After "D".....its time for "E" and "F".....

Hey Kkkkkkkkkkiran,
I know you would take ages to understand the title....So let me explain you...the title stands for :
After "D"ing......its time for "E"njoy and "F"un.....


I know its weird...but that is the way i love to live life...

I, along with my friends - Muktesh, Abhishek, Balaji, Medhavi, Sachin, Aurobindo, Sudip and Prabhu, planned for a visit to Vasai beach (and a nearby fort)..Thrill started right from Borivlli station, where we had to board a train to virar and that also in second class coach... And guys who, at any point of time, have been attached to Mumbai would understand that what we were upto...but somehow we were able to get inside the local train...
After picking up Pritam (our project mate who stays in Vasai) from his home, we immediately proceeded towards beach....and our outing started with cricket match...We all got splitted into two teams with captain being Pritam and Abhishek and appointed one person, who was not having much proclivity to cricket, as umpire...I was in Abhishek's team...I would not get into the details of the first match because our team was badly outplayed...But in the second match, preeminent opening partnership between abhishek and sachin set an outstanding platform for our team.
We very well capitalized on that and had put up a decent score on board...and when the opposition team went out to bat, quick wickets in opening spell from muktesh and abhishek precluded any chances of us losing the match...And at the end, we won convincingly...

Well, just after two matches, we were all badly tired....

Then we moved on to have a close look at the sun set on the beach...
the whole group was so full of verve and enthusiasm that we didn't realize how the time passed by.... and moreover the waggish antics of muktesh and sachin caused us all to laugh heartily and merrily....We made up a plan to have a camp-fire near fort but then decided to procrastinate the same to some other weekend....But overall, it was a real good fun....wish to have more weekends like this...

But today, I am feeling pain all over the body.....too much exertion while playing cricket cost me...but that also gave me a pretext to drop out the idea of going for shopping with my GF...

"Money Saved is Money Earned"

And the moment when I am penning down this, Sri Lankans have stolen a victory from right under the Indians' nose, a victory that seemed to be a cakewalk at one moment. But a cakewalk at times can be slippery because of the icing on it. That is what exactly happened and the Indian innings collapsed like a house of cards. But it was really joyous moment for me to see England pulling off an amazing win after beating Australia 2-0 in the Commonwealth Bank series amidst great drama and high emotions. Is this the beginning of the end of a cricketing dynasty which ruled for over a decade???

bye
jai

"D" sucks ---> "D" for Darden School of Business, "D" for Decision and "D" for Ding

Hey Kkkkkkkkkiran,
After few happy days/news, something heart breaking: "Rejection from Darden School of Business - University of Virginia"......

Mail from Darden Admission Committee :

"After careful consideration, the Admissions Committee regrets that it cannot act favorably on your application for admission to the Darden School MBA program. We can admit only a small number of those who apply to our program and must make difficult choices in allocating the available spaces. In most cases, there is no single reason for a decision not to offer an applicant admission. Your application received a thorough review by the Admissions Committee. Thank you for your interest in the Darden School. We wish you success in pursuing graduate management study and in your future career."

Frankly speaking, I was very much optimistic for this application and why should I not be??? With similiar changes or modifications (learnings from previous applications), I have earned an interview invite from Stern, a very high ranked school and not very well known for lots of interview invites....and then from Darden, not even an interview invite....

Well, the possible reason might be "I was reapplicant to Darden".....Last year when I applied, my short term and long term goals were different from what i mentioned in this year's applications (hmmm thats true my goals changed within an year..i know it sounds weird..)...This might have been enough for admission committee to raise eyebrows...

Anyways life moves on.....Rightly said by one of my friend today: " i am sure it doesnt hurt as bad as it would have hurt last week.."...I think he is right...

Lets see what turns up for other schools...Till then lets enjoy Simon-Admit....

Planning to go to Vasai (beach and fort) tomorrow for a small outing with my friends......

bye
jai

Admit from Simon School of Business

Hey kkkkkkkkiran,

What do you say about this mail from Simon School of Business (Univ of Rochester)?

"I am very pleased to inform you that you have been chosen to attend the Simon Graduate School of Business beginning September 2007. Congratulations on your admission to candidacy for the degree, Master of Business Administration!

I am also pleased to inform you that you have been awarded a scholarship equal to 30 percent of your tuition each quarter. This award requires you to enroll as a full-time matriculated student. This scholarship will be extended to your second year at the same rate provided you maintain a B average (3.0/4.0) and will continue through the remaining required Simon M.B.A. courses. These scholarships are awarded to candidates whose outstanding achievements place them among those we would most like to enroll at Simon. "


MY FIRST ADMIT OF THIS YEAR....So Now all set for MBA....

