INSEAD is gonzo

I decided not to apply to INSEAD.

1. I had only 8 days left after I sent my Chicago application.
2. Had a family emergency so had lost quite a bit of motivation.
3. Too fatigued with the application process.
4. Already had an admit from Kellogg.
5. INSEAD is a good choice only if you want to have a global career. It’s very popular in Europe and Asia but not many people know about it in US. My manager who is a CFO of our 1 billion USD hedge fund did not know what INSEAD is. So, if I am to return back here, I think INSEAD is not the best choice.
6. It’s a short program. Some people have raised questions that one does not get enough time to learn.

#2 and #5 were the main reasons. The rest just helped the process.

That being said, INSEAD is an amazing school. I am a very global person. I like that kind of stuff so would have loved to study with people from so many different countries, so many cultures, and so many perspectives.

Chicago Interview

Well, from the Kellogg interview i learnt that, one should schedule in the interview and plan in such a way that they have time to work on their essays after the interview. The interview, first of all, gives you new perspective. The interviewer might tell you about a few things that the school does not care at all so you don't have to address them in your essays . In my Kellogg interview, i was asked to re-explain my goals. Not sure what the real reason was but just to be sure, I added a couple more lines in the goals section of my essay so that i am more clear.

For the Chicago interview, I reached the Chicago campus at 3:45PM. Since this was my 4th time there, I knew where to hang out until my interview at 5. I sat in the common area where a bunch of full time students were studying together. There was a teacher who was going from table to table and was reviewing the projects they were working on. Seems like they were all taking the same class. I overheard their conversations and it seemed interesting.

The person interviewing me was a current part time student. He left work early, started my interview at 5 and had a class at 6.

He met me at the PT program office and said i wrongly checked the weekday PT program in my form instead of saturday PT. I politely disagreed w/ him and finally we found out i was correct. Phew!

Here are some of the questions he asked me in the interview:

1. What are my goals?
2. What i am most proud of (professionally and personally)
3. What do i do outside of work.
4. Since I was from a HF background he did not ask me "Why Chicago" as that is kind of obvious. That is like asking a fighter pilot, why he/she likes Top Gun.
5. He also did not ask me what i have to contribute. Most of my answer was related to leveraging my job in the HF industry and since most of their candidates are HF types, i don't think he cared about hearing the same tape. I do some "quality" voluntary work which my future classmates can participate in which was something i would have mentioned here but i did mention a part of it in #2 above.
   

The interview went average. I don't think i got enough opportunity to speak because the interview was very short (30-40 min).

One thing i have seen is that when i mention i work at a HF, it attracts a lot of attention from current students at these schools. They want me to hook them up w/ my firm for a job. Nothing wrong with that, just saying, that i like that attention. HA!

I think who the interviewer is makes a difference. At Kellogg the interviewer was the admission director who probably had an experience of interviewing thousands of candidates. She was able to see through my answers that i have the management potential and the kill that I will use and climb the management ladder of top companies and hence make Kellogg proud. Chicago's interviewer on the other hand was a current student and probably only saw how I am on paper.

Kellogg Interview

My Kellogg interview went well, i think . I interviewed with the adcom staff member. As this was my first MBA interview, i don't think i started as well as i could have. But overall i had done a lot of research on Kellogg, spoke with their current students, alums etc and was able to bring all that up in the interview. Outside of work, I do some good stuff too. I would say that for the last 70% of the interview i knocked the cover off the ball.

Questions:

1. She started w/ my resume from my undergrad and all the way to right now.
2. Goals. I don't think i did a great job in explaining my goals. I just mentioned them briefly, but she wanted more detail and she asked for it. Not sure if she was satisfied by the end. So i think i am going to make sure that my goals are very clearly illustrated in the essays.
3. Why Kellogg.
4. Why part time.
   
5. Any questions i have.
   

She did not ask me what would i contribute to Kellogg. I have a lot to contribute to the class. This was the most awaited questions but was never asked. I was in fact tempted to mention it anyways, but i chose not to. If she wanted to know she would have asked and i have done a good job in my essays.

It's a waiting game from here.

I am preparing very hard for Chicago and INSEAD applications now. Chicago interview is monday. Lets see how it goes. It's going to be a big day.

MBA essays – how should you decide the content?

All your essays together must convey one main broad theme and one or two side attributes at most. After reading your essays the adcom should be able to grasp the theme you are trying to convey. Consider a person who has an IT background but works in a small Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) group where he/she learns a lot about finance, M&A and their business. He/She also has great negotiation skills.

So the theme that should be conveyed is:

Great at IT + understanding of company’s M&A business/industry + negotiation skills

Now the goals essay should mention goals in relation to this theme like, to become an M&A analyst where you can use your IT experience to develop tools that would help you do your work so much better, analyze all data etc and long term become an M&A person yourself (doing the deals etc) and use your negotiation skills to find success. All this would make sense as it is related to the experience he has had plus it strengthens the theme again. Having a goal like this is more realistic and would make your story more believable. Assume the above person to have a goal let’s say, to become the director of marketing research at a top marketing company in US. Now it’s ok to have a goal like that but you would need a lot of supporting arguments to mention why you have a goal like that.

Accomplishment essays: Ideally he/she should give an example where the project was successful because he/she could use his IT, M&A business/industry experience and possibly negotiation skills altogether to achieve success; the theme of our essays. He/she might have another example of a project where the success was bigger and more glorious probably but the main reason for success was applicant’s creativity. Ok, it’s a great accomplishment but it’s conveying your creativity, which does not tie with our theme and therefore does not strengthen your application. One does not need to be good at 20 different things. So in a situation like this chose an example of accomplishment which portrays the theme as strongly as possible.

It’s ideal if all your essays collaborate with each other trying to convey 1 MAIN point. Inside the essay all paragraphs should collaborate and convey essay’s main point. Inside the paragraph, all sentences should collaborate and convey paragraph’s main point.

Essay Reviewing

This is to all the people who are asked to review the essays.

Please comment on the content of the essay. If you think you are not convinced with the logic, say so. But don’t comment on the sentence structure, grammar etc unless there is something noticeably wrong or you are some hot shot writer. I want to convey what I feel, not what you think I should feel.

An example of a conversation:

Me: Hey I just emailed you two paragraphs. The first one is about my goals and the second one mentions why I need an MBA to get to those. Don’t worry about the English, sentence structure etc, just tell me if it the reasoning I have used make sense to you or not.

Him: I think this is totally wrong.

Me: Wow, great. Can you tell me what part?

Him: I think you should make smaller sentences and not use sentences this long with so many commas. I think you should say X as Y…

Me: But that is not what we are talking about?

He rewrote the entire thing, that conveyed the same meaning but it was the way he wanted it, not essentially better.

It’s best if you your reviewer has been in the same shoes as you, that way they are reading the essay with a bigger picture in mind. So the ideal situation is if you can find an alumni from a business school that has a similar ranking to what you are applying to..

Otherwise, please talk to your reviewer and mention your expectations, and keep them small. Just tell them two or three attributes of the essay (that you think are the essay’s weaknesses but ofcourse don’t tell them that you think they are weak) and if they think everything makes sense, then you are off the hook. Time to move to the next essay

A brief description about me

Well, i should have started blogging sooner and shared my experiences but oh well, better late than never. But i still remember everything about the whole process over the last few months and would write about the perspective i have gained.

I live in Minneapolis, MN, USA. I am applying to the part time MBA programs at Kellogg and University of Chicago and the full time program at INSEAD.