I got my Kellogg denial mail today. And this was even without an interview. I personally feel my application was not that bad that I didnt deserve an interview. With my past experiences with Kellogg, I think there has again been some mistake. I did check with the adcom by calling them but they said its the rigth decision I am looking at. Anyways I cant do anythign now.
In all it wasnt a nice experience.
Since I started applying to B schools, I always used to think this whole process can not be so subjective. Considering schools get ~ 6000 applications and in case of Wharton, Harvard which select ~900 students, there must be a objective way to select or reject a student. Moreover as there are people with 800 score in GMAT not getting admission further makes me think that there must be a objective way. What do I mean by objective way. I mean there must be a set of rules which will define what a good or bad candidate is and that is what I believe will help one to introspect and gauge oneself as a good or bad or average case. I know everywhere people say there is no one unique formulae to get into an MBA, but from my experience I am trying to make the process more objective rather than subjective. I am thinking of getting into an top MBA school as a complex engineering problem and its solution as a implementable engineering solution. Now what top MBA is ? So for me a top MBA is a combination of:
1. Ranking. No matter what several people say, everyone ( all I know of) have definitely had rankings affect their decision. Esp. if one is looking for traditional post MBA careers as consultant/ investment banking, I believe rankings does a pretty good job of telling you what a top school is. No doubt rankings differ in criteria for rankings so I believe one should look for all the different rankings available.
2. Strength of recruitment in your area of choice.
I am stopping this discussion here only as this is not what I intend to do.
So moving ahead to the initial problem, converting “admission to a top B school” into an equation.
Let Y = admission to a top B school.
And the various factors affecting the result Y be x1, x2, x3 and so on.
Lets define some of the x. This is in no way the comprehensive list and can be different for different schools. Use your best judgement to develop this list.
For the sake of this argument lets say this list has:
x1: GMAT
x2: Academics
x3: Recommendations
x4: Interview
x5: Data Forms filled with the applications.
x6:
x7: Essays
Therefore:
Y = a1*x1 + a2*x2 + a3*x3 + a4*x4 + a5*x5 + a6*x6 + …….. equation 1.
Where a1, a2, a3………are the coefficients or in a simpler jargon how important x1, x2 …..x6 are.
For eg if we define that all a1, a2….will vary between 1 to 10 (10 highest), then if all a’s are 10 there is highest probability of getting an admission to a top B school. If all a’s are 1 there is least probability of getting an admission into a top B school. And now I think this is the place some subjectivity crops in ( though I am still thinking of how to eliminate even this subjectivity). How to differentiate between a value of 3 to 4 among values of a’s.
Now assuming all x’s are known. A prospective applicant can increase his/her probability of getting an admission to a top school by making all of his/her a’s to be maximum possible.
In my opinion x1, x2, x5 are pretty straightforward. What needs most attention are x3, x4, x7 ( that doesn’t mean x1, x2, x5 doesn’t deserve respect). And among these I would say x3, x4 are relatively straightforward compared to x7, reason being for x7 its only you who will decide what is value of a ( 1 or 10) whereas in x3 and x4 there are others also who would participate in deciding the value of a. For x3 other person is your recommender and for x4 other person is your interviewer.
I believe if you will score a value of a for x’s more than some threshold, lets define it at say 5, then you will for sure get an interview call. Again, I believe there may be cases where this argument doesn’t hold true but I believe this can be a reasonable enough generalization.
In subsequent posts I will be writing what I think needs to be done to score high value of “a” for each “x”.
After finishing my Chicago GSB and Wharton interview over the weakened I have been just enjoying and having fun...
But now as its 4 days to that day I have started to think where are others...didn’t I applied to 3-4 more B schools. I think I did. So where's tuck, Ross, Kellogg. Please invite me for interview.
Kellogg has been giving me fits. I did my MS from US so I did not give TOEFL assuming my TOEFL will be waived. And so did all the schools but for some indigestible reason Kellogg adcom said I cant be waived for TOEFL as they need one to have done his/her undergraduate from USA. wow what a reason. Anyway, the person who mailed was good enough to tell me that if I give a letter from my undergraduate school that my undergraduate was done in English medium I could be waived for TOEFL. I did that and hhah did got TOEFL waived. SO I thought now Kellogg is on track but I was wrong as some days later I got a mail saying my application is incomplete...hohoh what can I say. I checked online and it said I have not submitted my transcripts. I called adcom and came to know that a person with same first name and last name has also applied and they filed my transcripts into his file. Again got this rectified and thought I am now on track. Again, I was wrong.
