Summer plans

Had a meeting with C about my job and where the program is headed and all that jazz. She's assured me that my position isn't being terminated (damn). Apparently they're hiring new people to take over my boss' job so they'll need someone to continue doing what I've been doing. So I'm going to have to either help them hire someone new or train someone from within the company. Uh oh. No one (well, almost no one) in my company really knows exactly what I do. I am an enigma....or rather my job function is :). Now everyone's gonna find out what a bum I was and how I used to basically just sit in my office looking and sounding important and busy, while doing nothing :).

Anyway, so what this means is that I get to go on my vacation and come back while I'm still employed, which is pretty cool since it saves me a lot of paperwork. Now I gotta drill down the details of the Europe trip. I'm planning on leaving sometime around May 15th, spending around 15-20 days in Europe and then heading on to India for three weeks. As of now the tentative list of cities is Madrid, Barcelona (maybe), Paris, Milan, Rome, Amsterdam and London. My rich and snotty colleagues at work who vacation in Spain and Italy every year, have made it their life's mission to plan out my trip for me. That's all they talk about with me these days!

Visiting and spending at least a couple of days in all those cities might be a little ambitious but I think it should be possible. If it gets too crazy, I'll take out Barcelona and Milan from my plans which will leave me with 5 cities (now that should be easy huh?). The plan is to fly in to the South (Madrid) and then work my way up by train and finally fly out of London. It sucks that the Eurail pass does not cover some of the local trains. Hadn't factored that into my budget (which is around $5500, maybe someone who's done this can tell me if that's about right?). Spoke with a couple of travel agents about air fares and they're still pretty reasonable but I need to act fast. Prices will get crazy expensive since summer is tourist season.

There was a message on the Duke admitted students group about setting up a website which would act as a centralized database for information on what everyone's plans were for the summer. That would allow people to possibly meet up if their travels were taking them to common places. I think that's a really cool idea. I'll also try to get in touch with future Duke classmates in all the cities I'm planning on visiting, once my plans are finalized.

And finally, if *anyone* from our little blogging community is planning a trip to any of those places (calling Wheresmydesert and MBA Cutie!...although I think MBAC is travelling with her family) or would like to plan something out together, drop me a line!

The invisible school

Got waitlisted by Stern. I had put together that application in literally 2 days. It wasn't that hard since I already had the toughest essay (the last one) taken care of from the time when I considered applying last year. The rest, I just copy/pasted/modified from my other schools. I applied there, even though I was in at other schools and wasn't sure I would go even if admitted, for very personal reasons and didn't tell anyone for the same reasons. Those reasons are moot now.

Mentioning my admits at Duke and Darden in the optional essay might not have been very smart. Especially since I talked about going into MC as one of my goals. Since these schools are so closely ranked and since Duke and Darden are generally considered better for consulting (Stern is obviously considered better for finance), maybe adcom didn't think I would attend even if admitted. If they thought my application was good but were concerned about yeild, a waitlist makes more sense from their pov, since now they can get a feel for my true interest based on how actively I pursue (or don't pursue) the waitlist.

Or all the above analysis is bull and they waitlisted me cuz that's what my application deserved. Anyway, it's all good.

ps: The invisible school refers to the fact that Stern has always been listed on the sidebar on the right, it's just been invisible i.e. "commented out".

Show me the money!

Ahh....everything happens for a reason. It is destiny. There are better things in store for you in the future, you just can't see them right now....etc etc.

I suddenly find myself in a philosophical mood (although it's hard to be philosophical with that huge grin on my face :) ). The above remarks are to be taken in the context of the rejection from Wharton and the subsequent events. The good folks at Duke have finally seen the light and realized how lucky they are to have me. As soon as they received that scholarship reconsideration request from me, there were high level meetings called, the dean was dragged out of his bed, students started picketing outside the admissions office threatening to go on a hunger strike if MJ was not given some $ and life as we know it came to a standstill in Durham, NC. And what did you expect? The inevitable happened. The scholarship committee decided to cough up some much needed dough for moi!

Ok, so maybe it didn't happen quite that way. But the end result was still pretty sweet. Duke has offered me a scholarship for which I am really grateful.

It all started after that resounding DING from Wharton. I was feeling pretty shitty about that (despite all the rationalization about already being in at a great school). I was feeling really restless and needed to do something..anything. And then I started thinking back to the time when I was about to start grad school at USC. I had just gone with the flow. I wasn't proactive. I had just accepted the status quo and never really attempted to get a scholarship. This was in sharp contrast with my sis who used to sit up all night as she sent out a million emails to different people trying to land a research or teaching assistantship (which she did) before she started school.

