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25 Sep 2014, 09:00
| FROM Naija MBA Gal: Catching my breath |
Its been a really long while since I’ve posted anything. I’ve been busy putting final touches on my applications and submitting them :D SLOAN: I managed to get my Sloan application in. Just barely. No I did not submit something I wasn’t comfortable with just because I wanted to submit in round one. When I say […]
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27 Sep 2014, 09:01
| FROM Farhanc85: 7 D's of being a Desi Applicant |
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Prolonged absence from this blog, INSEAD application and meeting different kinds of Desi (read Indian) applicants has helped me put together the 7 D's of Desi Applicant. *These are my personal opinions and in no way represent the majority". How can I be a Desi and not give a disclaimer?. So lets dive into the 7 D's of being a Desi applicant 1. Diversity: Being Desi, Being Diverse. When you constitute to 17.5% of people in the entire world, do you think you will represent 17.5% of any MBA classroom? In all the major schools in the US of A, 30-40% of the class represents International community. Should half of that be represented by on Indian applicants? Honestly, Indian applicants cannot play the diversity card when it comes to community representation. With so many applications and a comparative fewer admissions, it’s difficult. Think about what you want to talk about to build up that Diversity factor in your application, this brings us to our next D. 2. Differentiation: You cannot differentiate yourself by being a Desi, we are overrepresented, but you can bring the learning of a Desi to an international platform. "YOU" being the important word here. What differentiates you from others? A cliché, everyone is unique. The fact is everyone is unique, but most of us don't know how we are unique. Try and bring that uniqueness on paper. And please don't do an MBA if you belong to the following D. 3. Disgruntled: I might be chastised for this one. My experience while talking to so many Indian IT applicants, they are disgruntled. Not happy with your boss, do an MBA earn more than him. Not happy with coding, well let me shift to product marketing? Not happy with system integration, let me get into consultancy? Although I have taken IT applicant as an example, this is true with many Indian applicants; I have highlighted the most common pool and most common example. Again a disclaimer, phew!!! Well, if you want to do an MBA because you are unhappy with your life and want a change, think really hard. Wanting a change is reasonable, searching for happiness is essential, but MBA is not a solution to your short-term problem. Admission committee can see through such stuff and then the rejection letters start pouring in. 4. Disingenuous: The ever so famous Indian head bob. We have to be more genuine. If you are dishonest in your application, there are high chances you might not make it. I have read time and again about Indians trying to exaggerate. Applications need facts and facts should never be exaggerated, as they can always be verified. Be straightforward and be candid. This is a big difference I have noticed between Indian and people from western countries. 5. Doubt: I have a 780 GMAT, a 3.9 GPA, 6 years of work-experience, what are my chances in XXX? I cringe every time I hear this question. It emerges from a level of self-doubt, we as Indians have created for ourselves. Although to be fair, I have read on other blogs about people asking this question internationally, but in India there is widespread of doubt due to our childhood traumas and parental pressure. Clearing doubts before exams that last reassurance before application. Don't doubt yourself, read information on site; Google is filled with information, type away. Please get out of the zone of doubting yourself. 6. Dharma: This list would be incomplete without a referral to a Desi word. For more about Dharma go here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma . There are two aspects of Dharma of a Desi applicant. A Dharma as a duty, MBA is only a natural step to my studies, as my family wants it? I don't have enough knowledge and experience to handle people who do MBA because of familial pressure. To them, I wish they find courage to do deal with familial pressure and find their true Dharma. The second Dharma is for our duties towards others. Very few Indians as opposed to those in the west are involved in volunteering activities/helping others. This might result from the fact that we see suffering as an integral part of our culture. We don't see how we can help others. There are a lot of ways to perform your Dharma towards others. Please remember we come from the culture where the word Dharma originates. 7. Disciplined: Yes, let me end with a positive word when it comes to India and academics. We are the most disciplined lot. Can't help it (here I go again) we are trained to be that. Showcase your discipline, but also showcase what else you bring to that discipline. We can withstand the academic rigor; there is no doubt about that. But tell them with your discipline, how a Desi will withstand the cultural dynamics. So those are the 7 D's of a Desi applicant. Again these are my personal views and hope you can take away something as a Desi applicant. Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE Cheers |
28 Sep 2014, 13:00
