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pm4553
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 26 Dec 2008, 04:48
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filmcity

Anyway, I always thought about writing a debrief abt the whole MBA admission process for the perspective of an Indian from India, after the admission hullabaloo is over. I thought it would be helpful for many since there are several negatives and challenges in my profile ( age: 31 at matriculation, low WE: only 4 years at matriculation, no great brandname, no peer applying, juggling between toddler at home and work in office etc.). But right now, the time when I was supposed to be drowned in ecstacy, is proving to nightmarish!Not only the citiassist part, Things have suddenly taken a bad turn in job front. But I will surely write a detailed debrief the moment things become a li'l sane.
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My wishes, I'm sure you'll fight your way through. Waiting for your debrief..
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 26 Dec 2008, 09:43
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Spideyeclipse and filmcity, Thanks a lot for sharing your story. It will help many of us.

Spidey, let me guess are you a Java programmer ? Saw the while loop, with a conditional OR in your debrief. Could not resist asking this :-D

Filmcity, I found the example of Indian cooking that you provided quite amusing. It is shocking that someone did that. Goes to show the amount of similarity in our profiles that people go to such an extent to hunt some uniqueness :) I have been wondering for the last few days whether the unique qualities essays was the one where I screwed up for Tuck ? I will only know this when they give me feedback but definitely would be helpful if any of you can offer some feedback. There were 3 qualities that I mentioned :

1) Humility + Supportive - To illustrate this, I explained my family background and the conditions in which I grew up
2) Passionate - To illustrate this, I explained my phobia for water when I was a kid and how I overcame that by learning swimming, which eventually became my fondest hobby and sport
3) International exposure - 3 yrs work ex in US and 3 + yrs work ex in India.
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 26 Dec 2008, 10:18
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rgajare14
Spideyeclipse and filmcity, Thanks a lot for sharing your story. It will help many of us.

Spidey, let me guess are you a Java programmer ? Saw the while loop, with a conditional OR in your debrief. Could not resist asking this :-D

Filmcity, I found the example of Indian cooking that you provided quite amusing. It is shocking that someone did that. Goes to show the amount of similarity in our profiles that people go to such an extent to hunt some uniqueness :) I have been wondering for the last few days whether the unique qualities essays was the one where I screwed up for Tuck ? I will only know this when they give me feedback but definitely would be helpful if any of you can offer some feedback. There were 3 qualities that I mentioned :

1) Humility + Supportive - To illustrate this, I explained my family background and the conditions in which I grew up
2) Passionate - To illustrate this, I explained my phobia for water when I was a kid and how I overcame that by learning swimming, which eventually became my fondest hobby and sport
3) International exposure - 3 yrs work ex in US and 3 + yrs work ex in India.
Show more

IMHO - I apologies on being such a critique. The journey of applying to some of the niche schools in the world teaches you a lot!! I have learnt more about myself in these couple of months than I could ever imagine. Even though I've postponed my application (now applying in 2010), its been an awesome learning experience.

rgajare14, my 2 cents on the qualities..

1) There is a tinch of uniqueness (not sure what you mentioned in the essay), but I would have given a "small tick", if I was reviewing your essays.
2) I read somewhere, in one of the links, here (i think) - usage of passionate/passion SHOULD not be highlighted in your essays. Its one of the most common word used. I think overcoming your fear and turing this around into your hobby is great, at least for me.
3) Its good, but look at your colleagues who are applying, I'm sure many have the same "point" to highlight. Working onsite is not like winning a medal, most of the IT folks do get a chance to go abroad (Btw, I'm not from IT but have loads of friends in this field). To be honest, its missing the wow factor. Compare yourself to someone who worked in the US for a Non-Profit organization and raise xxx dollars along with his regular tech job. It may stand out.

Adcoms have a certain level of expectations, try NOT give them what they are looking for. Go beyond the obvious, flatter them with your essays but be honest :)
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SV6
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 26 Dec 2008, 10:26
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Good points by Spidey & filmcity..

rgajare14,

I feel that most of these might be common across indian applicants but you can definitely make them unique..

