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). 

Submitted!

Finally, after pondering over my application package (mostly the essays) umpteen times, for what seemed like an eternity, I mustered enough courage to submit my first MBA application. Yes, it was the Tuck MBA application! I did that on Oct 12, exactly 24 hours before the deadline.

I guess that kind of explains why I have not been able to post anything here for last two weeks. Well, this was just one reason – last two weeks have been so hectic (Actually that has been the theme for almost two months now).

So what kept me busy over the last two weeks? Here is a brief list:

¨      My Tuck application

¨      Tuck Interview (and obviously the preparation for it)

¨      Fuqua interview (and preparation)

¨      Fuqua campus visit and tour (which featured a special event!)

¨      MIT Ambassadors program

¨      Working on the other apps for R1

I think all of this deserves a separate post of their own, and it is on the cards. Hopefully by this Sunday my blog will have caught up to my activities (sounds like someone else’s responsibility when I put it that way!). 

Waiving off your right to view your recommendations: why it is a no-brainer?

Those of you who might have submitted an MBA application or have at least started their online application must have surely come across the option that asks whether you waive off your right to view the recommendation written by your recommender. When I came across this the first time, I took some time to really think it over. In the end I decided to waive off my right and now when I think about it, the decision should have been a no-brainer. This is blog is about why I think so.

To begin with, the only way you make sure you have the best people to recommend about your candidacy is by speaking to each person whom you consider as a possible recommender. Tell them in detail why you want to do an MBA and if they are not well versed with the MBA application process at a top school give them a sense of the whole application process – how competitive it is, how it should bring out your overall candidacy, how it is so much of a holistic process in spite of all the variables involved and all those things that make you sweat and lose sleep during the application process.  After this ask them if they have the time to write recommendations for you and more importantly do they have enough ammunition (strong/weak points about your personality) to really fire up your candidacy. This exercise should help you arrive at your ideal recommenders.

Coming back to “waiving off rights” now, if you have arrived at your recommenders by using the approach above, do you really want to give them any hint that you doubt their honesty? Well, by not waiving off your right you would do precisely that and that’s why I said it was a no brainer. Forget what the ad-com thinks about it, you want your recommenders to be on your side make them feel you are fully confident about them and do not let them think otherwise.  On might counter that by not waiving off your right, you will make sure that the recommender will write a favorable review. Well there are two things to it – first it doesn’t really have to be the case, if they really have something against you this little check box will not make them change their mind and second by doing this you are tying to control your recommender which is definitely not what is expected of you.

Though I say that it is a “no brainer” I do understand that, like everything else in life, there can be exceptions here too. There could be those situations, though I cannot think what they would be, which warrant that you do not waive off this right. So it definitely is not a thumb rule, you may say this is just my “cognitive bias” speaking!

Any thoughts about this little piece of the MBA jigsaw puzzle are highly welcome. 

GMATPrep – Not a bad start

The first thing I did after deciding on the MBA path was to research about the GMAT, which obviously is the first step and a prerequisite for the application. I came across a few good GMAT programs and forums with a ton of information. I decided to register on BeattheGMAT forum just because of the quality of the content and the variety they have (Blogs, Articles and obviously the discussion forum).

I figured that the OG materials (the official resource) were a must, so I went to the nearest Barnes & Nobles and got hold of the OG12. I also ordered the Verbal & Quant review (2nd edition) online. The best way to start the GMAT prep was to assess my current strengths and more importantly weaknesses. I downloaded the GMATPrep practice tests and took the first practice test.

Surprisingly I did well on my first GMAT Prep test. I got a score of 720 (Quant  50 (93%)            Verbal 37 (80%) Overall  720  94%). Based on my research this was near or above the average score for the top schools and this is what I had as my target. My work and family commitments really won’t allow me to spend a lot of time and this score does no harm at all. I am really excited about this score, hopefully I will be able to maintain my focus and adhere to a strict routine. Time to get back to the drawing board (actually excel sheet) and track my problem areas.