| FROM TopDogMBA - A Reapplicant's Tail: I’ll follow the sun |
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Hello and I’m sorry for being so quiet these past few weeks. First of all, I’ve submitted my three applications in Round 1 for INSEAD, MIT Sloan and Wharton. As usual, it was a mad dash to the finish line, tweaking essays and getting feedback, chasing recommenders and myriad other tiny things that have made the last month or so almost unbearable. Even the few minutes it takes to type a blog post could not be spared  And, if you’re reading this, the chances are you know what I’m talking about! Keep your head high and your heart strong – you will get there in the end! Secondly, I had to get my desk in the office cleared in advance of my “summer” holiday. I’m now ensconced in a lovely island near the Med. The pain was worth it, but barely! Still, the sun is warming my back and it feels a lot better without the weight of applications weighing it down (for now at least!). And, to top it all, my phone isn’t working after the recent iPhone upgrade so I’m not able to access my blog admin and write some eloquent posts. So, please accept this one dashed off from my other phone for now. I’ll be back in touch real soon folks with some useful information and tips! This dog got to rest a while in the meantime…   
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29 Sep 2014, 22:09
| FROM Pro GMAT: Keep running… |
Phew!! A lot of work, tensions, questions, explanations, failures, assignments, understandings, supplements, answers, learnings, rebuilding concepts, juices, exercises, managements, thoughts, reasons, spirits, blessings, and finally a minute view of some sunlight in the darkest. It always feels like a come … Continue reading →
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01 Oct 2014, 09:01
| FROM Naija MBA Gal: Happy Independence (Freedom)!!! |
I’m writing this from the heaven that is known as “post MBA application”. I finally submitted the other two application with a lot more drama than the first two. Before I give you the gist, allow me to say “Happy Independence day!” to my beautiful motherland. For those of you that don’t know, Naija is what […]
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04 Oct 2014, 13:00
| FROM Pulling That MBA Trigger: Five stages of losing your mind |
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Guys I am officially losing my mind. I’ve gone through what I think are 5 stages to “losing your mind during the post application submission waiting period.” It starts with relief, where you think hah, I got it done before everyone else (EA/R1 pseudo-superiority complex). That is followed by doubt, where you second guess every comma and period in your essays. Did something slip through the cracks? Should I have waited, like the rest of the sane people out there? Next comes the numbness. You hit submit and it’s gone into the black hole of admissions and there’s nothing you can do about it. So you tuck it away in the corner of your mind and try to move on with regular life. This doesn’t last very long though. The closer the notification date is, the closer comes the next phase: preparation. You prepare yourself for every outcome as you veer between outrageous optimism and resigned pessimism, although you try to condition yourself to expect the worse because that way, it would hurt less. The glimmer of hope is always tantalisingly close though, my preciousssssss. This is where I’m at right now. I think the fifth stage, which I hope to reach soon is that of mental peace. I want to know that I’ll be content with the outcome, either good or bad because it isn’t the end of the world nor is it the means to an end. I’m waiting on Fuqua and Yale now. 7th of October for Fuqua and around the same time (I’ve heard) for Yale. Let’s see how that goes! I hope GMAT/essay prep is going well for everyone! The blogosphere has been a little dead lately, (understandably of course), so I hope all you lovely people are doing well. Keep us posted.  
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05 Oct 2014, 21:01
| FROM Road To My MBA: The GMAT experience |
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560 (Q33 V33). Yes, that was my score on my first GMAT attempt and that is the reason I´m retaking the GMAT in mid-November (not decided the date yet). I don´t know what exactly happened but I left about seven unanswered question in Quantitative section, even though that this did not happen during my practice tests. One thing I know is that I have no excuse to such a low score so I will try again in a month. This low score made change almost all of my plans of dividing my applications between round 1 and round 2 and now I will apply exclusively on round 2. Besides studying for the GMAT, my main goal for this week is to talk with one of my bosses to be my recommender. As I work in a consulting firm there are several managers that I could ask for a letter of recommendation, but I am not sure they are all “open minded enough” to understand my decision of pursuing a MBA in USA. After a long time of thinking, I´ve decided that one of them would understand me more and probably will be a good help during the process. Since I have no time to lose, tomorrow I will probably have a lunch with him and have a frank conversation about my MBA. Depending on how well this conversation goes, I will talk about the letter of recommendation. That´s it for the moment. Let me go back to the GMAT. Ciao.  
