Should you really visit the school you are considering?

Yesterday a friend of mine, who is in the same boat as I am in (with regard to MBA application), asked if I had made any substantial impact after my recent Tuck Visit. He pointed me to this excerpt from the HBS admissions blog – “Visiting campus has absolutely no impact on how your application is reviewed. It may have a gigantic impact on how enthusiastic you are about US - that's where the value-added comes into play”. His question was very valid; do you really want to visit the school just for the sake of it, especially if the school does not think that it impacts the application?

Here is what I think about this. Two years is a big timeframe in one’s lifetime, more so for people with partners and families. The balancing act can be very tough and you want an atmosphere that makes it convenient for everyone around you to enjoy, instead of having to struggle. Add to this the cost factor – the tuition going out of your pocket and the income that is no longer coming in. Now imagine spending these two years at a place that you do not like and it becomes really difficult to get the best out of the school. This is the time when you want to focus the most on studies and activities with the least possible distraction. But if you are not happy about your choice your mind will constantly be troubled by the thought of not having the best possible investment of your time and money.

You might ask - At a top 20 school nothing can go wrong? Not really, these schools are so different in so many aspects and there can be that one thing which really gets onto you. Some might find a large classroom intimidating, some might find a remote location suffocating and some might find a school right in the middle of a big city too distracting. A school visit will not only help you identify such concerns (if any), it will also help you identify the areas that make you a better fit at the school, something that will add great value to the essays. Agreed a lot of information is available on the internet and school brochures. But visiting the school really allows you to put things to perspective. Some people really get that ‘wow’ feeling after visiting the school and the decision process becomes very simple. It happened with me, I visited a school that was #2 on my list and after the visit it now sits right at the top! If you are planning to move in with your partner or family it is important to check the facilities that the school provides and more importantly to know whether your partner/family will have enough opportunities to keep themselves occupied and have a good time.

The school visit does not change anything from the Ad Coms perspective about your candidacy, but if utilized well it has the potential to empower you with enough reasons to justify why you are a good fit for a specific school. The second sentence from the HBS Admissions blog (above) really sums this up in a subtle manner. Not everyone is well positioned in terms of location to visit the schools of their choice, but whenever possible it definitely helps. 

Creative thinking at 30,000 feet.

A colleague of mine, who is a frequent flyer, once mentioned that at great altitudes you tend to indulge in either extremely mundane activities or extremely creative ones and there is no middle ground. I am not sure how much of it is true, but based on my observation and personal tendency I would like to agree with him.

Yesterday when I flew from Boston to Omaha I tried to test this little theory. I have always spent my time during flights either sleeping or reading, nothing that I would call really creative, so this time I thought I would test out the creative aspect. Given that I am ‘supposed to’ be writing my essays now (I say so because I started my essays more than a month ago and have completed only the first draft of 2 essays!), what better than attempting the essays in flight.

I spent a good part of the time thinking about bullet points for 4 essays and I must admit it was highly productive. Hopefully I am not the only one who thinks so, only time and my contacts (once I send them my essays for review) can tell that. I have set myself a deadline of this Friday, to fit all these bullet points into nice essays. Maybe, I should use my return journey for some creative writing now!

My visit to the Tuck School of Business – Modern day Gurukul

I had the opportunity to visit the Tuck school of Business last Friday. Being close to Boston I have visited MIT & Harvard umpteen times (as a tourist and as a volunteer attending the meetings and activities of the NGO that I work for). However, this was the first time that I visited a business school as a prospective student and obviously I was very excited. A couple of my friends have been egging me over the last couple of days for details of the trip, but preparation for Onam feast on Sunday and a hectic schedule at work kept me from writing for the last few days.

The Tuck school is about 3 hours drive from where I live but I chose not to drive early morning on Friday. Instead I stayed with a good friend of mine at his place in Keene (a little over an hour from Tuck). For majority of the journey from Keene, it was a lonely drive through the woods of New Hampshire. I am someone who prefers such narrow and winding roads over monotonous highways and enjoyed the first half of the drive before taking the highway. The first sight of Hanover, when I exited the highway, was that of a serene lake with walking trails around its perimeter. Within no time I was near the heart of the town where most of the school buildings were located. The first few minutes at Hanover were enough to convince me that Tuck is the closest to a modern day business school equivalent of Gurukul (an old Indian school system with strong emphasis on amity and bonding). I parked my car in the Medical School parking area and took a shuttle to the Whittier Hall. I was well ahead of the schedule and enjoyed the calmness around the hall while waiting for the event to kick off.

