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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
Every top school receives applications from many more qualified applicants than they can possibly admit in a year, so that's why they focus so much on differentiation. When adcoms ask about differentiation or how you are different from other applicants, what the adcom wants to know is what makes you unique as an individual. If your entire description of who you are is defined by what you do at work, you're not going to seem like the dynamic, interesting student that the adcom will want to admit. My advice is to look beyond what you've done at work and talk more about what makes you you.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
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Jerz wrote:
Every top school receives applications from many more qualified applicants than they can possibly admit in a year, so that's why they focus so much on differentiation. When adcoms ask about differentiation or how you are different from other applicants, what the adcom wants to know is what makes you unique as an individual. If your entire description of who you are is defined by what you do at work, you're not going to seem like the dynamic, interesting student that the adcom will want to admit. My advice is to look beyond what you've done at work and talk more about what makes you you.


yes and that is where things like academic background, ECs, awards, faster than average career velocity, etc come in.
You're not unique because you like drawing. The next guy could like reading and the one after could like watching movies. How do these interests make you unique?

Unique by definition means apart from the rest of the herd. You can stand apart by doing the same thing differently (extraordinarily well) or doing different things. IMO the OP is going to focus on doing the same thing the same way which doesn't make him different and only hurts his application.


DISCLAIMER: I am only talking about US schools. I have not looked at the ISB application and don't know the essay questions or their requirements.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
gmatbschool wrote:
Jerz wrote:
Every top school receives applications from many more qualified applicants than they can possibly admit in a year, so that's why they focus so much on differentiation. When adcoms ask about differentiation or how you are different from other applicants, what the adcom wants to know is what makes you unique as an individual. If your entire description of who you are is defined by what you do at work, you're not going to seem like the dynamic, interesting student that the adcom will want to admit. My advice is to look beyond what you've done at work and talk more about what makes you you.


yes and that is where things like academic background, ECs, awards, faster than average career velocity, etc come in.
You're not unique because you like drawing. The next guy could like reading and the one after could like watching movies. How do these interests make you unique?

Unique by definition means apart from the rest of the herd. You can stand apart by doing the same thing differently (extraordinarily well) or doing different things. IMO the OP is going to focus on doing the same thing the same way which doesn't make him different and only hurts his application.


DISCLAIMER: I am only talking about US schools. I have not looked at the ISB application and don't know the essay questions or their requirements.


Though I have used drawing as just an example, but I strongly believe if someone had done something significant in the field of fine arts, he should mention the same in his application. By significant, I mean participation in some exhibitions, competitions etc of some fame, may be state level or national level.

Even, I believe US schools would also be stressing on diversity stuff. May be its not there as one of the essay topics, thats another thing. Check out this link of Harvard:
https://www.hbs.edu/mba/profiles/classprofile.html
The first line starts with "A truly diverse student body....blah blah blah". :)
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
A truly diverse student body — in background, nationality, interests and ambitions —

background: IT
nationality: Indian
interests: Cricket, Bollywood
ambitions: Next Dhirubhai or Narayan Murthy

Not sure how adcom deals with these stats :)
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
My point is that diversity isn't just about your interests (cricket and bollywood).
It is FIRST AND FOREMOST your experiences and your approach to problems.

Think of it this way - most b-school applicants are finance and consulting folks. They have a very corporate, straightforward and analytical approach to problems. Do you have a track record of proposing and implementing crazy solutions? or maybe rallying people together to work together? Or challenging authority/underlying assumptions.

Diversity goes beyond nationality and what movies you like to watch. Don't box yourself into the the cookie cutter definitions of "diverse".
By making statements like (say) "I am different from other Indian IT males because I don't like cricket", you're condoning the stereotype and screwing yourself.

And by the way, if YOU can't come up with good reasons why you're a better fit for this school than the next "Indian IT male" then don't expect the adcom to brainstorm on yourself.