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07 Oct 2014, 06:00
| FROM The adventures of a (provisional) MBA student: First month at HBS |
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What. A. Ride. I’m only able to write this because I accidentally turned up half an hour early to something. My head is just spinning… At HBS you’re an active participant. In everything. From class, to extra-curricular involvement, so with 100% Type-A personalities organizing a social gathering, the pace is relentless. It’s not like my undergraduate studies, and I already treasure the rare hour or two to myself I can allow myself every couple of days. The first few weeks (edit: month and a half! Really?!) are everything I expected, and more. There’s been so much I could mention right now, and simply haven’t got room. I’ve been trying to decide how I can keep this updated in a sensible way as the initial rush begins to calm a little, considering my new workload. So I’m going to give a brief update and try and regularly cover a topic I think might be interesting to those outside the ‘bubble’.  HBS Baker Library from across the Charles River Section Life HBS is divided into sections, with roughly 10% of the class in each (currently 94 in mine). I’ve been allocated to the best section, obvs! The section becomes your academic and social center. All classes are taken together – a significant piece in itself due to the case discussion methodin use at HBS. While the professors are truly excellent teachers, you’re meant to learn from each other as much as the professor themselves. It’s an engaging experience, and certainly no falling asleep in the back row (however much you may want to)… We’ve recently discovered that there is no ‘science’ to putting sections together, no late night evenings with lots of coffee looking at the backgrounds of the 900+ students as we’d assumed up until now. They split the class into 10 equal parts, and the only consideration is to check for a roughly even mix of international students to US nationals. The amazing diversity of the class admitted each year does the rest for them, and so far it’s incredibly successful. The diverse background of my classmates is staggerring and much more different than I’d expected based on the traditional background of your typical MBA. If you’re looking at HBS as a possible school, I strongly urge you to see a class if at all possible (ideally two differing subjects) and if not, at least watch the video above. The level of preparation is extensive, allowing the class to take a more ‘free-form’ discussion rather than a tightly scripted one. As well as inside the classroom, your section becomes your social unit too, actively encouraged by the school – a close bond outside the classroom fosters openness and sharing within it. It doesn’t always happen and work out (there are always whispers and rumors of the ‘broken’ section), but usually it does. It begins from the first day and we now have an elected president, treasurer, social chairs, athletic rep, international rep. Intra-mural sporting events within the class are competed between sections, party attendance is a competition between each section for the highest… competition seems to be a theme at HBS. Looking ahead So far, we’ve been what feels like an incredibly busy time. Apparently it is not. Extra-curricular activities are just kicking off, the recruiting season is now about to begin (we have been protected so far at HBS, unlike some other schools, but this is about to end already) and exhaustion levels look likely to escalate.  
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07 Oct 2014, 11:00
| FROM Pulling That MBA Trigger: Fuqua – Invited to Interview! |
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AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! *insert girly squeal here* More details when I get them!  