Soon other prospective students started showing up and at 10 our host kicked off the event by handing each of us our ‘package’. This contained the agenda for the day and some informational brochures. The first thing on the agenda was a tour of the school premises. A 1978 Tuck alum showed us around the school and he had a lot of interesting facts to offer. Here are some of the key points that I noted from the campus tour:

¨      The Stell Hall is amazing!! With a view of the woods and the river in the background you wouldn’t find a more tranquil setting. We were told this hall was the fulcrum of a lot of school activities and is buzzing with students all the time. 

¨      The Tuck infrastructure really fosters a collaborative & close knit environment.

¨      The close proximity to the schools of Engineering and Medicine helps a lot of entrepreneurial projects, with ideas originating in the Engineering & Medial schools that are then implemented by MBA students.

¨      The alumni contribution really shows up in the infrastructure as well, some of the dorms are equipped with Tempurpedic beds (all courtesy Tuck alumni).

¨      Most of the students with partners and families stay in the Sachem Village, a couple of miles from the campus. But we were told that the Sachem Village did an ever better job of nurturing close bonding and there were a lot of activities that partners and families could look forward to.

Next up was a mock class with Professor Golder, who presented some of the findings from his ongoing research in the field of Marketing and Product Innovation. Prof. Golder laid out some interesting facts and demystified a lot of common (mostly false) beliefs regarding the origins of some of the most common household items. This was followed by a lunch with Students and representatives from MBA Program Office. All of us (prospective students) were seated at designated lunch tables and each table had either a current Tuck student or a representative from the MBA Program Office. Our table had a representative from the MBA Program office and it was a good opportunity for us to ask our questions in such a small group. Later a student panel (comprising of 4 T’12 students) presented their view about the school and shared their experiences. Their views were of tremendous value and they had so many of them I cannot put all of it in this blog, but one thing I must share is that the common underlying of all their experiences was the camaraderie and togetherness that the Tuck environment facilitates.  

After the lunch session we moved back to a classroom where members of the Career Development Office (CDO) were already waiting for us. The agenda was to help us understand how the CDO prepares us for our career goals. The interaction with CDO starts very early during the MBA program (as early as the second week) so it is important to understand what the CDO can offer so that students can make the best out of them. Here are some of the noteworthy items from the presentation by the CDO.

¨      Tuck recruitment team is emotionally vested in their student’s goals and they have a one-on-one relation with each student (Based on everything that I heard from the students, this has to be absolutely true).

¨      Tuck has a ‘half-close’ list for offers from companies, which means recruiters only get to pick half of the students of their choice (for interview) and the other half is open for students to bid for.

¨      The CDO tries it’s best to help International students get offers here in the USA.

¨      The CDO has a lot of resources to place students but the onus is on the students to ‘actively manage their career and own it’.

The last item on the agenda was a presentation by the Admissions panel followed by a discussion. Let me quickly summarize the key points from the presentation.

Admission Committee’s guidelines for applicants:

¨      Application is reviewed in a holistic manner; there are no minimums (for GMAT or GPA).

¨      Tuck has a ‘blind interview’ policy – interviewers do not have access to essays.

¨      Use STAR method for interviews, use anecdotes where possible and avoid long-windedness.

After the scheduled events for the day had ended I drove to Sachem Village, after all this is the place where I might end up staying with my family (obviously if I get in). The theme of this place is along the same lines as that of the Tuck school with the addition of more open spaces and playgrounds. I am pretty sure that Tuck must be unique in this aspect, by providing such a wonderful setting for students with partners and families Tuck makes sure that the 2 years during the MBA are equally enjoyable for partners and families as well.

Tuck has been in my scheme of things for quite some time, but this visit only reinforced my belief and now I am ‘all in’ trying to present the best possible case for my Tuck application. 

