ISB Application 2008-09 Essay Analysis

It is application season again and ISB is out with its essays again. Well, it has been quite some time now. I was just thinking about those essays and thought of analyzing what an applicant is expected to write. Basically, ISB must have some purpose behind giving out those topics. We should analyze that. This year's competiton is going to be tough and there are multiple reasons.

1. ISB has been ranked 20th in the FT Global MBA rankings. That made sure ISB gets enough media coverage and international popularity.
2. ISB has been growing at an exponential pace. With its awesome faculty and impressive placement numbers, ISB sure will make it big time in the international B-school community.

I wrote the analysis of last year's essay topics too. ISB sure does come out with a unique essay each time that stumps the applicants and the applicants who are writing multiple apps must write at least one essay that is unique to ISB. (At least, I am stumped!!!). Last year it was "million dollars or knighthood" dilemma. This year it the "Zumba river" ethical dilemma essay. Let's see what this year's essays have in store:

1. Please give three reasons why ISB should admit you into the class of 2010. These reasons should ideally differentiate you from your competition. (300 words max)

This essay is similar to last year's essay 1 that clearly asked about your diversity factor. Most of the B-schools today focus on peer learning. Of course, in today's times, a business graduate needs to be aware of the functioning of different industries, needs to have an open mind, develop a global adaptability and be responsive of different cultures. To achieve this, a B-school should ensure that it has the right mix of students that learn from each other well. This calls for a diverse batch:

a. diverse in terms of nationality:the FT rankings will attract applicants from different countries. the current batch has 4% of international students (international passport holders). For a global school, there is a long way to go.
b. diverse in terms of industry: As is a fact, there are a lot of engineers and consultants applying to a lot of B-schools. While discussing a case, you expect a different opinion from your peer group. For example, while sitting in the entrepreneurship class, you may want to hear the legal implications from a lawyer, you may want to learn how to approach a VC from someone who has already done so. Just imagine the amount of practical learning you get.
c. miscellaneous: There are other ways to differentiate yourself. Maybe through your work-experience, your contributions outside of your work, your extra-curricular achievements. It can be anything.

Just think of ways how you can differentiate yourself from people of your background and how that will contribute to the student body. Breeze!

2. You are contesting the election to be the President of the ISB Student Body. Write a speech you will deliver to the student body on why they should elect you as the President? (300 words max)

This is a typical and an atypical essay. It is a typical leadership essay where you have prepare a manifesto and do a sales pitch for yourself. But what does ISB have to do with that?

This is an opportunity to present yourself as a leader. You need not be in a leading position at your workplace. Just identify the qualities of a good leader: taking initiatives, thinking out of the box, looking at the bigger picture, etc. Just reflect back on your work-life and bring out examples where you have shown such traits. These examples help identify people with natural leadership bent of mind. The examples may not be necessarily of the workplace. You may want to show how active you are outside of your workplace and taken initiatives in community activities too. This is the place to show just that.

Coming to the second part. Keep in mind that this is about ISB's Student Body president. So obviously you need to know about ISB and what contributions you will make at ISB. Of course, there are always things to be done for improvement at any place. So do your research. Find out what are the responsibilities of the ISB Student body and what is the role and scope of the president. Connect with ISB and think of how ou can contribute were you the president.

3. CASE : You have been appointed to head the team to build a dam across the River Zumba. Success in this project is critical for your company and would earn you a promotion. Failure would mean that your company would be bankrupt and will take along with it, its investors and its employees. Building a dam across the river would result in deforestation of a portion of the rainforests and would mean relocation of the tribals and destabilization of wild life at Zumba. There is resistance from environmental groups against your project. You are meeting the head of the resistance movement in one hour wherein you would have to explain your decision. Describe what you would do and why? (You will be evaluated on the creativity and practicality of your solution). (300 words max)

An Awesome Essay!!! I loved it.

A very practical situation. A similar ethical dilemma can be faced in any industry at many situations. You are presented with two positions: one is profitable for your company and the other for mankind and environment. On the first look, it looks like a dilemma. But if you think deeply and passionately for one stance, you can convince anyone why our position is stronger.

You are expected to come out with a practical and creative solution to come out of the situation and be a winner. As always, you have to show what qualities you have and be a convincing and effective leader in this situation.

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The above is just my personal interpretation of the ISB essays. I request all my readers to provide more inputs if there is any other aspect that can be thought of or if I have been wrong in my thought process. All the best to all ISB applicants.

