ISB interview

Back to blog after long, was getting some rest, focusing on work, joining tennis n Spanish classes. And some prep and lots of stress over ISB interview. 

I got the invite when I was least expecting, which was pleasant. 

My prep for interview-

- spoke with current students n alum I know
- read thru forums on common questions
- spoke wit my frend who got thru r1

Output- know yourself and be yourself

They begin with writing on a topic. For our group it was 'back to the future'. I have a feeling they saw it yesterday on prime tv, I saw it playing :p
I compared the movie with the indian copy - action replay. A few quick sentences and took a stand on what I liked and concluded with how I feel for 'inspired' hindi movies. One the panelists took a glance at it but not much.

Questions-

I was extremely nervous, our interviews started late. That made me more and more nervous.

- they begin with ice breaker. They thot i was from bglr. Evyone in my group was from bangalore 

Since i was local a different conversation beginner and ice breaker -
tell us about itself 

- Interrupted and asked about my work. I moved on to my work and explained. I got visibly nervous at this point

- another ice breaker which did eventually calmed me. they picked on one of my interest and spoke about it for a while ( this wasn't easy either, they had questions to challenge my belief)

- if you were to setup this dept for a new company how would you begin ( lots of interruption, they dint say they were convinced but I stuck to what I was saying and then offered to explain with one of my past experiences)

- more questions on above answer and around my work

- do you also deliver training programs, which ones. Told them and no questions here.

- you've mentioned you liked 'good to great' book tell us what did you like, more questions on isn't it understood what's so special about it. I explained and kinda interrupted, later apologized for interruption and continued with my answer 

- more on something I had done at work, how do you do this. After this lots of questioning. 

- Tell us whats the flaw in this model, I said it doesn't give tangible results. More on measurement techniques. Gave example of how we had measured and that it was incomplete. Later the panel member agreed with me.

They slowed down at this point, turned thru page of my apps to see what to ask next. They were probably either going to reject and were giving me more chances

- you're a reapp, did you seek feedback. I had not, so mentioned I didn't, but knew what was wrong and told them about it a bit when they interrupted and  moved to next questions

- something from my field, and then one of the guys was against it. I tried explaining but he cut me and suggested something I should look up online... I said I will but dint go back on what I had said

- why MBA, they challenged and said you've done smthing at iima then why MBA. I explained more on it and lot more on it. I gave example of the difference it will make to some work I had done. (proud of myself to think of the example on the fly, wasn't prepared for this)
 
- any questions for us, I said no I don't 

Again a lot of thinking and then

- what if you don't get thru, I said I have a plan b and c. To this they finally smiled and said most of the people don't even have a plan b and you have b and c. Told them plan b was other schools, they asked. I was honest on insead reject and mentioned ores I've applied to. They asked but the results are out, to which I was again honest and said I did for r2 and am waiting for interview calls. Mentioned I plan to apply for HEC with deadline in next week. (not sure if this is the right thing to do)
The other guy asked what's plan c, to which I mentioned I hope to get the role I'm seeking, in next 2-3 years if I don't do MBA and some courses I wish to take to upskill.

My tips for interview-

- know what you want, personally and professionally
- know your work and prepared to share examples
- don't stress, they are supposed to be straight faced 
- stay firm to your beliefs
- don't ask a question just for the heck of it, it won't go against you if you don't 
- have a plan b, you're big enough to have contingency plans in place
- relax
- practice some responses for typical questions, doesn't have to be mock. I would talk to myself in the morning out loud on what I would say. This helped me cut down the negative statements I could've made. 
- keep away from strong statements, at the same time stick to your beliefs
- don't analyze your interview later
- you'll never be able to tell them all you wanted to but remember they get what they need to take decision even when you're nervous or fumbling

Hope this is helpful to some people out there! 


After interview, I met some of my frends from current batch to catch up and talk about their aspirations placements etc... It made me think less about interview which is good


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NYU essay 3

What happens when you submit one of ur apps... Till now I thot of the next app or waited anxiously for result. Ystrd after submitting my NYU stern app I felt relaxed. It was a long stressful time that kinda ended or I at least a break from writing essays. I had been writing essays for so long and like crazy for past month and half. So I do have one more app to do but I thot I deserved a Sunday after a 10 hour work sched n apps aft that.
On the most interesting stern essay 3. I love doing creative stuff but I might have liked it without nexus I sumo what will be perceived by adcom as good bad interesting or what

Here's what I did-

List things that define me, i did three categories - values, interests and me

Two values that matter the most to me and why it is so. My inheritance.

