Don’t Quit!!

A guy posted the link to this poem on gmat_may2007 group.. Have read this earlier too, but this one never fails to inspire me.. Thought of sharing the same with the visitors of this blog..

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
when the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but do not quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Busy! Busy!! Busy!!!

Sorry for not posting for a long, long time.. Actually, last 6-7 weeks have been pretty hectic for me at office as well as social/family front. Moreover the apping process has kept me busy too.. ISB was submitted almost at the last hour.. Had to struggle a lot with the Wharton essays, especially the “outsider” one; but finally I do believe that it came out quite well.. At Columbia, some serious problems were there with the submission of one of the recos. But now all I can do is to wait for the result and concentrate on rest of the schools. Efforts for Tuck have surely been the best of the lot so far, expecting an interview call at least. I’m breathing a bit easier now, but with Tepper and Emory coming up in next 10 days, followed closely by Stern in mid-November, life’s surely not going to be easy.. And then there are Ross, Darden and Duke to follow in R2.

Now if you’re a regular visitor here, I’m sure I’ve managed to startle you at least a bit.  After all, just in the last post, I was “Not ready for an MBA right now.” Actually the status at my end is still the same. I’m not applying this year, but many of my friends are.  Some of these are real-life friends, some online ones whom I’ve not even met. It’s their apping process that’s keeping me busy.  It’s mostly the review of the essays.  (and drafts for a reco in one case) As I was done with my GMAT way back in June, I had plenty of time for the endless B-school research. So I’ve slight upper hand on some of my friends who had almost no time between their GMAT and apping. So I pitch in as a self-certified application-consultant. Yup, I love to help people, but surely this time it is not entirely for philanthropic reasons.  

Many of my friends suggested me a dry-run this year: apping to schools in which you’re not interested. I don’t really buy this idea. I don’t find it worth the effort and the money. If you’re targeting a top-15 school, how would apping to a lower school give you an idea of the competition and what your dream school wants from an applicant? And let us say you give it a full-hearted effort and bingo!! You get an admit with a full-ride at one of the dry run schools. Now won’t it be too tempting to accept the offer and save yourself a year and a great amount of money. And then you’ve missed your dream schools even without giving them a try. I’d better keep the dry-run schools as the “Safe Schools” next year. This time I do want to know the application process in and out, but only second-handedly.

What else I’m doing on the B-school front? I’m attending every B-school event that happens in the NCR area. So far I’ve attended Stanford, Wharton and Ross; also visited the stalls for Tepper, Duke, Stern and some more at the recent MBA fair. Tuck and Darden are to follow in November. Planning to learn a foreign language, though have not yet decided which one. Other than that, I’ve started finding time for activities other than office-work and apping process. I’m now a regular at the office TT table and also am back to reading. Had almost stopped reading books other than OG, Kaplan and Manhattan. Coming to the books, I’ve just started “Snapshots from Hell” by Peter Robinson. It’s about the author’s life at Stanford GSB: the first year in particular. This is considered one of the best books on B-school life. Hope to learn a thing or two about the MBA life by the time I finish the book. Hopefully that’ll be another blog story here.

I guess I’ve to conclude now; need to get back to the Emory essays. Will try to be more regular on the blog again.

Not ready for an MBA right now..

I know the title will come as a surprise to many, but after careful deliberations, I’ve decided against apping this year..
Had gone in dormant state for some time now.. (that is as far as blogging is concerned) These days were days of deep introspection, b-school research, networking, essay-analysis and what not!! Add to that regular pressure of office work

Anyways, coming back to the title of the post, I’ve postponed my application process by a year.. It was a very tough decision for me on a personal level; putting off the applications by a year means I’ll be graduating in 2011, That’s about four years from now!! Postponing apping looks like postponing life by a year!! Convincing my parents was even a tougher job.. But finally managed to do so..

Coming to the reasons behind this whimsical decision (many of my friends do say that it’s crazy), there are many.. (In no particular order )

1) Chances of getting in:: Though I understand that GMAT 770 is a wow-factor in my application.. But is that enough to get into a good B-school.. Surely not.. In fact, as my cousin puts it:: Any B-school that buys you out just on your GMAT score is not worth going to.