16th Nov was last date for interview intimation for Kellogg...and I did not got any mail. So here I was, again called up Kellogg adcom and this time I was told I am scheduled for an on campus interview because of the person with same first and last name. Though it got rectified but I knew it’s very very late to get an interview call, so as I expected I got the interview waiver mail. I hate it but I guess that’s all I can do.
So that being said my profile would have gone to the adcom around 17 th Nov, and today its 6th Nov that gives enough time. So am I expecting a call for interview a little to early or should still wait. As if I have a choice rather than waiting. Therefore, I will wait.
Hope I don’t need to wait long.
I had my Wharton interview with an adcom member, Marilyn, on Dec 02 in Bangalore.
I just had my Chicago GSB interview with a GSB alumni and I must say that the two experiences were radically different one being with adcom and another with alumni.
So the interviewer was very particular for time. I reached early and there were two interviews before me. She called each interviewee at the exact time allotted and finished in exact 30 min. Then she was taking full 15 min to do something (don’t know what) before starting the next one. Unfortunately, time was not with me. For some reason she called me 3-4 minutes late, although she did said I am sorry for being late, but she did not gave me extra time and completed in exact 30 min, giving the last 5 to me for becoming an interviewer.
She started looking at my resume, looking in detail for couple of min. I have my bachelors in electronics and communication and she asked me which field in electronics. I said signal processing and she even wrote it on the resume. I don’t know what she will do with that. Anyways she also commented on one of my extra curricular activities from the additional information section of the resume. Then she said we wont talk about the resume and lets directly jump into why I think Wharton would be good for me. I thought she forgot that she hasn’t yet asked me why MBA, goals and so on.
So I though let me only remind her that I haven’t said why I want to do MBA and what I want to do in my life. So, I asked I would like to first talk about my goals and intention for MBA. She obviously said yes and I started blah blah blah. I had some ideas about entrepreneurship in long term and she asked me do I know about the market in US. I had read about it and said whatever I remembered. Then she asked have I thought about the entrepreneurial angle of this idea and revenue and such detail. I said I don’t have a comprehensive business plan and talked about why I feel there is a need for this idea. Don’t know she was convinced or impressed or both or none, I hope both.
Then i said short term and then why MBA. She didn’t questioned me on that.
Then the million dollar question, why Wharton. I started talking on it. I said about breadth and depth of curriculum, 1st year core curriculum, BPC why I think Wharton’s BPC is ideal for me and what I want to learn from it and then I said about majors and then a couple of courses that centers on exactly what I want from my MBA.
Then I talked about learning teams with some specific information (got it while talking to a 1st year student). Then she interrupted and said what all you want to do outside of curriculum. Ooomm, I thought hang on lemme finish. But, anyways she was the boss there. So, I talked about entrepreneurship-in-residence program and SBDC. Again linking to why I want to do these.
Then I switched to extra curricular at Wharton. I play tennis and said I would join or lead the tennis club and how I think I would be able to contribute to the community from this.
There were 2-3 points which I wanted to talk about Wharton but missed saying as she was cutting me, so I thought to be very concise in my answers and not giving her a chance to cut me.
Then we went into my community related work. I talked why I am doing it and so on. I also got the coveted gift from her when she said, “you seem to be very passionate about your work". It was like jingle bell jingel bell to me.
Then she asked do I have to ask anything. I asked what she likes most about Wharton. And I was not at all listening what she said as I was wondering what to ask next.
Suddenly it struck me, to ask something which I wanted to say for why Wharton. I talked about the partners club why I feel that is important for my family (again going into specifics). I mentioned about the book club at partners club and linked that to my wife's reading passion. And then I asked her what does she think about partners at Wharton and as usual I don’t remember what she said. I don’t remember but I think I asked one more question and then thought its enough lets shake hands and say sayonara.
Did the final formalities like thank you, pleasure meeting you and such stuff and left the room.
One thing I forgot to mention. She had an interview form in front of her and it seemed to be pretty detailed. I couldn’t see what’s written over it but it seemed it had various fields. All along the interview, she was making notes, in one of these fields in the form. To me it seemed like she has definite topics to cover and taking notes all along. Throughout i wanted to ensure I am clear and crisp and talk new and critical things so that she can write more and more.
even when i said about partners club when asking questions to her, she scribbled something and obviously this made me happy thinking there is one more thing about me in her form. Eventually it would be this form only that would count.
So enough of my experience. My takeaways:
1. Be very clear and crisp in what you are saying. Practice to cut short your answers to say the same stuff in least possible words. I think if I had practiced this I would have been able to speak more points. This is esp. important when one is attending interview where there are slots and there is for sure someone waiting after you. So the interview won’t go long.
