The Road to ISB

The Big Question: ISB vs. IIM

2010-06-26T17:47:00.000-07:00

I get a lot of e-mails on where should I do my MBA - at IIM or ISB ? So I thought let me publish a recent Q&A between me and a MBA prospect. Please note that these are opinions and just my own.

Q. I have work experience in XYZ domain. After MBA i would like to join consulting. How tough would it be to change my domain ?

A: To switch one's domain takes a lot - be it IIM or ISB. It is because you come with a 'baggage' i.e. your learning and mindset would be a bit tuned to your industry and unlearning is never a easy task. However to change to consulting is 'relatively' the easiest of all switches.

Q. I am looking for IIMs or ISB because i think brand name is a long term asset. Which one is better ISB or IIM in following aspects?

   a. Career change from IT to fin/consulting
   b. 1yr v/s 2yr MBA
   c. ROI (10 lakhs and 2 year or 20 lakhs and 1 yr)
   d. Placement

A: IIMs vs. ISBs (Only IIM A/B/C are comparable to ISB. The others are no match)

a. To switch to Fin, you'll hv better chances in IIMs because they have an internship model which gives you that chance but remember than Fin companies coming to IIM campus look for absolute freshers whereas you would have abt 3 yrs work ex by the time you join which might work against you. However in ISB you'll b competing with CAs plus lot of people from hardcore Fin background. So if you are determined for Fin roles then try for IIMs.

To change to consulting ISB is far better because the who's who of the consulting world come to ISB. The chairman of ISB board Rajat Gupta is head of McKinsey. Also in the number of recruitments per consulting company is higher at ISB than IIMs.

b. 1 yr vs. 2 yr

Both have their pluses and minuses. Depends on what your objective function is. If you wanna get back to working very soon 1 yr works better. It also works better if you have prior work-ex. The advantage 2 yr gives you is the internship which can help you in switching sectors. 1 yr is also much more stressful than 2 yr MBA programs. Peer learning is better at ISB since people with work ex are better able to relate to what is being taught than at the IIMs. Plus the quality of faculty at ISB is world class since Profs from Kellog, London Business School, Wharton come and teach here.

c. 1 yr programs have better RoI as you will not be earning only for a year. Total expenses at ISB will come to around 20Lakhs. The average salary for a guy with abt 3 yr work ex is abt 13 Lacs. So net you are spending just 7 lakhs over 2 years. On the other hand, just the tuition expenses at IIM-A/B/C is itself 12.5 lakhs. Add other expenses and do the math. You'll see ISB is better RoI.

d. Placements are difficult to compare but median (note: not average) salaries are always better at ISB since we have lateral placements. IIMs have lot of entry-level roles. However competition is more intense at ISB since larger pool of students (560 vs. 400 at each IIMs).

Q: How can a student from IT background get in Investment banking or capital market related jobs as analyst in ISB?

A: As explained before this is much more tougher at ISB. You need to have good academics. Do you Finance coursework well. Prepare well for Finance interviews. Be active in the Finance Club.

Q. What role does International certification like FRM CFA or CAIA play in placement?

A: They do help when it comes to good finance roles. Also signals your seriousness abt Fin careers. most helpful if you do not hv finance work-ex.

Q: 20 lakhs is big amount. Taking example of a student with low work ex and average job (10lakhs package), How much time will it take to pay loan from bank?

A: Payback varies from person to person. Term of loans offered by banks is 7 years and ISB manages to get good rates with bankers on education loans.

Q. Many people say ISB ranking is not as good as it appears. They say ranking can be 12 in FT but the value is still less compared to IIMs. What is your opinion?

A: FT rankings are one of the most respected rankings in the world. So ISB's 12th rank is definitely good. How good? that is something nobody can say for sure. Only time will tell but the ranking is well deserved. In terms of value in India we are on par if not better than IIM - A/B/C. Internationally ISB enjoys much better brand value than any of the IIMs. Do remember that IIMs are not as strong a brand globally as one percieves. Among Indians education institutions, IIT is definitely a very strong brand.

Q: What kind of profile AdCom of ISB expect from aspirants ? Do they looks for entrepreneurship or any other roles? Please answer in details.