2) Maturity (to be reflected in the essays): I know I’ve an okayish profile for a low-experience candidate, but what do I write in the essays.. Essays of almost every school want to listen to leadership, entrepreneurship and maturity stories.. As an example, one of the school asks for a time when you’ve managed a crisis in your team.. In two years of my professional life, I’ve been able just to create crisis in my team.. (Kidding off-course; hope no B-school adcom sees my blog ) One year later, I still may not have many managerial tales to share, but at least I’ll be closer to the statistical average of most of the schools… And one more year of corpo-life will surely add at least something to my profile.

3) Finances:: As the regular visitors to the blog must be knowing, initially no US B-schools was in my list due to budgetary consideration.. But with time, the love for an international MBA grew and finally I’m eyeing only international B-schools. But for that, I need schol and savings..(plus loans) Adding a year will add to my savings and also better the chances of a scholarship..

4) Goal-clarity:: Perhaps this is the most important reason that makes me feel I’m not ready for an MBA right now.. As of now, I neither know which colleges I really want to apply to, nor do I know what interests me most for post-MBA career. Do I want to make a big career switch and go to finance or do I want to play it safe and return to technology. Or may be Consulting or I-banking?? But wait; am I even very clear what consulting (or for that matter I-banking) is? I mean I do have an idea, but for such major decisions just having an idea hardly suffices. Further the selection of my targets was mainly based on the one major criteria:: achievability.. Interest and the elusive “fit” weren’t actually coming into picture.

There were some more reasons (which I won’t like to share here), but finally the decision is out:: Not applying this year..
So what next?? One year of planning, research, profile building, pursuing my interests and living life freely. I do hope that the decision pays off.

Coming up next on my blog:: my experiences from the B-school events in Delhi in September..

Losing sleep over B-school research.. :-(

Yes, the title is a blatant lift from one of the blogs that I read recently, but what can I do when this exactly is my state these days.. Day and night, B-school research is all that I’m doing..I don’t remember when I worked so hard (office deadlines excluded) Not for my GMAT.. Not for my job interviews And surely not in the four years of my engineering.. The last I remember laboring dedicatedly for something was during my engineering entrance preps. What all am I doing?? Blog-hopping, Reading articles on clear-admit, Visiting school websites ,mailing current students and perhaps most importantly introspection..
Updates so far::
1)Mailed some current students and successful applicants from last year.. Got replies from ppl from Darden,Chicago GSB, Haas and Kelly.. Time for some hard facts:: Profile is gud, but schol not a surety.. And even if I get it, it may not be sufficient for living expenses.. And visa issues are surely bugging people overthere.. Good to know that international exposre counts, but lack of it won’t hit you.. The Haas guy especially advised me not to defer my apps for a year just for international exposure.. Also changing fields does not appear to be that big an issue if u r able to leverage ur experience properly.. In the words of tha Haas-guy, ” Howmuch of your BE content is useful now? Howmuch of your java skills will be useful in 5 years from now? What counts is your ability to transfer skills from one career to the other.. ” Surely thought-provoking..
Another gud news is that there’re certain Govt of India grants for studies abroad.. Have to look for the same..
2) Talked with an MBA colleague:: This guy’s leaving my company tomorrow..He has done a part-time MBA from a reputed Indian institute, but has done his part of research on International MBA.. He suggested me to keep my options open and not restrict my self to tech-domain. As he guessed it right, one of the reasons most of Indian IT guys go for an MBA is that they’re not very happy about their work.. Then why to restrict one’s options to a place where u were not that much happy.. You can excel only when u like what u do.. else u’ll be at best just making a living..
Man, experience surely talks.. Points noted, Boss!!
3) Started looking at essays:: No, Have not started writing my essays as of now.. But have started looking at the app-essays of various schools.. It may look a bit strange, but I’ve kept the essay Qs as one of the criteria for my B-school selections.. Actually I personally feel that the essay Qs can give u at least a bit of idea about the school’s openness for the low-experience guys like me. For example, a look at Sloan’s essays were enough for me to know that the school demands strong managerial experience.. A low work-ex guy like me doesnt stand taht much a chance.. On the other hand Chicago and Haas looked relatively more realistic..