1) Humility + Supportive - To illustrate this, I explained my family background and the conditions in which I grew up - Common answer for all of us..But make sure that you are connecting this to your career path or your extra curricular hobby or passion which became part of your life..
2) Passionate - To illustrate this, I explained my phobia for water when I was a kid and how I overcame that by learning swimming, which eventually became my fondest hobby and sport
this should be fine
3) International exposure - 3 yrs work ex in US and 3 + yrs work ex in India. This is common for all of us..Unless you did something different or learn learn something different. I believe that this can be obvious to the bschool through your resume or work exp section of the app.

Not sure if my points sound valid to you..but i feel that 2 of your unique things sounded common unless you described it way different than others in your essays..
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 26 Dec 2008, 11:03
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Guys, I appreciate your honest inputs very much.

SV6
1) But make sure that you are connecting this to your career path or your extra curricular hobby or passion which became part of your life..
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pawan203
1) There is a tinch of uniqueness (not sure what you mentioned in the essay), but I would have given a "small tick", if I was reviewing your essays.
Show more


I think some of the specific details I mentioned under this point for mentioning the challenges I faced are too personal, due to which I did not mention them earlier. But that also made my response unique IMO.

pawan203
I read somewhere, in one of the links, here (i think) - usage of passionate/passion SHOULD not be highlighted in your essays.
Show more

Ouch ! Certainly was not aware of that. Yes, passion can be termed kinda too generic quality and something expected out of every single candidate - I concur. With the same example of aqua phobia, I could have easily used some other quality, such as perseverance, may be.

SV6
This is common for all of us..Unless you did something different or learn learn something different. I believe that this can be obvious to the bschool through your resume or work exp section of the app.
Show more


pawan203
Its good, but look at your colleagues who are applying, I'm sure many have the same "point" to highlight. Working onsite is not like winning a medal, most of the IT folks do get a chance to go abroad (Btw, I'm not from IT but have loads of friends in this field). To be honest, its missing the wow factor. Compare yourself to someone who worked in the US for a Non-Profit organization and raise xxx dollars along with his regular tech job. It may stand out.
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Of the three points, I think this was the weakest or the most non unique quality I mentioned and maybe I did not bring it out all that well too. As an after thought, I should NOT have mentioned this at all.
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! Updated on: 06 Feb 2009, 01:15
Originally posted by raj_singh on 27 Dec 2008, 00:46.
Last edited by raj_singh on 06 Feb 2009, 01:15, edited 1 time in total.
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....
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 27 Dec 2008, 09:08
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raj_singh
Congrats to all the admits and finger crossed for the guys still in the waiting boat!!

Here is my profile
Indian/M/27/680 ( Q 49, V 33, AWA 5) / 5 WE/ IT ( Startup, Leading Product Development/Investment Bank)/ Stint with 2 ventures( Started my first venture at the age of fourteen) / Good ECs ( Worked for 2 NGOs)/ 3 Yrs Intnl exposure / Made significant contributions in my current organization ( from recruitment to taking new initiatives)
So far I have applied to 5 schools and got ding from 3 without interview :( .
INSEAD: Dinged w/o interview
LBS : Dinged w/o interview
Wharton : Dinged w/o interview
Harvard : Not received an interview so presumably another ding.
HKUST (Hong kong) : In review

I think my low GMAT hurted my applications a lot :(. I am trying to identify all the weak aspects of my applications so that I can put up a better application next year. Since most of these schools don't provide any feedback I would appreciate if any of the admits/alums from these schools can review my essays. Your opinion/suggestions may help me to improve my profile over next one year.
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Not knowing your essays, the only obvious fact is your GMAT Verbal as you yourself know.
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 28 Dec 2008, 08:47
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Was out of town..so posting late.. My profile

Profile:IT/Male/27 yrs/750/B.Tech. - IIT /7.5 GPA / WE 6 years by Fall 09 (currently in my 4th company)
Average ECs,

School: Duke
Status: Accepted

School: Darden
Status: Interview, Withdrawn

I believe I understand how society functions in India in general and in less developed states such as Bihar in particular. I emphasized on this in my essays.

