Stress is a Tensor ...

March Madness!

2007-03-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

I have not stayed in touch with the blogosphere for the past many weeks so I am not aware of any fellow bloggers catching on to this.

Of those of you familiar with College basketball in the US, how many have noticed the eerie similarities between the selection process for the NCAA basketball tourney and the application process for B-School? The headaches and the heartaches for the candidates and the lack of transparency in the process along with the seeming abundance of worthy candidates makes the comparision noteworthy.

I will try and post a comparative essay on this over the next few days!

Happy Dancin'!

Rejected by Stanford!

2007-01-18T08:54:00.000-08:00

Derrick Bolton plays the shot blocker and rejects me with a resounding Ding! Congratulations to all those who got in.

Now waiting on MIT who will (I hope) say something different ...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2006-12-31T20:36:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2007. May Interview Invites and Admission Offers fill your days. Cheers!

I am currently on a three week vacation and out of the country. I still haven't heard from MIT or Stanford.

Congratulations/Best wishes to those who have received admits recently/are awaiting offers.

We need SPCBA!

2006-12-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

... or the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Business-school Applicants.

Like all normal B-School applicants, I get really excited when I see an email in the "2006Apps" folder of my Yahoo! account. It would not be a stretch to say that my heart skips a beat or two when I see that the sender is MIT Ad Com.

So now, why would you, if your name was "MIT Ad Com", send me an email with a "December Update" on MIT Sloan/LFM when I am waiting breathlessly for an interview call???

Hello? It is too late for marketing folks! I have ALREADY applied; spent three whole days on campus even. So would you please not be sooooo cruel. Please?

Of course, one can say that it is my fault for not anticipating what was in store when the email subject line read "December Update". But then, how am I to know what an MIT Sloan interview invite looks like? I haven't received one yet. I may retract my anguish-ridden statements once one of those pops into my inbox!

35 degrees and raining ...

2006-11-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

It is dark. It is cold. It is raining. I am waiting.

My bosses have not committed to retaining my department and that prompted me to tender my resignation (effective end of the month). With that, I have lost all motivation to do anything except check my email for word from Stanford/MIT.

I know that I need to work on my application for Columbia and Michigan but it just so difficult to do right now. Whatever little I manage to get done is solely due to my fondness for these schools.

I watched the Michigan-OSU game with the local Michigan Alumni association (my girlfriend was in the Michigan Marching Band). I hoped to single out some Ross alumni but got totally caught up in the game and forgot all about networking. I hope Michigan gets another crack at the Buckeyes this year, for the NC.

False Alarm

2006-11-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

My heart skipped a beat when I saw that MIT Adcom had sent me an email. All it says is that my file is complete and some other things that I am not supposed to tell anyone else.

I heard someone already has received an interview invite from Sloan. Fingers crossed ...

Phase Two

2006-11-14T09:02:00.000-08:00

Now that I am done with my MIT application, (it has been a couple of weeks since) I have more time to reflect on the application process and what I want to do differently for Columbia and Michigan. But since the status of my Stanford app went to "Complete and Under Review", it has been difficult to focus on writing further essays. I have heard that MIT does not actually update the applicants' accounts but I know that they must have started reviewing files by now. I am growing very anxious and am very tempted to check out the BW boards (that I try to avoid) on the matter.

Historically, Stanford's interview invites start trickling out in the fourth week of November and MIT's on the last day of November. A week to go ...

I still am very excited about my applications to CBS and Michigan, as if they are puzzles for me to solve using the clues I have from past experiences (Stanford,MIT). I am working on the CBS application right now and I swear that Essay 1 had a thousand word limit the last time I looked.

The 750 word limit does force me to rewrite the Why-Why essay which is a good thing. Having visited the school and met with so many current students and alumni, I have a tad too many things to say in this essay. Also, I was talked into considering B-school by a CBS alum in the first place. So for a long time, 'CBS' and 'B-School' were interchangeable in my mind.

