MBA planning and day dreaming

Narayana Moorthy,Freedom of expression and our chest beating about tolerance.

2007-04-13T09:41:00.000-05:00

As far back as i can remember it has always been the case that our dear politicians always use the word Hinduism and tolerance almost as synonyms. Now that was a point of pride for me for a long time till the scales dropped off my eyes, the occupational hazard of growing up and thinking i guess, and i began to see my home country and its mores for what they actually are.
There is no aspect of my society where i can find tolerance and considering that our main religion's operating precept is the aforementioned, its either the case that we just dont plainly get it or just too adleheaded to admit it.
The recent incident with Narayana Moorthy, an icon for the youth in our country and its best rags to riches story for the new generation, being subject to prosecution because of a misstatement really tops it all. Ok so he played the instrumental version of the national anthem because he wanted the foreign dignitaries to be comfortable but ended up saying that he didnot want to "embarass" them. Firstly if thats exactly what he meant, even then what right does anyone have to make a media drama out of it and considering that he is the pioneer in an industry which creates thousands of jobs almost on a monthly basis and pays thousands of crores in revenues to the state and country and has refurbished the image of our nation worldwide from being a nation of snake charmers to a nation of smart computer programmers, dont we owe him atleast the benefit of a doubt. How many of us havent gotten up before a group and said something that we never meant. Public speaking is the single most toughest thing anyone will ever do in their life and try doing that every single day its almost a statistical certainity that you will end up saying something you never intended to.
Dont our knowledgeable politicians realize this. Doesnt the idiotic Home minister of Karnataka who wants to prosecute him for this remark realise how blatantly stupid it is to prosecute the leading industrialist of a country for a misremark in a nation where our capital city is also the rape capital of our nation and one of our states has 50% of its legislature filled with politicians who have chargesheets for either rape or murder filed against them. Guess what Mr.Moorthy why dont you move your operating base to someother country which is more hospitable to you and see how these moronic politicians get their revenues to build their state. Patriotism is a two way road, if your government doesnot care for you why do you. Just move out and let them rot in their medieval communist thinking and outmoded models of the relationship between state ad business.
We dont have the guts to stand up to our neighbour who attacks our parliament but guess what we are pretty damn good at persecuting our minorities and prosecuting our success stories(remember Rahul Bajaj of ebay India who was sent to Tihar jail because some moron uploaded a r-rated video on ebay). When will this drama end. Do we want to be perceived worldwide in the category of those stupid nations who burned down foreign embassies because of a cartoon. If our nation is so great and our culture so ancient and strong, why do we have so much insecurity about it.

A milestone reached. Many more to come...

2007-03-28T15:45:00.000-05:00

Exactly 15 months after starting the process actively and many years after initially thinking about it, i am officially done with my bschool application process. After not getting an admit into any of my second round appplications i have decided to go with Duke and have sent in my deposit check today. Though Michigan still has me on a waitlist i dont think i want to wait till middle of june to decide where i want to go to school and considering that these two schools are very similar its not much of a decision for me.

So what have i learnt from this process-
>Its a smart world out there. Even if you think you have given it everything you got, there is always going to be someone who is better than you and you just have to live with it. You take what you get and make the best of it.

>There are factors that you can never control but have a great impact on your future. You just learn to take them in your stride. Almost at every school i applied the applicant pool this year was the highest they have had in years. Talk about timing.With a waitlist and a reject after an interview you know you are oh so close but not quite there.

> Always remember - "I had the blues that i had no shoes until upon the street i met the man who had no feet". Whenever i felt sorry for myself i remembered those i met in the public forums who put in as much or more hard work than me but dont have a single admit and have to go through this process again next year.

> If you plan well ahead there are very few things that you cannot take a shot at.

>Its a humbling feeling that much of where i am today and where i will end up 20-30 yrs from now will have little to do with me and more to do with where i was born and who i met in my life. The parents who put education above everything else, the spouse who encourages your wildest and wackiest ambitions, the uncles who imbibed the value of reading in me, the friends who encourage you when you are down and help you sort through the complexities of life. It helps to pause and look around to see how lucky you are.

Now i move onto to the next stage and its indeed a great relief that never in my life will i have to wonder - "What if i had done my MBA from a premier school"?.
The things we do in life to avoid asking that dreaded question - "What if?".

Indian Cricket

2007-03-26T14:22:00.000-05:00

Last Friday i spent the whole day watching cricket. It has been a long time since i have watched a whole day of this wonderful game. I have some wonderful memories from childhood attached to this game and for those of us in India its almost another religion.
While it brought back pleasent memories the day created some unpleasent ones too. India got kicked out of the world cup at an early stage. For perspective sakes thats the equivalent of U.S.A not making it to the final 4 or 5 teams in basketball at the olympics.
It was the first time i realised that there is a honour in loss and failure if it is preceded by a good fight. I had the realization only when i saw the dishonourable failure of the Indian cricket team in so crucial a match. It was so apparent that there was no strategy in place to handle sudden dismissals and the manner of the batsmen giving up their wickets without as much as a decent fight was a despicable spectacle.
Before someone comes screaming at me for being too biased let me list the instances where the lack of professionalism was apparent-

Dhoni trying to play Murali off the backfoot of the very first delivery he faces right after India has lost Sachin, Ganguly and Yuvaraj.

Dravid trying to hit a six off a ball right after getting a life of the previous ball and knowing fully well that he is the last batsman around. In the previous over he had hit 4 fours and there was no need to try to hit a big one especially when everyone (other than himself) knows that hitting 6's is not Dravid's strength. Standing as a wall and wearing the bowlers down while keeping an above 5 runrate is his USP, doesnt he know it of all people. So think about this for a while- if Dravid had made sure that he took a single of the last ball of every over and tried to hit a 4 or a couple of 2's every over for another 6 overs i am sure Sri Lankan bowlers would have given him a couple of sitters at the end to hit for a big one.

All this makes me wonder do the coaches and administrators realise that there is a huge psychological component to this game. When a team loses wickets in quick succession even a second rate bowler of the opposing team will come out and bowl like a tiger because of the renewed confidence. So shouldnt it be a team policy that if it loses 2 wickets within a span of 10 runs the pair at the wicket should not hit a ball in the air for atleast another 4-5 overs and try to grab singles and keep the score moving till the bowlers loose some of their initial confidence and start bowling loose balls.

There were so many instances when lankan bowlers capitalized on the desperation of Indian batsman to hit big shots. For instance Ajit Agarkar swinging thrice at the ball like a blind kid trying to hit a pinata and then the bowler gives him a teaser ball after ensuring that there is a fielder at long on, right where Agarkar hits it at. I mean i dont play cricket at all and i am watching the game after 4 yrs and i could notice this ploy. Are our players so dumb that they cant see such a simple ploy which every kid who plays in the street knows.

The other aspect which plainly irritated me was the total and complete lack of fitness or strength. It was a shame to see the display of "wussiness" that our team put on. Dravid pulling his leg muscles and getting a substitute runner and players limping along after stopping a fast ball in the field. It was hard not to notice how the lankan players were well built and our Indian darlings looked so frail as to arouse my protective instincts about them. "Oh please dont hurt them". Why dont these guys spend some time in the gym and pack some muscle on, why dont they run up and down a hill on a hot day till they drop down from dehydration, after all isnt that what all the Aussies and South African players do. Hell they look like rugby players for crying out loud. How long are we just going to depend on our talents, our timing and luck. Isnt it time to add brute physical strength to the equation. How hard could it possibly be.

All this ranting will not make one iota of difference to the indian team. The only difference it makes is to my writing skills. I do realise this but its so hard to see our nations pride taken to the cleaners by two poor nations who dont have the resources that we do, but make it up with sheer aggression and passion. Its right to feel depressed when one's nation doesnot perform well in a sport which is our national pastime because sports are the reflection of the moral and physical fibre of a society. They do act as a mirror to the emotional fortitude of a nation and when it loses it is a clear display of our inability to face crisis situations and come out a winner. One way of looking at sports is that its a outlet for the animal instincts of humans to display our superiority in the most basic of all qualities - speed, strength and emotional courage. Thats why when we lose we see a rare glimpse of our weakness as a group. Thats what bothers me the most.

24,West Wing and movie makers.