2. Why Wharton. I think your 1st point must hit the bulls eye esp. when interviewing with adcom. With due respect to adcom interviewers I think interviews with them is very objective as compared to interviews with alum which I found pretty subjective and more conversational. So that makes it more important so say something that really really links 1:1 with your why MBA argument. I think I did that to start with but then got a little general and thus she switched to what outside of academics I would do. So I think preparation of why xyz will be different for an alum vs. adcom member (just my thoughts, I know several people must be thinking that this is not right).
3. Energy and passion. I was recommended this by Wharton alum and I think it worked. I think these are two qualities which they would be looking in you. So do show lot of energy, enthusiasm and passion in what you say. Being an Indian and interviewing with an US adcom member, I think one should try to modulate his/her words depending on what is being said and that way you can show energy (I am not sure what I wrote is exactly what I wanted to say, but in summary do whatever you can to show enthusiasm and energy and passion).
4. Do not go too early for the interview. I reached almost 1.30 hrs before the interview and it did make me nervous as I was sitting there waiting and watching people.
5. Hope for lot of luck and wishes from all near and dear ones. Thats also a small pie in the circle of success.
Best of luck to everybody.
I had my Chicago GSB interview with an alumni in Bangalore. This is first time the alumni got together and had this event where 4 alumni were taking interviews in parallel all day long. My interviewer in response to one of questions about alumni also said that this is their initiative and Chicago GSB is really working these days to improve their alumni network ( not directly but he did convey that the Chicago GSB alumni atleast in India is not a very very strong community but they all are working to improve that).
Anyways my interviewer was well prepared as in he had taken a print out my resume and had thoroughly disected it. I could see his notes on my resume. He started by talking about himself, seemed to be a well accomplished person, and then straight away jumped into my academics. Then he asked me about my work experience and our interview for the next 15 min revolved around here. He asked me what exactly I do. He was also from a technical background so could relate to what I said. After i gave a generic answer of what product I am working on and what I do he said "lets delve deeper into what you do and how you do". Then we discussed about my transition from a team member to a team leader role and the difficultis I faced in this. How I manage teams and what I find challenging in doing so. SO I believe be prepared with managerial kind of questions related to your work environment.
Then he came back to my resume and picked couple of things from "Additional Information" section of my resume and then next 10 min we discussed on this. He was very curious to know why I am doing so and again how I am doing so. Again these activitioes involved working with teams so he again asked how I handle teams, what difficulties I face and how I measure success in these activities.
Next he asked Goals. He did not grill much on that and then asked Why Chicago. After 3-4 points I said he interrupted and said I seem to have done my homework and then started talking more about GSB. Then he asked why not some other school. I was prepared for this and answered. I brought a work life balance to this answer and he said yes thats really important.
Then he said I am done with my questions and do I have any thing to say. Then I took the opportunity and talked about my interest with Tennis and we went into a discussion about "Federer vs Sampras" who is great. He seems to be inclined towards Sampras and I with Federer and I said I am sure Federer has lot of tennis left in him and he will do wonders. I also told why I like Federer thinking he might be judging me on this argument.
Then I asked couple of questions about how GSB helped him in career progress and also how about GSB alumni community and such stuff. He gave good answeres and I do not remember anything he said as I was thinking "Thank god" the interview went well.
He finished and said I can anytime email or call him for any help I require.
Overall a good experience. My takeways:
1. Be very crystal clear on your work experience. What are you doing needs to be very clear.
2. Why GSB argument is like a trump card,rather why GSB is best for you needs to be well prepared to win the battle.
3. Need to have good share of luck and wishes from loved ones.
Best of luck to everybody.
By way of this discussion I wish to describe my GMAT journey and share the experience and learning I had on the way. Generally, the GMAT preparation period should last around three to four months, may be a little more in some cases but unfortunately for me it lasted almost eight months. So, I developed a living relationship with GMAT. The reason of this prolonged attachment with GMAT was because of my low score of 620 in the first attempt. I was disheartened that I could not impress the GMAT princess. Though I was exhausted but at the same time I was sure that this is not a true reflection of my abilities and for sure this is not what I deserve. The most important learning I had from this experience is that one should never loose confidence.
