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.

ISB Ding

I went into hibernation after giving my ISB interview, the only school I applied to. 3 days before the results were actually released, I attended the ISB R1 admits and R2 "hopefuls" meet here in Hyderabad. It was a great meet and I was excited to study with those guys once I get into ISB.

But alas, something else was in store for me and one fine morning, when I was early to office, I got an SMS saying that I was not accepted. It really came as a shock to me and for the next one hour I was feeling, hoping rather, that it is a mistake and cannot be true. I mean, everything was in place now. Last time I had applied with 2.5 years of work-ex and was waitlisted. I screwed up my interview last time. This year, I applied with close to 5 years of work-ex and far better essays. My interview was more mature. Considering all this, I had assumed that I will get through this time and had planned everything.

Anyways, now I have got used to the fact that I will not be doing an MBA this year. Right now, am focusing on my job and keeping myself updated on the news on global MBA front. It's time to do some introspection to figure out the reasons for my reject. That is, before I get a feedback from ISB.

Why is ISB ranked 20th in FT Global MBA

The recent news that ISB is ranked 20th worldwide in the FT Global MBA rankings has invited a lot of opinions, objections and praises. Although I personally feel that getting this ranking is definitely good for ISB as the first thing ISB needs to be acknowledged in the global arena is exposure, and rankings is a definite way to achieve it. I do have some points to talk in favour of and discussions on some of the doubts that people might have.

Understanding the criteria
Every ranking institution follow a different criteria to compile the rankings, a fact every individual must understand before deciding whether a B-school deserved the particular ranking or not. I am not concluding anything here, but merely going over the facts. By going through the FT methodology, we see that “Weighted salary (US$)” and “Salary percentage increase” contribute 40 per cent of the rank for each school. This data is collected for the last three years beginning with the batch of 2004.

ISB has beaten the league US-Schools
Well, it comes as a big surprise that ISB is ranked above league schools, he likes of Kellogg, Duke, Anderson, Darden. Again, if you consider the salary percentage increase, it is understandable since the salaries of the above schools are more or less constant over the years and since ISB is gaining more corporate exposure with each coming year, the salaries have been rising at a fast pace. To add to that, the dollar has fallen considerable last year and if you adjust the salaries to PPP, the increase would be a lot.

I am not undermining the potential that ISB has, but I am just stating my personal analysis to acknowledge the position ISB has achieved.

ISB still needs to catch up on student diversity in nationality. Then why?
I agree to the fact that as compared to all other schools, ISB scores the lowest in terms of diversity. International students form only 5% of the batch as per the data, which is too low. But come to think of it, how will international students get to know that a school called ISB exist if it is not in the rankings. You ask yourself, will you apply to a US school which is not even there in the rankings? I won't, even if I have heard a lot of good things through word of mouth. I would like to know where it stands as compared to other schools. So exposure is the first thing required by ISB to attract foreign students, and the first way to get exposure is the rankings.

Why not IIMs?
Again, I do not want to undermine the fact that on some parameters, the IIMs score much above ISB, like Alumni base to talk about. But here we are comparing apples and oranges. IIMs cater to a different set of candidates. It is a totally different debate and I plan to write a new article on this argument. Promise.

Consequences
There certainly will be increase in the number of applications in the coming years, as if the current competition was not enough. :) No seriously, the rankings will attract more students and definitely more from foreign shores. Apart from that, I think this ranking is a major global reputation booster for ISB and would impact its placements in a positive manner.

My ISB Interview Experience - 2008

This post is coming nearly a month after my last one. I know the frequency had been very less and I so much want to be regular on my blog. Anyways, I had my ISB interview on the 23rd of January at the ISB Admissions Office, Hyderabad.

My "Profile" as people have the interpretation of the term:
GMAT 710
Close to 5 years of work-ex in IT Services and Telecom Product firm (Infosys and Qualcomm)
Decent Acads
Decent extra-currics
3 months international experience as a lead

My interview was scheduled at 2 pm and I reached there by 1:20 pm. Was interacting with other waiting applicants when I was given a paper for a write-up on "Finesse". Frankly speaking, I had no idea what the word exactly meant. I knew it is something related to putting perfection in your creation and built something around it. Took some 10 minutes to write and then continued chatting with other interviewees.

Was called in at around 2:10 pm. There were 3 interviewers in the panel. I do not recall the names of two of them (excuse me for the nervousness at the time, was finding it hard to concentrate). The guy who led me in was Joe, is one of the adCom members and I met him first in 2004 when I attended the the ISB Information Session in Bangalore.

Anyways, so here here goes the interview dialogue with P as the Panel member and N as me:

P: So you applied in 2006 too, did you get a feedback on why you were not selected? Were you interviewed?
N: Yes Sir, I was waitlisted after the interview. As per the feedback I received, I guess I was not able to convey my reasons for pursuing an MBA properly.

P: So would you tell the reason now?
N: Told the reason for an MBA and my backing work-ex.

P: So you were in Australia? What did you learn about the multi-cultural experience as you have written?
N: Told them about my experiences, the people I met and a little about the challenging project.

P: What was the challenge in the project and how did you face it?
N: complete description of the experience.

P: Okay, so what do you do apart from work? What are your passions?
N: Told them about my interests in painting, dancing, reading and the recently developed interest in blogging. Talked about blogging in detail, covering my blog and the current trends in blogging.

P: What do you write in your blog. Tell us about what you have written.
N: Gave them a description of the topics on which I write. In addition, I gave them a pointer on the most popular article on my blog which is the ISB application essays analysis.