2007-03-12T14:48:00.000-05:00

Its just one these days when you feel like you want to write about something but cant seem to figure out what to write about. These days i have gotten back into my groove as regards my work and am on top of things after a long time. The past couple of months were always spent catching up to deadlines and meeting them at the last moment.

The new addition to my viewing experience has been the series "24". I am watching it on DVD and this action packed series is a brilliant idea with a tight script and novel camera shots. After watching some movies these days i have arrived at the conclusion that there has been a exodus of creative writing talent to the TV industry from the movie industry. I guess a TV series gives you a wider canvass to paint on. It gives more time to build characters and give them layers of complexity which simply cannot be done, but by a few, in a 2 hr film format.

Though, i dont see myself spending as much time watching 24 as i did(do) with West Wing because sheer entertainment with no information bores me very soon. My big attraction with West Wing is the excellent dialogue, great conversations on national issues and my inherent interest in politics. "24" has none of these and is just meant to excite you, nothing else. Its like KFC, good to have once in a while but too much can give you a heart attack. West wing is more along the lines of Brocolli, always healthy. But then again i am too biased(if thats not apparent already).

The other thought that has caught my attention off late is how subjective art is. This realisation dawned upon me when i observed over a course of time that the movies other suggest to me as good sometimes dont turn out to be the case and the same happens when i do the same to others. When this happened very frequently, i have come to gain a lot of respect for movie makers who come up with concepts that appeal to a broad cross section. For when it comes to cinematic audience its really hard to predict what sells. More often than not our judgement about a movie or for that matter any art form is more a reflection of who we are and our values rather than the art itself. Movie makers have to straddle a fine line between portraying reality but at the same time not making a movie so realistic as to make the audience feel like its another day in their life for it makes them wonder why they have to spend money to look at some of the miseries of daily existence. For some movies is an escape from reality and for others its a commentary on it. To each his own i guess..

Ruminations...

2007-02-23T11:30:00.000-06:00

Now that i am officially done with all the formalities of my b-schoolapplication process i want to chill out a bit. Not that i have been breaking my back the past couple of months but even when i am not doing anything there is always a thought running in the background either about an upcoming interview or researching a school.
The next big thing for me is to decide atleast the broad outlines of what i want to do post MBA. As i have already done in a post a few weeks back, i am considering the pros and cons of each field that i am interested in. I often wonder if all MBA aspirants are as confused as i am. I mean i go from wanting to be an i-banker to an equity analyst to an entrepreneur all in the matter of a single week. I do have the luxury of doing this now but in the next 5 months i have to decide on something and focus on it in b-school or else my investment of 2 yrs wouldnot bear as much return as i want. The reason i have to be clear about this is because time management is the key thing in b-school, infact its the most critical factor which will decide your experience.
Internship is very critical to make a career change. If i want to work in investment banking i have to concentrate on internship search from day one of school. Networking is a key component of this internship search and i have to make sure i attend every presentation, information session, cocktail parties conducted by all the leading banks.Now assuming atleast 2 hrs per bank per week and there are 10 leading banks thats 20 hrs every week at the very least while handling 4 courses and club activities. Especially for i-banking its very hard to just turn up for the interview and expect to get an internship based on your intellect or preparation.The interviews are not even conducted till Jan of next year. So from September till December its all about building your contact list with all the major banks and sucking up to them. Investment Banking and Sales/Trading jobs are mostly about "fit", that elusive concept which has no definition but a lot of consequence. So one has to spread their bets(read apply to as many banks as possible) and be very focussed(read not try to get a consulting and marketing internship while at it).
If someone is not clear about their career choice then it would make more sense to get a banking internship and check out if it appeals to them and say they want to pursue other options for full time then consulting or corporate jobs are always open and a banking internship on your resume looks really good too. Consulting and Corporate jobs are not so much about how many of their presentations you attended as it is about your performance in the interview(or so i hear). So for a confused soul like me this could be a better approach to take. I was sold on this approach even more when i met one of my acquaintances at Wharton during my school visits who had interned with a consulting firm but wanted to try for banking full time and was finding it very hard. Of course he sounded even more confused after one year in b-school than i am currently because he was trying for consulting and banking full time, something which very few people do because not only are the two jobs different in terms of work content and culture but also its a herculean task to handle job search in both these fields with course work. It amazes me how smart people just cant seem to figure out what they need to do in life. I dont know if this is good or bad. The good is that such people are always open to new ideas and not so rigid about their future plans but the bad of it is that they can look very confused and all over the place instead of having focus and getting committed to a field.
Well i am in a special category all by myself, not very smart and not focussed either. Just brilliant i guess. Ask me in a decade how that has worked out for me.

Cornell

2007-02-23T11:16:00.000-06:00

I got another admit - Cornell. Yaayy....
Though there is practically a zero chance that i will go to school there,it is good for my ego and for my hit rate. Talk about shallow thinking..huh.
So currently for my first round applications its 2 admits and a waitlist. 2.5/3 is not a bad conversion rate. For the second round apps i just completed my Chicago interview and have a good feeling about it. Kellogg has started calling already so lets see how that goes and i should also hear from Chicago in the next few weeks. Wharton has been a failure beyond imagination, not even an interview call. Wow, talk about getting slapped in the face.

Fooled by Randomness

2007-02-15T14:51:00.000-06:00

Off late i have become very interested in the field of psychology and our decision making processes and our cognitive blindspots.This book is the latest in the series of books that i have read related to this field. This is a best seller and came to my attention at many places as suggested reading and has been well worth the time. In fact i am reading it again this week for a second time because not only is it informative, its a fun read.
The basic premise of the book is this- We humans are not inherently smart enough to realise the importance of randomness in our life and dont make allowances for it and accordingly pay a price. The price may not be monetary, it can even be in terms of the false perceptions that we carry around with us which leads to cognitive blunders or biases as the psychologists would like to call them.
A very interesting but simple logical fallacy that the author discusses is that 70% of the most educated people miss the simple logic that "If P is True Then Q is True" now say "Q is True". This doesnot mean P is true."
To put this into simple terms. Say we believe in the statement that "Rich people are hardworking, intelligent and risk takers". Its all fine till now but where we make a logical error is that we conclude that everyone who has all the above qualities will become rich. Necessity is confused with causality. The missing link is "randomness" or "luck" as we would like to call it.
I could relate to the authors position on this because almost in every biography or interview that i have read of successful or rich people the common pattern other than the fact that they were hardworking and intelligent is that they were at the right place at the right time.
The past week i spent a lot of time reading interviews with top wall street traders and almost everyone points out to the random unplanned way they stumbled on to their current jobs which led to them finding their life's calling. There was no grand plan or strategy. Just being open and listening to your gut.
Now all of this should not be confused with fatalism and assuming that randomness anyway has the final say so whats the point of trying. The necessary qualities are always the same. There is no way on earth anyone is going to make himself or herself a success without the basic ingredients but what is necessary is a healthy respect that in and itself they might not automatically translate into expected results.
This is a very humbling perspective.
The book is filled with many interesting anecdotes and historical references to Greek and Roman philosphers combined with an interesting commentary on our current ways of living which breeds unhappiness. The authors perspective on what is important for a high quality of life is so refreshing and has been oft repeated by many wise men but rarely practiced by the majority of the populace. For most of us life is nothing but constant slavery to the demands of time and money. A constant run on the hedonistic treadmill with little or no introspection as to what is it we really want.
Another interesting point mentioned in the book is about how futile giving advice to anyone really is . This appealed to me a lot more because i had a similar opinion before i read this book though i didnot know why i felt that way. Our emotional apparatus is too strong for cognition to win over it. All we can do is know where the potholes are and avoid them. Knowing that there are deficiencies in us will in itself put us ahead of many of our peers.

Career Choice

2007-02-12T14:38:00.000-06:00

Considering that most of my free time is spent these days thinking about what career to pursue post MBA, I think it’s apt that I write down my thoughts for my future reference. The one thing that I have not done in the past is to write down my thoughts before making a decision so that I know a few years later what I considered and what I did not consider.
Initially I will try to lay out the forest, as in talk about all the areas of possible consideration and then delve into each of them to discuss its particular strengths and weaknesses. So here it goes.