Other updates::

• Have started making blog-friends.. Networking is essential for this infinite B-school research..

• Got lots of hard-copies of brochures now (Had requested them 7-8 weeks back) Surely iday was right when he said thatthe hard-copies have their effect.

• Became a part of Hella’s list ( A yellow pages for MBA bloggers)

Confused!!!

And I thought that life after GMAT would be easy.

It’s more than a month now that I’m into B-school research and the present status is that the more I’m researching into this, the more confused I am getting. I believe I share this confusion with any middle class MBA aspirant, with a profile similar to mine. ( Low work-ex, IT , decent GMAT) My prime confusion can be divided under the following heads:
When MBA?
Some time back I was very sure that this year, I’ll be putting up all my energy for the 2 big ones: GMAT and CAT and this will be my first and last try at the Indian B-schools and some of the international ones. But now that I’m done with the GMAT, dropped the idea of CAT and am about to start the process for my b-school journey, I’m getting a bit confused.. More than a bit actually.. If I decide to wait for a year, it can mean a lot of things to me.. First, on the financial front, savings of one extra year can be a big boost for the 2 years of my MBA. Also, I’ll have one full year to work on my profile part: Can even learn a new language then. Above all, I’ll be closer to the 5-year average experience figure that most of the top B-schools have. Even IIM-A PGPX will be open to me: I’ll be past the 27-year age cut-off..
Considering the above aspects, it appears that deferring my apping by a year makes sense. But then, there are some aspects to life as well. Just today I discussed with my parents my intentions of considering postponing my apps. And their response was not very encouraging. They feel that deferring it by a year will be a bit too late. For other things in life you know :-). Even I tend to agree with them somehow on this. So 80% chances are that I’ll be apping this year. Rest 20% will depend on how the financial calculations turn out.. (So foolish of me, not to have done this part till now )
Which MBA?
This confusion concerns the specialization that I intend to have for my MBA. The reason I need to bother about it right now is that the choice of my targets will depend on this decision. I’ve heard that if you make a big jump like IT to finance or IB, then chances are that you’ll start as a fresher after your MBA. Am I prepared for that? Perhaps not, I’ll rather pick a specialization that make the three years of pre-MBA experience and four years of tech-education count. As of now, technology tops the list, closely followed by consulting, which can keep both tech and non-tech options open for me. But I’m still fine-tuning my options: interacting with current students as well as current aspirants, spending time wading through various schools’ websites and most importantly reading various blogs and success stories. Hope to figure this out in next 2-3 weeks
Where MBA??
When I started the process, ISB was the only school in my list. Financial limitations and unwillingness to settle abroad were the main reasons restricting my choice. Very soon NUS too joined the list. As I researched further, I found that if one can get a decent schol, then a middle tier schools can be comparable in costs to ISB. I looked at European B-schools too: INSEAD, Said, Cranfield and LBS among others. But the problem with these schools is not only are they costly, they offer schols after you get in, unlike their US counterparts that offer scholarship at the time of admission. So anybody like me, who can’t afford to without a schol, is not in a position to take the risk. Still INSEAD is too good to be dropped even on this account, particularly because its cost factor can be compensated with its shorter length. So at one stage, I was very much inclined towards the schol-generous schools like Emory or Purdue .But now a deeper search and research has created a craving for a top MBA B-school.. They say that a B-school is a brand that stays with you for your life.. A line at one of the blogs was particularly influential:: “I’ve seen people in their eighties still bragging about their Harvard days!!!”

But just when I had decided to give the big ones (Excluding the biggest ones, my big ones mean b-schools ranked 6-15) a try, the visa issue has started turning scary. True, as of now I’m least interested in settling abroad, but thinking of repaying the enormous loan in Indian salary is suicidal. Have to work for about two years to make sure that the rest the loan is payable in INR salary. So I’d like to keep the loan light and go for a mid-tier school that can provide me a nice schol. But then precisely because of the visa-factor, it makes sense to do an MBA which has a global recognition. This pushes me back to the top ones, where it may not be easy to get a scholarship. Do I sound confused?? I actually am.