The discussion became interesting from here when they asked me to share the analysis with them. We had a very healthy discussion on the latest essay topics and my views on them.

P: Okay, so what companies are you looking for post MBA?
N: Gave them a couple of names related to my field (telecom) where I would like to be in that can offer me the role I want.

P: What specific role are you looking for?
N: explained it.

P: I see you have learnt French. To what level do you know the language and why did you learn it?
N: Told them that I have completed it till Level I where I can have basic conversation in present tense, and my motivation behind learning it.

That was it. I asked a couple of questions on their courses which could help me in my entrepreneurial venture. Another question on the current status that ISB has applied for rankings and its future impact.

All in all, it was a very friendly discussion. No grilling involved. I am not sure what to make out of this. Just keeping my fingers crossed till 15th Feb.

My advice: you should know what you have written and have a convincing experience to back everything. Just be yourself and know your application well.

ISB plans to set up second campus; to go global

Source: Business Line

The Indian School of Business (ISB) will be setting up another campus in India besides actively exploring the feasibility of going to foreign shores.

“There has been a consensus in our board that an additional campus in India is highly required keeping in view the growing image of the school,” Prof. M. Rammohan Rao, Dean, ISB, told Business Line here.

The school, however, has not zeroed in on any location for the proposed campus and was currently weighing various options.

Further, the school is also mulling launching a campus abroad as well. “All these goals and strategies to be adopted are being hammered as part of Vision 2030 on which we are working for the last six months,” the Dean said.

To cater to the growing demand from the corporate world, the school will also ramp up its class strength from the current 425 to 560 from 2009-10. “We are constructing another student’s village to support the increased numbers,” Mr Rao said.

Consequently, the permanent faculty would also be doubled to 45. “In addition to doubling, we will be introducing special incentives/programmes to attract talented faculty and retain them,” he said. As of now, ISB has seen only two faculty quitting from a team of 22 in the last three years.

To increase its focus on research, the six-year-old school would introduce pre-doctoral course from the next academic year.

“It would be a two-year foundation course in methodology and one’s basic area of interest/research. After completion the students would be sent to the New York University and other universities with which we have tie-ups for doctoral programmes,” the ISB Chief said.

A dedicated centre of leadership innovation would be launched next month.

“This will also take up extensive research on best management practices and on what takes to be a successful global leader.

“We are trying to synthesise some of the management/leadership principles enunciated in Indian economy, philosophy and culture with the current corporate needs,” he added.

On the funding requirements for the expansion, the board members are ready to extend significant funding. “There are many options and the exercise is on,” he said.

ISB Interview Invite!!!

The fact that I am a reapplicant did not quite instill that excitement in me on receiving the interview invite email. I will be satisfied only by winning the complete battle, that is, on a final admit. But, I have put in a lot of effort this time into my essays, I must say. On reading my previous essays (was waitlisted previously), I could feel the innocence of a young applicant and an immature mind. It has been two years now and my essays, and of course my personality, show a lot more maturity in terms of my aspirations and my experiences.

Of course, this is a personal opinion and it would matter only when the ISB adCom feel the same. For me, the tryst for an MBA had been a very long journey and I will share my story with everyone once I get into a program. This journey would end where another journey would start on a separate dimension. Enough of philosophical blabbering, my interview is on 23rd January, 2008 in Hyderabad at 2 pm.

Now is the time to reopen all those emails on the isb-pgp group where R1 applicants have shared their interview experiences. The first thing would be to collate all of them and prepare a set of questions. Next obvious step - hack my application. Read through all my essays and prepare all possible questions that could arise. Keep an example handy for all situations and strengths mentioned. I'll probably forward my application to a couple of experienced friends and ask them to point questions from that.

Let's see what happens this time.

4 Things IT guys should do to be a strong MBA Candidate

I'm not sure how many of us have gone through the LBS Blog Post where the current student Manish explains his experience of recruitment at LBS explaining in detail the recruiters' perspective of an Indian IT guy. Although we might be familiar with some of the tips he has provided but when put into words, these become hard rules. We are all aware of the fact that since there are too many of us (Indian IT males I mean), the things we do daily are somewhat achievements for us. For example, designing a web page for the team where individual status is tracked is quite an accomplishment. But think of a person who does not understand the "impact". For him, it was just another techie thing and the resume is tagged as "programmer profile".

We have be different from the herd and thus take each step carefully so as not to be tagged as "just another programmer". There is nothing wrong in being a programmer. The difficulty arises when we do not show the impact of our actions through our profiles.

Manish quite beautifully explains the steps that should be taken to avoid being termed as a geek. He says, "the moment the recruiters see 2 high tech companies on your CV, it is thrown into a pile with other geek CVs".

Although I did mention some points to differentiate in my article for diversity, here are his tips to help cross the line, in his own words:

1) A solid CV with almost no technical buzz words (I would say any thing more technical than hardware, software, database would be red flagged). Your future employers do not care that you used multithreading and ajax for developing something cool. They want to know how much money your company saved/made from your work. They want to know the business impact, not the technical impact. Secondly you will see all your peers have achievements in each bullet while you as a technologist do certain things everyday because that's what you do at your job. I had this problem but you need to make every bullet in your CV speak of an achievement.

2) A solid internship in your area of interest: This is the biggest hurdle but one you mustn't compromise on. If you do an internship in your area of interest, you can build a convincing story about your aspirations.

3) Serious Involvement in clubs: To show your commitment to the area you are gunning for.

4) Something extra: Language skills, passion for things outside school etc. When 300 of your peers are all overachievers, often recruitment decisions boil down to marginal things and this is where your "other" skills come very handy.