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09 Oct 2014, 03:00
| FROM Naija MBA Gal: I want to say … |
A lot of things to a lot of people. Being able to submit my applications in round one is a direct result of the effort, time and emotions put into the applications by a lot of people. So this post is to say some of the things I want to say to all of you. […]
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09 Oct 2014, 22:01
| FROM TexasWannaBeCali: Sleep.. Wait, what is that Again? |
 Less than 3 months until my applications are due and panic mode is starting to set in. With my manager being promoted to a partner of our firm, one senior consultant promoted to be the new manager of our team, the other leaving to work in the California office, and an associate consultant transferring to another team, projects for a staff of 5 went down to a staff of 2 (me and another consultant) rather quickly so my current state of overwhelm is quite the understatement. On one hand, I’m loving all of the responsibility I have, but on the other, mannnnnnnnnnn this couldn’t have happened at a worse possible time. I’m very fortunate that my new manager and I have a great relationship, so coming in a little late or leaving a little early doesn’t bother him as long as my work is finished, but with all the extra workload and travel obligations, it’s been quite the rollercoaster ride of emotions trying to balance everything along with GMAT studying and application prep. Speaking of the oh so wonderful GMAT, my original plan was to retake the exam early October, but apparently I missed the memo about how far in advance you should schedule before slots are filled. I know…you’re probably thinking “well duh”, but in my defense, I would periodicly check the MBA site to see how long you could wait before selecting a date, and every single time, a week sufficed. But because my life is the epitome of Murphy’s Law, my target test date was unavailable for both testing centers in my area by the time I felt moderately comfortable signing up. So with my calendar for the rest of October and the beginning of November in a state of pure chaos and no upcoming test dates matching my slim availability, my GMAT is going to be pushed super far back. I’m talking late November or December… YIKES! As frustrating as this was, I’ve learned that getting upset over things you inevitably cannot control leads to nothing but headaches and wrinkles, so I limited my rant fest to about 10 min then snapped back to reality and accepted it. Part of me wants to just accept my 680 and focus on the rest of my applications, but at the same time, I know myself, and I know that I will regret that decision if I end up getting dinged at all of my schools. Maybe that makes me incredibly stupid, but only time will tell. I’d rather feel confident that I did the best I could with no second guesses whatsoever, rather than wonder “what if” about anything. My main struggles with the GMAT aren’t really conceptual, but more so constantly making careless mistakes and letting my anxiety get the best of me which is still affecting my timing, so I hope that using more of my GMAT days to take mocks rather than simply study, will not only help me increase my score but also keep it consistent and not vary depending on my emotions that day. Because I’m borderline psycho about planning, my calendar is now all labeled and color coded to reflect essay writing and editing days for each school, GMAT study days and which topics i’ll be reviewing, mock exam days, travel days, deadlines, and the works. I know I definitely have my work cut out for me, and I might even scale back to 3 schools if I feel too overwhelmed, but I feel alot better having a set plan laid out. These next 3 months are definitely going to be a test to my will power. In other news, UCLA will finally be coming to Dallas soon which I’m obviously extremely excited about, especially since with my crazy work schedule, I’m no longer sure if I’ll be able to make a campus visit before January I’ve also been invited to attend McComb’s Women’s Weekend Forum in a few weeks which will be a great opportunity to not only make connections with students, alumni, professors, and adcom, but also get first hand experience of the MBA program and even some good essay material. The first night, there’s even a scheduled night out in Austin with the other attendees and current students so hopefully some cute boys tag along  kidding kidding.It’s obviously app season because the posts from everyone are coming few and far between, myself included, but I know that just means everyone’s hard at work to become 2015 MBA students. I’m so so proud of the progress everyone has made thus far, and wish nothing but the best to each and every one of you. Also special congrats to Pulling That MBA Trigger for getting an interview invite from Fuqua!! If you haven’t congratulated her already, please do so. She’s kicking major ass!! Also I would love to know writing schedules of those of you that have already submitted applications. I’ve heard writing a little each day helps, so is it protocol to write one essay per sitting and spend subsequent days editing? I couldn’t imagine writing a little here and a little there on an essay, once these fingers get to typing, they can’t be stopped until I’ve expressed everything I could. I’m sure that’s wishful thinking considering how intricate admission essays are, so suggestions are welcome  
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10 Oct 2014, 02:01
| FROM Pulling That MBA Trigger: How I approached writing my essays |
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My buddy Texaswannabecali was asking the blogosphere about how to approach the daunting task of writing essays for b-school apps and I thought I’d make an entire post of it instead. I will put in a disclaimer here – I absolutely love writing and I do it on a regular basis i.e I probably churn out about 800 words per day on average, so it was probably easier for me than it was for most people. With that said, some essay topics were definitely easier than others. For instance, Fuqua was a joy to write but Yale, not so much. I started with my Yale essays first, I figured get a good round of practice in before pulling the big guns for Duke. It’s a good idea to work on your number one choices after you’ve had some experience with schools that aren’t as high on your list of priorities. By then you should have a good sense of what works and what doesn’t, and also a better sense of clarity about your career goals. Before you start writing, make sure you read the essay analyses that all the admissions consultants have