Rejected by Haas

Finally, Haas did not show me any love and rejected my application. With this end my unsuccessful Round 1 applications journey. I failed miserably getting ding on all five schools. 5/5- That's a dubious record. All my first choice schools have rejected me. Oh well, that's life.

Haas app was one of my best application, but I guess I lost hope after UCLA ding me. But honestly, this was the school I loved most. The students are really amazing and very helpful. I spoke to students of so many schools, haas students are the most friendly, cooperative and approachable. I dreamed of being part of such a community. Anyways, I hope something is good for me in this.

Congrats and good luck to all those who got into Haas.

Haas

Haas is going to send interview invites starting today!
Finger crossed!!! Now the real wait begin.

Still no invite from Stanford.. huuh!!

All the best to fellow applicants

Haas Submitted

Continuing with my trend of submitting application on the deadline day, I submitted Haas on Nov 4th. I am happy with my application overall, except the first question - what would I change. I think it is little weak as my other reviewers also pointed out. But my other essays are very strong, so I hope it will compensate.

I think this is the most essays I have written for one application. 4 short questions, 2 long, 2 optional. Phew - 8 essays! Haas really want you to work hard on the application to show your interest. Anyways, I am glad I am done and able to pull off both Stanford and Haas.

What next !!!

I am thinking of looking at UT-Austin and ASU -- hmm why suddenly ASU - well, I want to have some safe schools in my list, and they are offering me quick turn around, app fee waiver, I liked ASU (I went there for my grad school) and it is still in top 25 schools.

I am thinking of taking off USC from my list - they are really insistent on TOEFL. No other school wants me to take TOEFL, if I have Graduate degree from US. I do not understand their policy. And I am in no mood to take another exam at this point of time!

ISB wants to talk to me

Finally, after a long wait, got an email from ISB and they want to interview me :)
However, unlike others, they gave me a very very short notice of 3 days.
Aah, another mini battle within this MBA battle. I wish it was after 4th nov. But anyways, I have to live with it.
Some will say, what will you have to prepare for ISB. Well, I think it's just the mind-set. Writing Haas essay, I am totally in Haas mode, but if I need to take ISB interview, I should show my passion for ISB as well :)

My Haas essays are coming along well. I am fine with the content of all my essays and they are not in bad state anymore. All are around 80-90% complete. Need to polish them to make it 100%. I finished writing about my supplemental questions as well. I think I will complete the online application today. I missed out on one critical and dear to heart community service stuff. Did not find appropriate space. I am right now in dilemma about using optional essay. I love UCLA and Stanford essays. They gave me lot of space to write about my passions, and my community service (my strength). Did not get that opportunity to discuss in Haas essays.

Anyways, all I have to do for next three days will be to polish the essay and prepare for ISB interview.

I think I am learning much needed time-management skills even before going to B-School.

Need a break!!!

Aah. I worked very hard this week. I finished Stanford first draft - Almost finalized on my leadership essay. Still need to work a lot on challenges essay, career essay. What matter most seem like never ending one.

Meanwhile, I created first draft for Haas long career essay. Other leadership essay is pretty much ready from UCLA one, and I need to tailor it a little bit.

Short question - Put together one draft for how I learned about haas, have some ideas about achievement and innovation essays. I am still not able to come up with anything for what I would do differently. Any ideas?

But really getting exhausted with this process. I really need a break. My body, mind, heart are all crying for the break, but irony is I really cannot take it. Waiting for Nov 4th. I am definitely going to take a week long break. Or may be not - I might have ISB interview lined up soon. I haven't got a call yet, but I am hoping to get it soon. And probably, UCLA interview invite will start going out as well.

Still looks like no end in sight and a long way to go. How good the state of people will be who already have admit from the school of their choice. Ahh.. Fortunate ones!

My day will come!

Stanford back in R1 and Haas essays

I love Stanford too much to leave out for Round 2. After taking a break for a day on monday, I gave a closer look at Haas essays yesterday and Stanford essays today. I have been thinking about first essay for a while and when I looked at other essays, I realized I can use most of the content of UCLA and IIMA essays. That is thrilling to know. I will have to tailor to the Stanford questions, and have to cut down lot of things to adhere to strict word limit, but looks like it is doable.
The challenge will be to cut down the content, since I think, my UCLA essays were pretty concise and crisp and really do not know what can I cut down.
I got so excited, that I have my first draft of Stanford essays ready. :) Should I take some consultants help to expedite my editing and polishing? Not sure, whether they give a quick turnaround time.