I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to learn from my mistakes and at least make an honest attempt to try and get a scholarship. So I sent out an email to adcom at Duke. The email was a combination of how I was God's gift to mankind (merit) and how I would probably have to sleep on the street and survive on ramen noodles for the next 2 years (need) if they didn't give me some money. I got a polite reply within a couple of days about how scholarship considerations were strictly merit based and that I would have to send an official scholarship reconsideration request to the scholarship committee. The way I saw it, at least they didn't start laughing and tell me to take a hike. So I drafted a letter and sent it out the same day.

So I get an email today with a subject line that says: "The Duke MBA - Financial Aid Reconsideration Request". Hmmmm...cryptic. Not looking good. So I open the email and quickly scan through it, looking for that dreaded word "Sorry". Instead I see a numeric value :). Numbers have never looked more beautiful.

D vs D

It's time for the inevitable 2nd guessing and questioning game. Darden or Duke? Duke or Darden? I've been leaning heavily towards Duke since the day I got admitted. I had a great time during the campus visit. Loved the people. Loved the vibe. Loved the class. The facilities are state of the art. Loved the touch of hanging international flags in the hallway.
Darden was a great experience too. The campus is absolutely gorgeous. The students, teachers and staff couldn't have been nicer and more helpful. The class I sat in on was probably the most enjoyable one that I have attended at any B school.

I am sure I would be comfortable in both environments. So in terms of fit, I see myself being happy at both schools. The next thing to consider would be future career goals. I plan on going into management/strategy consulting. Both these schools have the reputation of being excellent management schools and are listed in the top 10 for general management on both Businessweek and US News. The list of companies that recruit at both schools is comparable. All the major players seem to visit both schools.

So why was I leaning towards Duke? (some of these things are extremely minor but they are still things that come to mind)
1. Overall brand name. Duke University is a much better overall school than the University of Virginia and has more name recognition.
2. Teaching methodology. While I absolutely loved the case method class at Darden, I have to bear in mind that I was a silent participant which is very different from being in that class. Having never had any form of education based solely on the case method, I can't be sure how I would react to it (Darden is 100% case based). Will I be able to put my inhibitions (such as thinking something is too silly to bring up or thinking something is too obvious or becoming self conscious) behind me and be able to be an active participant in class every single day? Class participation is a major part of the grades at Darden. One of the things I hope to gain from B school is to be able to go out of my comfort zone. To be able to challenge myself. I do not think questioning whether this teaching method is best from me, qualifies under shirking a challenge.
These are of course things I should have thought of before applying, and I did and thought I'd do just fine. But now I'm reevaluating the whole thing from a different perspective where I have the option of an alternative.
Duke by contrast has what seems to me to be the perfect blend of teaching methodologies. There seems to be a good mix of lectures, simulations, cases which might suit my learning style better. Some theory/lectures might be a good thing for someone with no prior knowledge in this field.
3. Course rigor. Darden has the reputation of being one of the most intensive programs in the country. This is not necessarilly a bad thing. The average Darden student might come out better prepared to crack cases and such than a Duke student (not necessarilly but lets assume that for the sake of argument). But again, an MBA is so much more than just the education. It's about the experience. It's about networking. Meeting new people. Experiencing new situations. Developing as a person. I believe the more balanced life at a school such as Duke might be the way to go.
4. Uncertainty. As a career switcher, it is possible that once I go to B school I might realize that I am not cut out for consulting or might find that I am more interested in finance or marketing. Duke might be a better school overall in case I decided to do something other than MC. Moreover the Health Care Management program at Duke is one of the best in the country. With a background in health care, it would be nice to have that option open to me.
5. Interaction with students at Duke. I realize that part of the reason current students and alumni reach out to and contact admitted students is to increase the yeild and figure out who seems to be inclined to attend. However, they also seem genuinely enthusiastic about the school and seem to want to go out of their way to help. Although a student from Darden called me too. I did not get the same feel from her.
6. Blue Devil basketball!
Duke gets a very minor edge over Darden in each of these points (except the last!), the cummulative effect of which makes me think Duke is the better option.

So if I seem so convinced that Duke is better for me why the debate? Employment statistics (Full time for class of 2005 and internships for class of 2006) and rankings. Looking at figures such as the % of international students employed at graduation and after 3 months of graduation, Darden seems to have an edge over Duke (100% vs 84%). Darden is also slightly ahead of Duke in terms of average starting salaries for international students. In fact all the numbers seem to be higher for Darden across the board. Darden is also ranked higher in a couple of rankings (although Duke is ranked higher overall in Bweek and US news). Moreover, there seems to be a lot of buzz about Darden amongst people in the field that I have talked to. The rankings obviously will never be a good enough reason to choose one school over another but as they say in MBA speak, they are one more data point in the entire package.

