Growing Up

I picked up the habit of reading when I was 10. I still reminisce those days when I used to be obsessed with Phantom, Mandrake and Bahadur – Indrajal Comics, which used to get published once a week. Every Wednesday I used to get up early in the morning waiting for the newspaperman to deliver my comics – my most prized possession. And then, hiding under the quilt at night with a torch light, I read and re-read all the stories; dreaming myself to be among the pygmies in the jungles of Africa.

And then came the days of Tintin, Nancy Drew and Enid Blyton. I picked up writing and wrote my own series of “Fantastic Six” and “Magnificent Seven”. Playing Hardy Boys was my favorite game as I explored the dilapidated buildings across the streets with a hope of adventure. I never came across the shabby mystery man or the crooked witch. I was still in my early teens fantasizing that one-day I will become Sherlock Holmes and John, my best friend would become my biddable assistant, Dr. Watson. I borrowed a bunch of Tintin comics from my friends and never returned them – I enjoyed playing the role of Captain Haddock; I had my own ship on the terrace.

As I entered junior high school, my uncle brought me a series of Classics from “The Count of Monte Cristo”, “Rebecca” to “Little Women” and “The Hunchback from Notre Dome”. I wept so much for David Copperfield that I felt miserable whenever I saw an orphan in the streets. I almost planned for an escape in the summers while I meticulously built a boat out of straw and wood in my backyard – I just finished reading “Huckleberry Finn” from the school library. On summer evenings, when the lights went off and the entire town was shrouded in darkness – I used to take the hurricane lamp to the balcony with my storybook and gaze at the stars and led my imagination take me to lands where I could never go –D’Artagnan in the streets of Paris, Jim Corbett in the jungles of Kumaon or Tom Sawyer on a boat in the waters of Mississippi.

How “growing up” would have been without Jules Verne or H.G. Wells?

The wait is not over

I have so much time in my hand that I don’t know what to do with it. It was like being on a second part-time job for the last one year; right now, I am unemployed. Seriously I have to come up with a plan to put this free time into good use – I cannot just waste it lying on the couch.

The wait for the Wharton interview invite has started – small number of invites have already started going out. I am not so stressed about it – I know if I am the right fit I will get another opportunity to present my case. I saw that Wharton will hold hub interviews in San Francisco between the 23rd and 27th of February. Good, at least if I am unable to visit Philly, I can give a face-to-face interview with a Wharton Admission Committee member. My essays were darn good for Wharton – Now I can only sit back and wait.

Berkeley will not send any interview invites until the middle of February. I still want to keep the Berkeley option open (if I get a chance to interview) because I don’t know what may turn up at the middle of this year. What happens if Ria gets a job offer in Bay Area? Then, I may have to rethink (thought it is less probable that I will choose Berkeley over Michigan.)

Kellogg – the best I can hope is a waitlist since I blew my interview (my gut feeling!!). But I am proud that I did a good job with the Kellogg essays. I am hoping for some significant development in my professional career in the next month or so, which may boost my application at Kellogg and Wharton. It will be sad if I get the promotion after the decisions are out (Darn it!!), but anyway it will help me in my post MBA career.

I already got the admit package from Michigan and I have to admit that they have done a pretty good job in marketing the school so well. I currently checked out their alumni presence in the bay area and was pretty impressed with it. There are lots of Michiganites around who are ready to help and so amicable – I am seriously blown away by their culture. I have also started looking at the Financial Aid options, especially FAFSA. (Hell lot of work to do before I go to school.) And I am attending the Go Blue Rendezvous weekend unless and until something really bad happens.

By the end of March I should know all the decisions. I have decided that I will choose the school based on fit rather than going through the traditional path of brand name, rankings etc. I will be spending 100000 dollars and 2 years of my life, so I have to really make a smart decision – I can’t just pick a school like that. I will visit all the schools once more, spend time with the prospective and current students, meet the alumni, judge how I would be able to reach my career goals in each schools, study the recruitment pattern and the classes offered and then make the final decision. [You get the real inside scoop when you get unlimited access to the school’s resources once you get admitted.] It would be a tough choice but I am confident that I will make the right one. And if I have no choice but Michigan, I am pretty sure already that I am a good fit. So, you can say that I am going to business school this year for sure, but for the end of the story you have to wait eight more weeks.

Failures

“Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. “--Helen Keller.