A: Three aspects to anybody's candidature: Academics, Extra-curriculars and Work-ex. You need to be stellar in atleast two of those to make the cut.

MBA Specializations !

2009-01-24T21:30:00.000-08:00

FINANCE

Broadly encompassing corporate finance and the capital markets, finance provides insight into financial policies and investor behavior, examines how policies, individuals, and organizations interact within market environments, and applies financial instruments and quantitative methods to address problems and opportunities in finance. MBA programs typically teach everything from international finance to market microstructure, corporate financial management and investments. Students who focus on corporate financial management possess the skills to accomplish both rudimentary financial analysis such as financial forecasting, budgeting, and the analysis of capital investment projects, and higher level financial decisions, such as capital structure decisions, dividend policy decisions, mergers and acquisitions, and risk management. Students who focus on investment track are trained to analyze both individual securities and to manage portfolios.

Some of the Job Titles - Financial Analysis Manager, Treasury Analyst, Finance Consultant Associate, Cost Analyst, Senior Financial Analyst and Project Manager.

MARKETING

Marketing is primarily concerned with satisfying customer needs and wants at a profit. A marketing strategy typically starts with target customers and a unique selling proposition. These decisions help guide the marketing mix, which covers the product, distribution, promotion, and price. Various marketing issues are covered in elective courses that span overall strategy development, market research, new product development, industrial marketing, international marketing, and electronic commerce.

There are four areas in marketing: industrial marketing, consumer marketing, marketing research, and consulting. Students who focus on the marketing option in the industrial (or business-to-business) marketing track have the skills to conduct market analysis of customers, competitors, and markets characterized by business to business exchanges. In the same vein, those pursuing the consumer marketing track have such skills for business to end consumer markets. Students who follow the marketing research track are trained to analyze markets using modern research methods for addressing key management decisions. The marketing consulting track is appropriate for those students seeking careers in consulting that have a marketing focus.

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

The central goal of strategic management is to understand how organizations might achieve advantage relative to competitors. It is of interest to individuals who act as integrators – that is, they might make decisions that cut across the functional and product boundaries of a firm. Such decisions include:

What type of advantage (e.g., low cost or differentiation) does the firm aim to deliver?
What is the scope (geographic, market) over which the advantage is targeted?
What are the activities throughout the value chain that deliver the intended advantage, and how do they interact?
What range of businesses is appropriate within a single firm and how should they be organized?

One type aspires to jump immediately into a general manager role with an established company (e.g., product manager, business unit manager, country manager, member of top management team), as a consultant, or as part of an entrepreneurial team.

A second type of student might plan upon graduation to take a functional position (e.g., finance, marketing, accounting, human resources, MIS, operations) but will likely report to a manager who has general management responsibilities. These individuals may find it helpful in their careers to better understand the issues to which their superiors are concerned. These students may also hope to eventually aspire to general management responsibilities. For this type of student, combining the strategic management option with another functional option is a lethal combination. Strategy equips students with the framework, concepts, and tools required to think strategically about the total enterprise. This entails analyzing the firm's industry and position, as well as crafting strategies that will create future economic value. The course examines industry structure, sources of competitive advantage, the role of functional strategies in guiding and sustaining this advantage, diversification, and internal corporate venturing.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The crucial aspect under entrepreneurship is the process of identifying, valuing and capturing opportunity. These activities, crucial in any organization, require using business disciplines in a highly integrative way. The second is an emphasis on individual initiative in the context of uncertainty and tight resources. While these concepts are distinguishing features of entrepreneurial opportunity, virtually all business students will encounter these challenges in some form, whether as entrepreneurs, consultants, financiers or managers of firms.

CONSULTING

The skills required of a consultant mirror those required of high-level organizational leaders. Building on a the foundation in the functional areas of business, our consulting focus advances these critical abilities: a strategic perspective on all of an organization's functional areas and the interplay among them; an understanding of how an organization interacts within its competitive environment; the creation and clear communication of logical arguments, and the combination of analysis and synthesis that brings order to unstructured environments.

OTHERS

1. Accounting

2. Management information system

3. Global Supply Chain

4. Manufacturing and Technology management

5. Social Enterprise

6. Leadership / Organizational Behaviour / HR

7. Management Communication

8. Decision Sciences / Quantitative Analysis

How to play the 'Diversity' card !