As I was distressed, my wife gave me a book titled “Great Failures of the Extremely Successful”, written by Steve Young. This book showed me that failure can be much worse and one has to struggle and fight back to win the race. Reading the book, I realized how famous personalities turned their failures into triumph and lifetime achievements. This book exposed me to the realities of life and taught me to fight them. I realized that stumbling and rising up again is an unmatched path to success and each one of us has to go through this process to cherish the success. I learnt that time spent on worrying over a mistake is a waste of time and instead one should figure out ways to correct the mistake and move on. As I wanted to apply to B schools with a good GMAT score, I decided that I will meet the GMAT princess again and this time will surely impress her. As I understand, if one has impressed the beautiful GMAT princess it becomes a little easier to impress the stunning B-school queen.
Now let us move on to what I did for the preparation, with a hope to be helpful to all prospective GMAT takers. First and the foremost thing is to sit back and think of a strategy. Before I plunged in the preparation for the second attempt, I took some time off to think and rework on my strategy. It is very important to understand one’s strengths and weaknesses, for example I was good at quantitative and critical reasoning (CR) section of GMAT but I was not as good as the GMAT princess wants one to be in sentence correction (SC) and reading comprehension (RC) sections. This implied that I had to practice more on SC and RC.
My reworked strategy was to spend more time on quality rather than on quantity. I realized that I was not comprehensively analyzing and tracking my mistakes. I learnt that I need to scrutinize more and also discuss more with friends. Analyzing the mistakes and making sure not to repeat them was the need of the hour. Earlier, I followed a rule to solve at least thirty SC questions every day (quantitative measure), now the rule changed to not only solving but also analyzing the approach (qualitative measure). I experienced that whether I answer correct or wrong, an analysis is always helpful because sometimes one might get the right answer but with a wrong approach. Now it was not important to solve thirty SC questions every day rather it was more important that how I solved these questions even if that number is fifteen or twenty.
Moreover, I started to study in groups and joined discussion forums where I learnt not only from my own mistakes but also from those of my fellow GMAT aspirants. Working in a group gave me the opportunity to discuss my thoughts and take steps towards converting these thoughts into action. I also realized that my earlier technique to handle the adaptive GMAT exam did not work well. I learnt that the GMAT princess simply loves people who can answer the first eight to ten questions correctly. I refined my approach and started to practice answering the first ten questions correctly in each and every test I appeared. Ensuring that I analyze every mistake and taking notes so as not to repeat the mistakes helped me and I started seeing an improvement in the test scores. Finally, I scheduled a meeting again with the princess and this time made sure she was left with no option than to adore me. I won over her and she gave me a gift worth 750 points.
Now moving to discuss about the resources and methodologies I used. First thing first, "Official Guide to GMAT”, popularly known as OG and available in two versions 10 and 11. Many people say and I second them that this is the bible for GMAT (for Christian friends reading this please pardon me for comparing Bible to any other book). Undoubtedly OG contains everything one needs to know to impress the princess. It talks of everything the princess will be looking for in you and will give you all the necessary pointers to impress her. And why not, after all it is written by the princess herself. Even though OG 11 has lot of questions repeated from OG 10 but the explanations given in OG 11 are more succinct and useful. You might feel that the questions in OG are on an easier side but do not make the impression that the GMAT will be same. These are just sample questions and you are exploring with this book, more for explanations than for questions. I read somewhere that “each and every explanation on OG must be on your finger tips on the G day (the day of your GMAT exam)” and I can vouch for the truthfulness of this statement.
Now the best part, INTERNET. Dive into the plethora of information and catch some gold fish. I mean there is lot of information available on the internet and it is very easy to drown. Try to figure out some discussion forums where like minded people do like minded talks in a like minded fashion. Some of the sites I comprehensively followed were http://www.scoretop.com/, http://www.sentencecorrection.com/ and http://www.testmagic.com/ . For me scoretop was the best friend, even leaving behind my wife in terms of the time I spent with scoretop. For readers who do not know about scoretop, it is a discussion forum where people come and discuss each other’s problems, share thoughts and also discuss how they managed to impress the princess.
As I have learnt in my application process, that when it comes to extra curricular or community service activities, the B school queen is not looking for mere participation but one’s contribution to make a difference. So while reading the posts on these forums, participate actively. May be people can learn a lot from you and you land up writing this contribution of yours in one of the essay topics. Reading various posts and solving different questions will be a good pointer to determine the direction you need to take your preparation. Another advantage of these forums is that the posts contain questions which either someone could not solve or some magnanimous person wanted to share with others. This simply helps because, on an average, you will work on difficult questions.
