ncprasad wrote:
Can you share some info from your cofee chat?
ok here goes but remember I'm no rhyme or lepium so if you havent dozed off by the time you get to the end of it, then I have done a great job
Ethics and Leadership: It will be to your great benefit if you can use these to differentiate yourselves. Even admitted students struggle to be successful in these areas.
MAP is a great experience. Shikhin was part of a team that was reporting to the #2 person in a Fortune 300 company. Some teams were even reporting to the CEO's of the companies they were assigned to. So you can guess that MAP must be very serious business at Ross. You do have a professor who mentors you but you really are on your own with your team. There is great teamwork in some teams and there is infighting in some teams - wherever you find yourself, you should try to remove the roadblocks for your team. At the end of the project you will optionally write 2 strengths and weaknesses for each member of your team, and so must everyone in the team. This is done in front of the class, on the board. This step is optional but is meant to be a learning experience.
If like me you are considering taking the entrepreneurship route after your MBA then bear in mind that there are many with similar plans who apply to Ross and aspiring entreprenuers need to bring out more passion and drive in their applications than applicants interested in other career paths.
The present expansion at Ross should be complete in time for those entering the school in Fall'08 to take full advantage of the new facilities, which are also expected to have a positive effect on the rankings for Ross.
The Business Idea Competition at Ross is geared towards helping students refine the business plans. The competition consists of 3 rounds. If your idea doesn't make it past the first round it doesn't get rejected, Ross helps you refine your idea to get it into the second round. This could sometimes result in an idea going through the first round many times but stay with the idea and it will go through to the second round. All ideas in the competition are taken seriously.
Ross is also placing great emphasis on Negotiation - it was earlier taught in just 1 term but now it is to be taught in all 4 terms. Obvoisly this is a skill Ross considers critical.
It's very easy to form a community at Ross. Just say it and you are done.
He also said the first term is the toughest. It's best to have an updated resume ready before entering the first term. You won't get much time once term starts. Everything goes by in a flash mainly because you are struggling to come to grips with the vastness of everything around you.
Simply finishing your MBA is not enough to land a job. You will need to differentiate yourself through whatever you have done during the MBA. Attending classes and getting good grades won't work.
Ross has a great reputation. Shikhin's visa interview was an easy, pleasant one all due to Ross' reputation.
Ross alumni is among the friendliest. At alumni meets, Shikhin found even the IB alumni to be a friendly lot.
While preparing for his application to Ross, Shikhin would think about what he had done and write down things as and when they came to mind. He didn't go through any admissions consultant. He didn't use any reference books. He did buy the Montauk book but never read it.
His advice to international students was it doesn't matter if we are not able to visit the Ross campus but we must reasearch as much as we can on Ross and connect with the admissions department and the students and alumni.
For us Indian applicants, he had something more to say, he said B-schools recieve apps from the world over and the apps are from diverse backgrounds but about 95% of the apps from India are the same and about 80% are from IT people.