2009-01-24T20:34:00.000-08:00

Every person is unique in his own special way. Through the essays the Adcom wants to know how your uniqueness will contribute to the campus. Most people applying to the school are academically qualified to finish the program successfully. So saying that you are a hard worker with excellent acads will not make you different and special. To cut through your competitions you must possess a very clear and sharp image that is readily noticed, understood and valued.

You could pick three reasons from the following:
• Your range of work demands you to deal with the lowest as well as highest hierarchy in your profession.
• Depth of your understanding in a particular industry e.g. there may not be many candidates working in the aviation industry so your vast experience in this field may add to your abilities.
• Your unique profession e.g. commercial photographer.
• Being fluent speaker of three to four languages.
• Coming from a very different cultural background e.g. north east India has very different culture and many Indians are not exposed to / aware of their culture.
• Your sly sense of humour.( support this with example)
• You could be in the IT industry and on weekends be part of a band playing at the local cafeteria.
• You could be an engineer having won awards in an adventurous reality show.
• Being a finance person you could be a part of the theatre group in your city or a biker.
• Having worked with the locals of some remote place gives you a different perspective of looking at life.
• You could have worked as a social worker in the slums/lepers colony, blood camps, rehabilitation centers etc. where you will come across a much diversified group. Interacting with them will enhance your diversity.
• You could possess unusual outside interests like publishing your own book of poetries/ short stories, reading about astronomy, spirituality etc.
• You could contribute to your company’s community service by marketing handicrafts of the artisans from nearby villages.
• You could be a regional / national level player.
• You could have worked in places all over the globe which provides you with an enriching experience and knowledge about a variety of population.
• You could be extremely carrier oriented but at the same time you always make it a point to spend some quality time with your family/children/old parents to bring balance in life.
• Coming from a family of freedom fighters you could be trained in creative discipline which will equip you to find unexpected ways to solve problems rather than being limited to obvious answers.

Strengths and weakness

2009-01-24T20:33:00.000-08:00

STRENGTHS:

Mention at the most 3 prominent strengths.
• Strengths professional could be: efficient time management / people skills / leadership skills / communication / marketing skills, high resilience skills / eye for detail. Professional strengths could be: Quick learner, Technically talented in your field of excellence, talented business mindedness etc..,
• Strengths personally could be high ethical values / strong willpower / human aspect to your personality / down to earth attitude/ positive approach / etc…

WEAKNESS:

Mention atleast 2 weaknesses.
Although the essay asks for weaknesses, one should mention them as areas of improvement.
Suggested not to mention weaknesses that would influence the applicants admit chances negatively.
Weaknesses should be strictly relevant to the professional environment.
Mention whether you have been working on your weaknesses.
• If you are working hard and you are not able to market your skill sets that is a high risk weakness, best avoided/ people management etc…. should not be preferably highlighted…
• At a personal level, you could mention – Management skills like time management/ (not being able to balance time between your professional and personal life wherein your personal life suffers due to busy schedules) / Inability to refuse or say ‘NO’ / Inability to multi task (for a person with relatively less experience say – <4 yrs) / eye for detail / temperament etc…
Mention clear pointers, instances or experiences that molded you into the person that you are today.

Certain precautions while writing essays

2009-01-24T20:32:00.000-08:00

1. Whenever you mention a quality (leadership skills etc) make sure you back it up with a recent instance from professional life where you demonstrated that quality. Anything older like in school or college or childhood is fatal.

2. Avoid using pointers. They have you for an essay not a powerpoint presentation. Make sure the essay flows naturally. Give connecting lines between paragraphs to give a good transition

3. Use plain formal English. No slangs / expressions / exclamations / dramatisations !

4. Avoid quantity. Just to fill upto the word limit dont fill in words without relevance. Concentrate on quality.

5. Weakness should not be pointing towards "inter-personal skills", "integrity"

6. If you are talking about any 'project' at work make sure you mention the end result in terms of benefit to the company and benefit to you. (Quantify it)

7. If talking about team skills talk about what were the problems and how you resolved them, how you took up the responsibility, faced challenges, ensured your teams focus on a common goal. Try to bring out your involvement with the team

8. If you are speaking of a professional/personal setback make sure you tell them on what you learnt from the experience and how later you used that experience to keep you in good stead.

