fast as you can, and just get on with the studies!

Resurrected!

Its been over a year since I first started scourging these blogs. Work travel forced me to postpone my plans, until this June when I finally decided to take the plunge. I registered for the GMAT in June and took the test last month.

Then came the time for shortlisting schools. My personal preferences (I'm married, and nearing 30) lead me to choosing 1 year programs. ISB was the first natural choice for me. I am located in Hyderabad and have been to ISB about a couple of times before representing my company on quizzes, usually held there. Its a fantastic school no doubt, and hence the top on my list.

Next came Cornell. I chose this for the accelerated MBA program, since I already have a MSEE degree from the US. Cornell is a great school to be in, but the one thing thats got me worried is the damn economy! Well I say this because the US economy is in a far worse state than the Indian economy, and getting jobs for non-citizens isnt easy. Anyways, I will be taking my chances at Cornell.

Once I am done with these two, I hope to take a shot at one of the big-5 US schools. I dont know if I stand a realistic chance there with so many top-notch applicants (see my fellow applicants list!!!), but no harm in trying.