put out there. Grantmeadmission has an amazing resource where he’s compiled all those links and which I’ve personally bookmarked. Whether or not you use these guidelines, I found them tremendously useful just to align my thoughts in the right direction. I started off on my essays by jotting down points that I knew I had to put in there. Nothing fancy, just bullets in my text editor of choice. I didn’t sit down actively in one session and do this because my brain tends to wander when I do that, but I kept adding to the list at random times when I was bored at work, or right before I went to sleep, I’d quickly type out those points on my phone and sync it up later. So by about the end of a week, I had a list of about 15 – 20 odd points that I wanted to expand on for each essay. Then I got down to writing my first draft. I wasn’t really concerned about structure or brevity at this point. I just wanted to get my content down. I just expanded on every point that I had written down so depending on the essay topic I had a bunch of stories from work, some from volunteering, some stuff that I liked about the school and basically a few lines or more about every aspect of my profile that I wanted to cover. At the end of this exercise, I had a full two pages of text with random paragraphs and no flow whatsoever. I let that sit for a while, about 3 or 4 days and I didn’t look at it at all. In the mean time, I had some more ideas which I made sure to document lest I forget. So after the requisite 3 to 4 days, I came back to my essay with a clearer head. The time gap in the middle helped lessen my attachment to the words I’d written, so I could easily get rid of stuff I knew wasn’t relevant or important. Looking at the essay with a fresher pair of eyes also helped me spot grammatical flaws that I might have missed otherwise. I put in the new points and I started arranging the essay structurally by moving paragraphs around in a way that made sense to the reader i.e gave it a logical flow. So I had a pretty rough second draft at this point, with the content and a decent structure. I let it rest for a few days again before going back to it. This time I focussed on starting and ending with a bang and ensuring smooth transitions from one paragraph to the next. The last thing I wanted was to have a clunky set of unrelated stories shoved together in my essay. Up until this point, I hadn’t really bothered with the word count specifically, although I always kept it at the back of my mind. I knew I overshot the limit by about 200 words or so but that’s about it. I wouldn’t advice going over by more than 400 words because cutting it down can be a herculean task. I know because getting the word count down by 200 words was a major pain. But I did it in this iteration. So now I had the beginnings of a pretty good essay, but up until now I hadn’t taken any external opinions so I sent it off to about 7 – 8 friends and advisors for their inputs. None of my friends have MBAs so it was more of an exercise about making sure there were no dumb mistakes (repeating words, missing letters and commas) and also so to see if they could tell that the essay could have been written only by me and no one else. I think that’s a good way of judging to see whether you’ve really poured your heart and soul into the essay. Trust me, this makes a massive difference. My friends took a few days to get back to me and they were super helpful. Some of the feedback I implemented and some I just ignored. Stick to your guns on this. At this point my essays were looking great! I went over them, polished them up, made sure the formatting was right and I saved them all ready to submit. But of course, I didn’t actually submit it right then and I spent a good 3 days reading it once every 3 hours and scouring my eyes out trying to find any errors I’d missed. Then about two days before the deadline, I hit submit and that was it! The whole thing took about 20 odd days, I think you should probably budget at least that much or you’ll find yourself scrambling towards the end. Unless of course, you’re one of those people who writes the entire thing in one shot and that’s that. Well, this was long and rambling but I hope it helps anyone who’s confused about how to start. Best of luck with essays!  
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11 Oct 2014, 13:00
| FROM Road To My MBA: Letter of Recommendation |
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It has been a good week so far. After the disappointment with my GMAT score, I have started to study again, re-schedule the new test date and talked with my boss about the Recommendation Letter. Rescheduling the GMAT 25th of November will be THE date. There´s no time to lose from now, it´s only studying and practicing. Recommendation Letter Asking for a Recommendation Letter is one of the most feared aspects of one´s application, specially mine, and the reason is that I´ve not talked to anyone in my work that I´m applying to MBA programs. Since I work for the same company for 4 years, my options really should be around there. Well, I spent a long time thinking about whom I should ask to be my recommender and the reasons below helped me to make my decision towards my manager:
[*]MBA Abroad: believe it or not, he´s the only one in the company who earned an MBA abroad (in Canada), which is interesting since I work for a Big 4 Consulting Firm. Besides that, during our conversation, he mentioned he has done several recommendation letters before and remembered when he was the one asking for it.[/list] [*]Technical knowledge: he has profound knowledge in corporate finance and has the CFA (which I aim to have in a couple years). I´m not sure whether this would improve the RL, but shows that he is qualified.[/list] [*]Works with me for about 3 ½ years: a couple months after I started to work here, he was hired to be one of the managers in our area. We have worked together in several projects, so he knows a lot about my business performance.[/list] [*]Trustworthy: this sounds obvious but I do not want my colleagues to know that I´m applying to MBA right now and I truly believe he´s someone I can trust.[/list] All that mentioned above, our conversation went smooth, I told him the reasons I want to earn a MBA and we discussed the other aspects of the application for a while. It was a good talk, which made me feel confident of the choice of him. I will use the GrantMeAdmission “Killer Recommendation Package” to help him through the letter. I know it is safer (and sometimes required) to have at least two recommenders, but I cannot think of anyone else at the moment. That´s it, good luck to everyone!  
