Aug 22, 2012 – General musings and an interview with Accepted.com

I was fortunate to have had the chance to go through an admissions related book with accepted.com. It was a further boon when they requested me to have a kind of a discussion with them on their questions with regards to the B-School application and GMAT. I must confess that such events are truly wonderful in terms of boosting one’s confidence. So they sent me a set of questions and I responded back with my thoughts.

The entire interview can be reviewed at the below link on accepted.com.

http://blog.accepted.com/2012/08/17/mba-applicant-blogger-interview-anujans-journey/

On the preparation front there has been a real bad lull. I have been travelling and honestly it is close to 2 weeks since I have even touched the books again. I have decided to take the GMAT in September last week which roughly gives me 1 more month to prepare. I have completed out with the basics and now have to move with increasing my accuracy and more mock tests. I am slightly worried that these 2 weeks without any practice might really damage all the hard work I have been putting since the start. It is also about time that I start looking into the IR section. This is a new section and while I have attended a few sessions on IR by the premier coaching websites I have actually not tried my hand at any real practice. I am hoping that it is not going to be a real difficult task considering analytical and graphical analysis is something that is pretty much a parcel of daily work life.

I will be taking a break for 4-5 days starting this weekend. I am feeling a bit jaded and I decided that it is about time I took a break to recharge my sagging spirits and energy levels. I have been working for close to 6 months now without a break. This break should help me get back on track and I will also use the time away from normal life to work on the essay points.

July 11, 2012 – B-School application cycle for a re-applicant and the game of cricket

Being an Indian, the passion for cricket seems like a birth-right. There are very few things that cannot be linked to the happenings in cricket and specifically the Indian cricket team. That said, the line of thought can very easily be applied to football as well. Maybe, the English or the Spanish might prefer to relate the stuff around them to the happenings in the football. I happen to be a football fan as well but we are now digressing from the topic. J

So how can the entire re-applicant cycle be associated to Cricket, you might ask? For starters, the thought of thinking about the need of a MBA is akin to a starry-eyed child wondering about what it would be like to be seen on TV. The child wonders about it and starts playing at his local school level. Very soon he realizes that he might have the potential to do something big, be good at this entire playing thing but he needs some expert guidance, some specific coaching. No doubt he looks for a good academy. The change here though is in his reasons for seeking this boat that might help him. While he initially wanted to be on TV, he now seeks to join an academy to sharpen his skills, to become better at what he does. I guess, you now get my point. Somewhere down the line, the only driving force of seeking admission to an elite institution is to learn really great things, to better one self. All the other attributes like fame, money, success take a side-track.

Ok. So far, so good. What the hell does a re-applicant have to do with this? I would say pretty much everything. There are a few children that are born winners; they excel at everything they try their hand at. Not everyone is so fortunate. A majority will make mistakes, fall down, learn from their mistakes and grow better. I have always believed that as long as you learn from your mistakes and more importantly do not make them repeatedly by applying your learning then you are on the right track to rise high. All right, I probably made, in fact it needs to be said that I have surely made mistakes in my last application which is why maybe I did not make the cut. That does not mean I give up. This stage can be made akin to either child who has failed to make the cut to the academy’s final team. Even better, it would be worth associating this analogy of failure with a talented guy who has had a loss of form and is struggling to really nail down his place in the team. Hmm, this now makes some sense maybe. What am I getting at now?

The re-application is like trying to rediscover the form. An ugly truth of life is that when things do not go your way, everything seems to be going wrong. Even the noblest of deeds turns into unfortunate accidents and the simple actions seem to be like a mammoth road-block. Does one stop trying or living then? The answer is obviously no. Like a struggling batsman / bowler, one needs to take one thing at a time. As the commentators say for a struggling batsman, “He needs to face every ball by thinking about one ball at a time. He needs to spend some time at the crease”.

The same way, it is pretty straight forward with my re-application. I need to take things one at a time. My immediate task is the GMAT. While it is very much needed that I work on my application simultaneously, I need to tackle one thing at a time. There needs to be an effective game-plan. I need to take baby-steps, for, rather than taking huge leaps once in a while it is much better to be steadily moving forward. Slow and steady wins the race after all. I am working on this part of my profile. Once this is out of my way then I can whole-heartedly and fully concentrate on my application.

Please note that I have intentionally written that “then I can”. There is always some spare time that can be saved / squeezed in our daily routine to work and think on the aspect of the achievements in life till now. These are essentially the base points, the skeleton on which the application is going to be built. One can always see 15 minutes less of TV, sleep less for 15 minutes and avoid that urge to spend 15 more minutes on the social network or check the personal mails once a day and save around 10 minutes. Not all of these things maybe applicable to everyone but then I hope you get the point. It is not impossible to get a measly 30-45 minutes every day to just think about your life’s story till now. To write one point that comes out of this thinking maybe once in two days. This will ensure that when the essays need to be started it is more a stage of picking and choosing from the available options and develop the story.