The predominant career choices at a high level for most MBA grads are - Wall Street jobs, Management Consulting, Corporate Jobs and Entrepreneurship. Each of these areas again includes many subsets of jobs. Wall Street jobs typically fall under three broad areas - Investment Banking, Sales and Trading and Equity Research. Corporate Jobs involve Business Development Manager, Product Manager, Financial Analyst, Marketing Associate etc. Entrepreneurship can involve doing something on your own or starting your career with a venture capital backed startup. Just like anything in life each career has it pros, cons and unique set of trade offs. While many people do say that you should do what you are passionate about I do think that acquiring information about all options should precede any examination of your own interests and passions.

Let me start the comparison and analysis with Wall Street. (Disclaimer: My opinions are a function of my inadequate knowledge, so use them only as a starting point and take them with a bucket of salt).

Investment Banking:
Pros:
Very good introduction to the lay of the land on Wall Street.

Transferable skills to other fields like valuation, communication (read selling) skills are polished.

Develops a strong work ethic due to the work hours involved.

High Salary (of course...)

Cons:
100 hr weeks make it hard to have any real life outside of work. You are basically wedded to work.

After 3 yrs in banking assuming you have survived the brutal hours and the volatile job market, you will typically be earning between 300-500k. Now if you want to shift and even are ready to take pay cut many companies in the corporate sector might be apprehensive in hiring you. Thinking about it as trying to sell a used Porsche.

Family and social life in the toilet for obvious reasons.

Sales and Trading:
Pros:
Ultimate meritocracy. An "eat what you kill" atmosphere leads to an absolute quantification of your performance. Good performance can lead to outsized returns but on the other hand, one major mistake and you are canned.

Gives you skills which can give you a livelihood outside of your regular work environment. Let me explain this better. Say you are an investment banker; you can earn money only when you are employed by a firm. Your skills are relevant only in an organizational context, not so for a trader. Say you are an options trader and get canned you can still trade from your home with your own capital with the skills that you have picked up. This is a quality which very few professions give you. Even a CEO is only relevant in the context of a firm, sit him at home and his skills aren’t worth jack. So trading is a true entrepreneurial activity which improves your asset accumulation skills.

No travel, reasonable hours (though your positions are on your mind even on weekends so it’s more stressful).

Challenging work with constantly changing landscape and excitement. I hear that there is hardly a boring day for a trader.

Chances of making it really big with money. I have been reading "Market Wizards" these days which have interviews with some top traders and it’s really exciting to hear about how they started with tiny grubstakes of a few thousand dollars and converted it to millions over a course of a decade through some disciplined and intense trading. So if you have the stomach for risk and uncertainty and desire to grow rich beyond your wildest expectations, then you should definitely look at this field. Having said that though it’s really not clear what makes a trader click. There are some general principles but beyond that it’s all really up in the air- genetics, luck, timing etc.

No corporate politics and the associated BS. There sure is politics no doubt but your performance is strictly based on how you perform aka make money.

Cons:
No transferable skills. A banker can go on to work in the corporate sector or a startup or any other place but once a trader always a trader. So one should be really sure that he or she wants to do this for the long term. There are very few exit opportunities.

High chances of burnout and health risks due to the high stress environment. On a comparative basis the stress levels compared to other careers being discussed is not much different.

Lonely job. If you need a team around you always and need to talk to people at work constantly then I guess trading is not for you.

Equity Research
Pros:
Valuable skills are acquired. One learns how to analyze a company from all perspectives. Transferable skills which are relevant for a long period of time.

Hard to break into buy side research straight out of school.

Can transition to Hedge Funds or Corporate sector after a few years as an analyst for a particular sector.

Cons:
The industry of sell side research is undergoing a lot of transformation due to the new regulations. So there is a lot more uncertainty of job prospects.

Part IV- Essays

2007-01-16T15:38:00.000-06:00

Now to the dreaded word - "Essays". I would say that hands down this is the toughest part of the whole process which can make or break you. If i knew better i would have worked on this atleast an year before the actual year that i was going to apply for. If you have that kind of time, say you are not trying for school until fall 2009 i would strongly advise you choose any school, i would suggest Kellogg as they have a lot of essays to write and attempt their essays for 2008. This will help you train your thinking more than anything else. Before you attempt the essays try to read what Montauk and others have to say on how to attempt them.
My critical observations regarding essays are as follows:

- The earlier you start, the better the essays are going to turn out. For instance, if you are applying for 3 schools in a Round 1 with deadlines in mid to late october the essays for that year are not usually out before end of July but you can work on the previous year essays as they dont change very drastically from year to year. But in case you havenot worked on previous year essays you can still do a good job by starting on the essays as soon as they are out. For first round i would say the month of August is the most crucial as many students waste their time during this month and try to rush the essays through in september. I would suggest that in August try to go through a few drafts of the most critical question for atleast one school.
"Describe your career progress to date, your short term and long term goals and why you need an MBA and why from this school?".
Each school has a different way of asking this but essentially its the same question. After a couple of drafts send it to a student at a school and take his feedback and refine it even further and iterate through this process with as many qualified individuals as you can manage. So basically its a question of endurance. The earlier you start the more drafts you can go through and the more refined it will look. Time is what makes these essays better unless and until you are a gifted writer or someone who writes for fun.
I was surprised by how different my drafts looked after a couple of months of writing.
So thats all there is to it.
Start early, write a draft, take feedback, rinse and repeat...
Feedback is very very important, you shouldnot just write in a vaccum.You have to show it to qualified(meaning those who are either in b-school or alums or someone familiar with the process) people and take their honest feedback. This can be tough as we tend to get emotionally attached to what we write and any negative feedback hurts but try to take your ego out of the equation. Also have it reviewed by any English experts that you know of to correct the style.
So basically there is no rocket science to the whole process its just lots and lots of work and perseverance.

Part III - Getting to know the schools better.

2007-01-16T15:33:00.000-06:00

Now, once a candidate has decided on the schools the next phase is to dig deep into the schools.
It is not possible to do a thorough research into a lot of schools so by the time you are at this stage you should have narrowed down your sample list to not more than 6-8 schools, even less if you can.
The first thing he should do is to check for information sessions in his city or nearby and register and attend all of them. These sessions are very valuable as you get to meet the alumni and also talk to the admissions officer. Every school has a distinct culture and one should try to understand it. When schools say they are looking for "fit" they are not just using some fancy term. This is harder to understand for those of us from the Indian education system where such a word doesnot exist. Atleast i didnot meet anyone who attended an IIM or an XLRI because they thought that the culture was a better fit. This can lead to use downplaying the importance of this concept only at our own peril. Try to understand what a school is looking for in a student beyond the stats like GMAT, GPA, work experience etc. Chicago is all about independence of spirit while Kellogg would like a more collegial nature in a student. Schools with small class strength like Cornell or CMU would place more emphasis on the student being a good team player. It doesnot in any way mean that other schools dont look for these, its just that some schools look for one trait more closely than others and if you know what it is and try to make sure that you highlight that trait in your essays, you will get an edge.Other than the info sessions the other way to get to really know a schools and collect some great material for your essays is to visit the schools.
For those not based in US this might be a big hassle but for those based here there is no reason why shouldnot do this. If you think the 1000 odd dollars is a big expense think of the 100k you will spend on tuition alone at these schools. The rankings and everything else not withstanding you have to like the school and the students or else you wont get much out of the program. There is no way you can find this out better than to spend a day at the school, talk to current students, sit in on a class, talk to professors if you can etc. Would you buy a car without test driving it? i dont think so..
The third activity do get a feel about the school is to cultivate atleast one contact at each school with whom you should communicate on a regular basis. This contact will also be valuable to you to give feedback on your essays at a later stage. The ideal to contact them is either during your school visit or through the website. Its better that this contact be a current student so that they are more in tune with the happenings at the school rather than an alum.
You should maintain a journal for each school and write down all the random points that you hear about each school from info sessions, school visits and talking to students. Write down everything you hear because this is a long drawn process and you may forget this info by the time you get to the essays or interviews. This process will be done between August and September and you wont get to your apps by late or mid october.
More on essays in the next post.

