The past two weekends have been busy as I was out of town travelling.
May 1st - I flew down to beautiful North Carolina. As one of my friends is getting married soon, a few of us thought its time for some 'Bachelor fun'. Well, it was a fun weekend indeed. We crashed at my buddy's new place in Raleigh, NC on Thursday night, partied somewhere near Raleigh Downtown, drove to the beach ( yeah! a beach for real...not lake Michigan : ) ) in Wilmington, NC, spend a pleasant evening there and drove back on Sunday evening.
My return flight was on monday morning and as usual, the lazy a*#$ that yours truly is, I missed 6:40 AM flight by like 5 minutes by waking up late. I ended up paying $75 to confirm a seat in the next flight so that I could get back to work directly from the airport. Since my pickup-buddy would be in office by the time I arrived in Chicago, I was contemplating on whether to hire a taxi ( which can get expensive and add to my already turning-out-to-be-expensive trip! ) or wait for my buddy to pick me up during his lunch time.
Incidentally, my co-passenger who happened to be a Indian guy ( lets call him Desai for ease ) doing his monthly visit to his chicago office, offered me a ride to my office as 'it is on the way to my office so come-na, I will drop you beta! :) '. As it has become a sort of a habit these days, I started blabbering about my mba plans and what are some of my career plans post business school. Desai gave me some totally unexpected career counselling which was a bit interesting. He talked about one of his old acquaintances who was completely broke and how he started working in a Subway to pay his bills initially and later started his own 'calling cards' company and became highly successful. He talked about one of this other friends who was an engineer by profession but who quit his job and got into running a Subway and ended up running 8 of them simultaneously.
Mr. Desai suggested that I should start thinking in the lines of owning my own business someday and only then, the prospects of making it big would really start to unfold. Though I was a bit skeptical about his story in the beginning I did realized that this guy has a point. The conversation ended just as it started as he dropped me at my office and bid adios. ( I did manage to get his email/phone though! ). Apart from giving me a free ride, I have to say he did wakeup the budding entrepeneur in me!!
13.5.10
25.4.10
RIP Prahalad
It would be an understatement to say that Prof. Prahalad is famous just among people who are into corporate strategy. Its sad to hear about the untimely demise of such a great person. Coincidentally, I recently had this discussion about Prof. Prahalad's ideas with one of my friends on how the poor in emerging markets have a huge untapped potential and how it can be harnessed by the big corporates of the world for profitability and how this can indirectly have an effect on improving the lives of the poor. The context of this discussion was me trying to borrow the book 'fortune at the bottom of the pyramid' from my friend.
I am having a tough time in borrowing books these days due to my recently gained reputation of being too sloppy and occasionally foolhardy, when it comes to returning them. Be it to the library, be it to my friends. Since my friend happens to be an ardent fan of Prof. Prahalad, him having attended one of the professors' acclaimed talks, I felt that I could talk him though lending me the book by utilizing my uncanny ability of throwing out a few excerpts from the book and gain his approval as a fan-peer of prahalad :). Hence, I did my research on the book but felt all the more fascinated and intrigued in due course by some of the ideas that prof. Prahalad has put forward like how more than 2.5 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day and how new models of business can be developed using technology to successfully target the demographic. I can't wait to borrow/steal the book from my friend and finish it asap thereby paying my tribute to the esteemed professor ( somehow neither renting the book from the library nor buying in online doesn't sound soo.. challenging ! :) )
I am having a tough time in borrowing books these days due to my recently gained reputation of being too sloppy and occasionally foolhardy, when it comes to returning them. Be it to the library, be it to my friends. Since my friend happens to be an ardent fan of Prof. Prahalad, him having attended one of the professors' acclaimed talks, I felt that I could talk him though lending me the book by utilizing my uncanny ability of throwing out a few excerpts from the book and gain his approval as a fan-peer of prahalad :). Hence, I did my research on the book but felt all the more fascinated and intrigued in due course by some of the ideas that prof. Prahalad has put forward like how more than 2.5 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day and how new models of business can be developed using technology to successfully target the demographic. I can't wait to borrow/steal the book from my friend and finish it asap thereby paying my tribute to the esteemed professor ( somehow neither renting the book from the library nor buying in online doesn't sound soo.. challenging ! :) )
8.4.10
IAS - Ivy League Success
I stumbled upon this new Admission consulting firm today during my stray browsing today.