Coming back to study material. Apart from OG, there is loads of other material like Kaplan, Princeton, Manhattan guide to sentence correction, Barrons, Power prep, Novas, 800score.com, Crack GMAT, GMAT soft and the list continues. If time is something you have plenty of you can go through all of the above but otherwise pick one or two and move on. From my experience, I found “Manhattan guide to Sentence Correction” the best of all, as it explains the common errors our beloved GMAT princess will be looking for. Simply an amazing book for people like me who do not want to read Wren and Martin. Do not run corners finding these materials. If you are exploring www.scoretop.com properly, you will find all the relevant and good material as part of some of the discussion thread.
That brings me to an end describing about my sojourn from a score of 620 to 750. I believe that three most important qualities required to succeed in GMAT are strong determination, perseverance and relentless hard work.
I wish everybody good luck.
so research , research and then again research...i believe this is the mantra for me since a month now...have been reading and just reading....noting points which i feel will be helpful during essay writing... but as I am reading more and more, the information is piling up...there is so much of stuff that i have to read every day...so many forums like s2s, chicago forums, innumerable blogs .
All this leads to plethora of information and i am trying all i can to keep up with it...be it maintainig various links in favourites, adding blogs i read on my blog page, adding notes in my notes doc. May be this is what MBA preparation is all about..
another issue which i am juggling around is contacting with past students and current students and then then once the link is established, make the best use of this. Ask as many questions as I can,know the max i could from them, and impress them....and at the same time respect their time and schedule. Working on this I have realized that contacting with current students and alums is one of the most important vector which one should traverse to be called an alum of a great school...
hope i handle these two issues properly and make the best use of these two vectors in time to come...
if any of the fellow bloggers or the pro's can give me comments, please .........
here I am and saying again I wont give up.. the last time i said that was when I got 620 in my GMAT and then prepared again to score a good enough 750..
but i agree only to 50 % of it... may be with my profile I dont think i will say i dont fit to wharton so i wont apply there....with whatever i have researched with, I have made the opinion that the top 3-5 schools like harvard, wharton, kellogs, chicago are the meccas and i will fit in any of these...
anyways i have decides on top 3-4 schools but now have to materialize on schools from Duke, Darden, Ross etc..
wharton, kellogs, chicago, ( stanford or sloan) , ( duke or darden or Ross)
now the next step....start working on other essay questions...
so after some contemplation i am back to indite some of the stuff, mainly irrelevant..haha
anyways its time to think what to do next ...is waiting a good idea (as though i have a option)...obviously i will wait...but at the same time what shud i do as a contigency plan if i dont get through...
some of the things i think i shud do is to start geting more info on more colleges, what essay topics were there what i am lookign for these schools , what are the options, what are the early apply options and which school i must commit for early entry..
lot of other things i guess i must do ,..like visiting and revisting my essays, waht did i miss if i miss. was it less experience or was the arrow missed te bulls eye my a dealta, is this delata huge or small...dont knwo how i will decifer the vociferousness of this delta but what i must be worried is that a delta exist and i need it to eat it away soon..
so finally packing my bags... i hope I can write a blog starting with "so finally packing my bags to go to wharton"... but today its time to pack and go for the interview...may be to get my entry ticket stamped by Wharton adcom. There have been several views where people say that interview is just another weightage criteria and is not the second level filter.. i dont know whatever it is i dont think it will affect the way one prepares for the interview. Esp some people who know they are sure shot in ( belive me i know some people who think that way and i also know they are correct in their view) . For me as I dont beog to that bandwagon that puts more 100kg weigth on me to prepare well and give my best. I recently read on s2s ( after scoretop, my new love) that if one overprepares the interviewer can easily make this out and starts asking questions which will make you feel coackroaches in your seat...what a yukkie way to put this.... Anyway i certainly dont want that.
so just watching the cricket match and enjoying the saturday afternoon. Will prepare once more on some questions and then I think i want tot read more on some stats on india, GDP, population and such things. This is because in one of my answers I want to take the interviewer in this direction. Anyways more on this after the interview.
i am still not vey sure on the question : What other schools have you applied". I am more scared about the follow up questions , if any. Lets see what I will do on that.
so best of luk to myself.
felling dizzy... but at the same time lot of confidence also that atleast i got the opportunity to feel dizzy.. haha. so its 5 days left to my interview@wharton. lets see how it goes,,,i am trying my best, have made aanswers to some of the standsard questions and i believ my myh wharton answer is pretty decent. I think this si one of the most important answer of the intervier along with the Why Now and Why MBA questions.
anyways the preparations are giving me deepar and deepr insights about the school and more i read more I dream of strolling in the wharton campus. I read al lthe student diearies today and realized that there are hell lot of things to be a part at wharton and ya studies are also is a part of that plenty things... every time i search for some things i get to know somethign new about wharton...
