Better be Confused

As always, part of my morning routine includes a quick glance through a set of web-sites I read on MBA and GMAT. One of them happens to be the HBS Admissions Director’s Blog (http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/blog.html) — a fairly comprehensive detail of what is expected of applicants, and a few important guidelines or advices.

This morning I found an update on the site after a month and four days on recommenders, and a part of the blog caught my attention:

“… in these unusual times, please don’t jeopardize your employment in order to secure a recommendation from a current employer. While we might wish that all bosses were enthusiastic and encouraging about business school for their emerging leaders, this is not a universal sentiment.”

Here’s why I felt it touching.

I have always been called “confused” by a section of people due to way I move about in live. And yet, with every jump I have only arrived at a better location and much further than where I had been before I made the leap. It struck me as odd that someone with experience would feel I was “confused” when I could plainly see that I was on the right track.

And then the truth struck me: I couldn’t expect many people to rejoice at my success. A few months back, in an attempt to initiate the application phase, I put up a Linkedin profile, and was left pleasantly surprised to see just how far I’ve gone since I first made a move and someone called me “confused.”

Most people think linear. Their career graph is also linear. They can’t imagine anyone doing anything that isn’t governed by a linear thought process. Anyone who thinks and acts non-linear is considered “confused”.

And nobody, barring a few exceptions, wants their best people to leave for business school. Every one of such people lost means a substantial jolt to the superior’s career. They’ve lost an engine of their growth. The lack of enthusiasm and encouragement “about business school for their emerging leaders” is therefore pretty much standard in the work place.

So, it’s nice to see that HBS understands and accepts this phenomenon.

The Summer Months

Before I’m too tired to even look at the flickering screen, I’d like to point out that HBS, by my reckoning, is a desolate little island these days. It has been so for the past few months; ever since the kids went away for their summer internships. The dorms must be empty, the classrooms empty, Spangler empty, Aldrich empty. I know one who’s in DC. I know it because she updates her blog weekly. This is also the time when one batch of HBS Grads has almost edged themselves out, and the next batch hasn’t quite moved in.

And that creates a problem for me.

Suddenly, all the juicy stuff leaking out of HBS has coagulated. Of all the blogs I follow, rarely has any been updated with any news of HBS. [Aside: Of course, there isn’t much news when the school is out.] And even the Harbus, the official mouth-piece of HBS, has been oddly silent. I can see the same group photograph, and the same write-ups still garnishing the front page that have been there since May 2009. Thankfully I have the archives to read. Correction: “had”. I’ve devoured them too by now.

So what’s the problem?

If you’re applying to a business school, you need to know everything, as in EVERYTHING, about the school before-hand — the culture, the happenings, the events, the schedule, the drunken parties, who is sleeping with whom, etc. In my case, I already have more than the requisite stash of information. I’m gathering the extras. I’m living the experience even before I’ve taken the GMAT. That might make me want to kill myself if I don’t eventually make it in, but on the other hand, also makes my decision more informed and my application more…to use an oft-repeated counsellor word “compelling.”

But now, it appears that the summer break is almost over, and the start of the new EC and the RC batches is close, very close. And I’m waiting, eagerly, to see what’s up.

The Chinese Trick

Oh Yes! I’m supposed to write something. I just read on www.beatthegmat.com about something the Chinese call a ‘JJ’ guide. This, essentially, is a digest of GMAT Quant question which various applicants have encountered in their actual GMAT. It follows the ‘someone-planted-a-tree-for-me-I’ll-plant-a-tree-for-someone’ — a very thoughtful gesture; very useful social co-operation, and an outright cheating mechanism. The debate was furious. Most posters denounced the ‘JJ’ and the original poster. The admin kicked him/her out of the forum, and warned that no copyright violation will be tolerated.

I posted the following:

“It’s very, very tough to prosecute a Chinese entity in China on a suit filed by a non-Chinese entity. The reason is that the Chinese government, whose job it is to prosecute, almost never agrees to whip one of it’s own to please a foreigner. As a lawyer dealing in foreign investment and foreign trade, I’m very wary of the Chinese when it comes to implementation of Chinese law. I remember a colleague talking about an international arbitration case involving a Chinese party and a foreign party. The arbitration award went in favour of the foreign party. Guess what the Chinese did? They just got up and walked away. They knew they would not be prosecuted in China. Of Course, it gets worse. No country can force China to adhere to international laws, or protocols. It’s too big, too powerful, and too important to be bullied. So I doubt if this ‘JJ’ thing will be closed upon international pressure. How about kneeling down and pleading to the Chinese administration to do MBA applicants a huge favour by outlawing the ‘JJ’. But why would they want to when it’s benefiting them?”

Yep, that’s what I’d want to know.

