Calling all Wharton 2008 applicants

I completely agree. The "outsider in another country" thing is going to be extremely common. And in many cases, it'll prove that we haven't truly understood what "outsider" means. That is why I wanted to talk about some experience where my ideologies and thoughts were outsiders. Unfortunately I can't think of any.

jjanders, your story about college may work. Just make sure to show how you overcame those obstacles in the end.

What about corporate culture? That can vary widely and provide a "culture shock" experience so to speak.

Back from the Wharton Ad com event in Delhi - the diro of Admissions was hosting it no less.

Surprising thing was a grand total of 0 Wharton alum turned up. This compared to 4 awesome Stan grads in yesterday events (an stan has a class size one third or something) was quite funny.

That been said the adcom was brilliant - seriously I thought I'll catch him out by asking some obscure question, but he really knew his stuff - guess thats why he's the diro of admissions

does diro mean director?

Oh !! That wasnt even what I was gonna post on......

I am not apping to R1 Wharton, but I did write my outsider essay (dont ask me why - I am an idiot). Am writing abt when I changed schools........I came from a very small (near village) to Delhi.........an all the kids picked on me. Is this too lame/too in the past.

An oh - I seriously think that cross country culture essays are gonna look very generic + very recycled from Insead

Well I've never really "overcome" them in the sense that I have always been a bit of an outsider due to my personality, interests, and opinions, and probably always will be. I would say that I have accepted and become much more comfortable with this fact, though, which is what I can focus on.

Hmm .. that's certainly going to be different from most other applicants. Well .. in that case, make sure that you do not sound like a difficult team-player. I am sure you are taking care of that already

Yep - Thomas Caleel.......Kryzak I hope you're apping to Wharton........Mr. Caleel speaks Russian

And conversational French....lol gotta love the wharton profiles.

Met him during wharton session in Sydney.

Bloody good presentation skills eh.

Update: Wharton info Session, Bangalore
Thomas Caleel is a fantastic speaker. He spoke for about an hour and a half on things I had already read about here, in other forums, blogs, websites etc. But he still had me (and the rest of the audience) listening with rapt attention. He makes it all look so damn simple! Nonetheless,as you might have guessed, the presentation just reitereated most of the stuff we have already discussed here.

- Be yourself in the essays
- Look past the stats and paint a complete picture of yourselves
- Wharton is not a bunch of quant jocks

Some takewaways:
- 700+ on the GMAT is not a must, but Wharton really likes the 80/80 split.
- Wharton really digs self awareness.
- alumni very friendly and open to discussion. Really hope to be interviewed by one of these guys
- To young Indian IT applicants: If you haven't led teams, don't make it sound like you have.
- Very student driven culture. TONS of choices...
- A glitch here and there is ok, but put things into context by explaining why.

Will put up more as and when I recollect...

are there any specifications for the essay format? double spaced? name at the top? font size?

i didnt see any

Good question. I didn't notice any either. For now I left it single spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman

Just to add, he did say not to rush through the app itself especially the employment history portion. Do not start and finish the app on the 11th, apparantly they see the server records >\.

how different is the employment record from your resume? for the responsibilities, is that supposed to be more general than just listing your past accomplishments?

From what Mr. Caleel said Wharton does not ask for a CV.

Its much worse than a CV......its 5-10 essays with 200 - 250 words which is not mentioned anywhere......its only when you open the app page do you see them