The promotion (to Director) that I was looking for has not happened yet. Meanwhile, I have an offer from another firm that bumps my pay up big time :) I also managed to double my paid vacation time in my negotiations. All the soul searching I did for my applications did pay off in the (job) interview. Now I need to snoop around to find out if indeed I will be made Director at my present firm and I have approximately 24 hours to do it in. Either way, my profile should receive a boost.

Congratulations to all who received interview invites from their target schools! All the best to those who lie in wait. As an ardent sports fan, I am extremely superstitious. But it is easier to wear a 'lucky' sweatshirt for an entire basketball game than to wear a lucky shirt for three straight weeks. So I am trying to find a 'lucky' object that I can carry around all the time.

One down ...

2006-10-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

I submitted my Application to Stanford GSB early this morning. I managed only two hours of sleep last night. One of my recommenders managed to keep me awake this morning despite my lack of sleep by not submitting his recommendation until 11AM today. He could not understand why I was so anxious.

I honestly did not remember the year of my parents' graduation. That took some time to find as both my parents are out of town on separate trips. My Dad, ever the engineer, tried to talk me out of applying to business school as I was trying to get his graduation date over the phone.

Also, I have officially started counting ... $245 and going. I did not count the GMAT and the prep materials I paid for earlier. Maybe I should.

The next one is MIT (November 1st) and I hope it will be easier as it is very similar to Stanford. After that, I plan on submitting Columbia and Michigan before the end of November. And all of a sudden, Haas looks very attractive.

In the midst of all this, my boss has announced that he is resigning and moving to St. Louis, closer to his kids. That means that as of November 4th, he is no longer my current supervisor. It also means that there is a good chance that I will be offered the position of Director. That would make things very interesting should I decide to leave for business school.

In other attractions, Halloween is coming up. That means a lot of drunk people on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. It is usually pretty entertaining in the beginning, before the blood alcohol level starts reaching double figures. I hope I can get some pictures to post. I need to submit my MIT app before that can happen.

Best wishes to everyone in their applications.
Cheers!

I am still around!

2006-10-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

My First Round targets: Stanford, MIT & Michigan.

So it should be no wonder that I am not to be heard from. Actually I did post a long one a while ago which got hijacked along the way (supposably;) and never made it to public eyes. Seems to have happened to Salsera too.

The one thing I need the most is clear minded, yawnless, fully-awake time to properly edit my essays and I spend all of that resource at work. Very frustrating, I know!

I will post more, especially about my visit to MIT & Columbia and how Marina successfully dodged me during my visit, at a later time. (Probably after me apps - circa 11/1/2006).

All the best to everyone!
Cheers!

Tired ... already!

2006-08-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Somehow, my workload at the office has kept pace with my application timetable. For the last two weeks, I have been at work for an average of twelve hours a day. After considering the two hours that I spend driving myself to and back from work each day, I have about a couple of hours of productive time at home.

Nonetheless, I managed to meet with some Chicago GSB students in Charlotte. Though Chicago is not on my list of target schools, I hoped this meet would tell me whether my read on a particular school was accurate. To my relief, I was spot on in Chicago's case. The school is great when it comes to finance and very good in most of other concentrations. Not being famous for its entrepreneurial side, it is helpful on that front only if you are interested in staying in the Chicago area or the Midwest. The students came across as bright and enthusiastic and were candid with their assessments of the program as well as with the advice they gave to b-school applicants in general. They strongly suggested that those applying to Chicago GSB visit the school, preferably before they apply.

My essays are still languishing in a state of suspended animation. I have changed the essays for MIT quite a bit, moving examples of events from one essay to the other. This has kept me from finishing a first draft, though I see that happening soon. The 500 word limit is such a pain! I am not even close. I haven't applied to a single school and I already feel tired :(

I will be visiting MIT and Columbia in September. I hope that this trip helps me decide whether to apply to Columbia ED. If I decide to do so, I will hold back on a few of the other schools. BTW, finding hotels near Columbia is a bit of a bother and I am not sure what to make of a shared bath. Any suggestions/tips are most welcome.

