The 'D' month is here.

It's December and the day of reckoning is not too far away. I can already sense the fluttery feeling while I wait for my Tuck EA decision and MIT interview invite – both should be out somewhere in the second week of December.

The online forums are already buzzing with a lot of activity, fellow applicants who are tired of the waiting game and cannot take it anymore are posting their feelings on these forums and finding comfort from other's stories. Fuqua is expected to come out with its EA decisions any time now. When I read about a fellow applicant refreshing his email every few seconds looking for that magical mail, I could very well picture myself doing that in the next few weeks. I am guessing that people might have been logging into and refreshing their application page too, which might have led to the application site being down today.


All this does not bode too well for my R2 applications. I have been on the slow side and all these factors do not make it any easier. I get the feeling things are only going to get compounded over the next two weeks.

Seven lessons from my round one application.

I have submitted applications to three business schools thus far – Tuck, Sloan, and Fuqua – in that order. The last one month, while I moved from one application to the other, has proved to be a big learning exercise for me. Though I think I did justice to each of my applications, in particular the essays, I keep getting the feeling I could do better. By the time I submitted my third application, I could already see things that could do with some improvement in my first application. But then again, that’s the case with afterthought – you always think you can improve.

Nevertheless, I still have learned some important things that I surely plan to apply in the second round of application. So this post is a summary of what I have learned.

1)      Start the application (not just essays) early – By application I mean the online application process – creating a login, personal information, professional and educational background, test score, and a few other things. I waited till the last week to fill in these details for my first application, which I learned was not the ideal way. These points are equally important and it is important to devote enough time. Also, it is better to have someone review these points for you.

2)     Don’t worry about the word count for the first draft: Word limits present an important limitation, sometimes they can be a blessing in disguise too. It is important to convey your story, so to begin with just write your heart out and don’t bother about the word limit. Once you know that everything that you wanted to convey has been covered, go ahead with the editing. Sometimes it takes the skills of a seasoned Editor to trim your essay, and it might be better to associate levels of importance with each paragraph (or for that matter sentence). This way when you have your scissors out you know what to chop off!

3)     Don’t try to complete an essay in one sitting: The human mind is so full of conflicts and biases, and once you get into one of those modes it’s hard to get out. No wonder, it so often happens that a problem that you struggle with for hours is solved within a few minutes after a good nights sleep. Same applies to essays too! Work on your essays with a schedule, give yourself 7 days and work 1 hour each day. You will be surprised how much your thought process and the output improves this way.

4)     Reach out to recommenders early and follow up with reminders– I was fortunate that my recommenders were equally enthusiastic about my application and devoted enough time on it. Most of the time they submitted the recommendation well ahead of the deadline, except for the last one. My manager happened to be on a two week business tour to Europe before the deadline and she had planned to do the recommendation during one of the weekends on her trip. However, as is the case with business meetings, she was pulled into other things and by the time she came back we were facing the deadline. On the day of the deadline, she marked few hours on her calendar, worked on the recommendation, and submitted my recommendation.

I had a few nervous moments, though schools are a lenient about deadline for recommendations, why take a chance? I started reaching out to my recommenders 4 weeks before the deadline; in hindsight I should have done it at least six weeks earlier. With the holiday season coming up, I will ensure that for round two I reach out to them at least by next week – 8 weeks before the deadline.

5)      Never recycle one schools essay for another: I think this is what we read everywhere. But after writing that one great essay it is not wrong at all to feel you have the right to use it for another school, especially if questions are similar. That’s perfectly logical, but what that does is it sets a platform for your essays which is hard to tweak or change. Best would be start with the bullet items for the new essay, form a structure, and then try to use content from the previous essay to fill in.

6)      Give your reviewers enough time: I had very good experience with my first essay, multiple reviews with 3 different people (2 friends and a current student) - all handled very nicely. But my third essay, that’s a slightly different story. I kind of rushed it and ended up rushing my only reviewer too. Though I feel extremely good about the third set of essays I submitted, I was not happy the way I did it. Allocating enough time for reviewers is important to get the most out of them.

7)     Do one school at a time: This is how I approached my first three schools and it worked out perfect for me. Sometimes, when the essay questions are similar, there is a tendency to tackle the similar ones together. I don’t think this is a good idea, though the essay questions might look similar each school is different in the way they ask for it and it requires extreme care to make sure those finer details are addressed. More importantly, working on one school at a time allows you to portray a holistic perspective of your candidacy by presenting different aspects in different essays.

Duke Fuqua application – submitted!

Earlier today I submitted my third application, this one for the Fuqua School of Business. With this the first phase of my application process has come to a completion. The thing that stood out while I was preparing for these three applications was the drastic improvement as I went from one application to the next. I spent most of my time on my first application, and I thought I had come up with some terrific essays. But my second application, turned out to be much better (my opinion). By the third application, I was able to put more life into my essays. Essentially what I have learned is that as you move ahead with your applications you only get better, provided you devote sufficient time.

 

I have 2 months before the second round deadlines. But that doesn’t give me the license to relax. In fact, I think the next two months will be busier and more stressful that the last couple of months. I will save the reason for another post. 

Essays, essays and more essays!

Last week I submitted my first application (the only one till now), that was four essays and since then I have jumped on to Sloan and Fuqua applications. I took a two day break - now that the first one was done with subsequent ones should be a piece of cake. Absolutely wrong!