August - A very hectic month so far

I have barely made any progress on my essays over the last few weeks. August has been a very busy month for me till now and the last week only promises more activity. Earlier this month I was in New York for a couple of days to attend the Destination B-School event organized by Kaplan. Last week I attended the Tuck event at Hanover.

In between all my B-school research I had to make sure that my social life does not go underground. We had to plan and celebrate Onam at our place, there was a lot of planning and preparation involved. My wife took a lot of the responsibility to ensure that I had as much time as possible for my school research. Thankfully the Onam celebrations went well. We had a grand feast at our place, everyone (especially the kids) enjoyed it.

Now things at work have really caught up and next week promises more work. I will be heading to Omaha for four days. I hope I will be able to carve our some time to write my essays and do more research on some of the other schools that I am considering.   

Connections

My school research is in top gear right now (at least that’s what I think). One of the things that that I am doing as a part of researching schools is to reach out to as many current students or alumni as possible.

I have already interacted with 3 contacts –an alumnus, a current student and a recently admitted student. The next few days promise a lot more, I have four calls scheduled and hopefully one face-to-face meeting. Add to this the Kaplan event at Boston in early August and I am sure I will have touched base with a lot of people.

I am thinking of presenting the key information that I have gathered (and will continue to gather) from my contacts. I will post this in this blog as a series. Hopefully it will be of use to someone out there.

Here are a couple of guidelines that I plan to follow in this series:

1.  I will not post any names, until I have explicit permission from my contacts. I will definitely share the school name though. 
2.  I will try to be as candid as possible but there could still be information that I may not be able to post, to safeguard the interest of my contacts as well as that of the school. But, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me; I might still be able to get you the information via e-mail. It’s just that there are certain things I am not very comfortable with being put on the www.

Financial Services: Gearing up for a new era

I just came across a survey by Deloitte about the future landscape of financial services. The survey is based on inputs from over 200 financial services executives from all over the world. It covers how the financial crisis and economic downturn has impacted the thought process, practices and strategies of banks and other financial institutions.

The impact of the crisis - damaged relations, curtailed performances and disrupted services - have been revealed in terms of statistics. It also focuses on the key focus areas for banks and other institutions as they try to make up for the lost ground.

The survey results make an interesting read. You can read more by following this link.

For me the key takeaways were regarding the future strategies that banks suggest they will adopt to gain a competitive position by taking advantage of the very little opportunity that this adversity had brought along. The three important aspects (no surprises here) of the new strategy that banks have identified are:

1)     Improving Customer Experience

2)     Risk Management

3)     New Product development

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are snapshots of some of the survey results. 

Antennagate & Apple’s claim

The antenna-gate episode took a very bad turn last week when Apple tried to turn the media attention away from itself in such an un-Apple like manner. Apple claimed that other phones, specifically RIM’s Blackberry, have similar reception problems.

RIM has come back strongly with an email that declares  ‘Apple’s claim as unacceptable’.  Apple’s claim is not totally baseless though. If they are subjected to some standards for reception, FCC should hold everyone else to the same standard. That really calls for thorough tests and study of all the phones out there. What’s really wrong is the timing of this statement. Apple is really in the middle of a self inflicted mess and now is definitely not the best time to point fingers at others (more importantly their chief competitors) to escape from the media scrutiny.

What really disturbed me is that by taking such a stance Apple has gone against the very principles that has made it such a cult brand. In terms of products Apple is in a league of its own, each of their products is so different from their competitor’s products and Apple puts a lot of effort in its design and production to make it so different. By going this route they have themselves opened the door for comparisons to be drawn, they have basically brought themselves down to be on par with the market. This really is going to take a lot to undo. 

GMAT - How my attempt to go one-up brought me down.

I took the GMAT recently after preparing for a good part of four weeks. My score was a tad below my expectation (I had a modest target of 720) but for now this score will have to do. I will try to focus more on my essays to cover up the lost ground.

I have posted a detailed account of my GMAT on the BTG forum. It’s a pretty long post and I don’t want to duplicate the content here.  You can read my post by following this link -  How my attempt to go one-up brought me down.