In Response:

This is in response to Sophie’s comment on my post “Getting what I paid for.”

In my opinion, the coaching did have an important impact on my preparations: It helped me maintain a certain momentum. Knowing that I would have to be in class every weekend answering questions and competing with fellow classmates meant that I would make sure I was well prepared through the week. I did find the momentum slacking significantly immediately after the end of coaching. With no weekend targets to keep up with, that was natural. It’s only now beginning to climb up.

Further, in addition to giving me a momentum, coaching also provided me with an immense moral support. Knowing that I had help, and knowing that I could get stuck somewhere and be cleared by the faculty was a great moral booster. So, while I still rue not learning the tips/tricks/short-cuts at coaching, it wasn’t a totally wasted affair.

Though it certainly was not the ‘complete package’ as I might have expected it to be at one point.

Just a hunch.

The following is merely a hunch:

I’m an international applicant, and coming from a media/legal background means that I’m not part of the mainstream IT/Engineering pool which dominates the total applicant pool from India. In such a scenario, how do I judge the competitiveness of my profile? A few thoughts:

[Note: Profile excludes GPA and GMAT scores, but includes work experience, industry and country]

For those applying from within the US, international exposure, among other things, is of high importance. Is international experience as important for an international applicant? I think that international experience is necessary for bringing a diverse range of opinion to the table. An international applicant already brings with him that ‘other’ viewpoint, so the necessity is diluted.

As far as applicant pool is concerned, who are my real competitors? I doubt if it is the entire pool of applicants. My hunch is that the adcoms look at sub-pools – Total Applicants > Indian Applicants > Male/Female > Resident/Non-resident > Engineering/IT /Consultancy/Legal/Media/etc. – to determine their choices. So my real competitors will be the Indian applicants, and further in that group, the non-Engineering/IT pool.

I cannot not point out the differences in work culture that exists between the US and India, or for that matter any two countries (or even industry). As such, what would be the factor that would equate us to one another? How would the adcoms create the ‘level-playing-field’ to judge the applicants? Honestly, I don’t think there is such a thing called the ‘universal-level-playing-field’ in the minds of the adcoms. They are obviously (and hopefully) aware of the glaring differences within the pools and know that a one-size-fits-all policy will not work. This is where (and why) I believe the adcoms will create the sub-fields – small level-playing-fields for small groups of applicants who are relatively similarly profiled.

So, the rarer one is, the better his chances?

Getting what I paid for.

As a corporate lawyer, my work timings are pretty much at par with those of my professional brethren in New York, London or Hong Kong. Taking a scheduled coaching for GMAT therefore is one of the more demanding of tasks I’ve had to endure during the past few months. Fitting in the meetings, seminars, conferences, appearances, dinner parties, luncheon parties, not to mention work with the coaching schedule was easy. Really, if I can pile in seven, why not one more? But I had to pay a price. In order that I am able to attend the coaching at the time suitable for me, I had to compromise. It seemed like a good deal – INR 17k and flexible timings during the weekends – but the relatively low price tag ought to have raised more red-flags that it did. When others were charging INR 25k-32k (fixed timings), going in to a 17k institute with flexible timings appears a very good bet. After all, GMAT is kid’s stuff, right? Wrong. My trainers apparently thought that GMAT tests only basics and taught me just that – basics, and left out the hints, short-cuts, way-outs, tricks, tactics etc from the syllabus. Those I now have to learn by myself.

The quick few lines.

A quick few lines about something I faced recently having upgraded myself from the OGs to the simulated CATs. The OGs have a line running thru the centre of its page, and the SCs/RCs/CRs are arranged on either side of this line. The arrangement allows the SCs/RCs/CRs to occupy less horizontal space. The full question is therefore available for me to read in a highly concentrated space which is less linear and more vertical (like a scroll). In a test screen however (1280 px) the SCs/CRs are spread across the entire 1280 px in about 2-3 lines. The information on the test screen is not as concentrated as in the OGs. This dilution of information across the space has been a major issue for me not just in the verbal section, but, even more so, in the quant sections where the data is spread in a horizontal line stretching across the 1280 px. I do not face this problem with RCs as the passages in the simulated CATs are arranged in a scroll-like fashion to the left of the screen – very much like those in the OGs.

The solution: Do more CATs.

A quick word about shifting grains from chaff.

A quick word about shifting grains from chaff. The Internet, I’ve come to notice, is flooded with mostly well-meaning individuals and associations who advise and opine on issues plaguing most MBA applicants — the GMAT, the essays, the LoRs. I must thank them for their time and their inputs, but it appears that the challenge I face is having to differentiate advice from opinion. The flood of suggestions is a queer mix of those coming from admits, applicants and consultants. Out of the three sets, the first and the last are usually advices; the middle set is almost always opinion. All applicants are really in the same boat with or without the leak. Of course, sometimes it does occur that an applicant has a good idea — a way to proceed, but more often it is an opinion which does not have any value for me.