Just my $0.02. I'm done now :)
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
gmatbschool wrote:
By making statements like (say) "I am different from other Indian IT males because I don't like cricket"


btw, I really liked this statement. I'm sure there would be hardly 1-2% Indian males NOT liking cricket. This would certainly be a unique quality of an Indian IT male. I wish adcom understand this.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
bigoyal wrote:
gmatbschool wrote:
By making statements like (say) "I am different from other Indian IT males because I don't like cricket"


btw, I really liked this statement. I'm sure there would be hardly 1-2% Indian males NOT liking cricket. This would certainly be a unique quality of an Indian IT male. I wish adcom understand this.


you totally missed my point but oh well... :)
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
Some interesting posts in here .... generally I would say dont worry about what you cant control. Thus, you cant change the fact that you are Indian, Male and have worked in IT.

What you can control is how you present your story to the AdCom. Well rounded essays demonstrating varied interests will be what separates the wheat from the chaff.

So focus on writing ... control what you can. Dont sweat the rest.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
gmatbschool wrote:
bigoyal wrote:
gmatbschool wrote:
By making statements like (say) "I am different from other Indian IT males because I don't like cricket"


btw, I really liked this statement. I'm sure there would be hardly 1-2% Indian males NOT liking cricket. This would certainly be a unique quality of an Indian IT male. I wish adcom understand this.


you totally missed my point but oh well... :)


I was just kidding. Believe me, I haven't missed any of your points. I agree that I cannot distinguish myself from others by saying I don't love cricket, or by saying I love drawing or reading etc. I agree on lot of things you are saying.

But I think you are stressing more on professional attributes, achievements and leadership skills. Whereas I believe that personal attributes are equally important. A cricket team captain (maybe just in your city club) is also a leadership quality. One may not be different from others in his/her office, but might have done lot of different things outside the office.

In my case, the negative point is that I haven't taken any of my hobbies to great extents. So I agree that it may not be of help in my case. But when writing about personal attributes like communication skills, learning power, smartness etc I feel this is a basic quality that probably AdCom would be looking for, be the candidate from IT or non-IT background.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
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sm332 wrote:
Some interesting posts in here .... generally I would say dont worry about what you cant control. Thus, you cant change the fact that you are Indian, Male and have worked in IT.

What you can control is how you present your story to the AdCom. Well rounded essays demonstrating varied interests will be what separates the wheat from the chaff.

So focus on writing ... control what you can. Dont sweat the rest.


In my opinion, diversity is about your personality, this is mostly on who are you rather than what you did

IT Indian males mostly have good stuff to hightlight

1) you might have worked in say 3 countries ( europe, north america and may be middle east or africa or mexico), you can pretty much project your global mindset, cultural sesitivity and a great exposure
2) You might have worked in a team comprising 3 vendors ( and your so called IT giant may be one of them), you can show case your result oriented mindset ( as per my experiences whenever there are more vendors in a single project, most of them focus on winning the competetor rather working for the client objective) , people/relationship management etc
3) You might have wrote business proposals or participated in presales , these experiences will help you demonstrate your superior thought process ( writing a apt winning solution would definetely be impossible without an excellent thought process) , excellent negotiation skills etc

the lists goes on.....................

apart from this, as per my understanding from many IT males in top schools is that adcoms already know IT Males/Females would have good analytical skills , team work and superior dedication/commitment towards work. So although we all fall in the ocean of IT male applicant, its all in the essays chosing the right examples to exhibit your skills. I think ultimately applicants from any backgroud would project analytical skills, leadership, interpersonal skills and strong ambition to achieve even though the groud they proved their skills is different. So my opinion is to make an essay interesting, supply what the school needs from an applicant and never ever show that you have even a slightest feeling of being at the disadvantage end because of your IT background
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
I really liked the idea mentioned in 3rd point. It would certainly be a positive point, provided one has indulged in those activities.

Mentioning point 1 and 2 would be a added advantage, but I think these would be true for almost all IT techies. But still one can make the difference by the way he/she portrays this in the essays, may be by mentioning the points on the learnings or challenges he/she faced with different vendors.

Recently I had a talk with ISB alumni. I was trying to understand if I highlight my experience, which is from 2 giant companies. The answer was that almost all the applicants try to highlight this point :P yak
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
bigoyal wrote:
I really liked the idea mentioned in 3rd point. It would certainly be a positive point, provided one has indulged in those activities.

Mentioning point 1 and 2 would be a added advantage, but I think these would be true for almost all IT techies. But still one can make the difference by the way he/she portrays this in the essays, may be by mentioning the points on the learnings or challenges he/she faced with different vendors.

