[MBA] Expected updates

Got my official ding from Haas. This was very much on the cards ofcourse, but it still hurts. To think of it I could very well have stopped my application process on Dec 1st after I submitted Tuck. Not a single school after that even graced me with an interview. What a colossal waste of time this whole process turned out to be.

Like everyone else in this world I also got a mail from Tuck informing me about the continuation of my waitlist status. I realistically didn't expect any movement on their waitlist till their April end deposit deadline. But it was nice of them to keep us informed.

I am doing my bit to further my case during this waitlist wait, but it feels like just going through the motions. If 4 top schools don't even think you are worthy of an interview, is it realistic to expect admits from 2 other top schools? I don't know and since hope springs eternal I will keep trying to get off the right side of the waitlist. But whatever. Btw Kellogg has already seen some movement off the R1 waitlist (both admits and dings). According to Kristen on bweek next week they will see even more of that.

I just realized that I have started sounding like a broken record on this blog. No admit waaah, no interview more waaah and so on. I guess that prevents me from over whining in real life. I would be left without any friends if I were to whine half as much as here.

[Cricket] WTF

My routine every morning includes a quick browse through cricinfo. This morning I got the surprise of a lifetime. Australia had scored 434 in the last one-dayer between them and South Africa. And that was not the surprising part. The way the one-day game has become stacked in favor of the batsmen, the 400 run barrier was bound to be broken sooner than later. What was surprising was that South Africa was actually in the hunt for an improbable victory. Now, on this same ground 3 years ago Australia had run up an equally impressive score against India and India had lost without a fight. So ofcourse I got behind the South Africans in this heroic run chase. AND THEY WON! Those of you who don't follow cricket and have been diligent enough to read this far this is equivalent to a team scoring 30 runs in a baseball game and still losing!

Man, wish I could have watched this game on TV!

[MBA] Plan B?

No love yet from any of the still in play schools. Stanford is a no hoper at this point. There is no evidence in cyberspace yet that Sloan has released invitations for my hub (Chicago). But this being my most hurried application it's difficult to be optimistic. I had high hopes from Haas. Both the school and location would have been perfect for me and my wife. But just 10 days to Super Saturday and no invite yet. I have sent waitlist update letters to Kellogg and Tuck, but the sense I got from talking to the waitlist officers is that unless I can come up with some miracle, I will be in only if enough people with my profile drop out. Nothing much I can do about that.

I guess it's time to start seriously thinking about Plan B. Yes, I could wait till the bitter end but my visa status doesn't allow me that luxury. So back to 'what do I really want to do with my life' mode.

[General] What is your clan spread?

Thanks to Sepia Mutiny I came across this site http://www.gens-us.net/ If you type in your last name, it will give you a map showing the distribution of your clan (clan <=> last name) across the various American states.

The pic on the left is my clan spread. As expected we are pretty under-represented. I think they only use citizens and/or permanent residents to generate this map. So I don't show up on this.

[MBA] Wharton says - so long sucker

So Wharton has snagged the privilege of delivering me my 1st ding. Wharton was a stretch school for me, so am not surprised. But ding without interview - Ouch!

I have always maintained that Wharton has the most humane applying process. All decisions on one day instead of the drip, drip chinese water torture of some schools. All interview invites within one month instead of the marathons of some schools. So no hard feelings. Just a punctured ego.

[MBA] Wharton offers a peek into the future

The one day you are not obsessive about your MBA app status something actually does happen. Apparently due to a technical glitch, many people were able to see their dinged status on their Wharton account last night. Using the s2s boards as the sole indicator, this window lasted from about 7pm ET to about 9am ET. The problem has since been fixed. Every night before going to bed I religiously check all the discussion boards. Last night was not one of them. So there goes my chance to put the Wharton thingie to rest before schedule. My application went complete a gazillion years ago. So my chances of getting an interview invite now are pretty minimal. But early closure would have been good.

[MBA] Differentiate this

If you want to explicitly hear an admissions officer say how strong your application is, get yourself put on a waitlist. Had my Tuck waitlist review. Even here the stumbling block seems to be 'differentiation'. Surprisingly no direct mention was made of Tuck love or lack thereof in my application. In a way it's good. Both the schools who have waitlisted me encourage additional materials and both want me to differentiate myself. So less effort for me.

We went through the various aspects of my application (essays, work exp, recommendation etc.) Most of my application components, including - surprise - the interview, fell into the 'good/great/strong' category. I don't read too much into adjectives like these as they are thrown around with such abandon. I did however, learn a thing or two about my application during this review. Apparently my academics are 'extremely strong'. And I was worrying myself silly about my undergrad gpa. My work experience at X is 'interesting'. Well, thats an interesting choice of words. Had the lady not been so friendly I would have thought she was being sarcastic.