Didn't get my essays reviewed by anyone but my wife, and she did a great job at it.
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 28 Dec 2008, 11:26
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Hi everyone,
did any body think about course of action for no-cosignor loan?
If you have any actionable plan for the same pl. post it.
thanx
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 29 Dec 2008, 19:44
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One of my friends corrected a big mistake I made throughout the applications. The past tense of "Lead" is "Led". I have been using Lead everywhere unknown to the fact that I was making a mistake. I thought lead is like read. What a stupidity...
One of the possible reasons for my dings so far.
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 29 Dec 2008, 19:48
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aakashganga
One of my friends corrected a big mistake I made throughout the applications. The past tense of "Lead" is "Led". I have been using Lead everywhere unknown to the fact that I was making a mistake. I thought lead is like read. What a stupidity...
One of the possible reasons for my dings so far.
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I did that same thing in one of my drafts but corrected it during review.
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 29 Dec 2008, 22:40
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mbaleader
Hi everyone,
did any body think about course of action for no-cosignor loan?
If you have any actionable plan for the same pl. post it.
thanx
Show more

Not yet. I have been making posts in every forum. It seems that quorum is not there for any collective action ( such as, collective co-signing etc.)

It seems this will be an individual effort to find out co-signer with minimum chance of success.
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fall09
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 30 Dec 2008, 07:38
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Does anyone know how b-schools rank Indian univs? Keep aside IITs and RECs.

Bomaby univ
Banglore univ
Madras/Anna univ
Andhra univ....
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pm4553
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fall09
Does anyone know how b-schools rank Indian univs? Keep aside IITs and RECs.

Bomaby univ
Banglore univ
Madras/Anna univ
Andhra univ....
Show more

Do they? I dont know if the university makes a big difference, provided you have a degree (not a fake one :) ). Schools have a background check though (Kroll, generally).
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Profile:Indian/Male/26 yrs/GMAT 690 (Verbal 90%ile, Quant 75%ile)/B.S in Comp Science (GPA 3.3/4.0)/5 yrs experience/ IT Consultant
Good leadership and average ECs.

Possible Differentiating Factors: 1 year work experience in Saudi Arabia. Undergraduate degree from University of Michigan. Higher Verbal Score than Quant. Advanced Licensed Scuba Diver. Clear goals. Essays (especially the LOC for Duke).

School:ISB
Status:Dinged with interview

School: Duke R1
Status: Accepted

School: Kellogg
Status: Interviewed

School: Stern
Status: Awaiting Interview
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 30 Dec 2008, 09:46
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filmcity
mbaleader
Hi everyone,
did any body think about course of action for no-cosignor loan?
If you have any actionable plan for the same pl. post it.
thanx

Not yet. I have been making posts in every forum. It seems that quorum is not there for any collective action ( such as, collective co-signing etc.)

It seems this will be an individual effort to find out co-signer with minimum chance of success.
Show more

Filmcity,
Its not going to be that easy. co-signing in US means that the person not only undertakes to repay the loan in case of default, but more than that his credit history and with that availability of credit and interest rates worsens for him. I am also trying to find some friend who can co-sign for me, but then i am not too optimistic. We have option to take loan from Indian bank and I did fairly good research with all banks, seems that central bank of India (20 lakhs limit) charges 10.5% and corporation bank (25 lakhs )charges 10.75%. the rates will fall further by another percent by March. the problem is with limits (20 lakhs only) and repayment period just being 5-7years. looking to visa processing etc. we need to sort it out earlier.
on facebook , i exchanged posts with few students and every one seems to be in same boat, I sent a mail to Salie Mae and they also said co-signor is must. only one option, we may explore would be with the school itself giving some leevay>. I was wondering can we propose to the school for indirect tution credit i.e. deferred tution payment (say we pay half tution as it is due, and other half deferred to say in year 2012 and 2013 for first year and second year respectively)?
How is that? (school is financing or sort of giving loan to we internationals!!!!!!) 8-)
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! Updated on: 30 Dec 2008, 10:42
Originally posted by abhyudaya on 30 Dec 2008, 10:29.
Last edited by abhyudaya on 30 Dec 2008, 10:42, edited 1 time in total.
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The main problem with school giving the loans is that they need to have the logistics such as repayment mechanisms etc. in place. Certain schools such as Kellogg already have these in place, and so are finding it easier to provide loans. For other schools, the best option is to become sort of cosigners.

