A blog to share my MBA experience from application days to graduation.
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| Harry Potter's MBA Musings A blog to share my MBA experience from application days to graduation. |
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Sunday, February 29, 2004 Sunday Well, decided to take a break and just relax out the Sunday. Now the time to get back into action. On MBA front have to work on : - My update to Sloan - Wharton application I have got my tickets for Mumbai done for Sloan interview. The march month starts in few hours, and the 1st/2nd week hopefully brings some news from HAAS. The eventful week is the week of 15th March. I have 3 results ( HAAS, Michigan and Duke) and Sloan interview that week. Continuing forward my "Theory 3" . The result week of 15th March is 3rd week of 3 month of the year 2004 (6). This should be lucky week for me . Do I see things falling in place finally ? :). Yep, hopefully. It has been a long journey which started with my GMAT preparation in Sept/October 2002. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 8:46 PM | Friday, February 27, 2004 This weekend I have my hands full this weekend. Have a backlog of things both work, personal and MBA related that I want to finish off. For example - Despite my interview invite, I need to update Sloan on some of the new happenings, my latest performance rankings at work etc. So less blogging till Sunday morning IST. The monday starts a new month , March (3) :). I am glad we can turn the leaf in calendar and feel happy that this is the month full of action, excitement and dissappointments. Catch you folks later this weekend then. ( i.e if I can resist from being away from BWeek and blogs ) posted by Ravi Trivedi | 7:09 PM | Thursday, February 26, 2004 Duke Fuqua application - ETS mixup This doesnt seem to be resolved. I have called up adcom and the staff say they wouldnt process the application till they recieve the score from ETS. I did FAX the GMAT score to the adcom yesterday. However, they mentioned it might mean my application is pushed to R4. I am planning to write another mail explaining about the ETS mixup. Hope the Fuqua folks understand my situation and give me a fair chance. Lesson learnt -- Dont trust your FAX machine's send confirmation. Better to speak over phone. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 10:53 PM | Addicted to BWeek The Business Week folks should have a rating of participants, based on the time they spend on the forum. I will most likely end up in top 1%. :)) Yes Chunky, our community of bloggers is like Press Corps. If one has a news, it spreads. I usually visit all the blogs regularly. Wish we had RSS XML feeds, so that I could subscribe to the feed and read all the new content from every one collated at one place. ( Folks, correct me if I am wrong ). And Chunky, no I am a Round 3 at Duke, so my results are due March 18th. Luvshack all the best to you. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 5:35 PM | MIT Sloan invites me I recieved an interview invitation via email from Rod, Director of Admissions at Sloan. I am really excited!!! This means I will have a result by April 5th, from one of my top choices school. Luckily, I have a chance to do face-to-face interviews with adcom who are coming to Mumbai mid-March. All the best to you folks out there. All those waiting for invites, there is still a lot of time , excrept from the mail p.s. If you have a friend or colleague who is also applying to the MIT Sloan School but has not been invited, please let him/her know that we are still evaluating applications and will invite candidates to interview through April 5, 2004. This news brings back my memories of last year interview. I did mock interviews, prepared for the Behavioural interview. My last years notes will be of great help. To summarize my Sloan story so far posted by Ravi Trivedi | 1:45 PM | Wednesday, February 25, 2004 New fellow Bloggers Mark and Jie who have an admit to Harvard and Stanford have started blogging. Welcome to the club. Thanks to Pitbull on searching this blog through my site. Personally, I like blogs where I get something to read on a regular basis. Last year, Tad Holbie did a great job. A lot of us used to read it like the morning paper. Well, I myself have been guilty of not writing enough and also not discussing a great deal on essays/application content. Now after 9 applications ( 4 last year and 5 this year), I feel more confident about the application process and can in fact guide students in early stages of applications. I realized this when I was speaking with my friend who wants to apply Wharton R3. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 7:40 PM | The wait continues Eventless days ( sans ETS mixup) continue for me. I will FAX the GMAT score today to Duke. Sometimes, even though my gut feeling tells me I will not get any mail, I continue waiting for the mail. My hunch on various application results ( in chronographical order): - MIT Sloan : I am hoping to hear from them soon, since I heard that there are interviews in Mumbai in March. - HAAS : If they call me it would be only in March or around Super Saturday (6th March) . I heard from one Indian who was selected to HAAS, that they first focus on people who can make it to SS. Since, I am in India, I cant attend SS. Hence. ..... - Michigan : I am expecting the news on 9th , 12th or 15th March. Number 3 has been always lucky for me... :)) - Duke : I hope they will tell my result on 18th March. The ETS mixup hopefully does not delay or affect the decision. - Kellogg : Should let me know of the result anytime after March 15th. By then they would have read most of the Indian IT applicant's applications. That is also the time, when last year they gave the results for a lot of Indian applicants. