Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Back in India....5-3

Finally back in aamchi Mumbai after three months.
Couple of updates about the applications...got an admit from Tippie with a pretty hefty aid package..that makes the decision process all the more interesting for me.....plus an interview call from Olin for the 31st of Jan.
That leaves Darden as the only college from which I haven't heard post my R1 application submission....gives me a fleeting suspiscion that Darden is heading the ding way.....

More posts on my 3 month US trip to follow...soon I hope

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Updates

The app score is 4-3 now with 4 admits. Just gotto know about the Georgetown decision.
Will talk about my Boston trip in my next post, especially the very interesting bus ride from New York to Boston.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

MBA Retrospect - Part 2

The period between the summer of 06 and my first attempt at GMAT was one of huge changes in my life.

Iflex wasn’t really working out for me and I joined JP Morgan Chase after a bit of struggle with the search. The transition included a week of Accenture, a very tough week indeed with my travels to Vikroli proving more difficult than I had initially imagined.

In hindsight my preparation may not have been ideal for the first attempt but I believe my final score in the second attempt truly reflected my potential. Maybe I could have done better my 10-20 but at the end I was happy with what I had. More importantly, the second attempt of GMAT marked the end of the “writing GMAT” stage of my life, a hurdle which had taken me 2 long years to overcome.

The real task was yet to begin, the applications.

To begin with the task was daunting and I did not make things easier for myself by looking to apply to nearly 10 schools, all during the round one cycle for the fall of 2008.
The final list of schools looked somewhat like this –
Columbia
Chicago
Darden
Emory
Olin
Georgetown
Simon
Carroll
UC Davis
Tippie

Near the fag end of my application process, I got lucky….was asked to work out of the New York office of JP Morgan for about 3 months.
This meant I could visit some of these schools, interact with the admissions committee and create a stronger impression on their minds.
School visits was a factor which I had earlier discounted for.

My personal take on the application process for each of these schools will follow in the next post, one which I will post from Mumbai.

PS: The current score is 3-3, just received admission notification from Simon a couple of weeks back.

Friday, January 11, 2008

MBA Retrospect - Part 1

A retrospective blog for a change, to catch up on the pain, joy, insecurities that I have had related to my rather arduous journey towards a decent business education.

Blogs my MBA applicants – I love this category of blogs.
These blogs give me an insight into the trials and tribulations that applicants encounter en route to their dream business school. I am kind of hooked onto them for reason. I identify the author’s pain when he/she gets a ding, the joy of admit decisions, the fears of new challenges.

My blog is a mish mash of random thoughts, events. It never had structure, a central thought. Off late I been sort of updating the blog with info about my admits and dings but felt that I needed to throw some light on the journey so far.

Part 1
A 10X15 room in Tokyo. Gotanda Plaire apartments, room no 1203, I sat before my laptop, with a credit card in my hand, browsing mba.com, changing my GMAT date for the 8th time, and yes you read it right, the 8th time.
It was getting increasingly difficult for me to overcome my inertia of procrastination.
Every change in date gave me another chance at redemption and every change in date debited my dwindling balance by $50 and made me feel really bad about myself.
I had tried everything, had decided to stay on in Japan for a year more, hoping to write GMAT and start my application process from Tokyo, aided by the peace and quiet of my studio apartment in Tokyo.
The 8th date passed by with a no-show from me. I had had it. It was time to call it quits.
The next week I spoke to my manager, I needed to go back to India. I needed a change, get out of that rut. After spending close to 2.5 years in Tokyo, it was time for me to start a new chapter in my life. This was the summer of 2006.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Countdown

2 more weeks to go before I get to go back to Mumbai. Its seems like a eternity that I have been cooped up in Houston.
2 more weeks to go before I get to finalize the B-School that I am going to go to in fall.
4 more months before I can quit my job, am done with the non-work mode that I have been in for the last 1 year.
6 more montsh before I have a chance to undo some of my failings in life.
6 more hours before Bulli comes in from Charlotte.
1 more hour before I leave office.

1st blog for an 2008...a year of change