MBA Application Experience - Part II- School Research

2007-01-11T11:30:00.000-06:00

So now let me talk about how i learnt about the schools. I didnot start the process in a structures way. I think it was some time in 2004 that i came across the Business Week b-school forums totally by accident and got hooked on them. For months on end i used to read the forums for atleast an hr a day and without realising it i had learnt a lot about the b-school process, the schools, their strenghts and weaknesses and even some career planning advice. If you read this forums specially look out for discussions which compare schools like "Duke Vs Darden" etc and also disregard the posts where people get at each other throats. Just concentrate on useful information and file it away. Also look out for posts by MBAApply. In fact search for all of his previous posts and read them all. That in itself will give you a great idea. Buy his "Field Guide" if you can, it should be great. I havenot bought it but i can imagine how useful it might be based on how insightful his posts are.
Other books to read the "How to get into a top 10 MBA program" by Richard Motauk and the "MBA Game Plan" by Scott Schrum and Omari Bouknight.
After doing all the above you should have a very clear ideas of the schools, their culture, teaching style, strenghts and their specialities.

MBA Application Experience - Part I- School Choice

2007-01-11T10:29:00.000-06:00

Well after a looong break i am back to my blog and it feels good. I guess the good feeling has also got a lot to do with the state of my life now. After a long slog extending over an year i atlast got an admit into a decent business school(Fuqua) and also am awaiting on decisions from 5 others.
Having an admit gives me the courage(and arrogance also i guess..) to write about my experiences and lessons learnt.
I will try to limit the information and try to write it so that its useful to someone who is starting out and would like to plan to his bschool journey.

The first step in this process and definitely one of the toughest is the GMAT. Once you have decided that MBA from a good school is what you want to do then waste no time in getting GMAT out of the way. Considering that the score is valid for 5 years there is no reason for you to wait till the very last to write this test. Having this out of the way will give you enough time to concentrate on other important things and trust me there are so many other things to work on. GMAT is just 20% of the work.
Refer to Feb 2006 archives for a post "How to get a 750 in GMAT?" for the details of my GMAT preparation.

In this post i will try to post about "School Choice".
Once you get done with your GMAT the second step is to research schools which i personally think is the second toughest part(the toughest being the Essays) of the whole process. Taking your GMAT is even more essential to arrive at this stage as your GMAT score does play an important role in deciding on schools. Now whys that?
Heres the deal-
Your school choice will depend on -

Your career goals.
Your chances at that school.
School culture.
Your risk appetite.
Your stage in your career.

Let me explain this a little better.
If you are in your mid 20's(24-27) and have a 700+ GMAT with 3-4 yrs of decent work experience and are not hell bent of going to school the year you are applying for then you can take more risk. On the other hand if you just have one shot and are running out of time then you should spread your schools across the board. Let me delve into the "running out of time" thing.
What i mean is that if you are pushing 28 or 29 and have more than 5 yrs job exp but have not reached a managerial position in your job and dont have a lot of career progression(this typically happens to people in IT who change jobs often) then you will not have many chances at good schools for Full time programs as they would be looking for a lot of career progression if you have more than 5 yrs job exp. So if you are nearing your 30's then i suggest you rush. Schools will go out of their way to say that this doesnot matter and give examples of 50 yr olds in their full time program but always think in terms of "probabilities" throughout this process. Dont think of exceptions as the rule. Thats like saying Bill Gates became a billionaire without college degree so lets drop out of college. Always ask -"What is the chance of that happening to me?"
Again this is just my opinion so take it for what its worth. Also if you are absolutely sure you want to do an MBA and are bored of your current job and cant stand to stay in it for more than and year then by all means you should be careful in your school choice.

The other factors to consider in your school choice are your career goals. Typically if the reason you are doing an MBA is to work for a Management consultancy or on wall street( which typically are the most sought after jobs post MBA) then you should aim for a select group of schools(top 15) or even better top 7. On the other hand if you are fine with the field that you are in and just want to add to your skill set for future management jobs then you should think seriously about a part time program so that you can avoid the opportunity cost of lost income when you do a full time MBA.
So now which are these so called top 15 school or top 7 schools.
Heres where things get really complicated- people have their own ideas and opinions about the rankings. There are 4 different ranking methodologies in vogue. They are Business Week, Wall street journal, US News and Financial Times.
In my opinion the methodology and ranking followed by USNews is the closest to the popular perception. My personal opinion about schools is think of them in terms of tiers rather than ranks. The top 15 schools can be arranged into the following tiers.
The top tier is Harvard,Stanford and Wharton
The next is occupied by Kellogg, Chicago, MIT, Columbia, Dartmouth,Michigan
The next is Duke,Berkeley,UCLA,Stern,Darden.
Then you have Cornell,CMU,Yale.
Depending your career goals you can go to any of these schools and have a decent chance at your career goals. The higher tier you go to the better. Its as simple as that. Now there are many people who will micro analyse the rankings to death. But bottomline for many applicants is brand, career opportunities, network and learning. If these are your priorities then shoot for as high a school as you can get into.
As far as learning, the difference is marginal between these schools but in terms of brand and career opportunities the higher up you go the better.
If a candidate is pretty sure about what they want to do post MBA then it makes it easy to choose a school but in my experience talking to people in school there are many who have an idea about what they want to do post MBA but its gets completely altered once they go to school. Anything might change your mind, it might be a course you took, a professor who influenced you or a company presentation that you attended. This is the reason why in my opinion everyone should target schools whose curriculum and career opportunities are widespread. Just to give an example if you thought that "Supply Chain Management" is what you want to work in post MBA and you attend say Smeal school or Michigan state which have world class programs in these departments but one year into school you decide that Finance is what you want to do then your chances are not as great. Now if the same thing happens at Duke you still have a chance because its a great General Management program and has recruiter representation from all fields. So keep your options open at all times and dont box yourself in too soon.
Now one has to remember that i am writing from the perspective of an international student(Indian) with non business(IT Consulting) experience and no work permit. For citizens the perspective is different and this doesnot apply.

So if you have the patience and the money for two chances at an MBA and have a decent profile. Let me digress and explain the concept of "decent profile" a bit more.
For any international Indian student if you have 670+ GMAT, 4-5 yrs of full time job exp at a company, a 4 yr degree with a GPA or 3.3 or above then you should think of all 15 schools that i talked about.
So coming back to our discussion, if you have a profile like above and have 2 chances at an MBA then just choose 3 schools for your first attempt - 1 in H/S/W, 1 in the next 5 schools and 1 of Duke/Michigan/Stern/Darden/Cornell. On the other hand if this is your last shot(like it was for me) then choose 5-6 schools, spread them across 2 rounds of application and choose them from all tiers.
My choices were Duke, Michigan and Cornell for the first round and Wharton,Kellogg and Chicago for the second round. I wanted the tougher choices to be at the last so that i got enough time to refine my essays and also get better at the interviewing process.

In my next post i will talk about how to research these schools.

FIFA FIFA i smell the blood of an Indian Man.......

2006-06-11T13:18:00.000-05:00

The past couple of days i have been smitten by a disease which currently ails a billion people all over the world and is supposed to give you extreme bouts of laziness and make you a certified manic depressive. Yeah yeah you guessed it right.. its the "FIFA Fever".
In addition to the fun of watching world class teams tussle it over for the golden cup it has made me nostalgic for the days when i used to be an avid fan of world cup soccer who maintained scrap books with pictures of the world's top players and could recite the lineup of all top teams from memory. Well those days are long gone but a question which has long plagued me always surfaces over every 4 years - "Why is India not in the lineup?".
How is it that a country plagued by civil war(Ivory Coast), one with only 1.5 million people(Trinidad and Tobago), one of the poorest countries in the world(Togo) can all be in the running but not a country of over a billion people of diverse backgrounds where soccer is a very popular sport among kids and which is hailed all over the world as one of the countries to watch for in the 21st century. What could possibly explain this anomaly?
I would say its a combination of cultural attitudes of the populace and an absolute apathy displayed by the government towards sports. For the middle class in India, sports are not an attractive opportunity for future riches(pardon the overstatement), parents stress on the importance of "academics" over everything else and a student who is serious about any sport is viewed as a slacker by one and all. While this has been favourable in exporting a lot of brain power and in riding the offshoring boom the flip side has been the noticeable absence of a commanding presence in any international sport with the exception of Cricket.
The attitude of the government towards sports needs a sea change too, it has to stop looking at sports as a vocation of the slackers and institute world class infrastructure in place to identify and groom talent from a young age. If sports can be viewed as a showcase of a nation's moral and physical strength then a nation will give it the respect it deserves, for everytime your nation sends it best athletes out to compete you are staking your national pride on them. This mindset is evident in the way China approaches Olympics and the results are for everyone to see.