They say that you must divide your targets in three groups of Dream, Reach and Safe.
As of now, Haas (Berkeley) is the one that I have put on my dream list;INSEAD is another. I dare to put ISB on the safe list. Still, exploring the other colleges like Tepper, McCombs, Tuck and Duke.
Planning to app to ISB in R2 and most others in Early Bird entry or R1.
Why MBA?
The most difficult of all Qs:: I guess I’d leave that for the essay questions.

Deadlines!!!

Am keeping an excel sheet of approaching deadlines.. Thought of sharing that on this blog for the benefit for everybody::

School deadline 1 Decision by deadline 2 Decision by
ISB (Hyderabad) 15-Sep-07 15-Dec-07 15-Nov-07 15-Feb-08
INSEAD 3-Oct-07 21-Dec-07 5-Dec-07 29-Feb-08
Tuck (Dartmouth) 10-Oct-07 14-Dec-07 14-Nov-07 8-Feb-08
Chicago GSB 17-Oct-07 3-Jan-08 9-Jan-08 26-Mar-08
UCLA Anderson 24-Oct-07 31-Jan-08 2-Jan-08 28-Mar-08
MIT Sloan 30-Oct-07 28-Jan-08 15-Jan-08 7-Apr-08
Emory (Goizuetta) 1-Nov-07 15-Dec-07 15-Dec-07 1-Mar-07
Michigan (ROSS) 1-Nov-07 15-Jan-08 7-Jan-08 15-Mar-08
Purdue (Krannert) 1-Nov-07 15-Dec-07 1-Jan-08 1-Mar-08
Michigan (Broad) 1-Nov-07 18-Dec-07 9-Jan-08 23-Feb-08
Duke Fuqua 1-Nov-07 9-Dec-07 9-Jan-08 8-Mar-08
Darden Virginia 1-Nov-07 1-Feb-08 3-Jan-08 24-Mar-08
Haas Berkeley 5-Nov-07 28-Jan-08 10-Dec-07 17-Mar-08
Kelly (Indiana) 15-Nov-07 15-Feb-08 15-Jan-08 31-Mar-08
NYU Stern 15-Nov-07 15-Feb-08 15-Jan-08 1-Apr-08

Arghhh!!! WordPress is disgusting when u try to paste from an excel.. They’re still trying to fix the bug. Till then, please bear with me..
Disclaimer 1:: Not all the deadlines mentioned above have been announced yet. Some of the schools are still showing the deadlines for the fall 2007 admits; so I have included the tentative deadlines based on the deadlines for the last year.
Disclaimer 2: This does not represent the list of schools I apping for; many schools like Tepper and McCombs, which I’m considering strongly, are missing from the list.To be included very soon..

GMAT preps timeline

Have got many queries regarding the mock-tests I took and the scores I got on each of them.. Thought this raw time-line will be able to give people an idea on how I went about it.This was supposed to be in paragraph form..But not getting time for the detailed story..

January:First two weeks: Basic research.. Pagalguy success stories: Baba yaga, Psychodementia etc.. Procrastinating the preps (in name of research :-))