B-school preliminary shortlist

Gmat Done. Yes, a long time ago now. Now, if I look back 730 is not a bad score. The thumb rule, I have learnt, is that your GMAT score should be above the average of the schools where you are applying. And 730 is above average to all the schools I am applying to. No worries.

Now the next step was to shortlist the schools. Last week, I had been so busy that I did not get time to research schools at all. So the weekend was deicated to prepare a preliminary list, at least. Well, at first I shortlisted around 14 schools. That is a big number and I guess impractical too. So I understood I had a lot of work to do.

My situation

It is a do or die situation for me. I am 28 and it is just the right age for me to do an MBA. I am at such a juncture in my career that if I do an MBA right now, it would be ideal. I do like my job, rather the industry I am in. I want to rise in high-tech industry but not in the job function I am in, that is engineering. So the more I stay here, the more stagnant I will become since I do not aspire to grow in this function. An MBA right now just seems right.

Where do I want to be

I would definitely like to work in the US for some time. In addition, the exposure you get in US is not comparable to any school in India. From family or stability perspective, staying in India is logical, but I want to think long term. My family, wife are understanding, so I can afford to move to US for some time. Now coming to the job function. I have made a tentative plan of where I want to be. Keeping this factor in mind, I prepared my tentative list.

I want the best

Now coming to the shortlisting.

Outside of US:
ISB
INSEAD

US:
Duke - Fuqua
UCLA - Anderson
Darden
UCB - Haas
CMU - Tepper
Emory - Goizueta
Michigan - Ross
Tuck

Now that is a big list I know. And I have less time, considering I am in the office for 10 hours every weekday.

My thought process

I think I'll start writing the most common and long essays first. The benefit will be I will just have to tweak the common essays (like career goals) for every application and reduce my efforts. Based on my progress, I'll see which schools I can eliminate. I also have to divide the schools into R1 and R2. I guess 50% distribution would be just fine, keeping at least one top 10 in R1 and one in R2. As the application progresses, your writing improves, you think of stronger points and you will know how to write better, and impactfully.

Now let's see. I want to ask my readers. What is your shortlisting strategy? Am I going wrong somewhere?

GMAT Done

It has been five days, and I am still not convinced whether to be happy for a good percentile score and think that I am still not able to cross that mental "Indian" barrier of 750. I scored a 730 on my GMAT. If I were from . . . Genovia (Yes, there is a country named Genovia) or if I had been working closely with the PM to get the nuclear deal done, I would have applied to HBS with 730. Clean sweep.

But alas! I hail from India, and of course, by chance, I am an engineer, not in IT though. 730 is a crime man!!! Below 750, you are a piece of crap. Anyway, surprisingly people have been congratulating me for my "great" score.

But then, there are positives. This is my second attempt at GMAT. My previous attempt was 3 years ago when I scored a 710. There are some valid reasons I retook the GMAT. I did show an improvement here. 20 points up. This Thursday, I came back from the test centre and was analyzing my performance/improvement. Since it is a fact that overall GMAT scores are on a rise, my 710, 3 years ago would have been a 680 today. So it is a considerable improvement. I am writing a debrief on my GMAT prep. There are a lot of things that GMAT prep teaches you. Discipline is one of them.

So all in all, it was good. No use thinking "If I could have...". Now I am free. All set to attack the apps.

Thanks to Adekku, Starwalker and Goneguru for their wishes for my exam. A late thanks though. Was busy partying after my GMAT. ;)

The GMAT-II Day Tomorrow

Well, I have 25 hours left from now when I will write my GMAT (Thursday 5:30 PM IST). The situation this weekend was bad. I decided to write another Manhattan Test on Saturday and I scored 660. I was drowned. I was doomed. I was shocked. But then I convinced myself by thinking that it's the Manhattan tests and they are considered difficult. But my brain did not accept this defeat. My target was well above 700 and I cannot settle for less than that in a practice test, and that too just 4 days before the actual test.

I let it go.

I waited for 4 hours. Had dinner, watched some time and decided to write another practice test. Challenge Manhattan head-on. It was 11 pm and I started my practice test. And phew, this time, with a little more concentration, I managed 700 (93%ile). I was satisfied. I could sleep. This weekend was good.

The next I decided to give the final practice shot. And write the GMAT-Prep 2. I was in a jolly mood. Well, come on, it's the "easy" GMAT. "Just yesterday I challenged Manhattan and won". Be casual - was the mood. AND THAT KILLED ME. I scored a 650 on GMAT Prep - 2.

Man!!!! This was a test where mostly everyone scored near their actual GMAT score. My dreams were shattered at that moment and I was feeling low. "I don't mind a 680,or a 690. But with a previous 710, a 680 would be bad... very bad." Anyhow, I let it go and forgot about GMAT the rest of the day.