So here's my 2 cents, for what its worth, to have India in the FIFA World Cup 2016

Hire European coaches for the national team
Involve the private sector to have good endorsement deals for national and league players
All major Universities should have soccer scholarships to encourage more students to look at sports as an avenue to free education.
Give private sector incentives(tax breaks and subsidies) to run soccer coaching academies.
Make all team selection at all levels as corruption free as possible which , by default, means -"Do not involve politicians".

I know its a tall order but if Angola, which has had a civil war of some kind or the other for the past 30 yrs can qualify to play in the world cup , what excuse do we have???

Sidney Sheldon, Doctors and Nietsche

2006-05-26T11:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday i was reading this Sidney Sheldon novel in which a character who is a doctor envies the nurses because they can take care of the patients without worrying about the medical decisions and this got to the forefront what i have been thinking for a long time.
Its about how we always feel that others have it better than we do, for instance a guy with a 200k per annum job envies someone who can come home at 5.00 everyday and see his kid grow up and the guy who can see his kid grow up and build a meaningful relationship with his wife envies the Beamer parked in front of the "200k" guys house."Tenured" professors probably think that those in the private sector have it better what with the exciting pay increases and challenging team jobs and those in the private sector would kill for the job security offered by "tenure". How many of us consciously realise that every decision is essentially a trade off. There are no silver bullets and magic solutions to anything. A gain of practically anything is a loss of some other thing. While the gain is smack in front of us, the loss might be more subtle and the effects might pan out over a long period of time. Essentially a bad decision is not "bad" in itself, it is rendered bad by our inability to visualise the trade-offs when it was taken in the first instance and the so called "good" decision would also have had unpleasent side effects given a due course of time. So whats really bad is our perspective and the ability to conceptualise the implications of a thought or action. Our perspective is what defines our happiness and our decisions are a by product of our perspective, thus one can improve one's level of happiness by altering our internal compass rather than our surroundings. One can be happy in Sub Saharan Africe if the "why" of one's life is defined and extremely miserable in a penthouse suite of a park avenue apartment if the only source of that person's self worth or happiness is his immediate surroundings.
As Nietsche said " Man can go through any "how" if the "why" has been figured out"

Atlast i write again....

2006-05-23T09:48:00.000-05:00

It has been a long break from writing. I am happy that i have broken the stalemate and gotten back to it. The past few weeks have been occupied by moving to a new place and settling down there and getting accustomed to the new work. Now i am all set and hope to be more regular with this blog. With every passing week i get closer to the deadline for my MBA applications and i am getting a bit anxious with the prospect of a hard and soul searching 5 months ahead of me. Having gotten the GMAT out of the way soon enough i need to get to the next 2 big things - essays and school research. As for school selection goes my list currently stands at -Wharton, Chicago, Duke, Michigan, Cornell and CMU. The top 4 in the selection are a sure thing i just might change my last 2 selections if i do. Now i need to do extensive research on each of these schools and prepare my ideas for these schools.
I have joined the toastmasters at the new place and hope to be a better speaker before joining b-school and the book i have read off late is - Understanding Power By Noam Chomsky. Currently i am reading - "The future of success" by Robert Reich and "Man's search for Meaning" by Victor Frankl. Hope to write some posts on these books in the upcoming weeks...

Immigration and Tancredo

2006-04-13T19:00:00.000-05:00

The recent protests in LA and all the noise about immigration reform is too hard to miss but what really caught my attention was an article i read recently in the "Economist" about a Colorado congressman, Tom Tancredo. His views on immigration are amusing at best and ridiculous at worst but definitely worth paying attention to just to understand how much mainstream his kind of ridiculous thinking has become. He opposes birth right citizenship, wants to deploy American troops on the Mexican border and salutes Minutemen(self appointed vigilantes on the Mexican border) as "heroes". In all this pandering to one's vote base how does one miss out on the essential fact that this is a country of immigrants and just because one's forefathers came here 200 years ago instead of 20 yrs ago and on a boat instead of a plane doesnot make one a better or a preferred "American" than the other.
Now i do accept the fact that enforcing law is very important and restricting illegal immigration is in the interests of National Security but what i have trouble understanding is in the way the word "American" is thrown around without much thought. Being an immigrant myself(legal one too) i have had a lot of trouble coming to terms with some of the issues that i have to face on a regular basis. The one which troubled me the most was when i went looking for a job, the company which hired me had to prove to the government that there was no other "American" who they could find so they had to hire me. I am good enough to pay taxes at the prevailing rate, contribute to the social security fund and pay all other kinds of taxes but only should try for jobs which other Americans dont want to take. All this after paying thousands of dollars in fees to get a Masters Degree from Universities whose Masters programs consisted almost entirely of immigrant students(resident aliens is another stupid term used to designate us, did Spielburg coin that term??) . Somehow i fail to see the logic of all this in a country which touts itself as a"Land Of Opportunity". I sometimes feel that America should perform a social experiment in which for a whole week all the immigrant workers(legal and illegal) should take a leave of absence and the students should not pay their fees for that single week of education and the lost productivity should be assigned a monetary value. For whatever the ideology of any american politician or citizen one language everyone understands and appreciates is the that of "Money".

Behind the technology curve

2006-04-13T18:14:00.000-05:00

I got to thinking about how much of an inertia i have in adopting the new trends in web technology when i realised that "blogs" as a concept has been around for more than 3 years and it is only over the past 6 months that i have been seriously exploring them. This inertia is even more inexcusable considering that web technology helps me make my living. The trigger for these thoughts was the blog http://www.problogger.net/. The guy who writes this blog started 3 years ago and has since developed this into a money making machine, he is currently a full time blogger and earns more than 10K a month off his blog. Serious money, isnt it?
I dont intend to suggest that we should all have commercial motives behind blogging but the lesson to learn surely would be the gains to be had in adopting new trends with an open mind and not waiting for them to gain popular acceptance before we latch on.
Web 2.0 (spelt Web 2 dot 0) is the next generation of technologies and trends which will redefine internet as we know it and this might be the right time for me to make myself more aware of what this is and the applications which are gaining popular acceptance. Flickr, MySpace, de-li-ci-ous are some of the apps that come to my mind when i think of the latest "fad" apps.
On a related note, the latest announcement by Disney that they would offer hit TV shows like "Lost"(one of my friends tell me that this is a show to die for, i should check it out) and "Desperate housewives" free on the internet, so that there is an additional mode of providing content with associated advertising revenues, made me think about how media as we know it would change radically in the next decade. Most people would catch their favourite TV shows on their ipods which would double as their PDA or their Blackberry which would double as their portable entertainment console. Microsoft's "origami" already proposes to bring to our finger tips all the computing power that we currently have in our laptops in an easy to use portable device no bigger than a cordless phone . So whats next is a device which does all the functions of a mobile phone, pda,tv/dvd player and laptop and is portable enough to fit into a side pocket and affordable not only for jetsetting executives among us but also the "too much free time on my hands so i will blog all day" kinds....

Gauguin and Mengleberg

2006-04-08T13:07:00.000-05:00

The above two characters are introduced in the same book "Plato not prozac".
Paul Gauguin was a banker when he left his loving wife and children to pursue his calling. The art that he has left behind has enthralled generations of art aficionados but was he morally right in leaving his wife and children? One has to resove this dilemma for him(her)self by weighing the relative importance they have assigned to exploration vis-a-vis stability and obligations.
The more interesting example is that of Stephan Mengleburg who after a career as a philospher and logician was serving as an assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic orchestra. For an art enthusiast this was one of the best jobs anyone could ask for but he felt that he had a true calling for practicing law and went on to law school at the age of 50 and ended up practicing law for the rest of his life. Its common place to hear of "Gauguin" like stories but Mengleburg's example was new to me in that it made me realise that true calling for a person can be something that we all take to be dull and boring. Something as "dull" and "staid" as law was a true calling for a person who had spent a part his life at the top echelons of music. How fascinating and how inspiring and a good example of how it is never too late for anything.