Well.....a long long long wait ends...and here comes my first admit of the year...so what if it is from one of my safer schools...Considering the competition this year and the way simon had rejected good profiles, I was not that much optimistic or sure about the results... but my application proved to be strong enough to the school at least in case of Simon....

As I want to pursue MBA in finance, Simon (ranked worldwide 5th in finance , 4th in economics and 5th in accounting education) is not a bad choice........
And most important is its location...east coast and very much near to new york...that means more proximity to jobs in finance....

Just FYI, putting down the simon's rank worldwide under different categories:
(Source: FT)
*************************************************
North American salaries today ---> Not in top 10

Top salaries in finance and banking ---> Not in top 10

Top salaries in consulting ---> Not in top 10

Top salaries in industry ---> Not in top 10

Best in finance --->
1 University of Chicago GSB
2 New York University: Stern
3 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
4 Columbia Business School
5 University of Rochester: Simon
6 London Business School
7 University of Toronto: Rotman
8 Rice University: Jones
9 MIT: Sloan
10 Coppead

Best in entrepreneurship ---> Not in top 10

Best in economics --->

1 University of Chicago GSB
2 Cranfield School of Management
3 MIT: Sloan
4 University of Rochester: Simon
5 UC Berkeley: Haas
6 Yale School of Management
7 Imperial College London: Tanaka
8 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
9 Iese Business School
10 Stanford University GSB

Best in accountancy --->

1 Brigham Young University: Marriott
2 University of Texas at Austin: McCombs
3 University of Chicago GSB
4 Cornell University: Johnson
5 University of Rochester: Simon
6 University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
7 University of Notre Dame: Mendoza
8 Dartmouth College: Tuck
9 Columbia Business School
10 University of Iowa: Tippie

Best in international business ---> Not in top 10

Best in general management ---> Not in top 10

Best in organisational behaviour ---> Not in top 10
*************************************************

I would wait for the results on my other applications before sending my offer acceptance to simon.

Well, Update on my other applications are as follows:

Stern --> Alumni Interview in March (date would be confirmed by Feb end)
Darden ---> Still waiting for Interview call, decision date is 09th Feb 2007, So I feel Ding is on the way....
Tepper---> Interview over, Result by 12th March 2007
Haas ---> Application under review (waiting for an interview call)
UCLA ---> Application under review (waiting for an interview call)
Ross ---> Application under review (waiting for an interview call)
Duke ---> Application under review (I requested for alumni interview but admission committte was not able to arrange one for me and informed me later that interviews not required for admission but as 95% of admitted students are interviewed, I believe, Duke is going to be another reject for me)

My Priorities right now (assuming I get admit from all...:))))))...........)

1. Stern
2. Ross
3. Duke
4. Darden
5. Haas / UCLA
6. Tepper
7. Simon

Anyways, its party time right now.........

thanks
jai

Tepper Interview Experience

Hi Kkkkkkkiran,
Here goes my tepper interview experience...
8:30 PM (IST) --> I was at doctor's clinic getting my checkup done as I was having fever and headache for last 2 weeks
and
2nd Feb 2007, 10:00 PM (IST) ---> tepper interview

That was not an ideal preparation for an interview of a school like Carnegie mellon (Tepper school of Business)......took medicine before my interview so as to avoid headache....and by 9:45 PM itself, i was under soporific effect of medicines....

Anyways, my phone rang at sharp 10:00 PM and my "hello" was responded by a sweet voice - "Hi, This is Gwen calling from Tepper School of Business..."
After initial talks, my interview started......and most of the questions were pretty straight forward...
The Questions were as follows: ( i hope i have managed to amass most of the questions...)


Walk me through your resume?
Career Aspirations?
Why Tepper?
How would you bring diversity to the tepper community?
Leadership example?
Red Flag and Green Flag in your application?
Any questions...


It lasted for 23 minutes....

Although, nothing went badly amiss in my answers but somehow i was not satisfied at the end....may be because interview was pretty straightforward....
She asked question...i answered
She asked question..i answered
even there were no follow up questions...not sure whether i should call it as "conversation" - a word often used for MBA interviews...

Infact, one of the member of PG community had already mentioned in one of his posts "the interview will be a regular run-of-the-mill thing with standard questions and standard answers." And now i believe that he was right....

If I would rate my Simon interview as 7/10, then I would rate tepper interview as 6/10....may be because in Simon interview (an alumni face-to-face interview), I was able to guess from the body language of interviewer whether he has been impressed or is interested in my profile but it becomes very difficult in case of a telephonic interview....I think that is the reason why people always prefer face-to-face interview...

