Admitted to the Class of 2010 !!

Though the results of the interview was declared within a month of my interview, the wait seemed endless. I was continuosly hooked onto to Pagalguy since 22nd to see if any updates had come on the results. Initially I thought the results had been delayed to December 1st week but the Adcom confirmed (on their official thread) that results would be out on or before 20th Nov.

Going by last year when ISB had declared the results about 3 days prior to the deadline. People were expecting the same this year. But it wasnt to be. To compound miseries people started flouting new theories on Pagalguy - the most famous being the "Doc update theory". Day after day passed and there were no results in sight.

20th Nov 2008: ISB Adcom confirmed that results would be out after 5pm.  Still people hoped against hope and expected results to be out early. But it wasnt to be. Dot 5pm and everbody expected the floodgates to open. But not even a whimper. 

6pm - Still no news. Thanks to PG I knew results had not been out as nobody had posted "I am in" yet. But the anxiety had reached feverish pitch with posts coming every second. 

7pm - Still no news. by now people had started to real impatient and jittery. People like my friend Mr. Raghav Wate who wasnt on PG and expected results between 5 - 7 pm thought he had been dinged. Luckily he had me to make fun of his existence and keep him entertained with hope. I was personally tired of the wait but was sure the results would be out soon.

8pm - Aargh !! No news still !! By now I was beginning to prepare myself for a long haul till midnight. My mom had called me a couple of times in the day to enquire if the results had come. Some of my close friends had pinged me on Gtalk to check if results had come. Strangely I was not feeling tense. Somehow deep inside me I was confident of making the cut. But people around were very tense. Now mentally I was feeling worn out !!

8.30 pm - I had lost patience by now. Sat down to enjoy my dinner. Was pretty certain that results would come by only midnight.

9pm - Saw the holy mail !! Was ecstatic !! Called all the A-Z in my phonebook to tell them. 

This Journey has been truly completed !! Now only financials remain !!

Interview

The Wait for the interview was very painful. The results were supposed to come by 14th. I was anxious the whole day. I had set my gmail on filter to my office mail id so that I could see the result in my office also. But there was no news till evening. Came back in the evening and this was when I really got hooked onto Pagal Guy. 

I could see that quite a few people had got calls while a few of them had not heard from them. My heart sunk. For the first time I felt very nervous. Though INSEAD was my dream school but my hopes were pinned on ISB. It was a make or break situation. Somebody posted that those on borderline were put on waitlist and decision on them would come by Friday. Somebody posted that all calls had gone out and those who hadnt heard were dinged. Somebody posted that the Adcom had not screened all applications. Speculations were flying thick and fast and those were anxious moments. 

15th, 16th, 17th and 18th were very long days. Day after day I came back and checked out Pagal guy and still there was no news just rumours !! Normally I am a cool and calm customer but this was getting to me !! 

19th October - and still no news. I reached home by 7.30 pm and checked PG, my mails and still no signs of anything happening. Finally at 8pm the holy mail came and a normally calm dude like me couldnt help jumping around like a kid. I was confident about my interview skills so I knew this was getting one step closer to ISB. My interview was on 22nd at Taj Lands End, Bandra.

Two day before my interview Raj Thackeray came alive and instigated problems in Mumbai and as luck would have had it his hearing was slated on 21st October in Bandra. Mumbai was closed down. But I was determined to have my interview done on 22nd. I couldnt wait. I reached about 1 hour early. I had my interview at 15th floor of Taj Land's end. 3 panel members Mrs. Hema, One young guy who belongs to Deans Council and third one a alum. 100 word essay was on "Passion". Questions as follows in a random order ...

1. questions were application specific. just picking a random word from the essays or accomplishments and asking on it
2. questions related to my current job, current industry and some facts n customer preferences
3. what would i do differently if was the MD of my company
4. post ISB plans
5. With work ex of about 2 yrs will i be able to contribute to the learning of my peer group
6. craziest thing i have done
7. stock price of my company. wud i recommend buying it? 
8. statistics related to my industry
9. Market size of a Service product that my company was selling
10. how i handle senior colleagues at work when i am leading them
11. what negative issues wud ur peer group have about you if u make it to ISB
12. reason behind choosing current job n profile; job satisfaction; why leave the company if the going is good
13. who r the competitors to ur company? what was my competitor doing right which was giving him an edge over us in the market
14. follow ur heart or mind ?
15. wud you take a job which gives you the desired profile but pays you just enough to pay ur loan EMIs and lead simple life
16. where do i see my company in next 10 years?
17. any questions for us?