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 7:34 PM | Scholarship application I dropped the idea of applying to Paul Foundation, after careful scrutiny of their application and processes. There were too many issues in filling up the form. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 4:10 PM | Incomplete Application I recieved a mail from Duke, with regards to them having not recieved the ETS score. Instead, they said they had another score of mine ?? Well, but I wrote GMAT only once and had 700+, whereas they had a score of 600- on the file. I was totally taken aback. May be they tried very hard to match up the file and it is not uncommon to have similar names in India ( though same name and surname would be less likely ). I had requested the ETS for Additional scores, around a month back, but when I called them they didnt seem to have processed my poor request (sent my FAX). Well, so I asked them to send the scores again. Hope Fuqua will consider my application for Round 3 and not stop the processing. BTW, this reminded me of how an applicant ( from sept2003intake Ygroup) reacted when Kellogg asked him to FAX his GMAT, 3 days before the Round 2 deadline. Well, after he faxed the score he was served the admit . Guess, they were confirming the scores. Hope my situation is like that :). posted by Ravi Trivedi | 12:09 AM | Tuesday, February 24, 2004 Kellogg decisions Kellogg decisions have started coming out. Heard from a bunch of folks who were admitted on the BWeek Thread. However, I guess these are all US based students, since they got a phone call. Congratulations to all the admits and Good Luck to rest. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 6:38 PM | Sunday, February 22, 2004 Wharton application Recently I had a chat with another R3 applicant. Since this was his first application, I spend little time brainstorming with him, what his essays could look like. During the process, I also thought about my essays and gave examples from that. Certain new thoughts about my positioning came up. This also set the ball rolling for Wharton application. Some of the feedback from a friend (headed to INSEAD), who reviewed my essays this year was : - The essays didnt convey the "energy flow" and enthusiasist person I am. They needed more punch. I realize one of the crucial things for Wharton, is how the essays are written, more than any other school. For example, MIT Sloan mentions that writing ability is not among the 11 competencies they evaluate the application on. Well, I have a long way to go for Wharton essays posted by Ravi Trivedi | 6:39 PM | Countdown on this Busy Sunday HAAS Berkeley-- 22 days (13 days before Super Saturday interviews) Michigan - 22 days Duke result - 25 days Kellogg result - 36 days And the wait continues. In the meanwhile I am applying to the Paul Foundation Scholarships, one of the few scholarships available from India. The last day to submit the application is 28th Feb. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 6:29 PM | Saturday, February 21, 2004 My recommender changed his jobs and has a new contact address. As suggested my few schools, few days back I sent his new bearings to all the R2/R3 schools. So far only one school, Duke responded back saying they have recieved the update. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 1:48 AM | The number of hits from *.edu domain are increasing. Some times I wonder if the Rod Garcia, Kris Nebel , Beth Flye of the world stop by this page. I know Alex Brown does. Anyways, back to waiting for results. Sometimes, it gets very hard for me to get sleep, and I want to check my mail in the middle of the night or whenever I get up. More so, since I am in India all the status changes happen in night for me. I still remember that I was awake till 4:00 AM the day MIT results were out. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 12:52 AM | My fellow bloggers Saw many of your get Wharton Ding. Dont loose hope, the MBA admissions is high degree of randomness and subjectivity involved. In fact some of the alums who interviewed told, it is destiny that will decide where you get selected. Besides lot of you have another school to go. All the best for other applications. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 12:10 AM | Friday, February 20, 2004 MIT campaign is going well In the last one month, I have had a chance to meet/talk to few alums and students. One of the alumni who worked with me is ready and eager to write an recommendation for me. I believe, his recommendation would be valuable, since he worked with me for over an year. On second thoughts, I have decided to be brief in my communication and write only when there are significant updates. Same is the case for recommendations. I wouldnt submit too many of those and would prefer from only those who know me well to have substantial comments. In any case, the adcoms know about all such recommendations may have been influenced heavily by candidate himself, hence they will not value them till they have something concrete to say. