Monday, September 29, 2008

top mba tour

I visited QS MBA tour last saturday. A much shorter event than the MBA tour I attended couple of weeks back. The event started with long queue for registration, even when I had pre-registered. There was a session from 2-3pm with panel of ad com members for georgetown, cornell, babson, and unnamed school. They gave usual jibe on application process, recommendations, essays etc. The room was pretty small and half of the audience had to stand.
The fair started at 3pm and I visited quite a few schools. Most of them were friendly and good to talk to. I spoke at length with UCLA ad com member and an alumni.
USC ad com was little on rude side. Somehow, did not like their attitude. And they are hell bent on TOEFL score.
Also spoke to ISB ad com member - found her quite unprofessional. But again, this my perception. She usually avoided tough questions and was busy selling numbers - heard her say umpteenth time that 230 recruiters visit the campus and all fight for the day zero spot :) Many of her answers were inconsistent with what other member on pagal guy forum is saying.
Another alum who worked in TCS before and again joined TCS after ISB spoke positively and was very polite and authentic in his replies.

On application front: I am still not going anywhere. To make the matter worse, I am quite sick and suffering from severe cold and headache. Looks like I will have to drop Stanford from my R1 list and keep Haas. I am not sure I can do both. Some people will question my logic of postponing Stanford to R2 as people target top-tier and first preference school in the first round.
I have my own reason - Stanford is highly comptetive in any round, and I feel I have better chance in Haas than Stanford. So I prefer to try for the school where I have better chance in getting admit in round 1, instead of waiting till round 2- when it will get much more competitive.

Still not happy with UCLA essay- Showed my first draft to a friend and he trashed it. The second revision of 2nd and 3rd essays are looking better. Lot of work needs to be done on 1st one. Haven't even started the 4th one. With deadline only 10 days away - I have uphill task at my hand. Wish me luck

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