I visited the Bangalore MBA Tour event at the Taj today. The Best Part: The beer and tacos I had with shmegs at Pecos a couple of blocks away from the venue. God, this was seriously one really huge village fair. There were so many people at each table that by the time you got a chance to speak to the representative:
a. You've forgotten your questions (or)
b. The rep is so infuriated with the 'regular' questions that he's turned into a mindless zombie who just says "the answer's available online."

Get this: I actually heard a couple of people reeling off their stats and then asking the representatives, "What are my chances?". Wow!
And seriously, what is the fixation that the attendees at these events have with school brochures?? I was personally stepped on, elbowed in the ribs, and pushed a dozen times by this one guy who finally made it to the table, grabbed a brochure and then scooted off! Geez!

Verdict: Stay at home and work on the essays. The MBA tour *can* be missed.

Too bad you had to go to it to find what a riot it was....this was discussed on a previous thread before.

I was registered for the LA session. ended up sleeping and not gng for it.. my friend attended it and left the choicest abuses on my phone...

I think he too had a similar situation..without the man handling...

No offense to Indians.. (I am a very patriotic Indian myself). but we have a fixation for brochures and mindless info-trinkets..the more we collect, the better we feel we are prepared for outcomes and the more knowledgable we feel we are ...

For verification.. watch Indians go berserk in Singapore Changi airport..as they grab the free airport brochures that have singapore city maps..and list of things to do....I am guilty of doing that a couple of times, until I discovered the wonders of the internet.

We attended the World MBA tour at SF few days back and I got the same feeling. This was my chance to explore the offerings of INSEAD and LBS (The only chance, in case of INSEAD) and put my name in one more list of Columbia. But there were no info sessions, the tables were crowded and prospective applicants were rude. One guy stuck with an INSEAD alumnus for hours .. as if the alumnus was going to give him an admit right there.

So I soon realized that my trip to this event was a complete waste of time. I just went around all the tables, and wrote my name in every interesting school's list (Just in case I end up applying there). I was about to leave when two LBS alumni kinda came to us and started speaking. That discussion was slightly interesting. One of them was an entrepreneur and she had done executive MBA from LBS and taken some classes at Columbia. She told me that for entrepreneurship, Columbia is much ahead of LBS. That was nice to hear.

Anyway, to anyone who hasn't been to such events yet, please save your time, stay home and work on the essays. Unless these events are the only way you get to see the adcom.

I also went to the one in Los Angeles and while I don't think it was a complete waste of time, I did notice a few things that were amusing.

It reminds me of speed dating. You have a line of potential applicants just dying to speak with the admission staff of the top schools. And then when the adcomm is giving answers that are so streamlined/boring/obvious/regurtitating brochures and websites, you have these "noob" candidates intently listening, nodding their heads like they're hearing GOD speak.

And then you have those tables for Hawking MBA School in Boondock, Nowhere with no candidates talking with them.... the ugly chick at the party. But you check them out anyway because they may have a really great personality.

lol!! How true...

hahahaha yes.. I have seen awed heads .. when god is speaking to them.. I wish I can be the devil and just make some havoc...

God willing, if we all get some admits this year, we could represent our schools at events like this. When we see a 'noob' in the applicant crowd, we can then go "You're a bloody noob! I'm asking ad-com to ding you right away. What's your name?!?" he he he!

I will mete out that treatment to the hot looking girls.. and end with the statement.. "and your phone number, so we can go out on a date and evaluate your profile better"

explore your profile better?

Oh..missed this

I can see why ur GMAT score was much better than mine..

ha ha..now I can see how you are a man of action !

Wow the fair was a HUGE waste of time. Except for the beer, that was good . The best part of the whole experience was seeing 50 people mobbing the Duke table and hearing crazy stories like 7000 Indian applicants to Duke. It's just gossip but definitely made me smile. The one thing that really got to me was I received mails from Darden and LBS saying "come meet us on Oct 4 in Bangalore...blah blah" get to the fair and no Darden no LBS. Lol.

Wow the fair was a HUGE waste of time. Except for the beer, that was good . The best part of the whole experience was seeing 50 people mobbing the Duke table and hearing crazy stories like 7000 Indian applicants to Duke. It's just gossip but definitely made me smile. The one thing that really got to me was I received mails from Darden and LBS saying "come meet us on Oct 4 in Bangalore...blah blah" get to the fair and no Darden no LBS. Lol.

he he he! Yeah, forgot about that!