Plato Not Prozac - II

2006-04-08T12:48:00.000-05:00

"All is vanity and a striving after the wind"
- Ecclesiastes
The above quote from this book touched a chord in me that cant be explained. Well, thats the essence of the above saying- not being to explain everything. The author in this book goes on to say that thinking you know what you are exactly doing is one kind of vanity; knowing that you dont know but you should, is another kind. These two lines pretty much sum up the answer to the many questions that plague us as we go along. Human beings are good at coming up with questions that cant be answered. Not everything has a reason or even if it does, we cant always figure it out but not being able to figure out the real reason need not render our acts meaningless. The essence of the act doesnot derive from us knowing the exact reasoning behind it but from an acknowledgement that it does conform to a pattern that as a whole does have a meaning.
Leibniz was among the philosphers who advocated "sufficient" rationalism which says that every state of affairs is brought about by "sufficient" reason but we cant always know what it exactly is. Cosmos is too complex for the man to figure it out at all times. This is in contrast to the strict rationalism which says that everything can be figured out by reasoning it out.
I am more comfortable with Leibniz's brand of rationalism for i do acknowledge the limits of my reasoning capabilities and thus would like to be humble enough to remember that every state in my life cant always be explained out by sitting on the couch and thinking till my mind fries off. Some thing's are better left unexamined. This definitely should not be miscontrued as an escapism from the necessary act of examining one's life for as aristotle said - "An Unexamined Life is not worth living" but what it entails is that before one starts out on the path of examining it, do acknowledge that you cant always figure "it" all out.

Sudoku

2006-04-06T17:36:00.000-05:00

This japanese puzzle caught my attention long ago when i read an article about how it was a new fad among puzzles and a quite addictive one at that. The past weekend i chanced upon a book which had a collection of these puzzles and decided to try my hand at them to see what the fuss was all about. The rules of the puzzle are pretty simple- there is a 9X9 square divided into further 9 3X3 squares, with numbers(between 1 and 9) in some of the cells, the objective is to fill up the square in such a way that each row, each column and each 3X3 square has all the numbers from 1 to 9 exactly once.
The first puzzle took around half hour but once i got a hang of it, it indeed was fun. The reasons i think it did catch on a lot is 1) the rules are simple 2) its not too easy but at the same time its not too hard 3)doesnot require any prerequisite skills(unlike crossword which requires a good vocabulary and memory) 4)once you get a hang of it the basic version doesnot take more than 10 mts to crack and thus is a good filler to take a break and finally 5) its definitely better than watching 10mts of TV just to take a break.

Plato Not Prozac

2006-04-04T18:19:00.000-05:00

"Plato Not Prozac " - A book that caught my attention on my occasional stroll through a half price book store for its interesting title turned out to be a good investment of my time and money. I would like to write a few posts to serve as a summary to recollect and organise my thoughts regarding what i read.
The author's primary purpose is to introduce the layman to the field of "Philosophic Counselling". In the authors own words its "therapy for the sane" and as a preamble to introducing the field the author has interesting observations on the relevance of the field and where it fits into the existing cornucopia of choices like psychotherapy, psychology, psychoanalysis etc...
The humility of the author in suggesting that this methodology complements the existing fields rather than introducing it as a magic potion to cure all problems, is very endearing.
The core tenet of the book is that the accumulated wisdom of the philosphers and thinkers over the past 3000 yrs can be used as a tool to help answer the many questions that give rise to modern day angst. The teachings of these thinkers can help us arrive at our own answers by giving us a paradigm for structured thinking complemented by a dispassionate analysis. Questions ranging from the abstract like What is life? what is good? why are we here? to the more practical like whats a sound parenting strategy? how to iron out problems in a relationship? etc can be tackled in a much more effective manner if we can complement our thinking with some powerful ideas that have stood the test of time.
The quality about the book that particularly appealed to me was that there is no overarching central idea or a silver bullet, there is a wide variety of philosphical concepts borrowed from both Eastern and Western philosphies that are presented as possible alternatives. In the authors own words one can benefit from kierkegaards thoughts on death, Ayn Rands idea about selfishness, Kant's critique of reason, Plato's concept of essence and Hinduism and Buddhism's distinct way of looking at life.
The books presents a very brief introduction of the core concepts of the dominant philosphers from the past 2500 yrs. I will write more about them in the upcoming posts.
After the Philosphy 101, the author goes on to give examples of real life case studies that he has encountered in the course of his daily practice with "Philosophic Counselling". The examples touch on all the major issues one comes across in life - career, marriage, divorce etc and one can certainly relate to the problems presented as these are issues that most of us do indeed come across at some juncture in our life.
I was surprised to know that every major city has professionals who are practicing this kind of counselling. Every book i read just makes me realise how much i DONT know. More on this book in the posts to come..

Why Blog?

2006-03-20T16:58:00.000-06:00

So the existential question had to answered - "why blog?".
What possible benefit can be there be to disordered incoherent ramblings and a spattering of impulsive thoughts put in cyberspace by anonymous individuals? The question is as intriguing as it is challenging.
The obvious attraction of a blog would be the ego boosting experience of seeing your thoughts posted on an a forum with the possibility of being viewed all over the world. The operational word in the previous sentence though is "possibility" which i guess many people miss out on comprehending, for who has the time and energy to sit and read all your gibberish. Isnt the deluge of information brought on by the advent of internet enough to clog your neural pathways and exhaust the hard drive in your cranium, that one needs to load on extra software in the form of blogs onto the already feature heavy cerebrus hominicus(human mind for the unaware, dont check the biology dictionary yet, the lexical origins of the word lie in my own creative mind).
Having looked at the inherent vanity that is expressed by blogging, it would be remiss on my part to overlook the benefits if any.
Notwithstanding the multitude of us mortals whose thoughts are inane and devoid of much originality, a condition brought on by the mind numbing ritual of incessant TV watching and the unexplained inertia towards reading anything of value beyond online news, there are the exceptionable few who indeed have something valuable to share.
In a blogless world the only other avenue in which you would have access to their prized thoughts would be in a newspaper column or a book. All of us know very well what a daunting task it is to get anything published in these mediums and even the toughest of the mind would rather keep their thoughts to themself. This need not be the scenario any longer and the ease of posting one's thoughts on any issue for all to read can be of invaluable help to those who are looking for others thoughts on a similar issue. The amount of knowledge i have personally gleaned from reading the blogs posted by experts in subjects of my interest has been immense and invaluable. People with years of experience in any field have a lot of institutional knowledge to share which can be very useful to those starting out in those areas and a blog is the easiest medium there is to post one's knowledge. In our own little way we can leave a little legacy of our own in terms of the shared knowledge that we pass on.
So the tougher task is not to have something to write in a blog but to find those blogs amongst the thousands out there that are of the most value to one's own pursuits. I liken it to mining for Gold, you have to sift through tons of dirt to find a few ounces of Gold.
Happy Digging....

R&R

2006-03-15T21:20:00.000-06:00

The past week my wife was over here and it was all of rest and relaxation for the both of us. It was a much needed break for me from all the GMAT prep and the MBA research that my mind was occupied with. I feel rested right now and ready to attack the mba research.
One other thing on my mind right now is "How to make my evenings more productive". In addition to joining the toastmasters i want to pick up more activities so that my evenings are not all eaten up by the "idiot box" and the "plug in drug". I want to be involved with a community service organisation and am presently deliberating on options as to where i can have a good impact and also enjoy the work. In the past i was involved with "Junior Acheivement" and enjoyed the experience, i should think of getting back to it.

Toastmasters

2006-03-15T21:10:00.000-06:00

I am now a member of Toastmasters. For the unaware, it is a club which you can join to improve your public speaking skills. It will be my second meeting tomorrow and i look forward to a fruitful association with the club and to making a discernable difference in my speaking skills.
Working towards a specific goal always keeps me focussed, so for this venture my goal is to become a CTM(competent toast master) by the end of this year. One has to give 10 speeches on a varied set of themes to attain this credential. From what i have seen at the club its more than just speaking that one does, a big part of the experience is listening and evaluating the speech. Every member of the club is called upon to play a different role each time. The roles include that of speaker, evaluator, grammarian, timer, toastmaster(hosts a session) and a topicmaster.
I will try to post more on the specifics of each speech and probably the speeches too.
Let the speaking begin...............