with each day passing by i am feeling closer to wharton ( atleast i can think so), when i had applied to wharton i had thouigh that my chances are pretty bleak but now i think i have fair enough chances. I think what i need to efficeintly communicate in the interview is that though i have less experience i am pretty sure of what i am doing what i want to do and what i am expecting from wharton.
one of my reviewers had very well put all this " you shud convey that there is somethign already waiting fo ryou after you MBA, its just that wharton is a ICE( worlds fastest train) as opposed to indian rail to reach there".
so lets see how the countdown zero treats me..
so the quest continues... of late i have been using this word quest alot and why not it is such a sweet word... i had even use this aggresive word in my essays. So for me the quest continues as I got my first MBA invite for an interview form Wharton. wow what feeling after days of cheking and checking mails finally i saw the mail and read the subject "Wharton Interview Invite". I had not even deleted my spam and thrash folder since long in apprehension that by mistake i might not have deleted the million dollar mail. I am sure the confirmation mail wil a billion dollar one.
So the preperation fever again. I am just delving deeper and deeper in Wharton's website again in quest of more and more info. Primararily to get answer of the most talked about question "Why Wharton". Till 2 days back i used to think why there is so much talk of this question. After al lis there any huge difference between harward and difference other than the way one spells it. But with every click I make I am realizing there are so many suttle differences. Moreover I think this answer is aksed more to see that you are a research freek rather than finding the literal answer to the question. And this is also my intention to find points about wharton which i feel will be unique.
I hav estarted reading Knowledge@Wharton and just liking it. I read lot of topics in the entrepreneurship column and thinking that when I will be there. I know mere thinking wont take me there, I not only have to build the track to go there but also have to develop my own engine to pull the train. I am sure if I do this much the feul and passengers will be no dearth.
lets see what happens. the I-day is on 19th of Feb in Delhi.
so finally doen with these two books. I had staretd to read these with the idea that these can be helpful to me if I land up with an interview. ( i am still hoping the saem). But now i feel that both of these books were junk, one is terms of content and other in terms of te statistcis and worng information mentioend. "Eleven Minutes", I just bought it considering the excellence paulo cohelo had shown with masterpiece like "alchemist"m but this time i was disappointed. This book is about a prostitute and dear paulo is all around trying to say that the Maria( the female heroine of the book) a prostitute is a amazing girl and blah blah... as a whol;e dodnt like the book much.
now about the "In line of fire" by dear and deadly Pervez bhai. I think the review depends on which side of the LOC one is. i tried to be on the LOC so as to me neutral and read the book. My main idea to read this book was to prepare for the question for the interview ( hope i get form both wharton and Ross) "Which book are you reading now" " Why are you reading this book". For the Why answer i wanted to see what pervez bhai thinks of the whole india pakistan problem and what kind of a person he is.. But i think i still cant answer what kind of a person he is.. Throughout the book he went talking about himslef.,..that he has done he has done that....i think he has bosted a lot about himself. Somre of the interesting chapters i was particularly peeking on were whne he talks on the issue of kargil and the like wars. He tried to be very cleaver but failed completely in the attempt. In the book he did not accpet defeat in all the ars and kept praisingin his work his army his ocuntry his people.
Another common approach i have seen of thsi dude is that whenevr somwething is against him and is negatyive for him he simply denies the very basic existence of the source. For eg in the kargil chapter he simply says that what india did in media and in war was totally different. media was just highlighting the stuff which did not existed oln the warzone. I dont knwo the reality but still find it difficult to digest. ANother issue he talked was to improve the relationship between india nad pakisatn, again he denies lot of stuff that i knew . May be i am wrong but his books didnt had the weight in the content to prove his sayings.
Most interesting stuff to me in the book was when what we know as POK is called as Azad Kashmir. Another was when the beautifull state we know as Jammu and Kashmir is called as Indian Occupied Kashmir. Though he has not at all sunstantiated whey he says all this.
Finally i dont understand why now is the time when Pervez bhai has written this biography. Normally people write biographies when they have retired or have no work. All thorugh the book he has tried that the reader does not get the impression that pervez is a dicatotor but as i read more i was more convinced that he is a dictator. Having said that i dont hink he has enough time to think and write about htis book. So dont know what made musshi to write this book of 280 pages. I think his idea is to talk biggie biggie stuff about himself and create an impression for the world and the public that he is a gem of a person ad is there to take a U trun in the path where pakistan is going. No dount the things he has talked of in the book are amazing, considering all those facts and figures are true, i think pakistan has a good future ahead. But who know he might he ousted by some another militart personnel of his only.
Anyways a nice read though, only if you are on LOC. A single step here and there of the LOC will make the read a not very good one.
