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13 Jan 2008, 16:05
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ncprasad
If you target only the UE schools with no backups, then I would suggest revising your application strategy. You need backup schools as well.
Other issues which restrict Indian acceptances is the sheer volume. With all schools talking about diversity, it means they can`t fill a school with people all of the same background and similar future goals. It doesn`t make for a great learning environment. Furthermore, with restrictions on work visas, schools are probably aware that it may affect their statistics.
As for the steroetype, doesn`t affect me, I work with lots of Indians and visit Bangalore as part of my job, so I`m well aware of how good (and how bad) some of the workers are. I`m also well conversed in `Bangalore-Time`
. A lot of the better engineers from Wipro/Infosys et al, tend to get poached by other companies, and I`ve met quite a few excellent specialists and consultants. 
13 Jan 2008, 20:56
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Ncprasad’s MBA Story – Part 1 : The MBA Decision
I never thought that I would one day be applying to business school. Like most young engineers in the Indian IT sector, I thought that MBA grads are there just to make up fantastic stories about how our software rocks and how our <insert outlandish buzz word here> business model is better than that of all the other companies around, so that clients will give us business. In fact, I had a fair amount of disrespect for MBAs. In my mind, they were too snooty, too lazy and certainly no good. Years rolled on and my views that MBAs are nothing but glorified over-paid power point professionals had not changed that much since the early days of my career.
It was years later when the MBA question came up. I was in the US and was managing a bunch of smart folks who were more intelligent than me and had more ambition than I had. The “Star” team member on my team came in one day and asked me if I would recommend him for business school admission. Obviously, I wanted him to continue working for me. So, I challenged him to convince me how and why an MBA will help him and what it can do for his career that his current job wont do. That conversation opened my eyes and I saw the great benefits that an MBA could offer for me. I helped that guy get into Tepper, he went on to get a great job at Booz and I was inspired, more than ever. Then, reality set in.
I was married and a kid was on the way. There were numerous other family commitments to fulfill. I thought through and decided that an MBA is not in my future. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but family came first. The possibility of an MBA was relegated to unknown confines, somewhere deep inside my mind.
Life went on. I progressed at work, but could still sense emptiness within me. It was not the money or prestige. I simply hated the mundane nature of my work and wanted new challenges to satisfy my intellectual appetite. Perhaps motivated by this, a group of friends and I started an IT start up focusing on developing software targeting the municipal governance sector. We had fun, made a lot of great contacts at top government agencies, won an award for our software and basically accomplished a lot more than we set out to do. The possibility of working for myself and taking this casual enterprise to the next level re-ignited my desire to pursue an MBA. After talking to an enormous amount of folks, I finally decided to take the plunge and apply.
The first thing I found out about the MBA is that it costs a lot to get one. Well, at least a decent one costs a lot. Usually upwards of $ 100,000. Convert this into Indian Rupees(we desi folks have this habit you know!), and I was looking at a huge expense. It was a WTF moment. I couldn’t believe that people would quit a good job, and spend enormous amount of money on a 2-year degree that may or may not make a difference to their careers. So, I decided to be a smart ass and decided to pursue an EMBA from Thunderbird. Nice school, was ranked #1 in International Business(
), and my company was going to move me to Phoenix very soon. Thunderbird seemed like a great option.
So, I went to my manager(an IIM-A graduate) and asked him if the company would support me for an EMBA. He said “Yes”, and then advised me that there is a HUGE difference between an EMBA from T-bird and an FT MBA from a top 20 school. More than all the salary and job profile info that he shared, what struck me was his confidence in my ability to succeed at a top MBA program. Over a period of 1 year, he constantly quizzed me about my MBA search, and egged me on to take it more seriously. Then, a colleague of mine told me to stop worrying about the type of MBA and start worrying about the GMAT because I had to take it no matter what. Apparently I had to take this exam and get a score of 700+(what a weird scoring system, I think) because I have a cookie-cutter profile (More on this later). At the end, he told me to register at this website called https://www.gmatclub.com. And I did. The rest, as they say, is history.
The history lesson will continue sometime next week...
I never thought that I would one day be applying to business school. Like most young engineers in the Indian IT sector, I thought that MBA grads are there just to make up fantastic stories about how our software rocks and how our <insert outlandish buzz word here> business model is better than that of all the other companies around, so that clients will give us business. In fact, I had a fair amount of disrespect for MBAs. In my mind, they were too snooty, too lazy and certainly no good. Years rolled on and my views that MBAs are nothing but glorified over-paid power point professionals had not changed that much since the early days of my career.
It was years later when the MBA question came up. I was in the US and was managing a bunch of smart folks who were more intelligent than me and had more ambition than I had. The “Star” team member on my team came in one day and asked me if I would recommend him for business school admission. Obviously, I wanted him to continue working for me. So, I challenged him to convince me how and why an MBA will help him and what it can do for his career that his current job wont do. That conversation opened my eyes and I saw the great benefits that an MBA could offer for me. I helped that guy get into Tepper, he went on to get a great job at Booz and I was inspired, more than ever. Then, reality set in.
I was married and a kid was on the way. There were numerous other family commitments to fulfill. I thought through and decided that an MBA is not in my future. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but family came first. The possibility of an MBA was relegated to unknown confines, somewhere deep inside my mind.
Life went on. I progressed at work, but could still sense emptiness within me. It was not the money or prestige. I simply hated the mundane nature of my work and wanted new challenges to satisfy my intellectual appetite. Perhaps motivated by this, a group of friends and I started an IT start up focusing on developing software targeting the municipal governance sector. We had fun, made a lot of great contacts at top government agencies, won an award for our software and basically accomplished a lot more than we set out to do. The possibility of working for myself and taking this casual enterprise to the next level re-ignited my desire to pursue an MBA. After talking to an enormous amount of folks, I finally decided to take the plunge and apply.
The first thing I found out about the MBA is that it costs a lot to get one. Well, at least a decent one costs a lot. Usually upwards of $ 100,000. Convert this into Indian Rupees(we desi folks have this habit you know!), and I was looking at a huge expense. It was a WTF moment. I couldn’t believe that people would quit a good job, and spend enormous amount of money on a 2-year degree that may or may not make a difference to their careers. So, I decided to be a smart ass and decided to pursue an EMBA from Thunderbird. Nice school, was ranked #1 in International Business(
), and my company was going to move me to Phoenix very soon. Thunderbird seemed like a great option.So, I went to my manager(an IIM-A graduate) and asked him if the company would support me for an EMBA. He said “Yes”, and then advised me that there is a HUGE difference between an EMBA from T-bird and an FT MBA from a top 20 school. More than all the salary and job profile info that he shared, what struck me was his confidence in my ability to succeed at a top MBA program. Over a period of 1 year, he constantly quizzed me about my MBA search, and egged me on to take it more seriously. Then, a colleague of mine told me to stop worrying about the type of MBA and start worrying about the GMAT because I had to take it no matter what. Apparently I had to take this exam and get a score of 700+(what a weird scoring system, I think) because I have a cookie-cutter profile (More on this later). At the end, he told me to register at this website called https://www.gmatclub.com. And I did. The rest, as they say, is history.
The history lesson will continue sometime next week...