My Conversation with S

2006-03-07T20:04:00.000-06:00

Yesterday evening i had the unique opportunity to meet with "S", who is currently at Wharton, and spend a few hours talking about both pre-mba and post mba scenarios. It was an informative experience in talking to someone who has a pretty balanced approach to life, career and success in general. After talking to S, management consulting as an option seemed pretty attractive but at the same time the odds against getting admitted into a top3 MC for an international student like me with no management experience are pretty high.
The dominant idea that i took away from the meeting was that one needs to give serious thought to his/her career path before venturing out to get an MBA. All possibilities need to be considered before settling on a path. He helped identify some of the misconceptions i had about some of the career choices that i was considering.

MBA - A gut check

2006-03-06T16:41:00.000-06:00

A quick update on where i am and what to do as regards my MBA Plan-
Having completed my GMAT with a satisfactory score, i have been slacking and need to pull myself up out of the morass i have been in off late.
The next step is to research and finalise the choice of schools. I have been writing to many students who either have been admitted recently or are currently in school and they have been extremely helpful with suggestions. My choice of schools as it stands now includes wharton, chicago, michigan,duke,Tuck and Cornell. In addition to reading all the strategy guides that i have bought i intend to spend some time regularly on the BW forums to get a better feel about al l these schools.

Cyber Matrimony and impact on attendance at Indian Marriages

2006-03-06T16:15:00.000-06:00

Today while i was browsing through samachar.com i chanced upon the bharatmatrimony.com website's advertisement and got to thinking about how online match making would have an effect on the number of young eligible bachelors and spinsters who attend wedding ceremonies in India. I would like to explore a rather tenuous connection between the two.

In India the day of the marriage has always served a dual role- in addition to legitimizing the bonding of two complete strangers(Indian context..) in the eyes of the society it has also served as a day when would-be brides and grooms get the opportunity to check each other out under the watchful eyes of their parents. While this has made match making easier in a society where traditionally young girls are not encouraged to meet boys their age it has also limited the choice of spouse selection to one's immediate circle of acquaintances.

The advent of internet and online match making sites has multiplied the number of available choices and has rendered the traditional modes of match making obsolete in many ways. Not only is there the benefit of comparing and contrasting many available options before shortlisting the selected few, but also there is the benefit for the parents of not having to chaperone their little daughter in the intial stages of match making.
As the years roll by and online match making garners more respectability and credibility more and more young people are going to prefer this mode of choosing their spouse and the parents are going to have a tough time convincing their kids to attend those long and boring marriage ceremonies with the enticement that their future spouse might be in the audience. Who knows, probably the parents will have a tough time convincing themself to attend these marriages....

How to get a 750 in GMAT?

2006-02-28T13:33:00.000-06:00

The sheer arrogance of a statement like the above amuses me but hey i can pamper myself once in a while.
Writing a "How To" on anything has always held a special attraction for me. The temporary feeling of being in a position to dole out unasked for advice is always an ego boosting experience. I had to wait till i actually got done with my GMAT to lend some credibility to my advice and after scoring a 750 i sure hope someone out there will take it seriously. Of course the disclaimer is that different people have different strategies for preparation and what worked for me might not work for others.
So here we go-
I will try to break it down into a week by week plan and within each week identify the different steps to do.
Week1:

Buy(beg, borrow, steal who cares!!) the following material

GMAT Official guide(11th edition)
Latest edition of "Cracking the gmat (By Princeton)"
Latest edition of Kaplan guide for gmat prep
Manhattan GMAT Sentence correction guide

2. Write the diagnostic test in the OG(official guide)

3. Identify weak areas.

Week 2 and Week 3(1.5-2hrs a day on weekdays, 3hrs on weekends):

Start reading the Princeton guide and read through each and every strategy for each section carefully and solve practice problems(dont worry about time, get the concepts right)

Week 4 and Week 5(1.5-2hrs a day on weekdays, 3hrs on weekends)

Do the same as above with the Kaplan guide

Week 6,7,8-

Time to get to the official guide- There is a nice excel sheet which has a very helpful template to be used for practice tests. Go to testmagic.com and search for the template.
For each section choose 25 q's a day and solve any 2 sections(50qs in all, if u can do more go for it) using the above template and analyse the wrong answers very carefully and make notes of the reasons for the mistakes in the above excel sheet.
At 50 Qs a day you will be done with all the questions in the guide in 20days approx(basically try to complete the whole guide this way in not more than 3 weeks and make up for the time during weekends)

Weeks 9,10,11,12

Now you are ready to crack the actual tests. Start by downloading the full length GMATPrep tests from mba.com(2 of them)
Allot yourself 2.5 hrs over a weekend and solve the first gmat prep test under test conditions.
On weekdays allot 2 hrs day for reading the Manhattan GMAT sentence correction guide and solving questions on online forums like www.testmagic.com and www.gmatclub.com
every weekend do two complete length tests along with the essays(use 4 tests from kaplan CD, 4 from princeton and 2 GMAt prep tests)
For the order of tests i would recommend :

first weekend: GMATPrep1,Princeton review 1

second weekend:Kaplan1, Princeton2

third weekend : GMATPrep2, Kaplan2

Fourth weekend and 5 days before the exam : Uninstall existing GMATPrep software and install the software again to get atleast 70% new questions and do both the exams again. Do the section tests from kaplan CD. Also read the verbal and math drills in the kaplan CD, they are pretty good.

In addition to the above prep keep in mind the following:

Keep reading the GMAT debriefing of students on the websites mentioned above, they give insight into changes if any in the structure of gmat.
Be very relaxed in the days leading upto the exam and the night before the exam make sure u get a good night sleep(even if u have take Nyquil to do so).
Spend more time on the first 10 questions in each section.
Keep taking breaks(dont prep on friday evenings!!) in your preparation throughout the course of 12 weeks so that you dont burn out. Have days wherein you dont do anything related to GMAT(of course dont have a lot of them)

That should do it....

Complete Makeover - A Start

2006-02-28T13:02:00.000-06:00

I have never been a huge fan of reality TV but i do appreciate the concept of makeover as touted by some reality shows. I was especially interested in the show "Biggest Loser" because of its underlying theme that anything can be rectified provided one makes a conscious effort. A bit too cliched but has a ring of truth it. All the other shows which suggest to improve one aspect of your personality or the other are definitely serving a purpose however superficial it may be.

Self help has always been a topic of big interest for me and i always lap up any book that i can lay my hands on which talks about this topic. It got me thinking about what i would do if i had to undergo a complete makeover of myself as a person. This wouldnot be some physical makeover but a thorough review of all dimensions of myself and coming up with a plan to address the deficiencies in all of them by breaking down the overall goal into small components and working on them a little bit at a time.

If i had to undertake this comprehensive a analysis of myself then the first step would be to identify the different domains that need to be addressed. At a first thought i can think of the following:

Physical - Comprising of Health, Diet, Exercise etc
Professional - present and future career plans, being a better employee, work ethic etc
Relationships - interpersonal skills both within and outside one's immediate family.
Spiritual - attitudes regarding a higher perspective on life and one's faith.

Now the next step would be to analyze my current position in each domain and identify the areas of improvement and set daily goals. Thats coming up in the next posts.....

Google and Honesty

2006-02-27T13:28:00.000-06:00

A random thought crossed my mind one day. People look upon google as a hip technology company which is revolutionising search and making information more accessible. But i think there is another intangible benefit which is more of what i call a "A civilzational benefit ". Google has made it harder for people to bluff themself through a conversation.
Think about it-
A few years ago, if you were a part of a discussion and stated a fact that you had read in an obscure book which you know not many read(as it is, even today, how many people read anything on a regular basis beyond online news!!!), you could rest assured that there was a very little chance that anybody would catch on to it if you flubbed it. Who has the patience to go to a library to check out that fact. Not anymore.
All it takes is minimal computer skills and you can pretty much verify any fact online.
So when historians of the 30th century discuss about the 21st century they sure would mention about this funny sounding corporation which forced integrity and honesty into the day to day conversation. How little a benefit and how big a benefit.

Done with GMAT- atlast!!!!!!!