IAS - (Ivy App success ) Me being from India, I couldn't help wondering about the abbreviation. IAS in India stands for Indian Administrative Service ( One of the most coveted administrative posts in Indian bureaucratic hierarchy ). For a giffy, I thought if the founders were from India who somehow got this funny idea of making their admissions consulting firm's name synonymous with one of the most aspired professions among Indian students..Would there be a better marketing strategy if you are targeting the Indian Student base..? Well its not for me to judge as the name-match might be purely co-incidental but the site seemed very informative. Especially, one of the articles that talked about having early focus on the application caught my attention instantly.
The above article talks about the benefits of starting the application process early as the applicant will be able to add value to those aspects of his application that might potentially get benefited with a little more effort in the last few months before R1 deadlines.
IAS - (Ivy App success ) Me being from India, I couldn't help wondering about the abbreviation. IAS in India stands for Indian Administrative Service ( One of the most coveted administrative posts in Indian bureaucratic hierarchy ). For a giffy, I thought if the founders were from India who somehow got this funny idea of making their admissions consulting firm's name synonymous with one of the most aspired professions among Indian students..Would there be a better marketing strategy if you are targeting the Indian Student base..? Well its not for me to judge as the name-match might be purely co-incidental but the site seemed very informative. Especially, one of the articles that talked about having early focus on the application caught my attention instantly.
The above article talks about the benefits of starting the application process early as the applicant will be able to add value to those aspects of his application that might potentially get benefited with a little more effort in the last few months before R1 deadlines.
27.3.10
Time to Introspect
For the past 2-3 weeks, I've been surfing through the blogosphere of prospective MBA students and current MBA students and its has been a huge learning curve so far as I'm trying to explore interesting blogs ( getting fascinated sometimes at some of the things these guys have to say and at the experiences they had through their application process) and understand the application process simultaneously. As I am already done with GMAT, I think I have a little more time ( starting from now ) than a typical 1st time b-school applicant at my disposal to work on things that I might want to improve in my resume. As the plan as of now is to get all my applications submitted in Round1, I figured I needed to stick to a time intensive schedule for the next few months. This is partly due to the face that during my GMAT preparation, I read somewhere that its good to look at time in chunk of days at a time so that we feel the sense of urgency and end up getting things done more efficiently. Henceforth, here's a quick peek at my schedule that I developed (working backwords) from the R1 admission timeframe for the set of schools I intend to apply to:
October 2nd week+
Submit applications ( 4 schools as of now and counting ( I let the counter loose as I still need to get in grips with the part of my which keeps saying 4 is too small a number :) ))
July1st-Aug-Sep 30th ( 90 days )
July, Notify all my recommenders ( previous workplace, grad school ) that the applications are due in a few months and start working with them.
August, September Start working on the blueprint for essays and focus on setting up a date for final draft ( I know this effort would be on-going until the day I submit my applications..but this is just for planning sake! :D )
Apr1st-May-June 30th ( 90 days )
Get used to reading through the blogosphere and be able to sift all the important stuff ( man, there are a gazillion mba applicant/student blogs out there ( no offense! ) and I understand most of them are filled with good stuff ( no offense for the rest either :) ) but do I really have the time/perseverence to go through so much content !?
Okay. so much for planning. Now lets see how badly I stay away from this schedule ( just kidding! I wish I could get this devil (called procrastination) off my shoulders and adhere to the above plan! )
October 2nd week+
Submit applications ( 4 schools as of now and counting ( I let the counter loose as I still need to get in grips with the part of my which keeps saying 4 is too small a number :) ))
July1st-Aug-Sep 30th ( 90 days )
July, Notify all my recommenders ( previous workplace, grad school ) that the applications are due in a few months and start working with them.
August, September Start working on the blueprint for essays and focus on setting up a date for final draft ( I know this effort would be on-going until the day I submit my applications..but this is just for planning sake! :D )
Apr1st-May-June 30th ( 90 days )
Get used to reading through the blogosphere and be able to sift all the important stuff ( man, there are a gazillion mba applicant/student blogs out there ( no offense! ) and I understand most of them are filled with good stuff ( no offense for the rest either :) ) but do I really have the time/perseverence to go through so much content !?
Okay. so much for planning. Now lets see how badly I stay away from this schedule ( just kidding! I wish I could get this devil (called procrastination) off my shoulders and adhere to the above plan! )
21.3.10
Student Ambassadors
During my casual browsing of b-school admission related blogs today, I stumbled upon mbamission's exclusive interview with Soojin Kwon Kon ( Director of admissions, Ross ) and it was interesting in a way. For sometime now, I've been hearing about student ambassadors and have spoken to a few of them during my last few info. session visits to Chicago Booth ( Incidentally, Booth happens to be the only school yours-truly managed to visit until now ) but I never really knew that these people volunteer to answer questions and can be really good at providing a student's perspective. I guess one of the big TODOs on my plate right now is to get in touch with some of these students at my prospective schools.