Monday came and I picked up my books and my notes. Went over all the SC notes from Manhattan SC guide. Other pointers that I had written down. Practiced the last 20 CR's from OG, and I thought I am ready for another challenge.

GMAT - 1 day to go. I woke up early. I decided to go to office a little late and go for a date wth another Manhattan test. This time, I decided to be serious, no jokes. And I scored a 730, a morale booster I sincerely needed. Now I'm not taking another practice test to risk my motivation. I am just sitting idle. Tomorrow is the day and I have to maintain my cool. My RC accuracy is under control. OG Practice did the trick.

Well, let's see how it goes.

How Do I Improve my Reading Comprehension

I really suck at Reading Comprehension section of the GMAT. After compiling all the tests and practice questions that I have done, my average accuracy for RC comes to 50-60% which is very bad. My CR and SC accuracy is close to 80% and I'm confident that with a little practice, I can stretch those. But I am clueless about RC and I really hate that section.

Friends, readers, please help me. I'm really worried now that my GMAT date is approaching... 17th July. And I cannot stay with an accuracy as pathetic as 60%.

Is practice the only way out?
Aren't there any tricks or strategies like there are in SC and CR sections?

Any suggestions or comments are most welcome.

The Magic Book of Sentence Correction

I might be over exaggerating, but I saw a dramatic improvement in my Sentence Correction accuracy after using Manhattan SC Guide.

After reading a lot of appreciation for the book in a lot of blogs, I went ahead and bought the book. I liked the approach they followed to tackle each and every type of SC problem. Frankly speaking, I am really bad at memorizing grammar rules. This explained my weak accuracy at SC (close to 60%). I wanted someone to tell me: Look! Here a phrase is separated by a comma, look for the misplaced modifier. Eureka!!!

Simplistic yet Impactful Approach

In my opinion, the best way to tackle GMAT Grammar is to approach it as pure logic. Forget language, tell me the rule. Manhattan SC guide does exactly that. I will give you an example. I think you will agree. The most probable rule where we are stumped is when a combination of tenses appears on the test. Couple it with the IF clause, the test taker is doomed. In this book, they have simplified it to an extent that they have made a table mapping the IF clause with the THEN clause, presenting cases for all the tenses. I went ahead and memorized it and I did see a difference.

Practice Questions

They do not have any SC question to practice. Rather, for each category of problems, they have basic questions to identify the error and correct it. Practicing these helps you identify the type of problem that can appear and what the remedy is. But I really wished they had some practice SC questions in the book.

Deadly Combination

If you plan to buy Manhattan SC Guide, take my word and buy it along with the Official Guide, 11th ed. With each category's chapter, they have identified questions frm the OG to practice. So you study a type each day, and practice 10-20 questions related to that type, obviously the questions ranging from easy to difficult. By picking up one category every day, I was able to finish the OG's SC section in nearly a week's time, with, guess what, 85% accuracy. I hope it stays that way.

Bonus Tests

Guess what!!! You buy the book and you get 6 Practice Online tests for free. Not a bad deal for $17.

Well, believe me, I am not being paid my Manhattan for this, although it looks like a sales pitch. I am really amazed by my performance improvement after going through the book and I really wanted to share this experience with you all. Really, if you are worried about Sentence Correction, go ahead and buy these two books:

• Manhattan SC Guide
• Official Guide for GMAT, 11th ed

Now the next section to tackle is the Reading Comprehension. I really suck at that. Thanks to Neo2000, I learnt that the average GMAT for us Indians is 730!!! Phew!!! I don't want RC to screw my score.

Manhattan GMAT CAT Test Review

This weekend, I wrote my first diagnostic full length GMAT practice CAT. While arbit browsing I landed up on Manhattan GMAT site where I learned about their free full length practice test. I had heard good review about the Manhattan material so thought of giving it a shot. Well, first my scores:

Overall: 660 (86 percentile)
Verbal: 32 (67 percentile... too bad)
Quant: 49 (90 percentile)

The review:

1. Quant more difficult than the actual GMAT. I found the quant section to be more difficult than the actual GMAT. I am usually pretty confident in the quant section but this time I was stumped. I spent nearly 4 minutes on some questions. Well, one of the reasons might have been that I am picking up this material after a long time. But in any case, while reviewing my mistakes, I took note of all the strategies which were good and those that I am supposed to remember. I am maintaining a doc that has all those "tricks" that I should take care of while solving specific questions. I think it was a good experience, since if you practice with a difficult set, you prepare yourself better for the worst.