These words give us strength, strength everyday to carry on – however arduous and impossible a task may seem, we carry on, carry on without thinking of the end results. It makes us a better and a cheerful person at the end of the day. We learn from our failures and mistakes and move on. We look back and we see the path we have traversed, the miles we have covered, the elevation we have reached – we don’t look up and think of the distance we have to climb. We know however difficult it may seem, however obstacles we have to face, we will make our way up – up there one day. We will reach the summit one day…

Who are they to stop us? How can they kill the passion within us? As we walk hand in hand, take blows all together; we are a force to reckon with. We call them a bunch of snobs as they deny us; we have a hearty laugh. Rejection makes us stronger…

“Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. There is no failure except in no longer trying.”
--Elbert Hubbard

Path to MBA

I was walking on the streets of an Indian city with a bunch of my friends when we entered a bookstore to buy some books. On the corner of a shelf was lying a copy of GMAT Barron’s Guide with Richard Montauk’s, “How to get into Top MBA Programs” just beside it. From my undergrad days I was dilly-dallying about an MBA but never gave it a serious thought. As I was shuffling through the first few chapters of Richard Montauk’s book I suddenly felt a tremendous urge, an urge to do something different in life. As the name of Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Chicago, Wharton and MIT came to my notice – they were just names to me. At that time I didn’t understand the significance of an Ivy League or a M7 or a Top 10 school – I was just a novice who was exploring. Going for an MBA to an US Business School was like a dream. But something drove me that day to buy the Barron’s Guide. It was 5 years back, my first step towards an MBA from an US Business School.

I always knew that one day I will go for an MBA but never knew why. “MBA” was a step to be among the top echelons of the society, a step to business world, a step to be smart and cool and savvy. I never went and introspected that why I actually wanted an MBA. Then came the opportunity to work in US, Ria was already in a school doing her PhD. I was never the geeky type – I was never inspired to pursue a Masters or a Doctorate degree in engineering; I knew it from the very beginning that I always coveted the bigger picture. I didn’t want to confine myself within the realms of a domain or a technology. I wanted to do something different rather than following the same path as my friend’s. There was a frenzy to give GRE and come to US – as if coming to US was more important than figuring out what you actually want to do with your career. I saw many people tormented in the middle of their education – many people questioning themselves. Well, I didn’t want to study just for the heck of studying.

As I accrued professional experience in US, I started to develop an outlook, which I lacked massively when I was back in India. I don’t know whether it was the ambience or the “stock talk” or the Silicon Valley. At the same time, I started visiting the BW Forums, attending the MBA workshops, surfing the school websites. I am talking about a situation, which was like 3 years back – I was still figuring out what I wanted to do with my life and my career. But I knew I wanted an MBA – strange!! MBA drove me rather than me driving for an MBA. But in the end, the results were unimaginable – as the self-introspection made me aware of my strengths and weaknesses. But vaguely I had something in mind about what I wanted to do after my MBA. [Warning: Self Discovery is a spiritual journey, it is not done in days but takes years.]

Only 2 years back after I got my first MBA admission that things started to fall into place. Unimaginable!! Isn’t it? I knew I could do better. Going for an MBA at that point of time would have been a wrong decision. To top that, who wanted to invest so much time and money and go to a program where you don’t deemed fit?
Truthfully it was more of a self-assessment and preparing myself for the future – Where do I stand? I needed an answer to that question. If I could get an admission with a concocted why MBA 2 years back, I knew I had a better chance when I would have exactly figured out what I want to do and how does the school fits into that. It was more than 3 years since I bought the GMAT Barron’s Guide.

I spent days assessing myself as the process of revelations continued. I checked and double-checked. Within a year, I absolutely knew what I wanted out of an MBA program. Believe me!! I felt an absolutely necessity of filling this void. If I want to reach my career goals, I need an MBA – it was crystal clear. Without an MBA the path will be much more difficult. So this time I had a more concrete why MBA. Everything seemed so simple.

Whenever I feel nostalgic about how I reached here, I still remember the immature lost dude in that bookstore curiously shuffling through the pages of Richard Montauk’s book. Who would know that one day he would be here writing a page on his blog trying to inspire and enthuse the juvenile and the deprived.

Introspection

I have never felt so excited in my life before – I have already started planning about going to Ann Arbor where I always wanted to go. It does not matter anymore because I already feel the tinge of success after a wild roller-coaster ride of 6 months.

Now, when I look back, I still remember the days before my submission when I was struggling with my essays. The cover letter was a mess as I strived to pour passion into my writing. Then came the magical night when my essays and my cover letter underwent a transformation. Michigan was a big leap from MIT. MIT was full of technical jargon with incoherent thoughts here and there. [Last night, I was going through my MIT essays and I realized how bad it was compared to the other 4 I submitted later on.]