9. Do not make any controversial statements. Also avoid statements with political / regional overtones.

Interview questions to ask yourself !

2009-01-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

Why do you want to do an MBA? If you are in it purely for the money then sorry mate .. try a placement agency then ! If you look at it as a long term investment then the following steps are for you:

Step 1: Firstly you have to ask yourself whats your ultimate goal ?

Want to lead a manufacturing company OR
Start your own enterprise etc

Step 2: What skills do you require to reach your ultimate goal?

Academic: Deep understanding of Finance, Operations management, Managerial tools etc
Experience: What kind of ? General Management, I-Banker etc

Step 3: Can you not gain Step 2 skills on the job in the current job?

Yes. Then MBA is not for you
No. Then go to Step 4.

Step 4: What immediately after MBA i.e. your short term goal?

Industry: What sort of industry experience will propel me towards the ultimate goal?
Role: Which role will give me a good base to build on for my ultimate goal?

As you see these 4 steps more or less cover the general questions that you might face in a interview. The quality of your answer depends on how well you figure out Step 1 and Step 2.

Pagalguy

2009-01-01T18:43:00.000-08:00

This is a useful forum to get the answers to most of your ISB-related queries.

1. You have the official thread where your queries are answered by the ISB Adcom on a very regular basis. All clarifications issued are on behalf of ISB so there is no room for speculation or rumours. Dont try and get your profile checked by them. Even if you did they would not entertain your request.

2. You have a second thread run by fellow aspirants where junta will be posting their apping experience, interview experiences and other useful informations. Some current ISB students also try and assist you in every possible way they can. This thread is useful in the sense you stay abreast with the latest happenings in the Admission process. This especially useful at the time of results as you'll know if the results have started coming in. Otherwise the wait can be dreadful. But every information has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Thats because
a) Junta will speculate and engineer rumours
b) Junta will try and overanalyze the admission process and come up with weird theories.

So you can love it, hate it but if you ignore it you might be losing on some cool stuff here.

ISB Essay Analysis 2008-09

2008-12-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

ISB's essays have been different from that of the other B-Schools because it doen not ask you the stereotype MBA application questions. Their essays have always been challenging in that sense that they implicitly define who you are without asking you. Here is the analysis of this year's essays:

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

Every person is unique in his own special way. Through this essay the Adcom wants to know how your uniqueness will contribute to the campus. Just saying bluntly that you are a hard worker with excellent acads will not make you different and special. You have to convince the Adcom that you are not the regular guy out to do his MBA. One must remember that MBA is as much learning from the class as much it is about learning from your peers. So what is the "difference" you bring to the table? How is this difference of any use to your peer group? The "difference" need not only be professional (unique profession/industry, challenging role etc). It could also be personal (unusual hobby, life outside work etc). Answers cannot be vague. You must have some sort of supporting example for each of the 3 reasons. Dont answer in "pointers". Makes the essay look mechanical. Get a good flow into the essay and floor the Adcom.

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

I feel that the Adcom has objectives from this essay

How well you have researched ISB. Dont just write a generalistic speech which you can adapt to any school by simply replacing ISB with X, Y or Z.
Ability to think fresh or out of the box. Dont write the stereotype speech. Make sure you suggest new ideas which you want to implement once you become the President. These ideas should help your peers as well as have a direction to take the school forward globally. Be practical in your speech and not promise something which is not practically feasible. Also say how want to contribute to the growth of the school when you are in it ( and not after you pass out and become an alumnus)

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

First of all its important to understand that there are no "Right" answers for this one. It is about taking stand and sticking to it with convinction fully aware of the consequences. Be practical. Dont try to sound like a Mahatma. Dont try to sound like a snob also. Give a realistic but practical solution to the dilemma.

Admitted to the Class of 2010 !!

2008-11-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-23T00:49:00.000-08:00

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 !

2008-11-22T21:14:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-22T20:35:00.000-08:00

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 !!

2008-11-22T20:09:00.000-08:00

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 !!

2008-11-22T19:45:00.000-08:00

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 !!