Soooo...where does that leave me? I guess I'm still leaning towards Duke. I shall be attending Blue Devil Weekend at the end of the month. Hopefully that will make things clearer.

Iraq in transition

The debate about the pros and cons of the war in Iraq and how it was handled and whether it was even necessary invariably leads to strong emotions. Regardless of your personal views on the matter, this article from the Christian Science Monitor gives some fascinating insights into the day to day life of an Iraqi family. Irrespective of whether you support the war or not, you can't help but feel for the bleak (?) future these kids seem to be facing.

Different organizations/agencies have quoted the number of casualties (comprising mostly of civilians) as anything between 30 to 50 thousand (these are the numbers that I could dig out). That is a huge number of human lives. The Tsunami claimed approximately 240 thousand lives and there was an outpouring of help from the entire world community. How come we don't see a similar drive to help the people of Iraq? Everyone seems to be too busy debating the war and the right time to pull out US forces to consider the plight of the people in that country. A lot of those deaths were caused as a direct result of the invasion. Doesn't the world community have a moral obligation to try to save the Iraqi people and give them a better future? It can be argued that that is the very reason the US forces are not withdrawing immediately (among other reasons). They want to bring some stability and peace in the area.

However, I am talking about the common (wo)man on the street in the US. There does not seem to be much sympathy for the condition of the people in Iraq such as which is seen when a major disaster strikes different parts of the world. This is understandable to a certain extent since people are more worried about the safety of their own friends and relatives serving in Iraq. However, this still does not change the fact that the situation there is in some ways the direct result of an invasion led by the US and it is equivalent to a disaster in terms of how it is affecting people's lives, so the lack of any significant financial relief/aid funded by the people and/or charity organizations is surprising.

I don't know how such aid would help. In fact, ensuring political stability might be the best way of improving the lives of these people. But people helped out after the Tsunami, they helped out after Katrina, I wish there were a way (and desire) for an average person to help out after this disaster too.

The big D

"You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am."

Okay, so maybe not getting into Wharton doesn't quite make me a bum, but it blows nonetheless. That's right, Wharton showed me the dreaded big D. I can't say I wasn't bummed out about it. I was. I still am a little bit, but I'll get over it. On the bright side, there finally seems to be some resolution to where my life is headed. I can start thinking about moving, apartment hunting, roommates, getting tickets etc, so that's a good thing.

I've resisted the temptation to do a post ding analysis so far and hopefully I can keep it that way. Hindsight always has the benefit of 20/20 vision but it's useless now. I am headed to a school that I genuinely like and which will provide me with all the opportunities to succeed in my chosen career path (MC). Like I told my friend, I would definitely have gone to Wharton if I'd got in, but Fuqua is pretty good too so no regrets.

Finally, a little bit of soul baring. K got in to Wharton. I'm genuinely happy for him! However, considering that he wouldn't even have applied there (or at any other top school) if I hadn't convinced him and helped him with his essays, I felt a momentary pang upon finding out that he was in and I wasn't. Petty? Yes. He's one of my best friends so I'm not proud of the fact that I felt that way even for a second, but such is human nature (or maybe it's just me).

Tick-tock

Things to do on the eve of D day to calm those nerves:

1. Work out for over an hour - check
2. Talk to K who's also waiting for a decision tomorrow
3. Unpack the new TX and play with it!
4. All night movie marathon (Crash, City of God, Season 4 of 24)
5. Chat all night on the Wharton s2s board.

OR

Get drunk and pass out.

Change at the workplace

So it's official. The big dog (my boss) is getting fired. Well, he isn't technically getting fired. His contract is not being renewed which is essentially the same as getting fired and it's not pretty. The man has been my mentor over the last 3 years so it sucks to see him treated like this. And it's interesting how even though no one seems to like him, and people can't stop bitching about him, his immediate staff was literally in tears when they heard the news. Of course a part of it had to do with the fact that their jobs are intrinsically connected to his (as is mine in a way) so there is now some uncertainty regarding the stability of their jobs, but I believe their reaction had more to do with the fact that despite his obsessive compulsive behaviour and God complex in the way he treated people, he was always fiercely protective of his staff. I guess the regular, sometimes extravagant gifts for everyone didn't hurt either. Besides, the staff has been together a long time and now it seems like the entire practice is collapsing and no one likes change. After the news about M became public, T was let go, C might be next and people already know I'll be leaving this summer. (FYI: That's the Donald with Conan's favorite "You're fired" cobra move)