All the best to those about to take the GMAT and a warm welcome to those joining me in messin' with them essays! Cheers!

Recommenders? Done!

2006-07-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to break the news of my impending applications to B-Schools to my boss and asked him for his recommendations. He was supportive and said that now is better than later as I have enough experience and few other things to worry about (read family). At the same time, he has not let things get weird at work either, which is great.

In other news, I have found a way to do the essays that works for me. At first, I had started out by compiling the essay topics from all the schools that interest me onto a few questions (ten) and then answering them. Turns out that this does not work and it leads to more gaps in the script as the school is not set and hence a good connection to the school's traits cannot be eshtablished. It also hurts my flow of thought when I do not have my target set very accurately.

So now I am writing the essays per school and I found this to be a much better approach. I have noticed that the content of the essays does not change much even though my essay to one school would not sound as good (not that they are any good yet) if read by the adcom of another. Others might have been looking at the essays this way for a while but in my quest for efficiency, I messed up.

Now I need to get my first, good draft done by the end of July (not likely!) or at the latest by the first week of August (say the 8th) so that my recommenders can start their work.

I am considering discussing the examples of events/projects that I am using in my essays with my boss. I have not heard of anyone else doing this. My line of thought is that my boss can give me an additional perspective on my career (last three years of it, atleast) and I can get a read on his evaluation of me. I can also let him know of what to talk about and how specific to get in his recommendations.

The schools have pretty much been decided on as well. The pieces are set!

Applicant's block ?

2006-06-30T06:55:00.000-07:00

First of all, thanks to all of you who responded to my survey with votes and comments. All of you agree with my thoughts and I have decided to let my boss in on my secret sometime next week.

When I sit down and talk with my boss, I want to hand him a decent draft of my "Why MBA and Why now?" essay. More than anything, I want to know how cogent he thinks my arguments are for pursuing a business degree. But the essay(s) are not as easy as I expected, and that includes the rough drafts!

I have a very clear (yet flexible) career plan in mind but when I start to put this on paper, I just can't write! I do not yet know if this reflects on the feasibility of my career plan or on my skills as a writer.

I have put down a few pages of notes on what I want to do and why and how I want to get there; but all these paragraphs are not in any particular order and come across as nothing more than random ramblings. Other demands on my time keep on piling up. I spent the past weekend with my girlfriend (lots of fun), my buddy from LA is visiting as well and I will be in NYC next weekend.

Since Columbia will not be in session (weekend!) I will need to visit NYC again, sometime later. I have their summer class schedule and I would like to visit on a Wednesday. So little time ...

Recommendations !

2006-06-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

Recommend \Rec`om*mend"\ (r?k`?m*m?nd"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Recommended; p. pr. & vb. n. Recommending.] [Pref. re- + commend: cf. F. recommander.]

1. To commend to the favorable notice of another; to commit to another's care, confidence, or acceptance, with favoring representations; to put in a favorable light before any one; to bestow commendation on.

After going through all the material available online, in books and after hearing from friends who have recently been through this process, I have come to the conclusion that recommendations can do more harm than good, even if they appear to be good on the surface.

It is pretty important for the recommendations to build on and around the essays, especially in exemplifying the qualities that the applicant is stressing on. Thus it is very important that the folks recommending you know the person they are talking about.

I had decided a while ago to get recommendations from two of my colleagues who were way senior to me but had worked with me on a lot of projects. I had ruled out my direct boss, who is a director of the firm, from being a recommender, as I thought there would be a conflict of interest.

Since that time, both of my planned recommender have quit my firm. One of them has started her own venture and the other has joined another firm to change the focus of his career. Though both of them have been enthusiastic at the prospect of recommending me and both expected me to apply to B-School even before I told them so, they are not currently working with me. Will this fact devalue their recommendations in the eyes of the AdCom ?