2. An actual CAT for practice is mandatory. A lot of material is available online for practice. But your performance in those tests is not truly reflective of what your G-Day performance will be. So for practice, I feel you should go for an online test that closely simulates the actual CAT. For the ignorant souls, the GMAT CAT, or the Computer Adaptive Test, as the name suggests is adaptive to the user's responses.

In the words of Princeton Review:

The Computer Adaptive Test always begins by giving you a medium question. If you get it right, the computer gives you a slightly harder question. If you get it wrong, the computer gives you a slightly easier question, and so on.

3. The Verbal Section closely represents the actual GMAT. I was highly impressed with the Verbal section of Manhattan. It had a fine balance of the right mix of questions with varied difficulty level. Although I did not perform that well, as I expected, I feel it gave me a closely accurate idea of where I stand and which section I should focus on.

4. The optional sectional or per question time limit. This was an amazing and a new feature that I found really helpful, especially for practice. Before each section starts, the test asks you to set the time for each section. Although the real test has a sectional limit of 75 minutes for Quant and Verbal each, here we can set the time depending on how you want to practice. You can also set per question time limit. Let's say you want to target 2 minutes per question for Quant section (37 questions and 75 minutes). So if you are targeting to improve your speed, feel free to set the per question time. A third option is also available to make it without any time limit.

So it depends, what your focus is and at what stage your preparation is. If you want to practice accuracy, forget the time, just go ahead with the test questions. If you want to practice speed, set your target time.

Overall, I feel taking the full length test was good for me as it tested my stamina too. Man, I had never sat for this long, especially for a test in a long time. Believe me, you need this stamina for the actual day to get your brain running till the last question. In addition, this test helped me analyze my weak areas and was an eye opener for me. Just a month and half more to go... phew.

Online resources for GMAT prep

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I started my GMAT verbal prep with Princeton Review's Grammar Smart. I spent 4 days on it and got the mathematics of grammar cleared. Yes, I call GMAT grammar as mathematics, or more specifically logic, since there are standard rules for the same. If you take care of all the rules, you don't have to worry about GMAT verbal, especially the Sentence Correction section, that many people fear. There is no need to remember, or even learn what is a pronoun, a subjunctive clause, etc. You get all the rules stated in a simple logic manner. I jumped directly to Sentence Correction since last time this was my weakest area. Beginning next week, I'll start attacking other sections with equal attention to each.

Sometimes while in office, when I get some free time, I feel like spending some time on practicing quant or some random questions just to keep my practice live. At that time, some online resources come in hand and in my opinion, are the best. There are other well-compiled resources too that focus on GMAT Preparation strategy and other tips. Not in any particular order:


1. Gmat prep strategy: Clear Admit Wiki I have always been a fan of ClearAdmit. I am even following their blog on a regular basis through their feed. Well, their wiki is another source of awesome user-generated, or rather contributed content. The above particular page showcases GMAT experiences of some people. Some of them have written an excellent debrief about GMAT prep. People have shared tips on how to use the reference material and their strategies to study for GMAT. After reading a lot people's experiences, I am intrigued that is Manhattan SC guide really that helpful? Maybe I should go ahead and buy.

PS: I still don't why I am not featured in their Fridays from the Frontline series... ClearAdmit, are you listening?

2. Gmatclub Forums. Here you will find a very proactive community of people contributing heavily towards Gmat Preparation. Although as of now I am using it to take part in discussions involving GMAT questions, I'll later use it for my B-school research too. There's a lot of info in there. As of now I'll primarily use it for:
a. Gmat Prep strategy. There are forums dedicated to GMAT Strategy discussions. There are a lot of similar forums you will find on the internet. But the one thing that attracts me to Gmatclub forums is that they are strictly no non-sense. People are experienced and contribute a lot of value.
b. Gmat Verbal and Math Prep - As I mentioned earlier, threads are dedicated to Verbal and Quant preparation. You do get questions to practice , but since these are interactive forums you gain a lot from the discussions and learn new tips from forum members.

3. Beat the GMAT. It's again a collection of advices and a forum for GMAT and B-school admission related discussions. Just a different pool of people. It says it is a collaborative effort of ManhattanGMAT and StacyBlackman Consulting. Both of them are established brand names now.

4. Test Magic Forums. Excellent GMAT Forums. Gmat Club forums focus mostly on GMAT preparation, usually discussing one question per thread, the test magic forums are more generalized. They relate around other discussions involving GMAT, tips and advices, etc. Go check out.