Third week:FLT1::crack-the-gmat free test:600 verbal wash-out; maths: rusty
More research; more procrastination
Last week:
FLT 2: GMAT Prep1: 690 ( Don’t remember the break-up)
<< Read somewhere that the tests on GMAT prep have Qs common with those in OG; So had to finish these before starting OG; Later got to know that the guy meant powerprep Don’t do this!! Save GMATPrep for the later stages>>
Bought OG11 .. Took OG diagnostic: Some basic tips from net
February:
Started OG 11 (minus SC) and Manhattan SC guide in parallel.
First three weeks: Finished OG 11 (minus SC) and Manhattan SC
Mid-Feb::
FLT 3: GMAT Prep1: 760 (Q50, V41)
This was a fluke!!! I almost knew nothing about GMAT at this time..
FLT4:: 800score.com test 2: 680 ( Q49, V34)
Last week:: Picked up OG11 SC + Joined some active GMAT forums
March::
Started Kaplan Comprehensive + AWA basics from OG..
First week:: FLT5:: 800score.com test 3: 760 (Q48, V44)
March 20:: FLT6:: Kaptest 1:: 670 (Q50,V37)
March 31:: FLT7:: Kaptest 2:: 630 (Q50,V32)
April::
Started AWA seriously. Started blogging.. Became hyper-active onGMAT groups. Started some misc notes (Spidey’s, Sahil’s)
First week:: FLT8: Powerprep 1: 770 ( Q51,V44)
Second week: Took date for GMAT : May 15.
Third week:: FLT9 Kaptest 3:: 650 (Q50,V34)
Picked up Kaplan 800
Work load increasing.. GMAT preps almost stopped.. Dual deadlines of April 30 and May 30
May ::
Rescheduled GMAT.. New date June 13.
Resumed preps.. Finished Kap800 by mid-May.
FLT 10:: Kaptest 3:: 610 (Q50,V32)
FLT11 : Powerprep 1: 770 ( Q51,V44)
FLT12:: 800score.com test 4: 780 ( Q51, V47)
FLT13:: 800score.com test 5: 770 ( Q51, V44)
Started winding up things.. OG 11 round 2 + continued writing some AWA essays.
Also met the May 30 deadline at office..
June::
Told my boss about it.. => End of all fears and hassles about hiding it + Surety of a reco
Winding up continues.. Manhattan SC + Kap 800 recap (strategies only)
Last week: Took leave from office.. Don’t wanted crashes and bugs to bug me at the most crucial stage.
Took 5 FLTs::
FLT 14: GMAT Prep1 (reinstalled): 780 (Q51, V46)
FLT 15: Manhattan GMAT Test1: 800 (Q51, V51)
FLT 16: Manhattan GMAT Test2: 800 (Q51, V51)
FLT 17: Manhattan GMAT Test3: 720 (Q50, V37)
FLT 18: GMAT Prep2 (reinstalled): 750 (Q50, V40)
Slogged off most of OG 10 in last three days… Knew that no new Qs r to be found… Just wanted to go by the gurus’ advices of sticking to the basics in the last round..
The day before the test:: Almost only AWA and idioms
June 13:: The G-day:: GMAT 770 ( Q51,V44) AWA 5.0 ( Got the score 2 days later)

Must say that I perhaps took too long for my preps.. I strongly believe that once you decide what things to do for ur preps, two and a half months are sufficient for any level of preps..

My G-day Experience-II

I somehow managed to calm down myself and tried to think that what was lieas ahead of me is the major thing.. How manyB-schools really care about the AWA score if u get a stellar GMAT score? ( Some schools do, but anything that could have a cooling effect on me was fine with me at that time ) So now I was for the major thing: the battle of 800…

Quants:: I knew I’ll ace it and I did:
Quants was my stronghold right from the day 1 of the preps. Most of the mistakes I had made in my practice test were the silly ones:: marking the answer value in dollars when it was required to be in cents, marking Jack’s age when Jill’s was asked and similar ones. So I decided to triple-check each of the answers in the first 15.And it paid twice. Once as early as my 4th Q, I had calculated the value of k, when that of 1/k was required. Then, it was perhaps my 8^th or 9^th question. It was a statistics question on standard deviation and I had miscalculated the value. While double-checking, I intuitively felt that this can not be the answer for the given set of values, recalculated it and found that I was indeed wrong in my first attempt.

Perhaps Q20 onwards, Qs started getting really tough. But fortunately I had lots of time on my hand. So I kept enjoying the tough ones, knowing that this is a sign that I’m doing good. These were inter-leaved with some really easy Qs, which I didn’t expect at this level. Some of these were time-consuming, but only because they needed a lot of calculations.. Perhaps these were the experimental ones, but I could not afford to take any risks.

Last 7 minutes:: 3 Qs left. At this juncture, I got a tough DS question. 4 minutes passed and after picking numbers, I was almost sure that it must be (C), but was not confident about it. Time was running out, so I picked (C) and moved ahead. Luckily the last two were relatively simple ones and I was able to finish of my Maths section with 2 minutes to spare.