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12 Oct 2014, 08:00
| FROM Scott Duncan: How I Handled the Kellogg Video Essay Questions |
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Is my two-week break really over? After submitting my last two applications, I decided to take some time off before I started working on my Round 2 (and late Round 1) apps. The one thing I got done in the meantime was the Kellogg Video Essay questions. Last Year’s Approach If you have been following my blog, you know that I applied to Kellogg last year as well. In the one-week window I had in between submitting my application and the deadline for the video essays, I sat in front of my iPad and recorded my responses to the various questions that people were reporting back from their own video essays. I practiced…and practiced…and practiced. This was great in theory, but the questions I got for the real video essay component were NOTHING like what I had practiced! Unfortunately, this caused me to stumble through my answer more than I would have liked. If you could have any superpower, what would it be, and why? That was my actual essay question last year – how are you supposed to prepare for this? And this is where I think my method was fundamentally flawed last year. I spent a ton of time preparing the “right” answers for questions that I knew other applicants were being asked. The whole point of the exercise is to give off-the-cuff, spontaneous answers that show your personality and thought process. There is no “right” answer! Preparing answers for these questions puts you at odds with the process. As long as you have built a solid profile, you should have no issues answering any typical questions that might come up: Why MBA?, Why Kellogg?, What will you contribute? etc. Any other questions you cannot prepare for, and that is exactly the point. You really do have to be yourself, just like they tell you to do! However, it is far easier to be yourself on camera and under pressure if you practice. My mistake was expecting and practicing for a certain type of question. But, the amount of time I put in behind the camera meant that even though I was not ready for the question being asked, I was comfortable enough with being recorded to be myself on camera. What I did differently this year I didn’t practice until the morning the questions were due. Seriously. I knew that practicing typical interview questions would just constrain my answers when I was being recorded. I’m very confident with the message I want to deliver to the adcom since I spent so much time working on my profile. And I put in the time last year recording my responses that I had worked out a lot of the fear of being on camera. Maybe some of these things aren’t in place yet for you. I’m not advocating that you shouldn’t practice – you absolutely should. Fire up your webcam and start recording and reviewing your responses. It will be painful, humbling, and embarrassing. But it will pay off. You can’t practice a spontaneous answer, but for me (and I’m sure many other applicants), getting to the point where I could give a truly authentic spontaneous answer meant a lot of practice time on camera. The Questions At 7:00AM, I took my computer into the lab at work, closed the door, and put a Post-It note with a huge smiley face on it next to my webcam to remind me to smile. The first practice question came up, to which I responded: “Hi, my name is Scott. I like candle-lit dinners and long walks on the beach.” Clearly, I was more relaxed this time around. I pressed “next”, and the first question appeared: What is your special talent? My mind started racing about what I though Kellogg would be looking for. I’m the Microsoft Excel guy at work…I’m good at manufacturing process development…And I realized – does this really add anything to my profile? So I went with the answer I would give to a friend – I have been playing guitar for 14 years. I talked about the song that made me want to start playing. I talked about how over the years I worked hard and was eventually able to play that song. It was a genuine answer, and because of that, it came easily. I don’t remember my second question verbatim, but it was something along the lines of: What will your greatest contribution be at Kellogg? This one was tougher. Fortunately, I was sitting in the research and development lab and described how what was behind me on camera gave a totally different perspective than most applicants to b-school. After that it was over. All in, it probably only took about 15-20 minutes. What was your experience with the video essays? Sign up and never miss a post Get Instant Access!  I value your privacy and would never spam you. Unsubscribe at any time. The post How I Handled the Kellogg Video Essay Questions appeared first on Scott Duncan. |
12 Oct 2014, 19:01
| FROM My MBA Journey: The First Test |
