Updates

An update was long due from my side :

1. I submitted my deposit money for Cornell Johnson class of 2009 last week :-) Now I can either think that I am $1500 poorer or that I'll have to take loans worth "Tution fee - $1500". I prefer to think the later. Leaving $50, the rest $1450 will be credited towards the tution fee.

2. I have been waitlisted at Kellogg SOM as well. I don't know how to take this news. I already had one waitlist - Chicago GSB - in my kitty !! I'd prefer attending Chicago GSB than Kellogg, when I get into both the schools.

3. I am not able to decide when to leave the job! I would prefer to work until May/June atleast :) What do you guys planning??

December is in...

So finally December is in...the most important month...full of results!

I read on BW forum that Kellogg would start sending the admit invitations on a rolling basis from this Friday(1st Dec). Keeping my fingers crossed :-) Chicago GSB and Wharton would post the results on 20th and 21st Dec, respectively. There's no news from HBS yet...

I had fallen sick and have now recovered completely and back to office. I was glued to TV and internet all this while. I enjoyed wtaching several movies and tele-shows. I am reading some books, off-late. Currently, I am reading the autobiography of the Pakistani President - In the line of fire. It's an interesting book. I hope to complete it in a week or two, depending upon my mood, time, and interest ;-)

Updates...

I have scheduled my Chicago GSB interview. I approached the alumni, recommended by the Chicago alumni search. We have agreed to meet next week. He told me to come in casuals and not in business formals..no suit and tie! He also added that by casuals he doesn't mean that i could come in shorts and t-shirts :-)

So, i better start preparing for my interview!

As I had mentioned earlier in my previous blog that I am meeting with my friends for a get-together., So..catch ya all later :-)

N.B. : Now you can reach me at scarecrow2007@gmail.com

Updates

So, the first deadline is less than a month now!

I have sent my transcripts to the schools. They could reach anytime within the next week now.

I have completed my resume, both one page and two pages.

My recommenders have completed the recommendation letters and have started submiting it. Recos for 2 schools submitted.

I have filled in the online application form for all my schools. The only step left is to upload essays...pay money...and click submit!

I plan to use the next 2 weeks to edit and re-edit my essays and finally start submitting the online form from the first week of october.

Apart from the essay stuff...the next few weeks are going to be tough in the office. I am simultaneously involved in 3 diferent projects now and all these projects are also speeding up as the deadlines for the bschools are nearing! I need to find out the correlation between these two events;-)

September is in...

So September just creeped in. Now I have 30 days to finish the application. I also need to send the extra materials (transcripts) which some of the schools ask for. The final lap has bugun!

As I had mentioned before, I have completed the essays for HBS, Wharton and Kellogg. Last week I sent my essays to one of my seniors at Kellogg and HBS. My senior at Kellogg was pleased with the overall story but suggested some great points for improvement. I have incorporated those points in essays for all other schools as well. I then sent the updated essay to my HBS senior. He liked my stories and structure. He will suggest me some more points to improve them. I must thank them for all their time and efforts :-) I didn't find any acquaintance at Wharton :-(

I have prepared the first draft of Michigan and Duke essays but they are far from complete at this moment. The dealine for both the schools is 1st Nov. So, I have planned to focus on HBS, Wharton and Kellogg right now. Simultaneously, I will keep updating my Duke and Ross essays.

I had prepared a 1.5 page resume before. Now, I have trimmed it to fit in one page. And it looks good :-) I forwarded the resume to my friends and they all liked it.

On the reco front, 2 of my recommenders have prepared the draft. But they said they will look at it again. I am ok with it. I understand it's a tough job for them to write it for all my schools. Moreover, the structure of questions in reco varies from school to school. It's not a good idea to create one reco that fits for all the schools.

I have started filling the online application for HBS. They ask a lot of small questions in the application too. I saw the online application for Duke and Michigan as well. I found that if i complete one application, it won't take much time to complete the next applications. The informations asked are pretty similar.

Last week, I attened the info session for one of the schools and i found it a waste of time! The presenter spent a lot of time in presenting their brochure. Moreover, the answer to almost all the questions asked by the participants can be found on the school's websites. Also, I didn't find many opportunities to interact with the alumni and current students. So, I am not going to attend most of the info sessions from now onwards.

Life is good!

It's been long since i posted any new message. I was away to meet my near and dear ones for past 10 days. I had a great time and also took out time to work on my essays. So, I am done with my HBS, Kellogg and Wharton essays. Currently I am working on my Duke and Michigan essays. I hope to complete them by next week. On the reco front, one of my recommender will complete the form by this month end.

Regarding my resumes, I have currently created a one and half page resume. I got it reviewed with my seniors at b-schools. The resume looks good to me now :-) I will trim it to make it to one-page for the schools where one-page resume is the norm.

I also plan to send my GMAT score to some of my final schools. I hadn't sent my score to all of my final schools at the time of GMAT. I feel, the GMAC should allow the test takers to report the score to the target schools any time after the test because most of us are not sure of our target schools at the time of taking the tests. But, I don't think the GMAC will do so as it will hit their revenue.

I have started filling up the online application of HBS and Duke. The next 1 month is going to be quite hectic. Apart from application work, I am also currently at a critical phase in my marketing and operations assignments. So Life is good :-)

Done :-)

So, Finally, I feel satisfied with my HBS career vision essay. I really had a tough time with this essay. In some of the drafts I was not satisfied with the structure, in others, with the goals and in yet another, with the overall message to the reader. But, now i feel it's pretty balanced. Though, I know it will be much better after I get the feedbacks from my reviewers.

Now, I will get my essays reviewed with someone.

