ISB application

I finally got my ISB application through... this was one of the quickest, i spent only 4-5 days on it. I owe this to one of the alums who was very helpful. I even sat in his house for a few hours asking him to review my essays every few minutes.
This was also the only application where i had my nerves in control, i dint panic even once.
What I liked about the questions they ask is that its only 300 words. It makes putting everything difficult but asks you to make a choice and brings out what you believe to be most important to you. Its about selling self and given the option to highlight one thing that defines you makes it easier in a way.
The funny thing is that where people usually struggle to bring the essays down to word limit, I was struggling to write.

I started my essays with looking at the questions and writing down what each question is looking for. Next I made a list of things I wanted to highlight, things I wanted to mention and things that were desirable but I would still be okay without mentioning them.

The first essay was if ISB has to choose one more why should that person be me.
I decided to mention three points of my personality or achievement. I started this all wrong and was struggling with this question till last minute. Its only on the deadline I thought of what to write - well this was suggested by my frend but I hadn't included in my essays in detail(the ISB alum). I deleted this essay 5 times and started from scratch without using anything i had written earlier.

The second essay was to the typical short and long term goals and why ISB. This was fairly easy considering I have written this quite a few times earlier. The good thing with the review my frend did was on how it is perceived by people who don't know much about my work. He helped me bring more clarity and layman language in this essay.

The third was additional thoughts. There was something weird, when I started the application months back I remember this to be optional but when I was finishing my application it said that it was a mandatory one. Not sure whether I read it wrong or it changed or whatever. I had anyway written an answer to this. I wrote about a professional achievement I consider significant. This was the easiest of all to write.

As a reapplicant I had to write why again and blah which I had some response to. My frend asked me not to mention change in GMAT because that is something they will anyway be able to see. I wrote about more responsibility, promotion and some more stuff on personal improvement.

I did the scholarship essay the last day. Again I loved the essay as I did not have to repeat and they specifically mentioned don't repeat just write about the need.

So the app is done and wait is on. Time to look at R2 for US schools.