Moving on, one other interesting thing that caught my attention in Soojin's interview is that Ross will be increasing its class size from 440 to 500 ( yaay! ) starting from academic year 2010-11, owing to the new-building/additional space created. And considering Ross typically fills 30% of its class with international students, this means close to 20 more international admits...!! Should I feel elated..? :)
Moving on, one other interesting thing that caught my attention in Soojin's interview is that Ross will be increasing its class size from 440 to 500 ( yaay! ) starting from academic year 2010-11, owing to the new-building/additional space created. And considering Ross typically fills 30% of its class with international students, this means close to 20 more international admits...!! Should I feel elated..? :)
28.2.10
Why blog..?
Here's an interesting anecdote I found during my cruising across blogosphere. Why do people blog? Is this just a passing fad or is it something people do just because their best friends' or spouses do so ...?
I think there this much more to this than that! Thanks punit soni for this idea!
The answer to this post's question atleast in mycase is that, blogging give me:
1. An insight into my own thought process.
2. An opportunity to lookback into my strategy somewhere down the line and review it.
3. Serve as a guiding post for other who go online assistance.
Most importantly, I realized that jotting down words not only helps in providing clarity but also acts as a platform to build upon our ideas.
I think there this much more to this than that! Thanks punit soni for this idea!
The answer to this post's question atleast in mycase is that, blogging give me:
1. An insight into my own thought process.
2. An opportunity to lookback into my strategy somewhere down the line and review it.
3. Serve as a guiding post for other who go online assistance.
Most importantly, I realized that jotting down words not only helps in providing clarity but also acts as a platform to build upon our ideas.
post-GMAT
It would be untrue to say I didn't get time to update my blog after I gave GMAT. I've become lazy after my India trip and my recuperation from no-work to work has been quite tardy so far.
Coming to the title of this post, I gave the GMAT just 2 days before I left for India and scored a good 740(yes!). I couldn't believe the score the moment I saw it on the screen. Suddenly, my future started looking brighter! But, I still had a few doubts on how I would fare on writing assessment ( essay ) but that was not required. Half way through my India trip, I got the official score report from prometric showing my essay score as a perfect 6. But it was then that I realized that I still have a gargantuan task ahead of me as I just went past an important first step. It was then that I felt that maybe (yes maybe) I should give full-time bschool a chance. I instantly knew it would be a tough choice to make, given the plans my parents had for me..and other work-status related constraints. I still have some of those questions lingering in my mind. If I endup going full-time, I still need to figure out if I'd have the flexibility to go through a career change after my full-time bschool and endup with my dream job in the US. I think most of the international (more so Indian) students of my generation who did their masters in the US and who are aspiring for an MBA in a top US bschool, would have to go through this stage.
Based on my preliminary research, I am beginning to realize that I would not be able to use any OPT time after I graduate with an MBA as I already used up most of it for my Masters ( One USCIS ordinance states that students who are pursuing a second (non-STEM) masters degree in the US after having used the OPT period for a prior masters degree are not eligible for additional OPT time ). This is just one of the issues. The other big bottleneck seems to be the fact that I'd be unemployed for close to 2 yrs and I'd be incurring heavy debt for my tuition and other related expenses during this period. But I realized that this is the case with most of the Indian students who make it top bschools in the US.
Now, that the bigger picture is slowly unravelling, I need to spend more time gathering info from bschool alumni ( who are already in or who are going to be part of ) my contact list. Loads of more work to do! Wake up from the slumber and start sprinting my friend!!
Coming to the title of this post, I gave the GMAT just 2 days before I left for India and scored a good 740(yes!). I couldn't believe the score the moment I saw it on the screen. Suddenly, my future started looking brighter! But, I still had a few doubts on how I would fare on writing assessment ( essay ) but that was not required. Half way through my India trip, I got the official score report from prometric showing my essay score as a perfect 6. But it was then that I realized that I still have a gargantuan task ahead of me as I just went past an important first step. It was then that I felt that maybe (yes maybe) I should give full-time bschool a chance. I instantly knew it would be a tough choice to make, given the plans my parents had for me..and other work-status related constraints. I still have some of those questions lingering in my mind. If I endup going full-time, I still need to figure out if I'd have the flexibility to go through a career change after my full-time bschool and endup with my dream job in the US. I think most of the international (more so Indian) students of my generation who did their masters in the US and who are aspiring for an MBA in a top US bschool, would have to go through this stage.
