An International MBA - Part 5 June 21, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 13 commentsNow that you have set your eyes on the ?right? schools, you should not waste even a single moment?leap onto the bandwagon of essay-writers! One of the biggest deciding factors in the entire Application Game is the ?Application Essay?.
Jeez, what is an ?essay??
Each school abroad, no matter how big or how small, places a lot of emphasis on the admission essays. Your undergrad and GMAT scores are all indicative of what you are but the admission officers are more interested in know ?who? you are, beyond those numbers and designations. They want to know the person within you; know about your goals, passions, values, dreams etc. They evaluate you amongst the thousands of others who have applied along with you. They are interested in knowing how unique you are and how the community will benefit by having you around.
In the 3000 - 6000 odd people who apply to each business school, there are number of engineers, accountants and consultants. But each person will have had different experiences and hence write different stories. The essays provide an opportunity to the prospective student to talk to the admission officers and narrate his/her story in a natural & passionate way. Lot of things are noted in your essays viz. your writing style, art of communicating, maturity, future career goals, understanding of the MBA program, team-working style etc. Essays are the windows which allow the admission officers to peek into your lifestyle; charm it up and impress them so much that they will want to see the ?complete you? in their business school.
It is very important for you to understand that the admission committee which reviews your application is comprised of normal human beings and not some robotic mechanisms and hence, learn to revere the time and energy that your application gets. It is definitely a daunting task to read through thousands of essays and assess the individuals mentally. Thus, be a little considerate on the reader and write some nice, charming stories about yourself. These stories should not only be captivating but also remain distinctly in the minds of the reader, long after he/she has moved onto the next application. Having read through innumerable number of essays, the admission officers can easily pick out the phony ones from the genuine ones. On a broad scale, the officers look out for leadership potential, intellectual ability, career focus and personal characteristics. You need to portray all of these in a concise manner. Your essays should ideally give life to your r?sum?. If you are not used to writing, I suggest you take up this as a hobby and improve your writing skills on top priority. Plan well ahead as you wouldn?t believe the number of drafts you need to shred before you are ready to dispatch the final set of essays to the B-School. Catch hold of the people who can be your faithful editors and coax them into submission. 
The essay questions of most of the business schools more or less run around the same regions. The below discussed questions are just indicative and by no means, exhaustive.
* Why MBA? Why now? And why at ?Z? B-school? ? This is one of the most common questions asked everywhere. Here the school is interested in your career progression till date and why you feel an MBA is the right thing for you. Also they are interested in knowing as to why you are particularly interested in their program. ? This is one of the critical essays and you need to be extremely cautious when you sketch out your career ambitions. An MBA could be for a number of reasons like to gain a general management perspective or take upon more leadership roles in an organization but your essay should lucidly chalk out your career and give some realistic future plans. An easy way to work through this essay would be talking about your current responsibilities and where you intend to go from here and thus how an MBA acts as a bridge between your current and future profiles.
* Discuss your substantial accomplishments ? This question can be worded in innumerable ways and hence you might need to be ready with a set of personal and professional accomplishments. Also these accomplishments look big enough only when you can describe the obstacles you had to overcome in the process. Be true to yourself and don?t blow your trumpet too hard. At the same time, you won?t be gaining anything by being too modest. So, balance your ideas well as the school will be looking closely as to what you consider an ?accomplishment? to be.
* One example for leadership trait and one for team-working ? Both these attributes will be asked at some point or the other. If it is not, make it a point to elaborate about these in a couple of your essays. Schools consider both these traits to be highly critical for your success as a business leader in your future career. You might have to discuss some of the team failures and/or team victories and how you were an influential part of it.
* Strengths and weaknesses ? It is a fair world after all and it will look highly improbable if you write that you have absolutely no weaknesses. While noting down the strengths may be an easy task, weaknesses might cause some undue stress. ?Over-confidence? may not look so great a weakness! Ponder about these and use colorful illustrations to elaborate on these characteristics.
Apart from these standard questions, you might have to write in depth about your creative abilities, ethical dilemmas you have faced, personal values, defining moments etc. And then you have the ?optional? essay which foxes many a candidate. Many B-Schools give you a chance to write almost anything under the sun in the form of an optional essay. Beware ? Don?t abuse this option. This is not the place to talk about the big increment you got or the 10 pounds you dropped off. Rather think of this essay as the last option to pull up your act and put forward your case in front of the Admission guys. You can safely discuss your bad undergrad performance or a low GMAT score or your choice of recommenders or something that covers up a big dent in your application package. I reiterate, do not use this essay to prove that you are the next Nobel prize winner!