From my mock tests I had calculated that on my bad day, I’d score 50 and on a good day, a perfect 51. All the double n triple checking ensured that this surely wasn’t my bad-day. I guess 34^th was the only Q that I cud have got wrong.. So I was confident of landing up a 51 in Quants.

I was feeling much better in this break. The AWA debacle had subsided and the maths performance had given me the much needed feel-good factor.

Verbal: My make-or-break section:: This time it made my day::
Scoring a Q50 or Q51 in almost all practice tests, it was verbal alone that had scores swing from 610(Kaptest #4) to 800 (Manhattan GMAT 1 and 2). So I was desperately waiting for this section.

Started with some easy ones, 2 super easy SC Qs, followed by a pretty obvious CR. At the 4^th Q, I got a monstrous RC. I used the well-practiced roadmap technique and took notes in written. I’m not sure how correctly I answered it, but it ate up a lot of my time. By the time I reached my 10^th-11^th Question, it was clear that I was lagging behind the scheduled time. For subsequent RC Qs, I had to resort to mental roadmaps, instead of the written ones. Still, I must say that the Roadmap technique helped me tackle RCs better. In the second half of the sections, I started getting all kind of difficult Qs, not only tough ones, but the time consuming ones as well: Fully underlined SCs, 4-5 lines-long CRs and 5-6 para long RCs. The lines from Keya’s success story were echoing in my mind: “Either my mind has given up, or I must be doing really good to get these Qs.” And I strongly believed that it was latter.

For the last 10 Qs, I had about 17-18 minutes left: just on the borderline. At that time, I was finding it really difficult to focus. Speculations about my score were distracting me from the job at hand. The Qs,which kept getting tougher, did not help my case either. But somehow I kept foing and finally I finished with about a minute to spare.

I’m done; show me the score; not yet!!!
Now here’s the dark shade of me. At times, I like to tease myself by delaying the things I really really want to see or know. (Perhaps this is what Scott Peck calls “Delaying the gratficication” )Even in the mock tests, I used to get up for a glass of water or something before seeing the scores, jsut to make it more pleasurable. It was no different this time. I started filling all the background information, which was mostly optional and I don’t think that even 10% of students care to fill that. I was at the 4th screen of the background info,when the Pearson guy, who was overseeing me, rushed from the other room to let me know that I don’t actually need to fill that and I should better proceed to check my score. At this, I gave up and just proceeded on the last screen, confirmed that I don’t want to cancel the scores, clicked on the show-scores button and closed my eyes in prayers. I was sure that my score is going to be 7X0, where X can be from 4 in the worst case to 8 in the bestest one. I opened my eyes to see 770. It was Q51, V44.I thumped my fist in the air and walked out confidently.. All these months of hard-work had finally paid off. With that score, I can hope to target even the higher-end schools and hope for some schol to come my way as well.. But that comes later. Right now, the best thing is that I again have time for life and for myself..

My G-day Experience-I

“The day” arrives..

Well, after all those months of preps and many mock GMATs, I guess I was ready for my encounter with the beast.. 13^th was the day. And though 13 is an often cursed number, it has never ever proved unlucky for me.. And I hoped that 13 will be good for me this time too..

I had an unusually good sleep the night before.. Normally, I have butterflies in my stomach a day before any crucial exam, but perhaps this time the “Art of Living” exercises helped (I had recalled those back last week and practiced every morning for the last 2-3 days) and I surely was in better control of myself. This did ease my nervousness a bit, but unfortunately just a bit. Woke up at about 6 in the morning.. Had a quick look at my idiom-list.. Another quick look at my essay template.. And then decided not to strain my mind any further.. As usual cud not eat anything due to nervousness..  Left for the center with my cousin about 30 minutes before the scheduled time.

At the test center
So I was at the Pearson center a good 10-15 minutes before time.. Bought some kit-kats for the break and then headed for the examination-center…All the time I was thinking that the only thing that could kill me was nervousness.. So kept on telling myself “Don’t panic!! Don’t panic” and this was creating all the more tension in my mind..