Also, Haas essays - some can be reused, but it will be much more challenging. I have leadership essay ready, career goal essay almost ready, with haas specific info to be fit in.
The short questions are much more challenging - I do not know what I would like to change that I have done and would do it differently.
Innovation essay - have some idea, but not sure how it will develop
Achievement essay - can use IIMA one - though need to cut down to 250 words
Haas research essay - done quite a bit research, visited campus, attended class, spoke to current students, alumni's, read blogs. But have to put together my learning and insights from them. Which is difficult, since most of the students and alumni pretty much say the same thing. And I am little less articulate in defining culture of a school. Most of the places I am applying satisfies my criteria of great education, entrepreneurial support, brand name, network, small class size and california location, silicon valley connections. Now what to say in that essay.

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

Haas Class Visit

I visited Econ class today. It was amazing. The professor was amazing and he explained about pricing strategy and how the demand-supply curve looks like.

The students were pleasant, however, looked little stress due to mid-term exam in the evening. There was not too much class participation. Perhaps, I should attend some case-based class to get a hang of how students interact in the class.

But overall, after attending the class, my desire for an MBA has increased. I have so much to learn.

I read an excellent blog by optimistic. Although he just has 5 entries, but they are very inspiring. I really feel the same what he has gone through: Career getting pigeon-holed and hunger to study and expand the skill set.

On my other apps, created draft for first 2 essays of UCLA. Really need to ramp-up my app process.

Haven't started preparing for IIMA interview. Heard from couple of interview experiences in Ahmedabad that ad-com are not asking to present. I wish, I also get that option :)

I have heard people started getting interview invites from columbia. Good luck folks.

Visited Haas

I visited haas on friday. Had a wonderful time. I had lunch with students and attended an information session. Everything was organized by student ambassadors and even information session was given by student ambassador with ad com member dropping by in last 10 min.

Overall, no special information, just the usual stuff about their culture and curriculum.

I am going to visit again on monday and attending one class. Will write more about it after I attend.

In the meantime, I tried to look for schedule of Stanford class visit and to my dismay, they are all full till the first round deadline. This is totally ridiculous. How can the class visit be so full even before it actually started. I got to register for monday's class in Haas on thursday. And here in Stanford, the first available class is Nov 6th or may be later. Why such demand? or do they just have very few spots open? Even lunch with current student is full. Whats up with people. I am not sure what is behind it, but looks like I might not be able to attend class inspite of being local before submitting my application in first round.

Meanwhile, got another setback and talked with few people and they questioned by long term goals and classified my short-term goals of being a product manager as too easy, and said I do not need an MBA to become a product manager. However, I have so many friends who became product manager after MBA and find it logical choice to a path to start a company.

Confused!!!

Time running away?

I think I have spent too much time writing ISB and IIMA essays that I am not able to start my other applications.
With time running so fast, I better get started. I pledge to start my UCLA app today.

I have written few points on UCLA first essay few days back, but not sure how much should I add and what should I cover in this.

In the meantime, met one UCLA student in bay area. A very nice person to talk to. An entrepreneur before joining Anderson, now wants to take it easy and do product management in big corporation with slow life. As per him, advantage is - the big corporations move so slowly that if you are even a tad fast, you are appreciated and since he has seen it all being in fast paced entrepreneurial environment, he is enjoying the accolades by working 70% his capacity.

Regarding MBA tour - I attended 7 schools presentation and though I like the first schools presentation, eventually I realized they talk same things. Marshall, Texas, Haas, Yale SOM, all talk about how collaborative culture they have due to small class size, accessible faculty and staff and the usual support for different kind of centers and clubs.
Interesting, Wharton also talk about same things and said, even though their class size is big - they are very collaborative contrary to popular belief that they have cut-throat culture.

I wonder,why school asks everyone to stand out, when they cannot stand out themselves. Every one had same pitch, same suggestions, same selling point. What is the unique selling point? Anyone?

I met Thunderbird school representative in MBA fair, and learned a interesting thing- they have a hospitality weekend on Nov 7th and all you have to do is show up, they take care of your lodging and food. I was quite amused and do not know any other school doing that. So if anyone interested in Thunderbird, go for it. It is number one in International Business and located in warm Arizona. I love Arizona :)

Anyway, have to get back to the apps - I plan to put together outlines for all the schools I am planning to apply in first round by this weekend - ucla, haas, stanford. Aaah.. what matters to me most and why!!!