Skipped SPJain. Mission ISB now!

A couple of updates first, one good news and one follow up news. First the good news- I had applied at the 1 year PGPM program at SP Jain, Bbay and had interviewed with them. Well, the result came about 16 days ago and this time I did MAKE it. Man, wow good does that feel when you get an “You are welcome” mail from a school of reputation like SPJain.

Now the bad part- I said NO to their offer. This was a rather painful decision as after battling for so long for my MBA(my first attempt was in circa 2002!) everyone around me wanted to hang up the battle shoes and get “settled”. But I stand by the decision and don’t regret it. These were the reasons for my decision:

1. Types of recruiters: Since 85% of my professional experience is in High Tech product industry, I really want to go to a school where product based companies come for recruitment. Sp jain’s list is entirely made up of IT services firm. Though I do think that there are good profiles in IT services firms too, but keeping in my mind my different experience as well as my long term career plan(of starting a venture) I didn’t see a great fit. Also, there were no real chances of trying the consulting industry post SPJ, as there are hardly any names in SP Jain’s recruiter list.

2. PGDM Vs PGPM: Well this is fairly well known. While researching the placements of PGPM, I came to know that the school has a bias in favor of their flagship PGDM program. It seemed that the school is deliberately not pushing PGPM to industry to avoid conflict with PGDM. My take is if the school you are joining is not serious about their own program, then there are limited things you can do to make things any better.

3. The network: Finally, I turned to linked in to compare the real world positions of alumni from a few schools such as ISB and SP Jain(PGPM). A few pages and you know the difference. I agree that PGPM is relatively new(4 year old), but ISB is not very old too(7 years). Also the sheer number of people from ISB would far outnumber the PGPM alumni base as the average batch size of ISB would be about 300, while PGPM’s would be 1/10th of that. But the message which I drew from it was there were simply far more opportunities available for ISB junta as compared to SP Jain’s PGPM alumni.

Anyway, now when I have chucked the offer, I am gearing towards having a serious go at ISB in R2. A few things are already in pipeline and I would share the strategy soon.

Wish me luck!

Back in Black(and white, and red, etc)

After a really long hiatus, back to blogging here. But I can assure you this time, you are going to see some activity here.

My last year’s application experience was a good learning experience. The score board was:

Applied Short listed Final result Reasons

IIM-A(PGPEX) No Negative Lower experience, lesser GMAT(710!)

IIM-C(PGPX) Yes Negative Lower experience profile which was enough to arouse them, but failed to inspire them for final admit!

ISB Yes Negative Their own feedback blames my unpolished interviewing skills. I concur. Point noted, action plan to be put in place.

Hass(UCB) No Negative No cues form Adcom. Once they took application money, they stopped being collaborative! I do think that my application couldn’t create much impact.

Tuck No Negative Ditto

LBS No Negative Ditto

Hell, the score board looks like batting record of Venkatpati Raju! But some sense-making exercise tells me this:

International school fiasco:

1. Bad choice: LBS, Tuck were simply not my type. I wish to stay within Tech, albeit in a business strategy role. LBS and Tuck are unlikely choices for someone like me.

2. Bad preparation : Haas is one of the most difficult schools to get into. Most top tech people apply at Haas, Stanford and MIT. For a full time Indian non IITian techie, who has never worked abroad, it will take a lot of specific application strategy to break into this elite school. And I simply prayed. Also, should have visited the school when I was in US for 2 months.

Indian school fiasco:
1. Sub-optimal performance in interviews, communication.
2. Nebulous vision about career.
3. Lack of rigorous school research.

I hope to use this learning in this year’s applications. I am already through the admission process of SP-Jain’s PGPM program. It was a remarkable learning experience, the details of which I would let out in my next post.

CAT is stranger than fiction..

As I reported earlier my CAT attempt was a joke as I didn’t study for even 15 mins this year for it. A far cry from my earlier days in 2002-2003 when my life used to revolve around it. Though I was rather pleased with the performance after I checked my marks(a practiced ritual in those days. Can’t help it!) I thought I had CAT by his tail this time.

Alas, the worst scripts are not written by god anymore and the job has been handed over to the IIM honchos who keep changing their preferences each year with no indication at all before the test. The result was declared yesterday and I was excited to see my score:

In fact, I was so excited that the fact that the result page showed no interview calls skipped my mind completely. Yes, I was looking at my best CAT score ever with my best sectional performances but still I was more unlucky than ever too! As it turned out, my quant score of 91.95%ile missed the cutoff set by not one, two by ALL IIMs by a whisker and because of that my other numbers lost their sheen in toto.

I am still having hard time understanding the meaning of cutoffs set by IIMs. Back in old good days, I remember sectional cut off was the minimum score to ensure that a candidate who is weak in a section doesn’t get in. Hence the sectional cutoffs used to be set to about 84-85%. But today can you say =~92%ile is a low score to an extent that the other good scores in other sections gets overridden? And if it is why dont IIMs declare upfront what is the good score in their view.

For me personally this event doesn’t hold much significance as for me joining a 2 yr course with freshers might have been a decision which would have taken a lot of thought. My heart goes out to people who were sidelined just because they were unlucky to find favor with the whims and fancies of IIMs.

I hate the eccentricity IIM admission staff pride themselves in. They do it in PGP and they do it in PGPEX. And lucky them, they always manage to get extolling tomes written about them by a servile Indian media. They should thank the vast talent India has for this.

ISB refuses..

Final decision for ISB out and as I feared yesterday- I am finding myself writing this ding post. How I hate this….

I followed some posts by some other applicants and here are my initial impressions about the offers:

1. IIT brand is perhaps the number one differentiating factor for applicants, especially in IT domain.

2. If you are in IT and not from IIT, well its tough but not impossible to get in. As everyone says, you need to differentiate yourself from other IT and IITians. NGO work, extra currics like sports, etc help. But don’t count on these to distance yourself away from other similar applicants. You need some extra punch to barge your way in.

3. Diversity is hot. If you are from an unconventional industry, great. Just make sure you dont goof up anywhere and you should be in(unless ofcourse you run out of luck big time).

For me, here is the thinking process right now:

1. Look ahead and submit the best applications for other business schools. Haas and Judge are in my mind right now.

2. Then introspect and devise a game plan for this year. I wrote CAT 4 days ago. Should I try to use it for SPJAIN regular MBA? Need to make up my mind.

3. After this year’s apps are done, depending on the results, plan for next year’s strategy. I seriously am thinking of following my long cherished dream of starting my own venture. I initially planned to get an MBA before this, but at this moment don’t wish to make it a mandatory requirement. I know its a big step, but I must act now.

More musings later. For now, I feel down. But not out.

Hi!

Okay so I finally got my MBA blog up. Have been following some by fellow mba aspirants and thought its time I got one too.

Will post important information and perhaps not so important musings about my MBA sojourn here.

Do leave a comment if you feel like.

Cheers!

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