My boss, of course, can give a very insightful recommendation as he is also my mentor. He interviewed me, recruited me, positioned me within the firm and pretty much decides what I do on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. He also heads my performance reviews. With things as they stand right now, I am extremely tempted to fill in my boss on my quest for an MBA and ask for his recommendation. (I know I seem to be wavering).

My reasoning for the change of heart is:

He recruited me. He has mentored me. He deserves to know.
If I do not tell my boss, he might feel bad (later on) when he finds out that I excluded him from the process entirely.
We have a very good relationship and though he would be sad to let me go, he could do a great job with the recommendations.
If he felt that it was best for him to not get involved, he would say so but still keep mum about my applications.

The only drawback is that he could stop putting the effort he now does in mentoring me. That means quite a lot to me as I have learnt much from him and not all of it pertains to work.

My two other recommenders are split over whether I should approach my boss at all. Hence I have put together this poll. I am sure others have had to face this dilemma and I would appreciate their feedback as well.

2006-06-04T16:04:00.000-07:00

More than a week has passed and I have done very little. A few days ago I started writing down where I want to go and how an MBA would help in the process.

Looking back, I had planned on getting an MBA somewhere down the line while I was a sophomore in college, because I knew that I would eventually be running a business, either my own or a joint venture. However, naive as I was, I did not think much about what I would want from my MBA itself. All I knew was it would teach me what not to do while running a business.

As I entered grad school and later when I joined the workforce full time, I started thinking more about what I wanted to do and how business schools fit into the picture.

Now, with all the exposure I have had to industry, the non-profit sector and government, how I run my company is as important to me as anything else. What I want from a business education has changed so much from the last time I thought about it, that it makes me wonder whether I should expose myself to more of the industry. Would my needs change considerably if I worked for two more years ?

I am trying to find a compelling answer for "why now?" and all I can come up with is "why not now?". Although I am sure that the next two years would provide me with far less insight into my profession and industry than the last two and that the managerial opportunities are scant, I feel that this is the wrong way to think about it.

The most important reason for me is that I want to change careers and that should be reason enough. Ah! I am rambling at the fag end of a long day.

Later ...

Phew !

2006-05-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

The GMAT is done and I should tell y'all that during the test I did not think I got anything wrong and was promptly surprised when the big 8-0-0 did not pop up. Just kidding (a bit); all I can say is that my score is not going to keep me out of any school. But my application could.

So I have started working on the rest of the package. Though I put down five schools to send my score reports to (when the computer asked me before the test started), I am not very sure about all five of them. I am planning a few talks with some of the professors and students in a few select schools before I finalize my list.

With the GMAT now firmly behind me (unless GMAC calls to tell me that mysteriously lost all records of my test and cannot report my scores to anyone) I feel like sharing a few observations that I have made so far.

As the days wound down towards my GMAT, I wasted a lot of my time. While I wanted to gather GMAT info, I was actually reading the excellent MBA blogs that are available. It used to be the case that the closer I got to the information I needed, less was the chance of me getting sidetracked.

With the MBA Blog phenomenon, that is no longer the case. Moreover, these blogs were worse than reading stuff on espn.com or on the BBC in that they distracted me with things that are related to my MBA and and contributed to a big time loss in focus.

So those who are set to take the GMAT, do not get lost reading the blog entries that DO NOT talk about the GMAT. As for the test itself, there is no need to get bogged down with various books. The OG and the Manhattan books are enough actually. I started with the Princeton Review from the local library and lost interest in a couple of days. Then I heard about and bought the OG and Kaplan's 800 book (I highly recommend both, though I read only half of the Kaplan 800).

I had the Manhattan GMAT books on Sentence Correction, Reading Comprehension and Critical Reasoning. The last two topics are in one book and I never read it. The Manhattan books are good in that they walk you through the problems in the OG though that is not necessary. In all, I did not read any book in its entirety except the OG.

Also, test day mechanics are very important. If you are well rested and wake up on the right side of your (or someone else's) bed, you will do pretty well.

As I watch the paper turn yellow ...