Here are some of the Dos & Don’ts on your Admission essays:
1. Don?t write what you think the Admissions would like to read. That would be a complete turn-off and your application won?t even receive a cursory glance. Instead, do put across your passions and interests sincerely and show that you really want to study at ?that? B-School.
2. Don?t tell the admissions guys that you are sick of ?coding? and hence want to get out. However true this might be, it will look shoddy. Business schools worldwide look out for potential leaders and don?t give them a chance to think of you as anything else.
3. Don?t emotionalize your essays. You might have had your share of miseries and bad strokes of luck but this is not the place to display them.
4. Do try to balance your essays with both professional and personal stories. Ensure that you brainstorm each of the essay question before you decide to pen it down.
5. Do try to show the Ad-com that you will not only gain a lot from their MBA program but will also contribute significantly to the building of their community.
6. Don?t draw your career path as something that just happened. Show how you have carefully planned and taken upon initiatives as a normal, intelligent human being.
7. Don?t use a common draft for all your schools. Though the stories might merge for some of the essays, ensure that you rewrite most of it. Using one common essay for similar sounding questions will be a complete disaster!
8. Don?t try to portray some of your strengths as your weaknesses viz. ?I work too hard?? it might backfire!
9. Don’t be modest. It is your only chance (assuming that you wont reapply again!) to show a top school that you are good enough to make it into their MBA program. Be confident - don?t undermine yourself! Don?t show that you are a run-of-the-mill candidate!
10. Don?t use the optional essay if you have completely bolstered your case in the remaining essays.
And monsoon arrives… June 20, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 2 commentsin Mumbai! Phew…Just when the heat was getting unbearable and my temper level was reaching its all time high! Monsoon spreads a lot of magic in the air and the pre-monsoon with all its gutsy winds prepares the ground for an enchanting raifall! I love the rains when it falls intermittently & the late-afternoon drizzle is a great time to snooze.
Ahhh…you wouldnt probably know what ‘rain’ means till you experience it in Mumbai. It was one of the most amazing things I have seen in this city. In Bangalore, when it rains, people stall & wait for the rain to subside till they get back to their normal routine but not here in Amchi Mumbai. Here the typical rains last for hours & days & nights.. it just goes on & on like a lengthy hindi TV soap without any commercial breaks…Imagine one of the Ekta-Kapoor serials running non-stop for days together endlessly! LOL, that would be an endurance test in itself! And if you thought shopping-in-rain is no fun, then you are kidding yourself! The shop-keepers come out with some of the most colourful raingears & umbrellas in all shapes & sizes.. haha, even the mannequins are draped with these. And it is amazing to have a hot & spicy ‘butta’ (Corn) as you waddle around in knee lengths of water. And yes, people dont stop, they go on doing their work with an umbrella in hand. Rains here are an welcome relief from the sweltering heat & stickiness… its another issue that the humidity soars in the initial few days. But is definitely a wonderful to sit inside the safe shelters of home or office, sipping a hot mug of coffee and see the rain go plitter-platter on the window panes… This might be my last rains in Mumbai for a while.. so, let me soak it in completely!
I hate Injections! June 11, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 2 commentsShucks, I really do! I prefer surgery with anesthesia to that damning injections. Over the last couple of days, I have been poked & pricked almost 6 times.. can u believe that! 6 damn times & once because a trainee nurse poked me wrongly! Ahhh! And all this started when I took my innocent looking Immunization form to a small clinic down the street. And the Doc thought it was a simple thing after all… yeah, after that I have already visited a Pathologist & Paediatrician. Guess all these guys take back the revenge of spending so much money on their Medicine Degrees by poking you real hard! Haha, as I sat with my mom to figure out if I had Chicken Pox & Measles, she could not only remember them all but also reminded me of a sickening time I gave her & how much she fretted over my illness!! Moms, you must just love them!! Before I take any injection, the look on my face puts such a smirk on the medico & empathy in all the onlookers. LOL, the first shot I got 2-3 days back, I almost made it look like I was getting amputated!