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Well, this is it. The day has finally come. I’m taking my first official GMAT test later today. I’ve never been this nervous for anything. I’m usual pretty good under pressure. Whether it was a big exam or a big presentation, I usually kept my cool in undergrad. There was one exam that I was a bit anxious about. My first exam in my undergrad program was a calculus exam. It was scheduled for 8AM on a Monday morning, of course. We had typical Michigan weather, a snowstorm. The drive in to the school was enough to make me anxious, let alone taking my first exam. The student in front of me had a cold, so for 3 hours straight all I heard was a sniffing noise. Usually those things don’t bother me. But as we all know, we’re not always ourselves in these types of situations. I wonder what I’m going to remember about today when I look back. I have been very dedicated to my studies lately. I even studied on my birthday. Who-hoo. But, I still think I should’ve began studying a few months earlier. I am hoping this will be an exam to get my feet wet. I already scheduled another exam for the end of December. I’ve done quite a bit of reading about what to do to prepare for the test day. They say you should relax the night before and do something fun. I heard the same advice before taking the ACT. How can you relax when you’re about to take a really big test? I want to cram in as much studying as possible. I studied quite a bit last night and even this morning. I did get a lot of sleep though, and ate a good breakfast. Hopefully that helps. I’m also lucky that there are several test facilities nearby so I won’t have a long drive. I also picked a mid-morning test time. I’m not a morning person. They do say it’s best to schedule a test as early as you feel comfortable with. The test alone is 3.5 hours and you have to be there a half hour early. Add in the commute time and half of your day is almost gone. No one wants to be taking a test during the “afternoon crash” time. We’ll see what happens. Wish me luck!  
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13 Oct 2014, 08:01
| FROM Grant Me Admission: Back from the dead… |
I’m BACK!!! Sorry for my hiatus everyone. I just got done with 5 weeks of 5 applications. I wanted to hit on some initial thoughts…
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13 Oct 2014, 18:01
| FROM My MBA Journey: It’s Over |
 It’s over. My first GMAT test is officially over. I don’t really feel relieved. Well, I’m not exactly sure what to think of my GMAT score. I took the test last week for the first time after studying for about two months. I knew I wasn’t ready for the test, but with the shortened timeline I’ve given myself, I wanted to take the test twice. Most people aren’t as open about their progress and wouldn’t even think about sharing their scores. I’m going to be honest because I think it’s part of the story I’m telling. I got a 570. Obviously I’m far from where I want my score to be, but for a first try, I’m not devastated. Overall I performed better on the Verbal section than Quan. Not surprised there. I did especially well at IR, and I think I did pretty well on the writing section. Typically schools don’t look at those sections too closely. I’ve heard they really look at the overall score (the 400-800 number) and the individual scores for the Quan and Verbal section. One immediate learning point I noticed is I did not manage my time well. I had to guess for quite a few questions at the end of each section. I’ve always been a slow test taker. In high school they gave us as much time as we wanted to take tests. Maybe the luxury was really an evil. Well, time to hit the books again. My next test is in just over a month.  
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14 Oct 2014, 04:01
| FROM TopDogMBA - A Reapplicant's Tail: I want to tell you …INSEAD interview invite! |
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Just wanted to share that bit of good news with y’all! INSEAD has a very quick and personal application process. I’m now waiting to hear who my interviewers will be in my home city. Very exciting news! It makes the pain of the last few months (or years) a lot more bearable. Good luck to anyone waiting to hear in Round 1. Lots of invites still to come I’m sure!  
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14 Oct 2014, 08:00
| FROM Grant Me Admission: My thoughts on the 5 Applications (HBS, Yale, Kellogg, Wharton, Tuck) |
Hello everyone, today’s post focuses on the five applications that I completed. These are solely my opinions, but hopefully they can help some R2ers and…
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14 Oct 2014, 09:00
| FROM MBA Reapplicant: MIA |
| I have been out of the blogging game for a bit, but I promise that won't be a regular thing. With classes and recruiting in full swing, I have had little time for anything else. That being said, I have had the chance to blog a couple of times for the Anderson MBA Student Voice. Check it our here! |
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Hi Guest,
Here are updates for you:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
Tuck at Dartmouth
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