Anyways, I was 8^th of about 10 candidates registered for the 9 AM slot. I was asked to hand-over my passport for verification purposes. Next was the bio-metric scan. Finger-print were taken, my signatures were recorded on a digital pad. Then a digital snap of mine was taken. Later on, I got to know that this snap will be the one that’ll be sent to all the schools which receive my GMAT scores. Boo-hoo!!! Why wasn’t I dressed in my best shirt? Even my hairdo could have been better After all the basic formalities, I was taken to the test room..

Pre-test confusion:: Which schools do I send my scores too?
Before entering the room, the Pearson guy asked me if I want to write down the list of schools or I had them in my mind.. I told them it was latter. But the fact was that even at that time, I had not finalized the names As I sat on the screen, I quickly selected ISB and NUS: the two sureties on my list. Next I selected the two scholarship generous ones Emory and Fisher.. Was confused about my fifth choice.. Should I go with another mid-tier school.. Vanderbilt and Purdue were the names in my mind. Or should I aim higher and go for Berkley or Chicago GSB.. Finally, I settled for Tepper. The Carnegie-Mellon brand name and its MBA(IT) course tilted the scales in its favor… Not surprisingly after the G-day, this is my top-choice out of the five listed (provided that I get a schol)

At this point, the other guys in the room had already started their stuff and the room was really noisy with their keyboards strokes echoing throughout. At this stage, the ear-plugs came handy. I just plugged those in and I was in my own zone.

AWA:: Panic killed me here::
I knew that I have not had much practice for this section.. Most of that little practice was not under timed conditions. But yes, the previous day was almost entirely devoted to this section. No real time practice, but I had a look at the entire list of AWA prompts of both kinds and pondered over each one for some time so that I have at least I have something for each topic. I find this really strange:: If there were no such list, perhaps I would have felt pretty much confident after writing down 9-10 essays and thinking points for 10-15 others, but actually having one such list creates all the more insecurity if you leave out even 3-4 topics. Anyways, coming back to my G-day experiences, I was targeting at 5.5 or 6.0 in the AWA section.

It started with the argument section.. The prompt that I faced didn’t seem familiar. How could that be? I had scanned the entire list just the previous day, but surely this was a new topic. Still I had prepared the argument part well.. And I guess I was able to write a reasonably good essay. Found a number of flaws in the argument, wrote about 5-6 para essay. I was more or less satisfied with this one.. Later I found that my prompt wasn’t in the copy of the official argument list I had.. Perhaps they have expanded the original list and you can find the longer list here..

Next was the issue prompt. Aha.. this was a familiar one. And I had spend some minutes thinking on that just the previous day. I have a lot of points and I’ll surely churn out a 5.5 or 6.0 essay. Or so I thought.. As I started writing, I felt that perhaps I’m missing the more crucial ones.. As I started arranging my half-written points up and down, I realized that I was falling short of time.. As if that was not enough, the guys around me, who had finished their AWA section, started leaving the room. Sure enough they had started before me, but still this had a psychological effect and I was in a state of panic.. I ended up making a mess of my essay. Though I knew, I had put some good points, but I wasn’t satisfied at all with the presentation. In the last 90 seconds, I decided to proofread at the cost of adding more content and that was really a good decision as I caught at least 6-7 spelling errors.

In the break, I kept cursing myself for the blunders in the issue essay. Tried to remain focused, but now all the strong points and relevant examples that I should have put on my issue essay kept cropping up in my mind. Anyhow, nothing could be done now. I paid a quick visit to the rest room, used the famous “splashing water on the face” technique, had my kit-kat, rested for 2-3 minutes and then proceeded for the test room.

<< To be contd……>>

Yipppeee!! 770 (M51,V44)

 

Hi everybody

Wrote my GMAT yesterday….

Scored  770.. (M51, V44)

Started writing the detailed debriefing, but am already feeling sleepy L But I guess after all these long months  of preps, I deserve a sound sleep.. But then this place which has been a record of my GMAT journey doesn’t deserve to be neglected too….

So though of this mini-post for information purposes for the visitors of the blog.. Detailed debriefing to follow soon.

Till then, it’s celebration time for me J