No one knows more than me that what matters in the end – Essays, Essays and Essays. It will make or break your application. So, folks applying next year, I suggest start early – you will see your essays evolve with time.
Next is passion – if you have passion you can overcome any inadequacy in your application. I think I was unable to highlight that “passion” in my MIT essays, which was predominantly present in Michigan’s.
Lastly, fit – mutual fit. You should think that the school is a fit and the school should think vice versa.

I have no regret whatsoever. I have done my best job; I have put my heart and soul into it – the rest is on the adcoms. I will walk with my head held high. Michigan is a great school and I am proud to be a prospective Class of 2006.

In at Michigan

Holy Moly!! In at Michigan. Just received a voice mail from UMBS at work.
I am so excited - I can hardly type. Though the voice mail doesn't say i am
in - what can it possibly be?

Go Blue

Finally It’s over

Wharton Submitted. Kellogg Submitted.
Phew!! At last the process is over after some strenuous work for more than 6 months. I am happy with the job I have done for both Wharton and Kellogg. I had the initial drafts ready almost 8 weeks ago, but I was sitting with these just to make it perfect. And now, Oh Boy, it looks good. I will be extremely disappointed (as usual) if I don’t get an interview invite from Wharton.

I should thank Ria for helping me out throughout the process. She was the only source of constructive criticism. Though I should also acknowledge the Whartonite who gave me some good reviews. Overall, the entire process was a journey of self-discovery and revelations. I have come to know so much about myself in the last one year that I can write a book about it. Well!! I will wait till I get all the decisions or who am I to give advice?

One more week and I should know about Michigan. MIT is under the rug but I will ask for an explanation and a refund of all the time I have spent in its application. Berkeley, still a month to go before I get an interview invite, if any. I was surprised to learn that Wharton will start sending interview invites within 2-3 weeks.

I am excited. Finally it’s over and now is the time to get appreciation for my efforts.

Lastly, I wish poweryogi, joey, potter, futurembagirl, luvshack and liferaft – my blog buddies, best of luck. May you all get admission into the school of your choice.

Let me go and uncork the champagne bottle…

Dedicated to the Dinged

We are still alive surviving on a single strand of hope and despair. After 6 months of exhilaration, hyperventilation, elation, dejection, vacillation – all the possible corners of human emotion – We are almost on the path of self-annihilation. Our dignity still fights with our innermost fears as we wait frightfully for the devil’s axe to decapitate our confidence. While the frontrunners ululate, we martyrs are sacrificed for our previous sins. “For whom the bell tolls,” cries our souls.

Thousands of us, dejected applicants, will be awaken from our dreams as the golden flicker of MBA fades into oblivion for many of us in the coming weeks. They will extol the victors but who takes the responsibility of soothing the wounds of the losers. Like the HunchBack of Notre Dome, many of us will retreat to our respective sanctuaries, while the rest celebrate to glory.

But one-day re-birth will happen from the ashes, more daring, more intrepid. With a heart made of steel, our souls will take the strenuous convoluting path to the summit, unwilling to relinquish our aspirations, hungry for more. We will be inexorable, sturdy and determined. The battle is not over….

P.S. This load of crap was a result of literary cravings after reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s “NameSake”.

The red ribbon

Probably you guys are wondering that I am lost for forever - but the last few days have been quite hectic. I met a quite a lot of friends and family - dealing with obligations and retying the old kinship knots. As a result I have got in touch with friends with whom I have last communicated 10 years back. It is a desperate last ditch networking efforts...

My application is moving at tortoise's pace - it is stuck in the same place for the last 7-8 days - I have hardly worked on them , not because I didn't get time , but because I had nothing to work on. I need some review comments before I can progress further and I am predicting that next week will be pretty hectic - believe me.

I have seen before that the last minute changes are the most effective - Is it because I can work under pressure? Or am I more driven? I don't know the answer but I remember that I worked arduously on Michigan essays just the week before submission and they turned fantastic.

So, what's the status of my applications?
MIT - I am expecting a big ding-dinga-ding by next week.
Michigan - I will be waiting for that phone call.
Berkeley - Long wait!!
Kellogg/Wharton - Almost there , I can see the red ribbon.

Before, I was thinking that I should apply to some other school in the third round but I have to reconsider this decision as applying in the third round is moot , especially if I apply to the top 10 schools. I am confused - I have to think over it.