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 9:10 PM | HAAS interview invites start coming The HAAS interview invites have started coming out. I have mixed feelings about my application. Given the amount of uncertainity in my pool ( Indian IT applicant from India), I dont know if I will get an interview invite. Even though my application was not the best, I will rate it 7/10 where 10 is my best possible application . With that rating, I think atleast I should get an interview invite. Sometimes, I wonder -- Will HAAS also waitlist me without interview ... But shh.... let that thought not enter my mind..... All the best to all you HAAS applicants. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 9:06 PM | Wednesday, February 18, 2004 Waitlist chat I attended the waitlist chat at www.accepted.com. The chat had usual advice for waitlisted candidate. The best resource for Sloan WL advice is Max Mironov's Business Week Journal. The transcript for the chat should be up within few days. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 5:44 PM | Tuesday, February 17, 2004 Kellogg Kristen mentions that all Round 2 processing of applications is over and the decisions will start coming out. Last year there was a trickle of results ( ding and admits) till mid-March and only after that majority decisions came . =========== Have you released any 2nd round candidate decisions yet ? when do you expect you will begin releasing them ? Hi Folks, We have just completed all Round 2 file processing and status updates--so anyone who submitted all materials and whose status still reads incomplete should contact the office. At this time, we will start making/releasing Round 2 decisions. Best Regards, Kristen posted by Ravi Trivedi | 12:48 PM | Sunday, February 15, 2004 Congratulations to all fellow blogger admits and WL Congratulations to All the best Chunky PitBull, waitlisted at HAAS Berkeley. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 9:19 AM | Saturday, February 14, 2004 Happy Valentine's Day !! From the Radio FM " Did you notice that Childrens day (Nov 14th in India), is exactly 9 months from the Valentines day" ? posted by Ravi Trivedi | 4:52 PM | Friday, February 13, 2004 Waitlist thoughts Who will know better than me what it is to be on a waitlist ? Atleast, I am better off this year with 4 results to come in March. If you are on a waitlist of a school, and thats all you have then it is tough. You cant plan for things which may or may not happen. If I have an admit and try another waitlist then it is a different thing. Atleast, I am sure of going some where. I am more confident of getting into one of the schools this year. There have been significant changes in my job and extra curricular. Also, I dont know if it is good or bad, but I didnt apply to any school where I wouldnt want to be next year i.e. I didnt want a safety school. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 9:35 PM | Useful resource for Sloan Waitlist Hope all you folks on Sloan waitlist have seen this Business Week Journal of Maxim Mironov. He writes about how he moved from waitlist to admissions. Very useful advice . All the best to you. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 9:29 PM | Thursday, February 12, 2004 Some Trivia around HAAS webboard http://64.55.105.211/unchaas/ hosts the HAAS web board. I wonder who set this up. "unchaas" stands for 49 in Hindi. Is this another of off-shored work :). BTW, I have noticed that no new posts are appearing on HAAS Webboard. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 7:30 PM | HAAS updates from Chat The interview invites will start from this weekend and continue till early March. I guess there is a Super Saturday on March 6th. The chat was chaotic with 170 participants, no moderators and only 2 adcom members to answer the questions. Good Night/Good Day posted by Ravi Trivedi | 3:06 AM | The wait appears longer. Though I realize that there is one full month before any decisions trickle, the wait seems so long. Some how, I want to quickly reach March 12th. March 12th ? Well, as an admit I will know my result few days earlier :) Got it .... I am done with all the mandatory interviews for Michigan, Kellogg and Duke. Now, I eagerly await HAAS. Let me see what the HAAS chat has in store . It starts at 2:00 AM India time and I am wide awake without any caffiene . This is the MBA fever that has got me past all the ups and down. Well, I have lots of things at work and outside to keep me busy, but my mind keeps running towards checking mails, visit BWeek. Especially with the MIT Sloan campaign on, I cant afford to rest. It has been a long time since Sept 2002 -- thats when I started preparing for GMAT :). At times one feels weared out and fatigued. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 1:26 AM | Wednesday, February 11, 2004 Duke Interview updates Had an session of Duke interview with an alum. It lasted exactly an hour. I felt it was just OK. Wished I had rambled a little less. However, the alum was very informal and I already had met him in a dinner reception a week back, so we had a relaxed conversation. I found him helpful and we even discussed the list of schools I had applied to and what each of them offered. He was genuine in his advice and I really liked that. I had the following set of questions: - Walk me through your Resume. - Why MBA? Why Fuqua ? - You have 30 seconds to describe yourself, as to why you should be taken into Fuqua ? - What is an leader to you ? Are you an leader ? - What has been the turning point in your life. - Which schools you have applied to and why? Happy interviewing folks. Thank you to all of you who helped with tips and advice on Duke interview. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 6:30 PM | Tuesday, February 10, 2004 Upcoming HAAS Chat Dear Prospective Student, Do you have questions for the admissions staff? Would you like to gain insight from current MBA students? You can chat online with members of the Berkeley MBA Admissions Committee and Haas Student Ambassadors on Wednesday, February 11, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Follow the link below to enter the chat and ask your questions. We look forward to chatting with you! The Berkeley MBA Admissions Team Chat Link: www.haas.berkeley.edu/MBA/prospective.html --- This invitation is being sent to all individuals who have a current application record in our online application system. --------------- The schedule for upcoming chats posted at http://www.interactionsoftware.com/openhouse/default.asp?SchoolId=1000199049 Name Date Time Full-time MBA Chat Wednesday, February 11, 2004 12:30PM-1:30PM PT Full-time MBA Chat Wednesday, March 3, 2004 12:30PM-1:30PM PT posted by Ravi Trivedi | 11:15 PM | Monday, February 09, 2004 Duke interview I have an interview with Duke alum this week. It has been a while since I interviewed, so I need to brush up. Based on my research, the Fuqua interview is a "standard MBA" interview. Folks, any advice for the interview. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 5:58 PM | Saturday, February 07, 2004 Kellogg Admission Fact Kristen posted this in Kellogg FAQ Thread. ============ You mentioned that as soon as you'll finish processing Round 2 apps, you'll will start making the decisions. This has me a little concerned. As a few Round 2 applicants have not even completed their interview (for e.g. I haven't even heard about my alumni interview since I submitted in early Jan), how can the admissions committe start making decisions without comparing all the applicants in an application pool?? Seems to me like a rolling admissions process. Is it? We use a rolling process within deadlines; we have enough historical experience to review and make decisions on a rolling basis and do not need to compare all files within a deadline, especially since we have completed Round 1 and have a good sense of the caliber of this year's pool. ============== Interesting, since I completed my interview in Dec 2nd week, I should see my decision a little earlier. I remember for last year, decisions for people who applied early came in March 2nd -3rd week. Finally got the Duke Interview invitation today. Plan to interview next week. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 12:30 AM | Thursday, February 05, 2004 Application updates The Kellogg application is completed. Now have to wait for Duke interview invite and hopefully HAAS calls me as well. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 2:29 PM | Digital Dividend I dont remember if I shared this with you earlier. ===== Digital Dividend is a Web site dedicated to exploring creative business approaches, public-private partnerships, and other sustainable ways to bridge the global digital divide and create lasting economic, social, and environmental benefits. The Project Clearinghouse is a fully searchable database currently tracking over 900 digitally-enabled projects in developing countries. For additional information, please visit http://www.digitaldividend.org. ======== This initiative is brain child of the famous C K Prahalad ( of Michigan univ), who also started Praja Inc. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 11:41 AM | Wednesday, February 04, 2004 Duke Chat "We are the World" I could attend the chat for last 45 minutes. I saved it and the chat is posted here. Hope you find this useful. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 11:25 PM | Duke Reception Duke's Dean Douglas Breeden visited Bangalore and hosted a alumni reception. They extended the invitations to admits and prospective students. I dont know if they pre-selected the students for invitation. It was a small gathering, with around 25 people. It provided a good chance to speak with Dean, the alum and other members of Duke community. Some of the alums were very passionate about the Duke culture. I also had chance to chat with fellow applicants ( Round 2 and 3). One applicant who was already in at Kellogg, had a nice discussion around Kellogg Vs Duke. Due to the small gathering, the discussions were more personalized and I liked that. I have been to other receptions in Mumbai, but they were large gatherings. All in all , a good experience. I also met the alumni who interviews in Southern India. While I am waiting for admission office to assign a interview (recommended for all) , it was nice to meet the alum before hand. If I think deeply, I like all those schools who have interviews for all applicants. I feel my writing skills aren't the greatest, and my friends also mention, that my passion and energy does not come through in my writing. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 8:19 PM | Monday, February 02, 2004 Plan for this month - Sit back and relax. - Expect a HAAS interview. Wait for Duke Notification. - Sent MIT Sloan regular updates - Check BWeek several times a day and night :) - Start Wharton application. posted by Ravi Trivedi | 10:11 PM | |
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