Results on PG forum for tepper R1 have not been very encouraging...

Total applications - 10
Admitted - 1 (10%)
Waitlisted - 5 (50%)
Rejected - 4 (40%)

Still I would keep my fingers crossed....and hope for the best...Result from tepper expected by 12th March...It had been my journey of more than 4-5 months (since i have finished my GMAT in september) and still waiting to have an admit...

On my health front...got couple of x-rays and blood check up done yesterday...suffering from "Right Sided Maxillary and Frontal Sinusitis"...still in process of recovery....

chalo bye dear and take care
jai

Simon School of Business-Interview Experience

Hey Kkkkkkkiran,
I know you must be eagerly waiting for this mail…My experiences out of Simon’s interview….


Well well well…..2 rounds interview…..and that also for an MBA admission…..and that also for an USA B-school…Difficult to believe…isn’t it….but it actually happened today during Simon School of Business – University of Rochester interview at Taj Palace in Mumbai….

Reached 15 minutes before the scheduled time…considering the area around churchgate and Gateway of India was all blocked because of Mumbai marathon, this was a big achievement…..

I entered inside Taj with one gentleman, who also seemed to be late for something and was in hurry. He was also looking for the same rooms, which were booked by Simon for interviews…he happened to be one of the alumnus..:)…and when my name was called upon, he was the person who was all set to take my interview….

Before I actually get into the details of my interview, few things about interviewees…there were about 20+ prospective students who had turned upon for interview….frankly speaking, considering that this school is not famous among Indians, I earlier thought that the count should be three or four…but 20+ was pretty decent number…..and most of them with pretty good GMAT score (average 700) and work experience (average 2.5 years)…

5 guys I met were from infosys pune…now I understand why the attrition rate of infosys is constantly increasing…;)…when I was getting proud of TCS on this factor, a lady rushed into me saying that she is also working with TCS and has come for interview….:(…

95% of the prospective students were from IT background…there were 2 guys who had “finance” background…

Ok….coming back to interview.

Interviewer was Mr. Ashok Narain (he had done his MS from Simon, MBA from IIM (K) and is working as Deputy GM at RBI) …frankly speaking, I was a bit tense initially but as interview proceeded, it was too facile for me as there were not many questions for which I had to give an extemporaneous answer.…:)

Questions asked were as follows:

Whats your GMAT score? ---- I felt proud to answer that…:)
How much experience you have?
Why Simon?
Why MBA? Why now?
Why career switch?
Which all other schools have you applied?
How many hours you work in your current job? – I answered as 40 hrs per week….
Are you ready for 60-70 hrs week efforts required in Simon? --- this question was tricky but I should admit that I handled this with panache…:)
How would you contribute to Simon?
Any questions?

Interview lasted for about 20 minutes and over all, it went pretty cool and I was satisfied at the end of interview but then Mr. Ashok’s statement came as surprise for me, “Jailendra, Please wait outside. After lunch, we would have second round of interview with other alumnus.”…..

Second round??????

Anyways, I went back to meet other interviewees and found it was the same case with everybody…

During lunch, we had a kind of casual discussions with all other alumnus(there were in total 4)…we were also distributed a pen, post-it and a cigarette case (all Simon trademarked)….well cigarette case is just going to be a nugatory showpiece for me as I don’t smoke…:)

After lunch, mine was the first one to be called for round 2 interview….now the alumnus divided themselves into a pair of two each…second round interview questions were:

Discuss about yourself? --- I think I messed up a little bit here…I could have answered in better way…I was deploring my answer later on….
Which other schools u have applied to?
If you get admit to all, which one would you choose? Very tricky question and I think my answer was possible fallible.
Any questions? - I had depleted all my questions in Round 1 and in informal talks with alumnus during lunch.

It didn’t last long…5-10 minutes…I think it was the same case with others as well….but I believe I had performed better in round 1 as compared to round 2…
Alumnus also told that there would be two interview feedbacks send to adcom…

Overall my feel….alumnus were pretty impressive…very helpful and were ready to answer all queries…and I think most of us were pretty satisfied with simon school…i think I am all set to go to my safe school (if I get admit) if I don’t get an admit to any other school.
Keeping my fingers crossed till feb 15th when results would be released….

And ya….there I met Miss Aditi (one of the two from finance background), who has promised all of us to take finance classes for those who get admits to university of Rochester before we join the university and this is irrespective of her admission but I know she is all set to rock rochester…..

Next target…CMU-tepper – 2nd feb – telephonic interview…..

And Kkkkkkkiran...i am sorry for grammatical and spelling mistakes in this post as i am writing in hurry...:)...