Based on my preliminary research, I am beginning to realize that I would not be able to use any OPT time after I graduate with an MBA as I already used up most of it for my Masters ( One USCIS ordinance states that students who are pursuing a second (non-STEM) masters degree in the US after having used the OPT period for a prior masters degree are not eligible for additional OPT time ). This is just one of the issues. The other big bottleneck seems to be the fact that I'd be unemployed for close to 2 yrs and I'd be incurring heavy debt for my tuition and other related expenses during this period. But I realized that this is the case with most of the Indian students who make it top bschools in the US.
Now, that the bigger picture is slowly unravelling, I need to spend more time gathering info from bschool alumni ( who are already in or who are going to be part of ) my contact list. Loads of more work to do! Wake up from the slumber and start sprinting my friend!!
11.10.09
Thrust
Here are a few links that I thought would be helpful in providing me the thrust needed to beef-up my efforts in cracking GMAT:
Revisit
I thought I'd be done with my first attempt of GMAT ( circa Aug31st ), but thanks to my near dismal performance ( 660 :( ), I'm back to prepping for gmat and blogging my status.
The GMAT date this time is Nov 14th. Barely 5 weeks from now.
Here's the new material that I got after attempt1
1. Kaplan 2010
2. Princeton 1000+ questions.
I will update the CAT info once I decide on which tests I plan to take. I have afew things on my mind now viz., GMATFix, 800Score,etc.,
Since, I already took the MGMATs, I'm left with the Kaplan tests and ofcourse the new GMATPrep tests once I download them.
I do feel that I'm in a much better position than I was when I was about to take the test for 1st time, as I'm not aware of atleast a few of the pitfalls that can be overcome with diligence. But since I dont have the luxury of time this time around, I need to pace my preparation and try to utilize wk days in a better way than last time.
So, here's the plan.
Sunday's left:
Oct 18th, Oct 25th, Oct 31st, Nov 8th.
Every week: 2 CATs ( no essays ofcourse ) ( preferably on Wednesdays, Sundays )
I am going to revise the following material from last time:
1. OG 12th, OG 11th, OG Verbal 12th ( I dont have this book as of now ), OG Verbal 11th
2. Kaplan 2009, 2010
3. MGMAT SC guide ( That's what I did today - 5 chapters done, 5 to go )
4. Princetons 1000+
Also, I am going to make a habit of surfing beatthegmat forums a few minutes everyday to look at some of the inspiring posts and gameplans.
As of now, here's my plan on each weekday ( except the test date ):
1. 50 Quant questions, 20-20-20 Verbal questions.
http://www.beatthegmat.com/710-v-39-q-48-dream-come-true-t46242.html#195407
The GMAT date this time is Nov 14th. Barely 5 weeks from now.
Here's the new material that I got after attempt1
1. Kaplan 2010
2. Princeton 1000+ questions.
I will update the CAT info once I decide on which tests I plan to take. I have afew things on my mind now viz., GMATFix, 800Score,etc.,
Since, I already took the MGMATs, I'm left with the Kaplan tests and ofcourse the new GMATPrep tests once I download them.
I do feel that I'm in a much better position than I was when I was about to take the test for 1st time, as I'm not aware of atleast a few of the pitfalls that can be overcome with diligence. But since I dont have the luxury of time this time around, I need to pace my preparation and try to utilize wk days in a better way than last time.
So, here's the plan.
Sunday's left:
Oct 18th, Oct 25th, Oct 31st, Nov 8th.
Every week: 2 CATs ( no essays ofcourse ) ( preferably on Wednesdays, Sundays )
I am going to revise the following material from last time:
1. OG 12th, OG 11th, OG Verbal 12th ( I dont have this book as of now ), OG Verbal 11th
2. Kaplan 2009, 2010
3. MGMAT SC guide ( That's what I did today - 5 chapters done, 5 to go )
4. Princetons 1000+
Also, I am going to make a habit of surfing beatthegmat forums a few minutes everyday to look at some of the inspiring posts and gameplans.
As of now, here's my plan on each weekday ( except the test date ):
1. 50 Quant questions, 20-20-20 Verbal questions.
http://www.beatthegmat.com/
29.6.09
Update
Back to blogging after a couple of months.
May was hectic at work so I couldn't get back to GMAT until the end of May.
I couldn't give GMAT on my scheduled date of May 15th as something cameup in the last minute at work and I had to attend it!
I have begun GMAT prepping from 1st week of June. Since I was chilling at work for the better part of this month, I got a chance to do some serious prepping during weekday evenings and weekends.
I gave 2 MGMATs over last 2 weekends. From what I saw, I can't say that results have been promising but I can surely say that there is lots of room for improvement!