Weekend is here. Time to spend 6 hours per day on GMAT. Over to the books.

4 Reasons Why I Decided to write GMAT again

After a lot of introspection, I decided to write GMAT again. I have registered for the test and have given myself 2.5 months for preparation. I feel that should be sufficient given that I have already written GMAT once. Since I HAVE to do an MBA this year, I do not want to leave any stone unturned and want to be well prepared.

It is not that I have a very low GMAT score for now that I have decided to take a shot again. I had scored a decent 710, well above average of many top schools. There a couple of reasons for doing so:

1. Too old GMAT score. My current GMAT score is more than 3 years old. Many friends have told me that if it is still valid (GMAT score is valid for 5 years), why do I need to write it again. My argument is, GMAT is indicative of an applicant's academic abilities. A decent score 3 years ago does not indicate the person's current abilities. So this might turn off B-schools. A fresh score would be an accurate reflection.

2. Compensate for average acads. My undergraduate acads are nice but not the kind I would boast of. To compensate for that I need a good enough GMAT score that I won't have to explain.

3. Skewed score. My previous score is a little, ok ok, a lot skewed where I score 51 in quant and early thirties in verbal. I'm not sure how B-school adcoms perceive it. But I personally am not happy with it. So this is an attempt to level the scores.

4. Want to be above the average, all things being equal. I am, from a not-so-typical IT background (read Indian/IT/male). I have a lot of things to differentiate myself, but on the GMAT front, I am well below my sample space. Most of the candidates whom I'll be compared to would have scored more than me. I want to be in the upper half. In the worst case, if they have to choose between person X and me, all other things being equal (I know, I know...), they should choose me based on a higher GMAT score.

Am I over confident? I don't think so, I just explained the reasons for me to take another shot at GMAT.

Where do I start
1. The first test of GMAT Prep, the software provided by www.mba.com, to assess my current standing. I heard quant has become tougher after Pearson has taken over GMAT administration. Let's see.
2. Book, to start with, I'll go with Princeton Review's Grammar Smart. I really liked that book, that it helped me clear my concepts and was an immense help in the Sentence Correction Section. Basically, the approach that was followed in that book, made Sentence Correcction feel like mathematics. there are pre-defined rules, you just have to follow those.
3. Then I'll think of picking other books, like Prince Review, Kaplan or OG - The Official Guide to GMAT.

A note for my readers:
I am very keen on buying the OG for GMAT Verbal. I am looking for reviews on htat book if someone has used it. Is it worth spending money on? Or if there is any other recommendation for verbal specifically, please do recommend, I'll be grateful.

Why was I not selected at ISB

So I am at ISB finally. I always wanted to come here and I have, but not as a student. My wife is a current ISB student and I moved to the campus along with her. Well, both of us applied together and wished both would study together, but it did not happen. But anyways, I have not been wasting time. It was not much of an inconvenience moving here as I was already working in Hyderabad, so just moved out of the house to the ISB provided studio apartment. Anyhow before I get my feedback from ISB, I contemplated what could I have done better to improve my chances of admission here. Rather, what I should have avoided that might have ruined my chances. As I list the reasons, these also specify the lessons I learnt and should be followed by every re-applicant:

Photo by better not bitter

• Apply in R1. I should have applied in R1. If I am a re-applicant, I genuinely show my interest in the program only if I apply early.

• Grab every opportunity to sell yourself, show more passion. I should have been more focussed on selling myself during the interview. For example, when the interviewer asked the last question, "Is there anything else you want to add?", he was literally giving me an option to sell myself and talk about anything I liked. But that was a blackout time, I could not think of anything and moved on. When I was out of the interview room, I could count at least 10 things that I could have said. So guys, now you know how to be better prepared. :)

• Show more maturity and a better fit. As I am a re-applicant, I was supposed to write an additional essay that talks about what has changed since I last applied. A lot was changed. It is two years since I last applied. And you know what I wrote... I mentioned the facts, I talked about the new job, new location, the purpose of my job change, and all. But I never told them what I learnt in these two years, how and if I am more mature now, what perspective have I gained. These are the things that would define me and that's what a B-school wants to know.

It has been three weeks now since I moved to ISB as a 'spouse' and all this time, I have seen life at ISB more closely that made me more motivated to apply again. I always knew that I want to do an MBA, but I'm never applying passionately. This time, I'll apply to more than 1 school to improve my chances of doing an MBA. Since my score is more than 3 years old now, it makes more sense for me to retake GMAT. I have scheduled my GMAT for mid-June and now starting my preparation.