That’s it…
bye
jai

what a day?? Away from MBA tension...Away from GF...What else you need?

Hi kkkkkkkkKiran,
Till date I have written two letters but not addressed to you....So from now onwards you would be my recipient..... whether u receive or not...:)
I am writing this to you to share something....Yesterday, 13th Jan 2007, was one of my memorable days....bole to ekdam jhakkkaaas...
My day started at 10:00 AM....its normal time on saturday...Opening of the day, similiar to our indian cricket team batting, was not so good as I had to be on office call for some time...well lets not get into detail of that....
The first main attraction of the day was my team's new year+X-mas party (i know 13th jan was too late) at Phoenix mills - Sports bar
....i reached 1 hr late....or lets put it this way...rest of the team reached 1 hr early and i was on time....
well kkkkkKiran...u know one thing...this is the first team i am leading where I really feel I am part of some family... everyone in the team is too good...friendly, caring and enthusiastic... and haan ofcourse hardworking, intelligent and sincere.. but these things always come second in my team....;)...
ok..lets get back to the party....after having starter... there was award distributing ceremony.... even i won an award (Most proactive...;)...dnt laugh plz)....and then after having excellent lunch..we moved on to the bowling....
it was really nice experience...i enjoyed a lot and i think the whole team as well....I was the lowest scorer in my group but u know some leaders prefer to give chances to others...;)...
From there, I rushed to Channel - V concert with few of my friends....wow..it was damn good....Artists like Atif, Kailash Kher, A-Kon, Bappi lehri, Shankar-Ehsaan-Lloy performing in front of you....Right from Atif's Tere Bin to Kailash's Deewani - audience were going mad...the last performance was from Priyanka chopra - which I had to miss...:(... as I was getting late for movie "Guru"....
well few words for "Guru"...I liked it a lot...a good inspirational movie i think...it shows how self-confidence can make such a huge difference...worth watching....u shud also watch..but it may prove to be a bouncer for u as u would hardly understand any business terms used in movie...hahahaha..:)

welll day ended next day as it was already 1:30 AM by the time i was out of the theater...... A day which kept me busy whole day without any work...:)

Overall it was a good break from "target->MBA"....and most of the credit goes to my friends.....we together ROCK....

bye
jai

At last....an Interview Call...:)

Can you believe it???? Yesterday itself I said to one of my colleague in office - "Today, I would be submitting my last application and then I would take 1-2 weeks proper rest...tired of essays, applications etc"...But..............

Before I had clicked on "submit" button of Duke, I got an interview call from Simon School of Business (Univ of Rochester) ......

Feeling good as after 4 rejects, an interview call (may be from your safe school) always gives u a big relief....

No REST...As again busy with interview preparation....

As this is the only safe school in my list....wanna give best shot to this...interview is on 21st jan...for time and venue, I have written a mail...waiting to hear back from adcom on that....

would keep posted if any other news....

But yaar....EK DIN KA TO CHAIN TO BANTAA THAA YAAR.....UFFFFFFF....
What should I answer to my fiancee's question ---"Are you sure you would get time to marry me this year?".....

I always say ---"Yes.....of course".......but.....

Will the year 2007 bring luck for me???

9th September 2006 - when I got 740 score in GMAT.....I was on the seventh cloud...I was sure of getting an admit to ivy-league schools such as Wharton , Chicago, Harvard etc.....But rejection from all four schools I applied to, in early decision round, has opened my eyes.....Rejection without any interview call from Wharton, Insead, Cornell and Chicago shook me from inside...Although I revisited my essay strategy since then and applied to Stern, Darden, Rochester and Haas in December, followed by UCLA in January but still not sure whether I could avoid another nail in my coffin.......

Today when my first weekend of the year is about to end and I am about to submit my applications for Ross, Duke and Tepper, I have decided "Thats it" - Enough of applications, essays, recommendations......I know applying to 12 schools is too much but my desperation to go for MBA this year has driven me for that.... From tomorrow onwards, I am going to use the strategy of "Wait and Watch"...I know my fiancée would be more than happy on this...For the last 2-3 months and even before that while I was preparing for GMAT, we have hardly gone out somewhere...want to get free now...for some days...at least...before I get an interview call from some school....:)

My call right now on the schools I have applied to or applying (no harm in getting optimistic):
Stern -- Should at least get an interview call
Darden -- Should at least get an interview call
Rochester -- Should get an admit
Haas -- Should at least get an interview call
UCLA --- Should get an admit if interview goes fine
Ross --- Should at least get an interview call
Duke --- Should at least get an interview call
Tepper --- Should get an admit if interview goes fine

Lets c.......................I hope year of 2007 turns table for me.....