2006-05-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

Usually, my job is partially interesting. There are lessons to be learnt, from others mistakes, of course, and things chug along pretty briskly. It even gets downright entertaining when some mindless contractors try to think and solve their problems without looking at the drawings that they are provided with. That the drawings are insufficient and inaccurate is not a secret either, with all the "By Others", "General Contractor to Coordinate before Fabrication" and "Field Verify Dimensions" signs acting as giveaways. Site visits and Construction Administration can be fun too, especially when folks at the construction site have had a few beers over lunch.

The past few days have been contrary to the norm. Even though the weather has been great, I have been stuck in the office doing some donkey work that is so uninteresting that I feel like going out to the parking lot and yelling at the top of my lungs once every hour.

Every day, I turn into a zombie by the end of the day with no will of doing anything more. This is affecting my preparations for the upcoming D-Day. I have stopped doing anything substantial for the GMAT. I go over questions from the OG and compare them with the notes from the Manhattan GMAT guides for an hour or so each evening.

I will be writing a couple more AWA essays and take the second GMATPrep test in the next couple of days and that will be all. I am planning to unwind during the weekend and play some basketball, something that I have not done in two months. I may go dancing too. This saturday being the fourth one of the month will probably have some swing/shag/lindy at the Loafers Beach Club in Raleigh. Sweet ! That thought cheers me up ! Later ...

Food for thought

2006-05-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

While chatting with my friend, the topic of conversation shifted to the choice of business program and school. His take was that I should apply to the LFM program at MIT Sloan since my background was well suited to manage operations and manufacturing. Though I was not looking at that line of work, I continued to listen as he went on, saying that the only shortcoming of that program in preparing a candidate for an entrepreneurial career (my choice) was that the LFM program was weak in Finance.

At this, I mentioned that finance in a start up, especially in early stages, is pretty straight forward and that general management and marketing skills are more vital to the fledgling venture. Marketing, as compared to finance, in this scenario is more important as the young company needs to sell its product, however non-groundbreaking (read mediocere) it may be, in order to survive.

I am not experienced in this area (yet) and am eager to find out what the right answer is. I already suspect it to be a combination of the factors mentioned.

In other news, my Babie is now esconsced in Alexandria VA., a 20 minute Metro ride from her office and all set for her internship. I liked the DC area but that might be just because it was 75 degrees with a light breeze the entire weekend ;)

One week and counting down ...

Results from my first GMATPrep test

2006-05-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

On saturday, I set aside a few hours when my girlfriend was supposed to be out shopping, to take the first of the two GMAT Prep tests that you can download from PearsonVue.

To start off, it went very well and I was feeling very good till the end of the first section (Quantitative) when the alarm on my phone went off. I promptly managed to mess up the answer that I was working on (the last question and I had about a minute left) and hence had to guess (incorrectly). Result: Raw score 50

The second section (Verbal) was even worse. My girlfriend called me no less than three times during this section and I did not even manage to finish the test. Result: Raw score 38.

Overall Score: 730. Not as bad as I expected it to be. I was startled, though, to find that almost all of my mistakes were on Sentence Correction Questions. I am working on it now, though I have already finished the Official Guide and I got almost all of the answers correct when I solved them.

I am currently reading up on 800score.com's section on the AWA. The term "E-Raters" sounds very fishy and I do not think this is a good way to grade the essays but, oh, well ...

I still can not decide on which schools to apply to beyond my first four, but, in my mind, I am leaning towards the West Coast (read Anderson/Haas).

Finished the Official Guide

2006-05-12T08:40:00.000-07:00

Finally done with all the questions on the OG !!! The last things I worked on were the final fifty or so questions on Data Sufficiency and it will suffice to say that they are tricky. In my sleep deprived state (read "extremely sleepy") I did not not do too well compared to the rest of the quantitative section and my intuition seems to be better than my Math at times.