Here's what I accomplished over the month of June.
1. Official Verbal Guide
2. OG11
Verbal - SC, CR done. RC - currently working.
Quant - PS , DS - half done.
3. MGMAT1 - 590, Q-41, V-31 ( 6/21/09)
4. MGMAT2 - 620 Q-2, V-34 (6/28/09)
MGMAT1 - Quant
I was able to finish the Quant section with a few minutes remaining. This was probably because, I deliberately spent loads of time on some of the probability, geometry problems. Ideally, I should have skipped them if I realize the I'd be spending more then 5 minutes on each of them.
MGMAT1 - Verbal
I was able to finish verbal with almost 15 minutes left! I felt that I didn't do justice for some of the RC, CR questions out of my hurry to finish the test sooner.
Summary: After going through the solutions, I felt that I made a fair amount of cheap mistakes which I could have easily avoided had I been a little more cautious ( both in Verbal and Quant )
MGMAT2 - study
After MGMAT1, I felt that I ignored Quant for too long and picked up OG11 to practise quant. I finished half of PS/DS last week and brushed my verbal ( SC notes ) by practising RC for almost all of the week ( 4 weekdays - 1.5 hrs each day ). I felt much more confident about my verbal abilities and decided to for the test ( wknd ).
MGMAT2- Quant
MGMAT2 is much tougher than I expected!! Some of the problems read as big as CRs in the verbal and took most of my time. Out of my penchant to solve puzzles, I spent more time ( than 5 minute max ) on some of questions ( typically probability, and some geometry ). Eventually, I ran out of time and had to guess a few questions in the end. Not good.
MGMAT2- Verbal
Because of last test, I figured I can afford to work on the RC's and CRs much slowly than what I did in last week's practise test. I guess I was a bit toooo slow this time. Much more than the quant secion, I had to guess the last 8-9 questions ( 31-37 ) and a few questions inthe middle.
Summary: I am planning on trying a different practise test ( not MGMATs ) next week as I'm beginning to feel the MGMATs are a bit too tough and dont really act as confidence boosters!!
May was hectic at work so I couldn't get back to GMAT until the end of May.
I couldn't give GMAT on my scheduled date of May 15th as something cameup in the last minute at work and I had to attend it!
I have begun GMAT prepping from 1st week of June. Since I was chilling at work for the better part of this month, I got a chance to do some serious prepping during weekday evenings and weekends.
I gave 2 MGMATs over last 2 weekends. From what I saw, I can't say that results have been promising but I can surely say that there is lots of room for improvement!
Here's what I accomplished over the month of June.
1. Official Verbal Guide
2. OG11
Verbal - SC, CR done. RC - currently working.
Quant - PS , DS - half done.
3. MGMAT1 - 590, Q-41, V-31 ( 6/21/09)
4. MGMAT2 - 620 Q-2, V-34 (6/28/09)
MGMAT1 - Quant
I was able to finish the Quant section with a few minutes remaining. This was probably because, I deliberately spent loads of time on some of the probability, geometry problems. Ideally, I should have skipped them if I realize the I'd be spending more then 5 minutes on each of them.
MGMAT1 - Verbal
I was able to finish verbal with almost 15 minutes left! I felt that I didn't do justice for some of the RC, CR questions out of my hurry to finish the test sooner.
Summary: After going through the solutions, I felt that I made a fair amount of cheap mistakes which I could have easily avoided had I been a little more cautious ( both in Verbal and Quant )
MGMAT2 - study
After MGMAT1, I felt that I ignored Quant for too long and picked up OG11 to practise quant. I finished half of PS/DS last week and brushed my verbal ( SC notes ) by practising RC for almost all of the week ( 4 weekdays - 1.5 hrs each day ). I felt much more confident about my verbal abilities and decided to for the test ( wknd ).
MGMAT2- Quant
MGMAT2 is much tougher than I expected!! Some of the problems read as big as CRs in the verbal and took most of my time. Out of my penchant to solve puzzles, I spent more time ( than 5 minute max ) on some of questions ( typically probability, and some geometry ). Eventually, I ran out of time and had to guess a few questions in the end. Not good.
MGMAT2- Verbal
Because of last test, I figured I can afford to work on the RC's and CRs much slowly than what I did in last week's practise test. I guess I was a bit toooo slow this time. Much more than the quant secion, I had to guess the last 8-9 questions ( 31-37 ) and a few questions inthe middle.
Summary: I am planning on trying a different practise test ( not MGMATs ) next week as I'm beginning to feel the MGMATs are a bit too tough and dont really act as confidence boosters!!
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