Recently I had a talk with ISB alumni. I was trying to understand if I highlight my experience, which is from 2 giant companies. The answer was that almost all the applicants try to highlight this point :P yak


Hi Bigoyal,

Can you be specific on what not to mention about our experience in IT giants. This would help us pick the right examples either for achievement or personality traits.....
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
ISBtarget wrote:
bigoyal wrote:
I really liked the idea mentioned in 3rd point. It would certainly be a positive point, provided one has indulged in those activities.

Mentioning point 1 and 2 would be a added advantage, but I think these would be true for almost all IT techies. But still one can make the difference by the way he/she portrays this in the essays, may be by mentioning the points on the learnings or challenges he/she faced with different vendors.

Recently I had a talk with ISB alumni. I was trying to understand if I highlight my experience, which is from 2 giant companies. The answer was that almost all the applicants try to highlight this point :P yak


Hi Bigoyal,

Can you be specific on what not to mention about our experience in IT giants. This would help us pick the right examples either for achievement or personality traits.....


My apologies, if that sound confusing. In my essays I was trying to highlight the name of the IT giants for which I worked. You know I thought that would impress adcom.

But what I came to know that lot of applicants come from companies like IBM, Oracle, TCS, Infosys, etc etc. So if someone says that he/she is from Infosys, I doubt that would impress adcoms. But surely, one can impress adcoms by saying what he/she has learnt from that experience and what he/she can add to the class from that experience (e.g. participation in case-studies, research work or programs etc in the campus).

Anyway, thats my personal opinion.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
well i have read the previous posts and have seen that ppl are quite worried abt being Indian IT. Surely, this comes under an over representative group bt i would like to highlight that in almost all the companies in india the same type of work is done.

I am working in Nokia Siemens Networks as a Solution Expert in a Presales dept., bt believe me we r also doing the copy paste work only. Though we do get to have customer interaction bt still the overall work is nt gr8 that could set apart me frm another IT candidate.
So i dont think that being an IT male is to one's disadvantage. What matters is the quality of work one has done and obviously how u project it. They need ppl with clear goals.

so you cant change what had happened bt u can surely project things to ur advantage.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
paruloberai wrote:
well i have read the previous posts and have seen that ppl are quite worried abt being Indian IT. Surely, this comes under an over representative group bt i would like to highlight that in almost all the companies in india the same type of work is done.

I am working in Nokia Siemens Networks as a Solution Expert in a Presales dept., bt believe me we r also doing the copy paste work only. Though we do get to have customer interaction bt still the overall work is nt gr8 that could set apart me frm another IT candidate.
So i dont think that being an IT male is to one's disadvantage. What matters is the quality of work one has done and obviously how u project it. They need ppl with clear goals.

so you cant change what had happened bt u can surely project things to ur advantage.


I agree. In my case, I had a chance to work very close with customer for around last 2 yrs. I have tried to highlight my achievements while working with clients in my essays. Lets hope for the best :)

Working in Presales dept - that surely a big big plus point for you. You need to add some spice to your success stories and don't tell the copy-paste stuff ;) . This kindda work - e.g. involvement in project management, pre-sales, etc - are really cherished by adcom. I think adcom doesn't want to hear how a hard-core Java programmer created 1 million line code; rather they want to hear big stories of wooing customers, leadership skills etc and how the whole project was successful due to you.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
hey, i am Indian IT male. just graduated with a distinction...working in an investment bank as a trainee-executive....is tht diverse enough??....planning to apply for fall 2012.
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Re: Oh IT/Indian/Male! you are doomed! [#permalink]
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rahuljaiswal wrote:
hey, i am Indian IT male. just graduated with a distinction...working in an investment bank as a trainee-executive....is tht diverse enough??....planning to apply for fall 2012.


Hi rahuljaiswal, thats great to hear that you have started planning for MBA with so much time in hand. Though I'm also one of the candidates like you, probably I would be at a better position to answer your question next yr (if everything goes well according to plan) ;)

Anyway I'll try to give my comments. Could you please elaborate on your role, I mean is it in IT department or are you working as an investment banker ?
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