What I could gauge from the interview was that they wanted to see if you are the same person they figured you were in the essays. They were looking for passion, clarity of thought & a clear goal and not how great acads you have or how many mountains you have moved at work. 

I think these are more or less what they asked. Other questions were add on questions. Interview lasted about 40-45 mins. Looked good and got positive hints from Mrs. Hema. But you never know. Almost everyone was coming out of their interviews feeling they had aced it so my fingers were crossed.

Apping Blues !

This part seemed to be the easiest part but God !! This was torture at its best !! 

I had written GMAT with the sole aim to apply to ISB but people and friends around were of the strong view that I must apply to other B-Schools as well. I got carried away and started with the FT100 list. 

I looked at all top schools in the US. But talking to people in those colleges and a few knowledgable people around I quickly found two major weaknesses in my profile :

1. My workex would be about 3 yrs by Sept-2009 when most of these courses start. Average work ex was about 5 yrs - 8 yrs in these colleges. Harldy anybody below the age of 25 studied in those colleges.

2. I had no international exposure. This was another major weakness as colleges like diverse students with a global outlook.

So I striked off all top US colleges like Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg from my list. Chicago interested me a bit and speaking to the alums here in Mumbai gave me confidence that if there was a US school which I deemed a correct fit to my profile. But every few days a few schools would add into my list and a few would vanish as more and more information was available to me.

However by mid-May I had a major rethink. I figured what I really wanted. I wanted a 1-year program which was of extreme intensity in nature. So keeping this mind I researched again. I found a few European, Australian and Canadian schools which fit the bill. Australian school had late deadlines, Canada as aplace didnt appeal to me and most European schools were too stringent about Work ex and International experience. But INSEAD excited me the most. If there was a school I never wanted to regret not applying to that would be INSEAD. So despite hoping against hope I decided to apply to INSEAD.

June 1st - ISB application opened. I browsed through the application and noted the three essays. Parallely I started working on the INSEAD essays as well. More so on INSEAD than ISB. 

INSEAD had about 7 Essays to write. Each was too different from the other and more or less covered major facets of my life. Writing them was a real pain. There are so many things you are supposed to take care before you submit the essays because these can make or break your application. Word limits didnt help. Some essays the length was too less and in others too many. A smart applicant can use this to their advantage. After many edits and drafts (about 8 of them) I froze my essays for INSEAD by August end. 

ISB had three essays out of which the first one was standard. But the other two were challenging and to my surprise I realized by beginning of August that they had changed the third essay !! But having written INSEAD essays I had understood the nuances of application English. So I could freeze the ISB essays by September 1st week.

September 7, 2008 - Just another sunday of the year. I submitted both my applications and got ready for a long and tiring wait. I despatched my transcripts to INSEAD by courier. To my surprise it cost me on Rs. 800/- only. On 15th they confirmed receipt and told me that my application was complete and I would hear from them by Nov 7th.

ISB told me that I would hear from them 3-7 days prior to my interview date which would by 14th - 18th October as Mumbai interviews were scheduled from 21st October - 24th October. 

The GMAT

I wanted to target 680+ as 90 percentile would keep me comfortable wherever I applied. I had two months to prepare and achieve it. I started researching about books and zeroed on the three books:

1. Original guide to GMAT (OG)

2. Kaplan 800

3. Princeton Review

Pros and Cons

1. OG - The book is the official preparation guide written by GMAC itself. So the level of difficulty was more or less representative of the actual GMAT. Also the number of questions under each topic is exhaustive. But the book is weak on theory. Also unless challenged very few people tend to improve. Also the books cost twice the amount of the other two.

2. Kaplan & Princeton - Theory is clearly explained. Level of questions is challenging. Priced at half of OG. But what both these books need is a more than a few practice questions. Kaplan is better than Princeton as it is better organised in terms of content and clarity - wise better.

I bought all the three one after the other as I ran out of practice questions in just a month. Then I turned to the world wide web and piracy. I bought the Kaplan 800 practice DVD from the local piracy market. I also surfed through different websites with GMAT practice tests. I also downloaded the free GMAT tutorial. 