So now things are going to get interesting for me at work. Are they going to decide to let me go or are they going to reason that since I shall be leaving soon anyway, they might as well save the severance and wait for me to leave off my own accord. I need to figure out a way to use the six weeks of paid time off I have accumulated before either one of those scenarios. Ideally, I would leave on my European/Indian vacation in mid May and return in July. The problem with that is that if they decide to lay me off while I'm gone, I won't be able to return without getting a student visa (as opposed to reentering the country and filing for a change of status) which is a pain. This entire line of thought is moot if they lay me off sometime in the immediate future (April) but I doubt that's gonna happen considering the entire department starts panicking if I'm not around even for 1 day :). There's even a strong possibility that they would want to keep me around since G is not leaving. Who knows. Guess it's time for one of my heart-to-heart talks with CT to see what's going on. I hate those conversations. They're almost worse than the "where is this relationship going" conversations you're forced to have with women :)!

My friends keep asking about my Europe plans. P keeps pestering me about whether I'm still on board for the one week in Germany for the World Cup. Things should be a lot clearer in a couple of days once the Wharton results are out. I've given up on MIT so I should know by Thursday whether I'm headed to Philly or Durham (Charlottsville seems unlikely at this point). This will help me since then I can figure out when I want to be back in the country depending on the dates of pre-term/summer school etc for the school I'm headed to.

Re-applicants

This post started off as a comment in response to B School Diva's post but morphed into the mama of all comments (sizewise) so I decided to post it on my own blog.

I had applied to 2 schools (Wharton and Columbia) last year. I had jumped into the process without doing a lot of research. I even committed the cardinal sin of not reading Montauk's book! *gasp* (okay, I hadn't even heard of montauk's book :) ). Needless to say, I got rejected at both schools. At the time, I felt I had put in a reasonably strong application. However, after some introspection, I realized that there were several areas that I could improve in. The feedback I got from Wharton really helped me with this. I believe duke provides feedback too. This is an excellent starting point.

Some of the things I worked on were, improving my GMAT score, getting more involved in extracurricular activities. making a conscious attempt to take on more leadership responsibilities at work and finally doing a *much* better job with my essays (specifically, showing career progression and doing a better job of elucidating short and long term goals).
The fact that you have been through this process really helps, since you have a better perspective on what is expected and what adcom is looking for.

Another big dilemma for me (and one which a lot of people who get dinged face) was that I was tired of my job at the time and was really looking forward to a fresh start. I considered taking up a new job. At the same time, I knew I would reapply for an MBA the next year.

The problem with the new job scenario was that I would have to ensure that I could justify my reasons for taking up the new job in terms of career progress or some such. But having put forward that justification, I would then have to show a good reason as to why I wanted to quit this new job 3-4 months into it (since I had decided to apply round 1 of next year). Moreover, there would be the issue of recommendations. I believe it is always best to get a recommendation from an immediate supervisor. My supervisor at the new company would have known me only for a couple of months and would not be able to provide a convincing enough recommendation (in my opinion). Also, I didn't think the new company would be very pleased upon learning that I planned to quit within less than a year of joining them.

Finally, I was concerned with how different my app could possibly be in a couple of months. there's only so much you can do in 4-5 months.

After a lot of thought and introspection, I came up with the following strategy:
1. Not to change my job.
2. Go out of my way to be involved in projects that would look good in my app.
3. More extracurriculars (I have always been pretty actively involved in volunteering but I figured doing more of something I enjoyed anyway could only help my app).
4. Retook the gmat.
5. Decided to apply to a wider spread of schools. This is very important. I did not end up applying to all the schools I planned on primarily because I got admitted to Duke on Dec 16th so lost the drive. But i had planned on applying to 6 schools.
6. Decided to apply to as many schools as possible in round 1. This leaves you with a lot of options. (Ended up applying to just 2 but that was not the plan)
6. Decided to apply to wharton in round 2 because I figured that would give me more time to set my application apart from the application that got rejected.
7. Completely overhauled my essays.
8. By default, I would have 1 more year of work experience.
edit: 9. Made sure I coached my recommenders on the uniqueness of each school (for example the 100% case method at darden) and made them familiar with my application/essays. I had not done this the first time.