I am working really hard to study daily for at least 1.5 hours but I end up procrastinating throughout the day and end up hardly having 30 minutes of quality time studying. I desperately need to stop this now. It is about 65 days for the application dead-line and there is the GMAT, the essays, recommendations, et. all.

I surely have to write pretty soon on the effects of procrastination on my application so that I avoid it all costs. This has to be my next article. Why write about it, you may ask? This is because I totally believe what my father always told me during my schooling days. Writing once is equivalent to reading 10 times. An article will totally reinforce in my mindset that I cannot procrastinate.

Hope this analogy and read today were not outrageous for your taste and time spent reading. Extreme situations have the uncanny ability to give birth to creativity, you see. There are a few things that seem so well timed right now that I am getting a feeling that this might be my time during this application cycle.

July 05, 2012 – Thoughts rushing through a re-applicant’s mind

Being a re-applicant is not something that I say with pride. The fact of the matter however is that either that I made mistakes during the last application or that my application as a whole did not live up to the expectations of the admissions committee. What then am I supposed to do this time around to succeed is the main thought running through my mind rather than what wrong did I do?

I have been awaiting feedback and unfortunately I do not now see the point in getting the feedback since even if I am provided some genuine comments they would surely be generic in nature. So, I have decided to take my feedback into my own hands. Following are the points that I think are important from a re-applicant’s perspective.

i.                    GMAT

In my case, my GMAT score was really way below the average of the school. I took a chance with it and unfortunately it did not work out. So my task this time is pretty much set in terms of taking the GMAT. I know for sure that the feedback if at all officially provided will highlight this aspect. However the GMAT score for re-applicants with a score of ~700 can be a tricky aspect. A score in the range of 700 is really sufficient and I personally feel that putting in the efforts to raise the score from 700 to a 740 is going to be many times exponentially tough than raising it from 640 to 700. So then does a re-applicant retake the GMAT? While this can be a difficult question to answer, I personally feel there is no need for a retake. Putting in at least 1.5 to 2 months into the GMAT preparation again will be a daunting task in terms of the application. I believe this time can be better utilized in preparing the essays and building up the profile in terms of jotting down every small event / achievement that has happened in one’s career.

ii.                  Essays and Application

This is the biggest point where the hardest decisions have been made. So I applied after doing my research and by putting in my best foot forward. But it is pretty clear that it did not suffice. Now, do I approach someone professionally to help with my application and specifically my essays? This has been a dilemma for me. It is more to do with the fact that seeking help is sometimes looked upon by oneself rather than in view of others. What I personally need is someone to critically assess my essays and tell me bluntly where I am screwing up. If this can only be done by seeking professional guidance then so be it. After all there is no harm is asking to be directed properly if I do not know how to proceed ahead. This will always be a tough decision for any re-applicant and there is no easy answer to this. If you think it will help the application then do not think twice on it. Go for it. After all we are talking about precious time and years of one’s life. Research on the available help and I would personally advise that seek help from someone who is interested in knowing you and in helping you get to the dreams. As the famous dialogue from Jerry McGuire goes, you need to choose someone who says “help me help you” J

iii.                Recommenders

I have not researched a lot on what other schools do but the ISB allows carrying forward the recommendations from the previous application cycle provided one has applied in the immediate preceding cycle. The question then arises that should you retain the recommendations or seek new ones. Another toughie eh L Once again no correct answer to this one. I am 90% sure of getting in new recommenders this time, the reason being that they will bring in new information and a new perspective to me as an applicant. Also the previous recos will be with the school so they will surely review it when they review my application as a re-applicant. I have shifted jobs last June so ideally this is a good time to get in new recos from somebody I have worked with in the last one year. This will provide fresh insights into my new job related performance and achievements.

iv.                The re-applicant essay

The dreaded question of “how has your profile changed since the last application cycle?” Fortunately, I have had changes which are drastic in nature and on the better side. I have had almost a year of international exposure in 3 countries in 3 different continents since the last year. I have achieved a promotion and a title change in 6 months of joining my new job. Personally and professionally I very strongly feel I have grown by leaps and bounds as a person and my experiences have really been colourful and have helped me mature. Not everyone might have such drastic changes. It is then best to present whatever changes no matter small in the best artistic way possible. I specifically used the word artistic because it is all about presentation here. You might have only done one good project but then you need to show clearly that the project was effectively life-changing in terms of your betterment. You saw the entire thing through and had a 10/10 score. I hope I have conveyed my point.

v.                  Extra-Curricular

I have observed in a few forums that applicants tend to ask that how can the EC’s be improved. I feel 9 months since the last application is too short a time to work on this aspect and improve it. That said, I am sure each of us has EC’s. It is just that maybe we do not realize that it can be mentioned as an EC. So all I can say is introspect and find that 1 or 2 things that you think are great in you which you might have over-looked. All one needs to do here is introspect real hard thoroughly. I am sure something will come up as a EC that you simply missed the last time.