I haven't talked about recommendations too much here. Doesn't mean that I have not worried myself sick about them. Both my recommenders are engineers, not given to hyperbole and I didn't do any recommender management whatsoever. When I went to ask for recommendations, this is how the conversation went

Me - I am applying to business schools. Can you give a recommendation?
Recommender - Sure, why not.
Me - I hope it'll be strong. (self-deprecating laugh)
Recommender - Yeah sure.
Me - (awkward silence followed by hasty exit)

So it was a relief to know that the recommendations fell in the 'great' category.

[General] Me too

When I started reading Bschool blogs around mid 2005 something called tagging was going on. I never quite understood the concept. Was it an online version of something which happens in the real world? It was interesting anyway to read people's choices of books. This year the tagging includes a much longer list, so it's even more interesting to read. But Ash had to interrupt my lurking and push me out onto the stage :)

So here goes.

Four jobs I've had in my life:
Teaching Assistant
Instructor
Personal Tutor
Engineer
Everything related to software/programming/computer science - yawn

Four movies I can watch over and over:
O Brother, Where Art Thou? - I still don't understand why I like this movie so much
Sholay - No self-respecting Indian should leave this off the list :)
Padosan - More for nostalgic reasons than anything else
Matrix (II, III) with subtitles on - So that I can finally get it!

Four places I have lived:
Boulder, CO
Madison, WI
Kanpur, India
Rourkela, India

Four TV shows I love to watch:
Raymond - An example of acquired taste
Seinfield - Appeals to the inner stoner in me
Colbert Report - Bill O'Reilly pisses me off so much that Colbert's take is more fun that it should be
No I didn't flunk elementary school math, I am more of a channel flipper than a faithful tv watcher.

Four places I have been on vacation:
Redstone, CO
Rapid City, SD
Yellowstone
Chandipur, India

Four of my favourite dishes:
No name - baked potato, fish and a killer sauce (wife's concoctation)
Don't know english name - some sort of spinach and mashed fish
Mutton curry
Fried chicken at an obscure joint near Rapid City, SD

Four websites I visit daily:
Businessweek - someone please save me from this addiction
Sepia Mutiny - a blog for Indians not in India
Unstrung - for wireless geeks
Hella - fellow bloggers

Four places I would rather be right now:
Anyplace with a sea and without net connection

Four bloggers I am tagging:
All the bloggers I 'know' have already been tagged. So I'll pass on this.

[MBA] King Kong ain't got - whatever

It seems I am the king of waitlists. Tuck placed me on the waitlist today. I haven't talked to the waitlist coordinator yet, so I have only the general waitlist mail to go by for now. But it looks like the ability 'to demonstrate a clear desire to attend Tuck' is what will matter most now. I can't help going back to my interview and the absolute disaster I made of the 'Why Tuck' question. Hell, it was not even a 'Why Tuck' question. It was more like 'If you get into X and Tuck which would you prefer' question.

Anyhow, it's funny how expectations can affect your perception of the present. Getting put on the K waitlist was a big downer for me as I was looking forward to an admit. However, since on Tuesday I had assumed that I was getting dinged at Tuck, the waitlist news today has made me happy. Ah, the beauty of lowered expectations.

Congrats to fellow bloggers sghama and vatsa for making it to Tuck.

[MBA] More essays?

Every waitlisted candidate in Kellogg is assigned a waitlist officer. I talked to mine last week. I tried my best to cut through the usual platitudes - strong application, too many good applicants - to get to why exactly was I waitlisted. It seems I couldn't differentiate myself enough from my 'applicant pool'.

Phew! Given my 'applicant pool' I knew right at the start of this process that differentiation was going to be the albatross around my neck. And I had paid a lot of importance to it while preparing all my applications. Hell, Kellogg had a 1000 words uniqueness essay. But obviously it was not enough. Wish, I had asked a few more questions about what kind of differentiation they are looking for exactly. Now, I don't know how I can differentiate myself further without resorting to outrageous lies. I do have something in mind - non-fiction btw. But I don't know how much it would differentiate me from my 'applicant pool'.

Right around the time I was starting off on the full-time MBA quest, I had a conversation with a friend who is a 2nd year student at UCLA. He said for Indian male engineers, the MBA app process is a bitch. Back then I was surprised by this negativity. When I got off the phone the other day with my very nice waitlist officer, his statement was all I could think of. No point in whining about this too much though. The rules of this game were always known to me. I had the option of not playing it.

Tuck decisions will probably start going out from tomorrow. The official decision date is Feb 1st. Well lets see, I got invited for the Tuck interview on the very last day that they sent out such invitations. I got my Kellogg decision on the very last day that those decisions were released. So what are my chances of hearing from Tuck early next week? Given the way I answered the why Tuck qs. and my Kellogg decision I am not even sure I want to hear the decision any more.

Finally, in response to my last post, Linda Abraham of accepted.com had left a couple of very informative links in my comments. I am posting them here.

http://blog.accepted.com/acceptedcom_blog/2006/1/17/

admissions-tip-waitlist-letters.html
http://accepted.typepad.com/admissions_almanac/2005/01/

mba_waitlist_ti.html