The MIT essays require a totally different approach, not that I did not know of this, but I assumed that my experiences writing the Tuck essays will come good. That has not been the case, thoughts flow naturally and take decent shape in the form of words and sentences, but each time I read my essay after completing a draft – it’s like I am missing some piece of the puzzle. Then I go into that endless loop trying to fit everything from my story into a single page.

Word limit does not help too. Almost every time I write an essay, I feel 700 is the right count for me. Somehow, removing those extra 40% takes more time than actually coming up with the first draft itself. 

Fuqua Interview Update 2 – The Marketing Club event

This is a follow-up to my earlier post about my Fuqua interview experience. Since I had scheduled my interview on a Saturday, a class visit was not possible. I was hoping that there would be other activities that will help me connect with Fuquans, but other than a campus tour nothing else was on the calendar.

Two days before my interview, the Marketing Club came to my rescue and I was so glad when I saw that email from the co-chair (of the club) talking about the event that they had organized for prospective students. This was a wonderful opportunity for me.

After my interview, I had a good lunch and headed for the event. There were about 20 prospective students, we were divided into five groups and were assigned a task – come up with a marketing plan for a distinct case that was assigned to each team. A couple of second year students were to judge our presentation. We picked our case – “Trident has come up with a new non-stick chewing gum targeting senior citizens. You have to come up with a marketing campaign for this product”. We got our quota of stationary and browsed through a few copes of New Yorker to pick up some images to go with our plan.

Our group comprised of two consultants, one analyst and one person with non-profit background. We worked as a group, came up with a punch line and a theme, and one of us was innovative to come up with a background theme too. Here is what we finally came up with.

Each group presented their campaign and I was really amazed by what two teams had done. They were way ahead of the game - they had come up with a punch line, identified market area, identified potential sponsors and a lot more - all within 30 minutes. Deservedly, both of them shared the honors and won the prizes that were up for grabs. We were not disappointed, and were content with the complimentary duffel bags that we got and more importantly glad that we got an opportunity to be a part of this event!

Fuqua School of Business - Interview update

Fuqua School of Business - Interview update

Last Saturday I had my applicant initiated interview at the Fuqua School of Business. This post is an update of my experience.

A month ago I had scheduled my applicant initiated interview; thankfully Fuqua had a Saturday slot available. I say so because a trip to India earlier this year has robbed me of all my vacations (except 2 days, which I want to save for the next two months) so the Saturday event was a real blessing - an opportunity to interview and a chance to get to know the people, school and the area.

After work on Friday, I boarded a flight from Providence to Raleigh-Durham (RDU). Though Logan is the closest from my place, the cost difference can easily pay for one schools application fee and I can easily trade that for the convenience. I reached Durham close to midnight, picked up my rental car and went to the nearby hotel that I had reserved. I contemplated some last minute practice, but let that thought go as it was more important to get some nice sleep and be fresh for the interview.

Woke up around 6 on Saturday, had a nice breakfast, practiced my pitch and headed out around 8.30. The Duke campus was hardly 20 mins from my hotel, but finding the parking lot was a little hassle. Around 9.30 I entered the reception area, and the place was already buzzing with activity. The most notable thing was that everything was organized by Fuqua students. A couple of first years were at the reception, they gave us our name tags and brochures. Prospective students were sitting in small groups and some first years were mingling up with them, talking about their experiences – basically trying to make sure that the prospective students found it comfortable.

With my interview scheduled at noon, I was early. As I was grabbing a cup of coffee a first year student approached and we started talking. A very useful conversation indeed, soon a couple of more prospective students joined. At 11 they had a campus tour going and I joined the gang, this was, again, led by a current student. After the tour I just waited at the reception with my ears wide open, waiting for my name to be called. It was a long wait; I was probably amongst the last bunch, which kind of made me feel more nervous!

Finally my interviewer, a second year student, arrived and called out my name. I immediately knew that I had seen him somewhere, my mind started racing to all the Fuqua events that I had attended, but it did not ring a bell. Soon we were seated in a small team room and the interview was about to begin. My interviewer made it really comfortable for me by talking about his background a little and the fact that he had some experience staying in Boston helped as I could relate and talk about some places. After the brief “ice-breaking” session he jumped on to the task at hand.

The whole interview lasted close to an hour. Most of the initial questions were the usual suspects, no curveballs thrown at me. I thought I was “nervously expressive” during the first 10 minutes before being “confidently expressive” But overall it went well. He did have a couple of non-conventional* questions for me, but nothing out of this world. A few seconds of silence and fast thinking was enough to come up with an appropriate answer. Towards the end, while it was time for me to ask some questions, I remembered where I had seen him. He had a chuckle when he heard that – for two reasons. First – he was amazed that I still had that thing in my mind all through the interview, and second I had not met him in person it was through a video (You will find that information in one of my previous blogs related to Fuqua). I was happy that my school research had helped me connect & relate to my interviewer in some way.

After the interview, I headed to the event organized by the Marketing Group. It was a fun activity, and probably deserves another post. Later, in the evening, I headed back to the airport, had a nice Märzen at the Gordon Biersch and headed home.

* I am not comfortable putting the questions out here, but if someone is really keen do shoot me an email (using the link on my profile). 

FuquaVision – Fuquans take on the school life

While researching the Fuqua school of business I came across FuquaVision, which is a home production by Fuqua students (Fuquans, as they are called) and is largely made of video skits that mock the school life.

I think this is a good indicator of the social scene at Fuqua. Some of the videos are absolutely hilarious.  Here are a couple of my favorite ones. 

Also, if you visit the site do read the founding story as told by the student who created this. The story makes a very interesting read and is a lot is fun too.