This week is going to be quite busy. I don't think I would get enough time for the rest of the week to work on my essays. Though, my mind would be occupied with them. I hope, I do not start telling about my career vision, when the clients ask for the business updates ;-)

My essay updates

I didn't make much progress last week. It's not that i was busy but i was some how not in a good frame of mind to write essays. So, i consciously stopped myself from writing essays and enjoyed my time with friends and colleagues :-)

I have almost completed my draft of HBS essays but i need to get it reviewed by someone. Moreover, even after writing several drafts of my career vision essay, i some how do not feel okay with it :-( I will give it another shot soon.

On the reco front, i have made some progress, I have contacted my recommenders and told them about my progress and reiterated the help i would need from them....soon :-)

I have also started thinking about my Kellogg essays and plan to start putting them into words soon. Let's see how it goes. I am waiting for Duke and Michigan to publish their essays, so that i can have the visibility of my schedule and plan accordingly.

It's raining essays...

So, the essays have started pouring in..rather raining :-)
MIT, Darden, Tuck and many others posted their essays last week. Now i need to make a comprehensive plan for the application of each of the schools. Moreover, I need to talk to my recommenders about my plan and when i need their time and help. I had told them about my intention to apply this year. But now i need to apprise them of the timelines.

On the HBS essay front, I didn't get much time during the weekdays lastweek. Hope to make some progress during the weekends as there will be no cricket or Football match to watch:-) Suddenly, I see a dearth of sport events after funfilled Cricket, Football and Wimbledon matches.

My HBS essay writing experience

I have started writing my Harvard essays.

The topics are sweet but i have to take care that i am able to convey my thooughts in the given word-limit. I started writing the essays as if there were no word-limits. But it was very difficult to trim it later. So, now, i have decided that i will write taking into account the word limit ( won't exceed more than 20% of the word-limit).

I found the career vision question (What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?) really difficult because I have to put a lot of points in 400 words!

I have really started appreciating the small word-limit of the HBS essays. It stops me from wandering away from the topic and helps me concentrate on my thought process. I edit and re-edit until i feel that the reader will be able to understand without any difficulty.

I am looking for someone from the blogosphere who can share his Harvard essays experience and who can give me some feedback. I thought about taking help from Admission consultants but I do not think I can afford to spend that much.

I plan to spend this weekend watching Wimbledon and FIFA...Come on Italy and France!!!

One-year MBA or Two-year?

Recently, i was talking generally with my manager and we some how started talking about MBA. He has an MBA from India. When we were talking about international MBA, he was very much supportive of one-year MBAs, but not of a two-year course. His logic: What one gets from an MBA is contacts and tools. Contacts: You will never be able to mingle and interact with so many people togather with such closeness, once you are out on the business floor. Tools: B-school will teach you different tools to tackle various business scenario, but every scenario is unique. You may usually find some tool or the other helpful in analyzing you scenario, but you gain the best knowledge from your own experiences. When you work yourself and you crack it on the floor, that's the Aha! experience. Even if you were unlucky and didnot succeed, you will get a lot many insights, which will help you attack other issues. So, he says one should attend one-year MBA courses, which will help you get the contacts and the tools. Moreover, most of the course work which is taught in 2 years can be fit into 1 year course. B-schools admit the top of the tops, so the students can handle the rigor of a compact one-year course. You will learn a lot more if you work for the next 1 year (which you will spend at school, if you study in a 2-year course). B-schools should admit students with sufficient experience and the applicants should be sure of what they want to do going forward. Also, if you atend a one-year course you will on one hand save one year's admission fee and on the hand earn money money.

I argued with him that it will be difficult for the applicants who want to switch career to have a comprehensive idea of their new career in a one-year course. Moreover, many students are not even sure of what job they want to do. So, they learn a lot about different career paths and job functions in their first year. Then, in second year they are lot more confident in deciding their career path.

Also, If the person doesnot have sufficient experience and he is stuck in a job/position where he cannot grow much, then it makes sense to go to a b-school. In this case, he needs to have a solid understanding of all the major business areas which are essential to lead a successful company/team. Moreover, most of the b-schools which offer One-year MBA cources( read European schools) require considerable international application. So, it will be difficult for a person with say 2-3 years of experience to enter a b-school. So, in my mind, for a person with sufficient experience, going for an advanced degree will be more useful than going for an MBA.

On the money part, i agreed with him. It's really difficult for a person from middle class family of a developing country to spend so much.

Well begun is half done....

For a long time, i have been a silent reader of most of the MBA blogs. I found it opportune to start my own blog. I feel it will help me in many ways:-

1. I can Track my progress.
2. I will benefit from the comments of the visitors.
3. It may be of help to fellow and future applicants in some way...

So, Where do i stand as of today:-

1. I am through with my GMAT...scored well..700+.
2. Plan to take TOEFL soon. (I really don't know why the schools ask for TOEFL scores when they already take GMAT scores!!!)
3. I am an international candidate with 4+ years of experience in IT, Operations Research and marketing.

I have done some initial research on school selection. I plan to apply to 6 schools in Round 1 for Fall2007 admission. So, as of now my list includes:

1. Duke
2. Kellogg
3. MIT
4. Michigan
5. Darden
6. Cornell
7. CMU/ ( orYale)
8. Stanford
9. Tuck
10. Purdue


My 6 final schools will include 2 schools which will be my stretch goals to get in, 3 which i feel i can make it to and 1 for hedging.

Also, I found that CMU requires a cosigner for the loan in case of international students. So, I am kind of getting away from this school and switching it with Yale.

I have started some essay writing based on the Fall2006 essay questions...1) Career goals, Why MBA and Why now part. 2) How will i contribute back to the school. 3) My leadership experience. I feel, it will save me some effort and time, when i finaly start writing the Fall2007 essays. So, waiting eagerly for the schools to publish the essay questions and deadlines :-)

So, I have laid the foundation of this blog today :-)