Application tips

I have been receiving a lot of queries lately regarding the application process. I will be associated with the admission task force at ISB this year as well. In this post I'd like to give some general pointers regarding the entire process which may be applicable to any MBA app not necessarily ISB. Disclaimer: The following comments are my own and not ISB's.
1. Research: Please go through the school website. Almost all info about a school from application perspective would be present there. And please do your homework before calling someone at the school about stuff that is easily available at the site. This goes for interview advice as well as many people ask interviewers very obvious questions on placement stats curriculum etc -this has a negative impact on perception.
2. Recommendations: Ideally the immediate supervisor would be the best possible person. For second recommender, a client or a team senior both work equally well, in my opinion. Use the recommenders to tell stories or bring out aspects that hasn't been addressed by the essays 9due to space constraint or some other reasons). Recommendations can also be used to reinforce tall claims by providing validity.
3. Read up on blogs by current students or talk to them about unique aspects of the school. Mentioning one or two unique incidents or insights can be a differentiating factor in the application.
4. One of the most frequent questions I have come across is that "I am from IT. I have had experiences that would be similar to most applicants so how do I differentiate myself?". The differentiating factor to my mind is actually not in the experience but the learning. Just as in a class of 60 people, each person is taught the same thing but in an exam the marks scored vary widely...because of the difference in learning, so even with the same expereince, different people would learn different things. Thus communicate clearly what you learnt and how that will help the student body at your school.
5. Don't overemphasize your extracurrics: In a bid to differentiate themselves, many people fall into the trap of underplaying their work exp and overemphasizing their extracurricular experiences. Please DON'T do so as you will be admitted based on your work ex and not on your social or xc involvement.
6. Admission consultants: This is a tricky area. If you have some money to spare, you may go ahead and take professional help. I didn't and I doubt too many people in India would. However, I would highly recommend availing the free consultation offers that many renowned admission consultants offer. You have absolutely nothing to lose and would gain a valuable 3rd person perspective on where you stand at least on paper. I did take such free advice which did boost my confidence.

If you take care of the aqbove ground rules, you should be good...
I have missed out on the biggest factor that may make the difference between an admit and a ding which is luck. Off course you can't do anything about that. But in my experience I have found that the harder I work, the luckier I get. So I would suggest just work hard and leave the rest to the person above.

ISB essay update

I am struggling with the ISB essays. I thought things have settled down and all the essays were in shape but a recent reviewer says, that the material is good but the presentation isn't. I'm now in the process of re-vamping my essays from scratch, especially the 1st one.
I feel that the essays lack one important question: Why MBA? (and also why ISB). There just isn't a place to put in Y MBA and my career goals. I feel that my career goal and why MBA are some of my differentiating factors. May be I can utilize the optional essay for this.

This have been quite "normal" at office. We are organizing a humorous speech contest next week. In order to prepare for that, I am switching between writing ISB student body presidential contest speech, humorous speech, responding to Zumba residents' protests and convincing ISB why they should take me. So life is good.

In toastmasters, I have now delivered 5 speeches. Next Wednesday it'll be my 6th speech. So pretty good going there. I hope I'm able to complete CL by this month and CC by Oct.
I'll post some of my past speeches next

Schools shortlisted and essay update

I have recently been reading up on a lot of blogs. I must say I was particularly impressed with Raja Banerjee's blog: http://isbpgp.blogspot.com/ on life pre, during and post ISB.
It gives one a clear snapshot of life in the great school.
ISB is certainly on top of my list.The question is, how realistic are my chances there. My GMAT certainly isn't my distinguishing factor. My work profile is varied but I'm not sure whether it can be my USP. So that just leaves me with XCs and community work. And certainly the essays.
The first 2 essays are a bit overlapping, I feel. Which experience to include in diversity essay and which one in leadership? Since I'm new to the whole application procedure, I'm also unsure about which aspects should be highlighted and how. Amidst all these confusions, I have just decided to stick to the thing I know best in this world. Me. I'll just let things flow. It's difficult (and risky) to second guess the Adcom's views. So I wouldn't try.
I had asked an ex-colleague to review the first drafts of the essays and had requested him to be frank in his feedback. Boy, was he frank! Excoriating-ly (is that even a word?) so. But he has awesome insights and has pointed out amazing things. No wonder he's made it to LBS this year! Another thing I worry about ISB is the lack of international experience. But as this colleague of mine says, this is not the time to focus on the have-nots but rather the time to focus on the have's. Time certainly is running out.

I figure that if I'm to have any chance to gain admission to any of the top schools, R1 is the way to go.

So, the colleges I've sent my scores to and the respective deadlines are:
ISB-15 Sep
Fuqua-Oct 15(EA)
Darden-Oct 28(EA?)
UNC-Oct 24(EA)
Emory-?

I'll not apply for the early action rounds as that means a payment of the huge acceptance fees before ISB's decision. I don't really have that much money to spare. In fact I'm not very sure about apping to all of the schools either. Miss Emory being schol friendly would certainly be getting a love letter from urs truly but mademoiselles Fuqua and Darden, being such up uptown girls may not be hearing from plebeian me.

Over and out