I already have one recommender lined up and she is happy that I am doing an MBA. She even went to the length of saying she always suspected that I would want to be an entreprenuer ! She added that it is the perfect time in my career to go for it. I told her to remember these words and put them words down on the reco. ;)

I will take my first look at the AWA tonight. I hope my buddy's assessment of it was on the money. (Improper pronoun usage ! )

I have now developed the power to irritate and annoy any and all of my colleagues by pointing out errors in their use of the English language. But I have vowed to use my powers to fight against crime and for World Peace.

My Babie (as Joey says "B-A-B-I-E") graduates this weekend ! I am so happy for her. She is moving to DC for the summer for an internship at CSPI. I am going to miss her a lot during the weekdays but I will get to see her on the weekends. In fact there is a carpool of guys driving up to DC to meet their girlfriends who work/intern there !!!

Wow!

2006-05-04T22:15:00.000-07:00

Wow!

I am gonna become an Uncle/Aunt (again), depending on whether it is a boy or a girl ...

(that was supposed to be funny)

First Practice GMAT CAT

2006-05-04T22:07:00.000-07:00

Well, it was okay. I did not take the quantitative section seriously and got disinterested with the proceedings halfway through. Yup ! That's me ! The verbal section was a bit too long (I was too slow) and I lacked clarity of thought. Maybe I should give these tests on weekend mornings instead of late night on a weekday.

Still managed a good score. If I can tweak this performance a bit and manage to keep my concentration high for a while, I will be a happy guy in the afternoon of the 30th.

The Kaplan GMAT 800 is really good practice for the tough stuff. It is also fun to see if people around me (mostly my girlfriend) can get the right answers to these questions. My girlfriend is very good, though, due to her background in Latin grammar and gets more answers right than I do.

In fact, overall, I think she has a great profile for a MBA applicant and would probably get into H/S/W/K if she applied. Too bad she is not interested in business or management :-(

GMAT

2006-05-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

My GMAT is set for the 30th of this May (2006)! I decided to go with the early date so that I set myself a tougher target (hopefully one that I can meet). I am currently working on Sentence Correction with Kaplan GMAT 800 (which I think is a good book, by the way).

Next up - one of 800score.com's online tests and then on to Manhattan GMAT books and tests !!!

Looks like my date with GMAT will be postponed

2006-04-18T06:29:00.000-07:00

With so much material to cover and five weeks to go till my intended test date (May 30th, 2006), I am beginning to feel itchy; Itchy to postpone my test date to the 15th of June.

I still have to start working on Kaplan GMAT 800 and the Manhattan GMAT workbooks. I am currently poring over the Official Guide for GMAT Review. The OG, as I call it, is a really good tool. It has good, ambiguous questions, that make the test taker understand that ETS can really pick its own way of explaining answers to their questions.

It provides insight into what is pertinent to the GMAT rather than what is the indisputable answer. I would recommend going through ALL the answers and the reasoning behind them given in the book after finishing with the question sets.

I have decided that I am definitely applying to:

Stanford GSB
Wharton
MIT Sloan
Columbia GSB

I still have two spots up for grabs and the likely candidates are UCB-Haas, Michigan - Ross, Duke -Fuqua, UVA -Darden, UNC - Kenan-Flagler and UCLA - Anderson.

I am also getting my finances in order and hope to be be in good shape by the end of the year.

In other news ...

Coming Sunday is Bike Week in Chapel Hill. I am looking forward to that. I may get a used sport bike in the coming months ...

2006-04-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

Party Time !!!!

My buddy Vatsal just got into Sloan @ MIT !!!

My School List

2006-04-02T22:53:00.000-07:00

Stanford GSB
Harvard Business School
Wharton
Sloan
Columbia Business School
Chicago GSB
Duke
Haas
Anderson
Kenan-Flagler
Darden
Ross (Michigan)

Hiya !

2006-03-31T10:55:00.000-08:00

Oooookay folks ! 'ere we go !

This blog is an attempt to chronicle my life as an engineer and a (hopefully!) successful MBA applicant for the benefit of family, friends and curious folks who have waaaay too much time. Hope to keep seeing you ...