For visa, we need to show the proof of funds (tuition+living) only for the 1st year.
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 30 Dec 2008, 10:39
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mbaleader

Filmcity,
Its not going to be that easy. co-signing in US means that the person not only undertakes to repay the loan in case of default, but more than that his credit history and with that availability of credit and interest rates worsens for him. I am also trying to find some friend who can co-sign for me, but then i am not too optimistic. We have option to take loan from Indian bank and I did fairly good research with all banks, seems that central bank of India (20 lakhs limit) charges 10.5% and corporation bank (25 lakhs )charges 10.75%. the rates will fall further by another percent by March. the problem is with limits (20 lakhs only) and repayment period just being 5-7years. looking to visa processing etc. we need to sort it out earlier.
on facebook , i exchanged posts with few students and every one seems to be in same boat, I sent a mail to Salie Mae and they also said co-signor is must. only one option, we may explore would be with the school itself giving some leevay>. I was wondering can we propose to the school for indirect tution credit i.e. deferred tution payment (say we pay half tution as it is due, and other half deferred to say in year 2012 and 2013 for first year and second year respectively)?
How is that? (school is financing or sort of giving loan to we internationals!!!!!!) 8-)
Show more

Good suggestion on Schools giving loan. Some schools are already having these, such as Tuck has DELC ( Darthmouth Educational Loan something). But the problem is that baring few ( such as Kellogg), they also ask for co-signer ( DELC asks).

About the loan from Indian bank. some bank insists that if you are taking other loans to finance the rest of the expenditure then they will not pay. But they will not pay the full amount either. I think, SBI and some PSU banks dont follow this stupid logic but HDFC, BoB for sure follows these. Good point on corporation bank, I need to visit them soon.

Lets keep this discussion going....
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 30 Dec 2008, 11:16
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filmcity
mbaleader

Filmcity,
Its not going to be that easy. co-signing in US means that the person not only undertakes to repay the loan in case of default, but more than that his credit history and with that availability of credit and interest rates worsens for him. I am also trying to find some friend who can co-sign for me, but then i am not too optimistic. We have option to take loan from Indian bank and I did fairly good research with all banks, seems that central bank of India (20 lakhs limit) charges 10.5% and corporation bank (25 lakhs )charges 10.75%. the rates will fall further by another percent by March. the problem is with limits (20 lakhs only) and repayment period just being 5-7years. looking to visa processing etc. we need to sort it out earlier.
on facebook , i exchanged posts with few students and every one seems to be in same boat, I sent a mail to Salie Mae and they also said co-signor is must. only one option, we may explore would be with the school itself giving some leevay>. I was wondering can we propose to the school for indirect tution credit i.e. deferred tution payment (say we pay half tution as it is due, and other half deferred to say in year 2012 and 2013 for first year and second year respectively)?
How is that? (school is financing or sort of giving loan to we internationals!!!!!!) 8-)

Good suggestion on Schools giving loan. Some schools are already having these, such as Tuck has DELC ( Darthmouth Educational Loan something). But the problem is that baring few ( such as Kellogg), they also ask for co-signer ( DELC asks).

About the loan from Indian bank. some bank insists that if you are taking other loans to finance the rest of the expenditure then they will not pay. But they will not pay the full amount either. I think, SBI and some PSU banks dont follow this stupid logic but HDFC, BoB for sure follows these. Good point on corporation bank, I need to visit them soon.

Lets keep this discussion going....
Show more

Taking loans from Indian banks and giving it to US schools..is this our way to help US ride over the credit crisis? Maybe I sound a bit disgruntled, but thats how I am at present !!
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Indian Admits 2009 : Keep all desi discussions here! 30 Dec 2008, 12:32
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This may seem a rather dumb question. But anyone in the situation where you are on your 6th Year on H1B and don't have your GC and applying for a Full Time MBA? Basically don't you have to take a job outside the country and then come back to restart a new H1 after your MBA?

Essentially, switch from current H1 to F1 and then do you reapply for a new H1 in the US? Don't you have to be outside the country for atleast one year before taking a new H1.

Thanks all
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