Why an MBA, why now, why Wharton.
Post MBA goals.
International experience.
Tough situation at work.
Describe a typical day at work
walk through your resume
Know your story and what you want to contribute.
Some believe leadership is innate, others think it can be taught... which do you believe?
What do you bring to Wharton?
What do you see as the differences between Harvard, Stanford and Wharton?
How do you measure success
Is there any perceived weakness in your application that you would like to address ?
What clubs and activities would you get involved in at Wharton ?
Is there any perceived weakness in your application that you would like to address ?
Do you have anything else you would like to talk about ?
Describe yourself. Difficult to know where to start but once you get going its quite simple.
Tell me something about yourself.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
who is the prominent figure that you admire? why?
"Have you ever had to work around a superior?"
"What part of your undergraduate program was most difficult for you?"
"Tell me about a time your powers of persuasion failed?"
telling me why you have made the decisions you made.
What extra-curriculars did you participate in during college?
You say Wharton would build your leadership skills - How?
How would you handle a conflict in your learning team?
Name a prominent figure you look up to.
Have you ever had an ethical dilemma?
Analyze yourself and tell me three strengths and three weaknesses.
At your graduation ceremony, what do you think you would be reflecting that you had
contributed to Wharton, and how would you have changed?
If you had 30 days without any commmitments, what would you do?
What will be your impact at Wharton?
If you were part of a team, the project was failing, and the leader wasn't doing a good job, what woudl you do?
If you had one free day, what would you do?
If you had 30 free days, what would you do?
What brings you here today?
Careerwise, was there anything in the last five years that you would have done differently?
How would you describe your best friend?
Name a leader you admire and explain why.
What do you do for fun
What do you do to relieve stress.
I wish I had known about the grading system
What will your impact be on the school when you have left?
If you were in a study group with one member who was overbearing and one member who was very reticent, how would you handle the situation?
If you did not gain admission to Wharton, what would you do?
What was your biggest challenge in life?
The most difficult question was what changes I would introduce if I were the Minister in the Government.
How would your colleauges describe your leadership style?
How would your friends describe you?
How do you plan to get the most from your time at Wharton? You have lots of things but not enough time so the most successful know how to prioritize.
What do you wish I would have asked?
What is the most recent book you read, and what do you think about it?
Have you ever disagreed with your manager?
What would you do differently if your were the CEO of your company?
What specific campus organizations will you join?
Have I had to persuade my superiors to go with something I came up with?
Have I ever been in a team conflict and how did I react to it?
What was the hardest thing you had to say no to in the past two years?
Give me your assessment of Wal-mart. Good for consumers or bulldozing machine?
What specific extra curriculars do you plan to take part in at Wharton?
Other than the reasons you stated in your essays, why do you want to go to Wharton?
What motivates you?
Why now? Why not next year or the year after?
Three qualities of a leader and an example of a situation in which you exhibited the same.
Talk about your extracurricular activities.
give an example when you conflicted with senior management
how would you want to be remembered after graduating from Wharton
What type of summer internship will you be seeking?
How would you want to be remembered?
If you are admitted, two years from now, how will your classmates remember you?
How will you fit in with the international atmosphere?
What characteristics do you look for in your team members? How do you work with a team to deal with a situation? Walk me through a situation at work that involves heavy quant skills
What do you think your friends at Wharton would remember you by at graduation?
What's a personality flaw you have?
Define leadership and how it differs from being a good manager ?
If you were the CEO of a company and had to do a downsizing - a) what people would you lay off b) how would you implement it?
Explain to me in brief what your company's product does?
What do you think makes an effective manager?
If you were working on a project with a team of peers late at night (I assume like a learning team) and they had an opinion entirely different from yours, how would you manage the situation so that the team completes the assignment the next day?
Discuss a situation in which you felt ethically challenged.
What was your best mistake?
How do you define success for a company? For yourself?
I am a 5 year-old. Explain to me what the 'internet' is.
What are the 3 most important technological innovations of the past 1000 years. (you read correctly, 1,000 years).
When asked what other schools I was applying to
How would your boss describe you? What would you did if you didn't get into Wharton? What if you didn't get into any BSchools
why are you unique,
why should we accept you
A question about something specific about my resume.
Describe a situation where you were the team leader, and had to make a difficult situation. What factors were involved, and how did you resolve it? Finally, what did you learn from it?
What is the one and only thing that you want me to know about you?
If I had the power to use one day as I pleased, what would I do?
"Assume you're a boarderline candidate. Give me your 2 best reasons to let you in."