When I was a kid (many think I still am!) I used to hate these injections & everytime I was taken to the doc, I would pretend that my illness was nothing major and it would go away with some tablets. I also shared a secret loathing for the liquid medicines/syrups.. Acch.. you remember those darn cough syrups… sugary bitterness, till date, I hate them! And then the doc would go to mega extent to explain why injections were better! ‘Hey, you can get back to school soon’.. Yikes, I would rather wait for another week at home if I can stay away from those needles! And there was once a time when my cousin put a BIG boulder on my head.. LOL! It was in a village and all of us were gathered for a big function and as we were playing the ‘Statue Game’… She took the pose of ‘Hanuman’ with the boulder.. & I was sitting below her. As the game got over, she just let go of that boulder.. what an a$$! And before I knew it, I had blood streaming over my face & my mom howling next to me! Packs of Turmeric was offloaded on my head! Bullock cart being the only transportation, I was taken to the nearest town! All I remember was a minor surgery when I was sutured up.. now comes the most important part, after the whole thing, I came back to senses and then the doc decided that I needed a damn INJECTION! Can you beat that.. why the hell didnt he shoot me when I was unconscious.. till date I dont understand that one thing & it stays in my memory forever, as I was crying throughout becos of the injection & not ‘coz of the wound! LOL, have you taken an injection on your gums? Ouch, they hurt real BIG too!
I think I am done with my first shot of boosters etc. and my arm hurts! 
Now, I just need to get a physician who can examine all the reports and attest on the form that I am immunized & ready to go… up, up.. & away!
PS: For my International friends! This is the picture of Hindu God - Hanuman known for his loyalty to another God, ‘Ram’!
Tagged! June 9, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 2 commentsOk, this feels like one big large online bloggers community. AG has talked a lot more about this Tagging game which has started & each of the tagged person should be talking about 5 recent books/journos or anything they have read in his/her blog and then tag another 5 bloggers! Reminds me one of those miracle/wishes mail/s I used to get.. send to 5 ppl for ur wish to come true. LOL!! This is nothing as BIG as that, just a small tagging game so that we can know about who all has been reading what all!!
Jerry Blank tagged me and hence this post will talk about some of the books I have had my hands on.
1) Life of Pi - Hmm, I think I have already written about what I thought about it. So, check out my links & read about it!! LOL! Am lazy…
2) The Old Man & the Sea - Yes, Review already written! LOL!
3) Wise & Otherwise - By Sudha Murthy. I really love her writings because it brings home a lot of feelings. Its so simple & feels like some of the things my aunts & grandmothers would wish to tell me.
4) Losing my virginity - I am still reading it and I am loving the passion & energy Richard Branson exudes in his works.
5) The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Okey Dokey book. I somehow feel these days that I am done with seeing insight kinda books. I have outgrown them all LOL!
Now, the interesting part of tagging 5 others. LOL! Sweet revenge 
… Just kidding! Hmmm… DivineMissN , Subbu , SuperVish , Suhas & Harry Potter .
An International MBA - Part 4 June 7, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 4 commentsHello there! How have things been with you? I hope with the calendar in hand, you are now in a comfortable position to look closer at the Application Game. Now, I am making a safe presumption that you are done with the GMAT and have had a fantastic score. Even if the score is not so great and you feel that you may as well concentrate on other parts of your application, then it is just fine. There are after all many things you should be working on rather than holding on to a bad exam score. Just move on in the application process and we will see how things turn out.
What is it about the ?Fit??
If you have been in this MBA mode for a while and have become a prowler lurking around MBA/ discussion forums, then you must be hearing a lot about words such as ?right school?, ?the fit? etc. During the initial few days, it will definitely be difficult to gauge how ?right? or ?wrong? the schools will turn out to be for you, after all thousands of students graduate from Top Business Schools and it is not that you will be the only misfit out there! But still a careful study of the available programs in different schools and some good research can make you feel much better about spending your hard earned money on those applications and school visits.
This article is by no means exhaustive and is just an attempt to just get you kick-started. I highly recommend the readers to do their individual research to boil down their schools depending on the criteria which mean the most for them. Before you sit down and start off, spare some time to analyze yourself and understand what you need out of an MBA program. Remember, there are more things in a B-School than just a ?great job? at the end of the season. Research the schools with your criteria in mind and give yourself ample time to pick & unpick and finalize on 4+ schools. I have always maintained that each of us should try to be the best we possibly can. But at the same time, it pays to be a little realistic too. Harvard may be the only school you are willing to attend but it will be foolish if you apply only to Harvard and none other, no matter what you feel your chances are.