Right now these are the points that come to my mind. I will add and edit other points as and when I recall them. I hope my posts are at least informative and have been worthy of the 5-10 minutes that you have given to this blog. Please feel free to comment on the posts.

April 15, 2012 – Retrospective Introspection (Part 3 – Reasons for the ding)

On the other front, I have been thinking on the cause of rejection and failure to even get an interview call. I am awaiting feedback from Indian School of Business (ISB) and I have a gut feeling that they would say that I lost out in view of the competition and a below average GMAT score. 

I was able to come down to the following possible chinks in the armour --:

a. GMAT. This was the weakest link and a no-brainer really. I have started preparing again and will be giving it in the new pattern as I believe that the new Integrated Reasoning ( IR ) section would be a good indicator of my data analysis abilities if I intend to apply for a consulting job. Also since this IR section has replaced one of the essays it will not have any bearing on my actual GMAT (Q/V) score. This is one area that I will improve and if things go as per my plan this will not be an issue this time around.

b. I did not spend enough time on my essays as I should have. Thanks to the critical suggestions and suggested improvements by an ex-colleague who also happens to be an alumni from ISB, they were decent enough but I think the content that I enclosed in them did not pack enough punch in them. I need to improve on really choosing the content material with a lot more care in my next application.

c. My extra-curricular activities were not good enough. This might be a possibility but 2 of my achievements were representing the state in a national competition for a sport during my secondary schooling days and heading the IEEE student’s chapter in which we had organized educational sessions for the school students in the schools run by the municipal corporation. I am afraid I cannot do much more in this part as of now. 

d. Recommendations. I though hard on this part and I am convinced that I had the two best judges of my ability to recommend me. I did not seek to read their recommendations owing moral obligations but I am pretty sure that they both would have surely done great justice in their feedback. The more important point is when re-applying I can either choose to use these same recommendations or then use new ones. The guys that I had chosen were the best choices and the ones who observed me from the closest quarters. I am not at all keen on seeking recommendations from my present organization as it will probably end all chances of any progression in my present profile. 

e. Spreading my net of schools to apply. I am thinking on this aspect and had thought on it the last time as well. The US schools and European schools are way out of budget. Also the most important thing is that 2 years might be a rather large investment and I would rather prefer ISB’s 1 year course. I am delving further on this aspect as of now.

A few points that I have been trying to do in addition to all the above points are --:

I. I have been trying to get in touch with alumni having pre-MBA background similar to min so that I can get an idea on the possibilities after getting a MBA. That is to really pump up and be clear in my Why MBA aspect.

II. Evaluating the need / possibility of an admission consultant for my re-application. I am not sure on this aspect as of now though I am seriously contemplating it.

April 14, 2012 – Retrospective Introspection (Part 2 – Whether to re-apply)

Moving ahead, a very important question that has been troubling me is whether I re-apply immediately this year or wait for a year and then re-apply.

There a few things in this aspect as below --:

i. The Positives --:

The positives of re-applying after 1 more year are plenty, more significantly increased international exposure, reduced financial burden to pay the steep fees and increased clarity on future goals, etc. 

ii. The Negatives --:  

There are a few personal things that would make it difficult to push it ahead by another year. This is the prime most reason of my not wanting to push it ahead by a year.

iii. Changes since the last application --:

If I am to re-apply immediately this year then I will need to show the improvements from my last re-application. On this point I have a few positives. The biggest change is international exposure of almost 5-6 months at 2 client locations. One was a new customer for the company and I was designated to handle the first big revenue impacting event (i.e. the Christmas and New Year period) after the purchase of our product. I handled it pretty well and there were no issues/outages. This is a big achievement since I had just completed 6 months in the organization and had moved out from my comfort zone of my previous job in a different sub-vertical to a new sub-vertical in my existing job profile.

Second up, I was immediately sent for my present assignment for duration of almost 6 months. This customer is our biggest customer in terms of size of market, contribution to our revenue and in general the deciding account for the entire customer group clients. This customer had just upgraded to a new architecture and release and was not satisfied with the project results. My presence in this project was to support and to stabilize the upgrade and resolve any issues. So far it has been fantastic in terms of stability achieved and issues have almost become zero and the customer has also released the payments and has expressed satisfaction in the new product features.

Third, I have been given a promotion as well as a change of designation. This is relatively appreciable since as I have mentioned above I am only 6 months old in the organization.

These are the most important improvements in my profile since the last application. 

It is the negatives that I am considering and at this point I am pretty much convinced to re-apply immediately this year.