Class Sculpting..

With all this talk of Class Sculpting and waitlists, I take my readers inside the hallowed chambers of admissions committee at the Whaoggvurd school of business.

On a big mahogany table lies a curious checkerboard hooked up to a state of the art CRAY super-compter. The scene is straight out of a science fiction movie. The checkerboard is divided into a matrix with 100000 rows and 100000 columns. Each cell in the matrix has a red lightbulb in it. The rows and columns have headings ranging such as "Raised Iguanas", "Trekked barefoot", "Nepal", "AIDS volunteer", and so on.

The famed Admissions director (tanned and irritated, having recently got back from a trip around the world - interviewing and giving presentations, having survived a bad case of food-poisioning in Indo-china and sunburnt in Greece), sits in front of the super-computer. With a sigh, he hits the "CLASS SCULPT" button. The CRAY computer now takes over. The hard drive is whizzing, the databases are being scanned, and relational expert systems are doing their magic. After 5 minutes, the lights on the checkerboard light up. Not all, but 80% of them.

"Damn, the class is still not scuplted" exclaims the Director.

To give a bit of a background: Each lightbulb signifies a particular asset of the Class of 2007 at Whaoggvurd. For example, a light bulb in Row 500 Column 300 signfies "Nursed Kangaroos in a - - Zimbabwean Zoo". Other categories include "Ivy league Undergrad - - transfer from Community college", "Hiked in Macchu Pichhu - - with one bottle of water", and so on.

The Director is desparate. It is late May for crying out loud. Finally, he closes his eyes and proclaims "Bring in the Waitlisters. Lets enter Joe Schmoe's resume again into the database, we forgot to enter the 3rd bullet point of his 4 indented work experience last time. Oh, and lets enter Venkarunaja Mnahasjkthyiu Muttapaswamysriniwasa into the system again, Lets not penalise him for his name... and what about the guy who has chained himself to the our school gates, lets give him a chance as well."

All set, he hits the button again. The system does it magic. The junior adcom members are watching with awe. Finally, it happens.

"All, we have the ONE.... the only... the class of 2007.."

all the lights on the chekerbaord.. all 100000*100000 of them are lit.

Best of MBA blogzzzz....

Wow, Clearadmit has pulled one good marketing gimmick. By hosting a contest comprising of 20 bloggers, and announcing the best 10,.. they have effectively managed to self-promote their own business of admissions counseling and essay writing service. Niiiiice!!

I personally did not vote or ask to be voted, because I think if anyone should "PROFIT" from my blog and writing (as bad it may be), it should be "ME". :)-

Interestingly, the 10 top bloggers have been given a "jpeg" image for posting on their blogs. This image links to clear admit site. Hmm....

Well, for the "winners" sake (who all deserve to be Top-10, btw), I ask Clearadmit to give some good prizes or monetary compensation to them. After all, Clearadmit is getting some good marketing mileage out of this...

Note: I have NOT linked Clearadmit's site on this post.

Pod heaven....

After years of resisting iPOD's...(I had a first generation one for MACs which I gave away), I finally got the mini - as a promotion by opening a Citibank account. Its another matter that I got it 5 months after the promotion was introduced, nevertheless a free iPOD is something I will hold dear!!

I saw some envious looks in the hallways, as I entered my workplace in the morning with my pod!! Reminds me of an AD growing up - "Neighbor's envy.. owner's Pride!!"

Inspiration

Inspiration comes in various forms and shapes. Newton's falling apple is one example. Of course, we have the story of Archimedes, who ran naked to the King after stumbling on the law of buoyancy in his bathtub.

Similarly, I am using a rainflow counting algorithm to count the number of stress reversals that occur as part of a lifetime of a structure (for irregular loading). The idea of rainflow counting is traced back to a Japanese researcher, who looked at rain drops falling on the roof of a Pagoda to come up with this algorithm. This then became, by far the most common technique in material science to estimate fatigue life.

Moral: The answers are in front of us. We just have to look carefully.

Business is not rocket science!!

I have been reading with some interest the discussion raging on BW forums on why some people with extremely good GMAT's and who are apparently geniuses are not getting into Bschools. (See: http://forums.businessweek.com/bw-bschools/messages/?msg=63686)

I have wondered that myself sometimes. However, one thing we all understand (but maybe are afraid to say it): "Business is not rocket science". You dont need to be a genius to work well in Business (of course, a good head on the shoulder never hurts).

For all the geniuses out there.. there are other good graduate programs (most of which do not involve huge student loans) that will give you a chance to show your creativity, to create original thoughts, to invent new things, to publish peer-reviewed journal papers, and to write brilliant dissertations. That you are genius is not a reason enough for Bschools to let you in the door. You need to show more.. much much more!

While there is some amount of "diversity" and "class-shaping" that take place at top schools, the majority of people accepted at schools seem to have done normal things exceptionally well, rather than the other way around. In my work place, I have noticed that most of the people who have risen very fast have not always been the sharpest. They have been very good at understanding the business model of the company, never deviated from the procedures, enforced the company procedures to their reports, played the office politics very well (a.k.a "inter-personal skills"), and been very good communicators. Once again, ..not rocket science, just common-sense.

I am sure Sergey Brin and Larry Page do not sit and write the product positioning strategy whitepaper at Google. They will hire good business people to do that (which admittedly requires its own set of creativity). Meanwhile, Brin and Page will continue to do what they do best - create, innovate and be different!

So say goodbye to Einstein and say hello to Donald Trump!!

My Blog turns 2...

Just realized that it is the second birthday for my blog today. I started this blog after reading blogs by MBA Bloggers hall of famers - Tad Holbie, Modz Speranto, Zachary Emig, Adam, Ryan, and others... some of whom are ready to graduate as we speak!!

And now the community has just grown from a village to a small metro... with new bloggers joining everyday.

Well happy birthday blog!!!!

LA and San Diego

Had a great weekend in S.Cal.

Friday night was all Hollywood - watching amateur bands play at the Musician's Institute in Hollywood, catching all the cool places to hang out, eating Shabu Shabu, and watching the street performers!!

Saturday was spent on the beach in Oceanside, cave trotting in La Jolla, dinner in North park, and partying in Gaslamp quarter. Loved San Diego... great place!


La Jolla's "Sunny Jim" Cave.. This cave is called Sunny Jim Cave, after W. W. Denslow's cartoon character Sunny Jim, a mascot for British Force Wheat, a cereal company of the 1920s.


Rocking at Musicians Institute in Hollywood