An admit can say what worked for him/her; a consultant is usually only cryptic, and forums are littered with people tossing in their 2 cents which are usually worth just as much. In such a scenario, it pays to listen carefully to what’s been said and determine if the inputs are advices or opinions. I think it was Aristotle who said, “It is a sign of an educated mind that can entertain a thought, but without actually accepting it.”

Between the Old and the New.

The DU admissions took up most of this week. There were campus visits, college visits — all to pick up and deposit forms on behalf of my younger brother who is getting ready to start college this year. Naturally, the GMAT prep took a substantial hit — not only because of the time spent on travelling and planning and discussing, but also because I was too tired after a day of running about in the heat, and then attending office, to sit with any prep materials.

If one were to visit North Campus — one of the two campuses of DU, and clearly the most sought after location for students — one will certainly be necessitated to visit St Stephens College and Ramjas College which form two out of the three constituent colleges of DU. The difference in attitude in these two colleges, even though both lie in very close proximity to each other, are remarkable.

St Stephens College feels old-world. It had maintained its old student’s desks, black-boards, architecture, notice-boards and classrooms with veneration. The red-brick architecture, which is almost eighty years old, has been expanded only slightly over the years, and that too in sync with the present style. There’s a sense of pervading nostalgia throughout St Stephens which is oddly comfortable.

Ramjas College, on the other hand, is avant-garde. While almost as old as St Stephens, Ramjas prides itself on modernity and in-your-face high technology. Digital notice boards, Wifi campus, state-of-the-art canteen (housing an MF Hussain print at one point of time), fully air-conditioned auditorium, dedicated seminar room with Jamo-Denon audio system and LCD projectors, black-boardless class-rooms, eccentric mosaics etc. is the norm at Ramjas. There is a constant ripping out of the old and ushering in the new there.

I mention these two colleges not only because they are the best two colleges in DU, but also because they remind me of the top MBA schools across the world. Institutions always display enormous pride in their heritage, and in the number of years they’ve been standing. A few MBA schools in the USA are over a century old. The ones in Europe are relatively new. Students have to choose between the new and the old. Both have their selling points and weaknesses. And at the end of the day, it eventually comes down to individual choices. A high-tech experience, or an old world charm. Personally I’d prefer a mix of the two; but I have a fondness for old institutions. I have a fondness for heritage which shows in the facade of the school and within. My choice, if I cannot have both, would be the old-world charm. I love the smell of Ivy!

Ranking or Fit?

I can see why so many MBA aspirants are so fed up with rankings. Not only are there too many establishments bringing out their subjective views on the topic, but these views almost always yield very disparate results. On one hand, this disparity gives a lot of schools the chance to occupy the top slots of one ranking or the other, on the other hand, these rankings end up siphoning fuel into chat forums, resulting in regular tirades on which is number #1 and which is not. The discussions, needless to say, are usually inconclusive.

HBS occupies the top slot in this year’s USNews rankings; Wharton takes No. #1 on the FT list, IMD/Booth is top on The Economist, Tuck/ESADE gets the top slot in WSJ (2007), and Tuck gets top slot in Forbes (2007). So which one is really the best? If I could give a very personal response (which is the very purpose of this blog) it would be that I really don’t care. Surprising as my answer may appear, my rationale is built upon the notion that each school is fundamentally different from the other; each gives the admit a very unique experience and exposure and that cannot be ranked. It’s the same case as comparing apples and oranges — fruits they are, but not quite comparable. Instead I’d be looking at ‘fit’. I’d pick up a set of schools I’d want to go to based on curriculum, teaching methods, location, campus, recruitment figures, student profiles, classroom experience, section experience, and financial aid packages. Basically I’d look at the sum total of the possible experience that the school environment would be able to generate for me to determine the fit. If a school fits me, then by correlation, I’d fit the school.

I haven’t mentioned brand value because that is largely a subjective matter. Most discussions on forums on A vs. B eventually end up with the participants presenting their perceptions of the brand. “A has a slightly higher brand value than B” is nothing but an individual’s perception and the response to that, “No, A and B are equal” or “B has a better brand value among PE recruiters” exemplify the point.

After months of elimination, I have found only one school (Ahem!) that would fit me like a glove. The general advice appears to be to choose two reach schools, two competitive schools, and two safety schools. But with each application costing me US$ 250, it doesn’t make sense to me to turn it into a lottery. I will therefore apply to just the one school that I’ve come to conclude as the perfect fit.