2006-02-27T13:12:00.000-06:00

Got done with my gmat the past friday and got a 750. I couldnot have asked for a better score and i am happy with the outcome. Though this score doesnot assure me anything, it has boosted my confidence and i can choose my schools without any concern that my stats are not good enough. Its all about getting my story right and perfect execution from now on.
I am pumped!!!
Next step- Researching schools and taking up more community work.

First step in a 1000 mile journey(ah well not exactly 1000 miles)

2006-01-19T12:04:00.000-06:00

After a long hiatus, i return to my blog. Hope to be more regular now that i have officially taken the first step towards my dream of a top 20 MBA. Well i have indeed started my GMAT prep and have been at it for more than 2 weeks now. The D-day is scheduled for the Feb 24 and i do intend to be more than ready for it. Writing on this blog regularly should also help me work on my writing skills before i start on those dreaded essays.

I am following a strategy that i have zeroed in on after reading a lot of testimonials from people who scored big on the gmat and after taking an initial diagnostic powerprep(660) i have identified my areas of weakness and am concentrating extra efforts on them while at the same time making sure to get enough practice on all the tested areas.
The books that i am using are:
11th edition OG
Kaplan GMAT
Kaplan 800
Cracking the GMAT(by Princeton review)
Manhattan Sentence Correction Guide

The online material includes:
The sentence correction guide from TestMagic(TM)
1000SC and 1000CR questions from scoretop and TM
Solving the SC questions posted in TM

The sample complete practice tests that i intend to write include
2 powerprep
2 gmat prep
3 Princeton Review(PR)
3 Kaplan
3 Manhattan GMAT

Any extra time i have i intend to write paper based tests and any sample tests found online.

As of now the progress chart reads:

1/2 way through OG
One reading of PR book
1 powerprep
Math in Kaplan 800
1/2 of Kaplan GMAT book.
3 chapters in the Manhattan SC guide.

The target for end of this month reads:
Done with OG
atleast 3(1PR,1Kaplan,1PP) more complete practice tests.
Done with the SC guide
Done with the CR,SC,RC in the Kaplan 800

As of now i get in atleast 2 hrs a day for 4 week days and a test on weekend. I will be bringing this up to 3 hrs a day(write 2 complete timed tests even during the week) 5 days a week and 2 tests over the weekend for the whole month of Feb leading to my exam.

Confessions of a confused soul

2004-12-02T14:38:00.000-06:00

Why does life have to be so damn frustrating?
Well thats one heck of an existential question which i donot foresee being answered for me anytime soon. Well, the reason for this crisis of confidence and an utter loss of direction is a set of conditions which look seemingly unresolvable.
Its pretty obvious to anyone reading these posts(which for now is just me) that i am obsessed with MBA, not sure how healthy that is though. Now after months of hanging around the BW boards and haraguing people with stupid questions and reading tons of blogs detailing personal experiences, i have kind of hit a roadblock.

From my limited research, this is what i have found about b-school admits. Either u should be from a finace or business centric background as per job content or should have done some really non-traditional things like feed kids in somalia or write speeches for the new president of ukraine, to be able to stand a good chance in the admit process for the really top tier schools. On top of this you should have career progression, international experience and heck of a lot of community service under your belt to be in the running.
Of course business schools say that all this is not "required" but pretty much you have to cover all these bases to stand atleast a chance.

Now fast forward to my present state of affairs - I am an international student with a Masters in Computer science and pretty much all my job experience so far has been in programming. Now i do not understand what is it about bschools that makes them look not so considerately towards applicants from IT. There is nothing in my background which makes me really distinct, in fact i have the most "common" background. There are tons of b-school aspirants with just my background who in fact may be employed with better firms than me.

A change of field before b-school is out of question what with INS requiring a ton of documentation from you and the employer about how u are a "fit" for that job. So i cant change field of work to some business centric field now without an MBA but i cant get admission into a top mba without some business related job experience. A perfect catch-22 if i may say so.

Now if i stay on in my present job or switch jobs to some other bigger company i would still be "programming" which would not exactly make me real attractive to the big schools, so even with a stellar score in gmat, community service, a Masters degree and 5 yrs job exp, top schools would still be a huge crap shoot for me.

Now i may be sounding a bit defeatist here but i am just analyzing my situation and noting down my thoughts, its not like all these thoughts are gonna stop me from applying to wharton or kellogg. Hell no, i am gonna apply for them atleast to make sure i can tell my kids that i gave it a shot.So where does all this leave me -

Try to shift job to a company with a better visibility like Dell.

Keep taking as many business courses as u can .

Keep up with community service and join a few more organisations and try to make it to their board.

Try for a really really good score in gmat.

Hire an admissions consultant for 3 schools atleast.

Visit schools

Research schools very thoroughly

Network,network,network

Well that makes me feel a bit better and not so hopeless.

Tepper - Tap her

2004-07-28T11:30:00.000-05:00

looks like the first school that i have decided for sure that i will apply is going to be Carnegie Mellon's Tepper school.
Firstly it is one of the premier schools for Techie recruiters, behind MIT and Stanford and in addition to that it doesnot look like a "stretch" for me to make an attempt at it.
I already know someone who has an admit from the school who does not have half as much w/e as i already do but of course his GMAT score is just 740+. Considering my professed long term aim of trying to get a start in Tech Product Management for Top IT Companies and making a switch into Tech General Management, Tepper is a perfect "fit" as it is viewed as an ideal hunting ground for a lot of top IT recruiters.
The strong analytical and quant focus of the program is well sought after by MC/IB firms giving me an oppurtunity to take a shot at these careers too, just in case my interests diverge during the course of my MBA,the probability of which is pretty much a given.
Going by this analysis, i guess the schools which are an ideal fit for me would be those schools which
1) admit techies as a large component of their class
2)very good tech placement record
3)strong analytical focus which opens up oppurtunities in MC/IB, the traditional post-MBA careers.
4) and of course have a easily identifiable brand name

Nevertheless i do have to accept the fact that Tepper is not exaclty top tier.It belongs to more of the second tier after the top tier. From what i have read the top tier comprises of the following stalwarts- Harvard,wharton,stanford,kellogg,mit,michigan,tuck,columbia,chicago.
I do think i will attempt for atleast 4 of the above.The other 4 will be from the second tier-
CMU,UCLA,Darden,Duke,Cornell,Yale,Berkeley,UNC.
Well let the research begin.

About me

2004-07-20T15:09:00.000-05:00

I am a techie indian immigrant with big dreams of a fabulous career and an itch to make a difference to the society of which i am a part of. Big words for some one who hasnot yet figured out where his strenghs lie or what specifically he wants to do with his life other than that he some how believes that a big ticket MBA is going to be his passport into the world of high-fliers. Whether this is me being naive or me being long sighted is something only time can tell. I do not refute the fact that hard work,dedication and perseverance can propel you to great heights but before all this is done, the pre-requisite is to decide on the direction wherein your are going to be investing this valuable qualities. What is the point in climbing the corporate ladder or for that any matter any ladder, if u realise at the end of it that it was leaning against the wrong wall.

So what i am doing right now, is in searching for a wall to lean the ladder against.
The intention behind starting this blog is to get a look into myself, an objective look as to what i think about some issues and then document them.Hopefully this would provide me with a timeline of how my opinions as regards issues have either improved in scope or become more straight-jacketed.

MBA Journey

2004-06-30T13:16:00.000-05:00

My interest in MBA dates back to the start of my college years back when i was 17 and 9 years later, it still captivates me. A couple of doomed attempts later and 6000 miles away from home i embark on my final journey to pursue an elite MBA from a top 10 b-school and i intend this blog to be a detailed record of all my thoughts and actions en route to my destination.

I have always told myself that if a goal has sustained my interest for almost a decade then it sure must be my "true calling".

A rekindling of interest towards an MBA occurred in me a couple of months ago. I am nearly 8 months into my new job as a programmer after getting my master's in computer science and i am already contemplating an another Master's. But this time its going to be something that i always dreamed of and something which will consume all the resources of my mind and heart.
I have become an addict of the BW forums these days, reading and soaking up all the thoughts and information of everyone who has something to tell.Other than this my groundwork involves getting in touch with students who are already admitted into premier business schools and taking their opinions.

Reading MBA Application strategy books like Montauk and searching for more resources and opinions about GMAT preparation strategies is a part of my daily activity these days.

More thoughts in the days to come.....