As you analyze your interests and future goals, keep some of these pointers in mind. The specialization you are looking at can make a big impact on where you want to graduate from. There are some definite ?gurus? in some particular fields like, Kellogg in the Marketing field and it would be wise to start off here. Check out the school websites, read the online brochures, talk to current/ alum students and understand what the school is famous for in the corporate industry. Choose schools which have specializations in your chosen field of interest. If you are however happy with a general management program, then there are some real great schools which you should possibly be looking at. Next immediate concern should be the school and the MBA program itself ? location, class size, teaching methods, rankings, environment and cost. The location of the school might matter to you depending on the proximity to the kind of industries you want to intern with. Class size may not be a major differential factor but be sure you are aware of the strength of the incoming class, choose to be a big fish in a small pond or a small one in a big pond, it is your call. Teaching methods do not drastically differ from school to school; most of the schools have a healthy mix of case-studies, theories and group-assignments. The environment you will be in should be one of the crucial factors before you hop onto a school. There are some schools which admit some of the best minds and hence the atmosphere can tend to be competitive and a little scary for the weak-hearted. But there are some communal schools which harbor a lot of team spirit, the best examples being Tuck and Duke. Your basic task is to figure out your personality and apply to the schools where you will enjoy studying and socializing in. Ensure you check out the school in various publications and journals. Meet the school representatives through the MBA tours and try to attend the information sessions that most of the top schools conduct in major cities across the globe. An ideal thing would be visiting the B-School and not only meeting the students but also gauging the atmosphere and the learning spirit.
Other interesting thing you can look at is the kind of industry associated with a B-School. Talk to people working in the industry you love, try to know about the schools they have attended and the schools they deeply respect. Refer to various recruitment statistics available on various websites and keep a tab on your favorite companies. Find out where they are hiring from, salaries/ bonuses they are offering and the kind of profiles and responsibilities they look in B-School graduates. Jobs and Career management services are some of the important characteristics that distinguish schools from one another. The global reputation of a B-School will really matter if you choose to work in different parts of the world. US B-Schools offer 2-year MBA programs whereas their Europe counterparts (barring some) offer 1-year programs. Choose something that suits your taste and is in sync with your future goals. Spend a lot of time in understanding the electives on board and the workload given by the professors. Also, it will be a great experience to study under well-read professors who have authored textbooks, have consulted in various firms and strongly follow the open-door policy.
Though nobody can hold you for applying to less or more number of schools, you can give yourself a safe estimate of the schools you can target at. It all depends on how serious you are about getting an MBA the coming fall. If you are looking at only the Top 5 no matter how long it takes, then I really admire your tenacity. For others, as I said in my earlier article, 5-7 schools might seem decent if you can submit a part of it in R1 and another in R2. If you are solely rushing in one round, keep the number to 4, no point in applying to many schools without doing justice to each of them. Apply to a couple of schools that might ?most-probably? accept you depending on your age, work experience, academics, GMAT score & extra-curricular. Apply to at least one safe school that will definitely accept you no matter what the odds. And then, go for a brisk walk, eat a big chocolate bar and once you are all perked up and happy about life, go, give your best shot at your dream school. It might be Harvard or Stanford, but don?t let some arbitrary thoughts keep you away from your dream school. You may never know how close you were. 
Busy off late! June 1, 2005
Posted by Simba in : Uncategorized , 13 commentsI have been extremely busy off late. Hence I am behind schedule on a lot of things. And we thought the visa was the last thing.. LOL!! My fourth article on PG.com is still pending as it isnt one of the off-hook ones. I need to put in some study into it. My flight blocking is getting done by my travel agent. As of now, British Airways seems the best thing I have, I am awaiting Luftansa or Delta.. from Mumbai to Washington. I have to apply for the Duke Loan for International students too! Oops, not to mention the academic preparation I need to do before the orientation. Phew!
Apartment hunting is on. Me & Attagirl are gonna be roomies. LOL, some things are just meant to be. I am looking at floor plans & taking virtual tours. It all seems so strange & foreign.. I mean, I dont even know a damn thing about apartments & here I am trying to negotiate & get some good deal. But its pretty weird that we need to book the apartment before we even see it. Theres not much choice on this! And I am trying to ship some of the books, my goo ol’ reading books (that I intend to pass on to my children! ) & other MBA books via Indian post. Carrying all this when I fly would almost be impossible considering that I love to read. I havent started shopping yet but I would love to do that soon. I am not in sucha great shape now & I wonder whether I can do anything about that . I get some jittery thoughts about flying away from home once in a while but apart from that its ok. I have resigned from my job with a month’s notice. I will be losing some significant amount of money but I dont have much say in all these. Though I hate to come to work these days, I know I should & get my all other work done simultaneously. Lets see how I survive…