I decided not to change my job, but I do believe it is possible to overcome some of the concerns I mentioned earlier, even if you decide to change jobs. It can be shown that it is better to change a job for a few months rather than continue in a dead end job. Changing a job does not mean that an MBA is not right at that time. Also, regarding the recommenders, it is always possible to get recommendations from people at the last job since they had been working with you till recently so that should not be an issue.

The catharsis of writing

When I started this blog, it was never meant to be a "MBA applicant" blog. But since most of the other blogs I have been visiting recently have been B school related, my blog has taken on a distinct "b school journey" flavor. The very few people who even know about this blog are some fellow applicants to the class of 2008. I sat down to blog about something today and after saving the post as a draft, realized a couple of things. I was bothered by the fact that I had said nothing about my applications or my interview (or lack of one) or my preparation to make the transition to B school and it was bothering me. I ended up adding some pretty boring stuff (to me) about the planned trip to Durham and a conversation I recently had with a Fuqua first year. The second thing was that I realized that I was subconsciously assessing what impression I was conveying by what I wrote. I was worrying about what people would think of me. Would the reader think I'm funny? Smart? Witty? Was the post coming across as interesting (to the reader) or was I putting them to sleep with my meandering style? Or worse still, am I coming across as whiny or immature or silly? Are they gonna read my blog and think "ha, this guy is so gay"...oh my..i used that word in that sentence. It's just an expression. It has nothing to do with the literal meaning of the word. Is that politically incorrect? Don't wanna give the wrong impression............. And I started editing my post. That is such a sell out. I am who/what I am and I write for myself. I write as much for the catharsis of writing as for saving some of my thoughts on various issues. An online journal/diary? Not quite. More like a record of my thoughts on some topics, which gives me some direction and helps me understand myself better.

So what had I blogged about previously? What was it that set off this chain of thought? A surreal weekend night. A date that wasn't a date but one which seemed very much like a date...one such as which I haven't had in a long time. It started at around 12 AM. There was wine and talk and a movie and more talk and flirting and more wine and a morning walk along the beach. There wasn't even so much as a kiss at the end of it but it still put a smile on my face for all of the rest of the day. So different from most other dates with all the pressure and expectation and desire to make a good impression. So different from the meat market kind of feel when we sometimes go out clubbing and size up the women while they do the same to us. A lot of my friends are still in the "lets go to a club and hook up with a woman/man" phase. Or in the desperate "I need to find someone" phase. I'm not judging them. I'm not saying I'm better than them. I'm just saying it gets really tiring after a point.

So where will this go? Probably nowhere. I'm no cynic. Far from it. I've been told I'm the eternal romantic. But I just don't see it happening with this girl. It's a gut feeling. Also, I don't think I would want to start something right now since I'm gonna leave town in a couple of months. It was a great night nonetheless.

The city of brotherly love

So I finished my Wharton interview today. No surprises. The interviewer asked the expected "Why MBA, why now, why Wharton" questions and I stuck to my usual shtick. I've repeated it so many times I'm actually beginning to believe some of it :). In hindsight, the one thing I could probably have done better was communicate a little better. I think I was speaking too fast and rushed through some of my responses. The school visit part of the trip was fun. Met some really interesting people. The caliber of some of the students at these schools continues to amaze me. Sat in on a 2nd year marketing class which quite frankly I did not enjoy but I had to make sure that I looked interested and laughed at the right times at the prof's lame jokes and nodded intelligently when he was addressing someone in my vicinity. Why, you may ask. Well, cuz I'm Mr. Paranoid. The guy who interviewed me happened to be in the same class and I assumed he had nothing better to do than to observe me for a solid 90 minutes and draw conclusions based on my body language and determine whether I would be a good fit at Wharton etc. In other news, I believe Martians landed in my back yard and Elvis is still alive.

A good thing that came out of this trip is that I found out my license has expired! I showed up at the car rental place and was just turning on the charm in the hopes of getting a free upgrade from the cute girl behind the counter when she went all cold on me. Turns out my license expired 2 weeks ago. Sh*t. Had to go back to the airport, take a cab etc. Got to head to the DMV tomorrow. I'm gonna use my motorcycle till I get my new license. Cops rarely pull over someone on a bike.

Seems like the MIT interview invites are trickling in. Quite a bit of activity on the businessweek forums about this (besides I_Will_Make_It and wheresmydesert reporting interview invites). Luckily I've finally reached a point where I'm beyond caring anymore. I'll be happy if I see the invite in my inbox but I'm so over obsessively checking for it everyday.

And finally, I finished 'The World is Flat'. Will probably blog about my thoughts on the book sometime in the future.