I started with the Kaplan DVD and my confidence kept falling. Verbal was turning to be a nightmare. Just 3 days prior to the GMAT I took my first evaluative test on the Kaplan. I scored 580. On the second one I scored 600. On the third one 600 again. For the first time in my journey I freaked out !! I had google coming to my rescue here. I googled Kaplan CD and found that people around the world had a similar experience with Kaplan especially verbal. So my scores looked decent now. Now I tried GMATprep test one day before GMAT and scored 690 on first and 700 on the second. Confidence was back !!

On the test day I preferred to just relax. Didnt study ! No tests ! Just my usual exam routine where I listen to music and prepare myself mentally as GMAT is a patience tester with the 4 hour long sojourn !!

I reached the test centre about a an hour early. Got registered at the desk and at my appointment time started with the test. I was apprehensive about essays as I had not prepared anything on it. So just blurted out for the next one hour on both the essays. I had a feeling that I didnt exactly do 'well' on this one. 

The Quant section went well. I didnt have any issues. By the time I was done there was about 20 minutes remaining on the clock. Verbal was tricky but the Reading Comprehension was easier than anticipated. I didnt exactly screw it but I knew I had made a few mistakes here and there. I had about 15 mins left on my clock by the time I was done ! Submitted and chose to receive the score. When I saw 720 I was ecstatic. Took my scoresheet and left for home.

GMAT  was truly done and I was truly on my way. Some of you may feel I scored low but I know 700+ was good enough for any B-School let alone ISB!! I felt the tougher part was out of the way but as I learnt later this was the easiest part !!

Getting Started !!

Once I was in Ashok Leyland it didnt take long to realize how invaluable a management education is. And how work ex would add value to that education. I knew exactly what I wanted to add to myself before I got to ISB.  

I went through their formal induction and at the beginning of July'07 I was posted to Mumbai. My main reason for choosing Mumbai (over Mangalore - which was my hometown) was because it was the Maximum city. What people would take years to learn in any city, Mumbai would teach it to them in a matter of few months. Life here is tougher than other other place in India. People are tougher to deal with, you get a 500 sq.ft apartment at a rent which would fetch you a bungalow in any other city, living close to office is a luxury which meant you had to rent at a place which was atleast 25-30 kms from where your office was and thus journey times were in hours !!

In a few months I gelled into the city and felt I was ready for the journey to ISB. Thats when I brought my laptop and got a internet connection. Started with researching about GMAT and found that you had to get registered at mba.com and book a date and pay $250. 

Timing the GMAT was critical as it has a bearing on lot of things. It is important to get it out of the way before you start researching and applying to schools. Though GMAT is not a deciding factor but it is not something that can be ignored. It forms a very important part of your 'profile'. That more or less tells you which schools you can apply and forms a integral part of the admission strategy. So I decided on March 25 and booked my date with GMAT. 

The journey just got started !!

Ready for the Journey !!

ISB was a relatively unknown world to me when I had joined NIT Warangal. For me and lakhs of others, a fundoo MBA meant only IIM. Its as if the others never existed or we did not want to acknowledge their existence. Its only with the advent of Orkut in my life that I learnt about ISB.

Orkut had become quite a rage when I was in my third year at College. With orkut came alive all NITWs cyber-romeos. One such romeo came across this profile of a very pretty female who was studying at ISB. Needless to say he sent a friend request to her and she obliged. At that time though our romeo spoke highly of ISB I still thought of it as just another college with a Angrez name who keeps putting ads in papers. Towards the end of the year my impression of ISB took  a U-turn.

ISB had come to our college to conduct a information session with few of my alums to attract talent. The session totally changed my perception of ISB. This looked pretty like the US B-Schools that I kept hearing about on campus, blogs & CEO profiles. They were very clear in stressing the importance of Work Ex and how a work ex + MBA would add more value than a MBA before Work ex. This was when I decided to pursue management studies. Till then I wanted to be just a Engineering graduate from a premier Indian School working his way up in any company. I never thought a MBA was required or that it would add any value. Gosh !! How wrong I was !!

I had my road ahead clear. Work at Ashok Leyland (my dream company) for 3 years and then ISB. I had drawn the same on my room walls telling people clearly that IIMs were not for me. While some supported my dreams there were others who ridiculed my ambition saying that "You lose your academic touch by 3 years. You will not be able to devote time to prepare while working." But I knew only thing: Where there is a will there is a way !!

By god's grace in my final year I managed to clear Ashok Leyland's selection process on Day Zero on July 9, 2005 and was going to my dream company in less than a year. That was Stage 1 accomplished and I was ready for the journey !!