If you could have lunch with anyone, who would it be?"
What would be the most challenging thing for you once you enroll at Wharton?
Describe an epiphany that you've had
How do you deal with political instabilities?
How do you retain the employees in your company?
What professors at Wharton are you most interested in studying under. Luckily, I read brochures and remembered a name
What's your favorite book.
What would I consider my dream opportunity? (could professional or personal)
If your friends were asked to give 3 words describing you, what would they say?
Themost difficult question was when he greeted me on entering the interview room and asked me why i was there
"If a big tornado hit all the MBA Schools in the world, what would you do ?"
Why did you choose to work for your current employer?
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Source: www.accepted.com
So what period is this…can I call this courtship period …I think I cant ,,,ideally the period after getting admission and before joining will be designated as a courtship period…so was just pondering what to call this period as.. “keep guessing days” everyday I think of something new about my application.. have I written this right or that wrong.. Although I know I can’t help now but still I keep thinking about my application…
Anyways so what is the confidence level I have in my application…to be frank I am not very confident… and to continue the frankness I don’t know why I am saying that… may be my less experience is the highest speed breaker in my path or is it the Indian IT tag a factor. I guess a mix of both…when I think of my essays I believe I have made them ok …no I guess good apart from one essay of Wharton which I modified completely on the S day ( submission day). All the small small issues which before submitting were taken by my mind as trivial are becoming bigger and bigger hurdles in my mind when I think more and more on those.. For example I crosses the word limit by 7-8 % and now I feel will that be an issue… anyways Wharton will be starting to call for interviews from 18 ( 2 days from now ).. So its time to check my email 1000 times a day (I can even add one more zero to that number)…
Anyways I have started the interview preparation and in the process of collecting all the questions I can manage …mainly from clearadmit.com and admitted.com … I think once I am done with all the question will save them as one more post on this blog.
Done with the big one Wharton!!
ooom i am done with one and one to go ....the first one is Wharton and the second one is Ross. I thought i could just copy and paste lot of material for Ross from Wharton and will be done in a day...but I was wrong....i need to work on lot many things to make Ross essays look like they were born for Ross not adopted for Ross.
Anyways i want to write about my experience about applying to Wharton. The experience after applying was just exhilarating. Wanted to go out and have some ice cream (around 1am on 5th January IST, 2006) but unfortunately we don’t have a Wal-Mart in Bangalore. Experience while applying for Wharton was just the opposite, I was just praying, what else I could have done.
And now the best part, experience before applying or rather I should say experience while preparing to apply.
Is the word enjoyed correct to explain this experience, i think its easy to use this word after hitting the submit button , but I am sure this was the last word in my vocab I would have used before pressing the button. Ok let me summarize what all i learnt in this process and see how many things I can say:
Dedication, perseverance, patience, hard work, and above all the mantra which i just love, networking.
I am always inspired by the word networking, and again I could proof why so. it was networking which came to my rescue when it came to perfecting the essays. I really want to thank from the bottom of my heart( kapil if u read this don’t be angry on me for using your words) Nitin Uncle, Sunil uncke,Ashish Kaka, Namrata, Aruna, swati,Salil and the most important and biggest critique of my essays my wife swapna.
I can’t imagine i would have submitted my essay in the condition i have if these people were not around.
This experience has taught me the importance of communication. To be precise written communication. If one can create a recipe with correct mixture of efficient written communication and knowledge about oneself, the recipe will win a gold medal. And here I did the biggest mistake I was doing while writing essays. DO NOT WRITE LONG SENTENCES. It’s so easy to say that but was so difficult to read and implement this before applying. There were so many times when just by changing some words or just rephrasing a couple of sentences the whose scene changed and brought life to the essay.
I learnt that one shud have a tree built before starting to write an essay. Frankly speaking I did not do this when I started my Wharton essays but realized after submitting the Wharton essays. Today I used this approach for writing the career essay of Ross and believe me it works.
Let’s say if one has to write for example about career goals. SO these should be the steps:
1. Write long term goal.
2. Why this is your long term goal.
3. Why MBA + how MBA will help you to achieve 1.
4. A little bit on why now. Again link to 1.
5. Write about short term goals
6. Link how you think short term goals will help to achieve 1.
Just after writing these 6 points I was thinking of how I used to take all this management fundas when I was in college. and boy I don’t want to even think of writing what is in my mind....hope the people who know me might guess what I mean... and see today I am dreaming a future in this.
Anyways i think that all for today...I have to wake up tomorrow and work on the 2nd and 3rd essay for Ross.
Thanks and best of luck if you are still reading!!!!