Three interests that have been wit me for long

The I realized there were these little things that define me and I had no place to put them. Tis is where t third category on me came in. It had all my little pleasures like I love cooking n eating and that I go for salsa. The last was about New York and how I feel about it.

Now that I had the content I had to figure how to present it. I had to think what is me and is easy for me to do. And add theme to it. The theme I had idea like draw warli art or do caricatures. And then I realized I cud use poetry to describe me. Not an original idea, I remember hearing someone had done it already for smthing. But it resonated wit me... N I went for it. Piked out lines from famous writers from my fav writers mostly. Now came how do I do this, I was split between video and picture blog. Picture blog was simple but I thot video wud look nice. And I wanted to do smoothing I cud do n not get smone else to do it for me. Its my essay n I wanted it to be credible.

And like everything I did this last day. The problem till last minute was that I had content, I had some pics but didn't visualize it with the story I had written. So I worked wit my frend who had a video editing software on his comp and his wife for artistic suggestions. N we worked all nite. Spent about 10 hours on the video and more on story, pics selection, music search, production, upload n random.

Proud of the outcome and shared wit some friends, bro n sis who loved it... Nyu is t app I felt most confident submitting n it sure was t most stressful wit work pressures n short edit time.

So that was abt my nyu essay 3, I hope I get thru n am able to actually share wit my classmates




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Location:,Hyderabad,India

Deciding on schools and writing

I just finished my applications to Fuqua and Cornell last week and now I'm on my NYU app. Its funny that when we write each app we tell the adcom that we love your school and this is just where we want to be. Is it a lie when we say this to them all? Not really. What is needed is to isolate yourself when working on each school to ensure what you write is what you feel about that school. For example, my long term goal is to associate with a b-school so when I tell Fuqua I want to be with them or Cornell I want to be with them, I'm not lying to either. All I'm saying is that I'm loyal and I want to work with them in future. And I say this in complete honesty.
Now when I'm finishing up NYU app, I'm visualizing my life at NYU and after. It is very interesting to go back and read my answers to other schools because the entire thing looks so different and yet I can see me in all of them.
So whr am I stuck with NYU app now... Essay 3 for obvious reasons. Of you see David Furman's submissions its got to scare you. The dude's done an awesome job. I'll look up the link and post it here. I'm thinking of using what helps me convey myself the best - paints or blog. I might do a video or a picture presentation with my beautiful :p voice in the background. I finally kinda know what I want my batch mates to know about me before we begin school.




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Location:,India

lack of planning

MBA is a huge decision to make and what I'm going to talk about is not exactly new. Deciding to do an MBA is not something that can be done at the blink of an eye or even within a few hours. It takes a lot of thinking, research and the entire process involves bringing clarity in life. The biggest gap in my plan was lack of schools to apply if I don't get through my dream schools. Its funny that I was never overconfident that I'll get the best schools but I did think if I don't I'll know where next to apply. Let me explain in detail and with timelines. After years of thinking I thot this is THE time for me to apply for MBA's. This was in April-May. Started reworking on my GMAT in May with the only thought of getting above 670. I did look through forums for school search with complete focus on Europe but not really much on backups. June mid onwards I was only focused on GMAT which did me good by getting me a 700+.
After this with IMD deadline closer, I aimed to get it done in a month which was my biggest stupidity. I also had to finish my IIMA exec app within 15 days. By the time I finished these two, I had only a month and half to go for INSEAD and LBS. The biggest loss of time was after these apps. I lost two months not doing much. I lost entire October in official work and looking through forums on European programs only to find out that the other programs did not appeal so much to me. Next came disappointments and ISB App. Again time wasted in holiday and feeling sad over zero interview calls. And I was left with December to finish my US apps - Duke, Cornell and was thinking of a third one at that time, turned out to be Darden. I explored Darden only in the second week of Dec which gave me very less time for anything else. and now I am in the first week of Jan going crazy over my apps and deciding to drop Darden for now. Fuqua and Johnson are almost ready to go out.

For easy look at timeline -

April - decided to do an MBA
May mid - started working on GMAT
July mid - took GMAT
July end - IIMA deadline
August mid - took a week long holiday from everything
August end - IMD deadline
October first week - INSEAD and London deadline
October - wasted completely
November end - ISB deadline
January first week - Duke and Cornell Deadline

If I look at this, I see that I've spent roughly fifteen days on each application which in my opinion is not enough time considering I was nose deep in work and socializing all at the same time. This however does not mean less time to research any of the schools. All the schools I've applied to until now (with the exception of Cornell and Darden) were in my purview before I made my decisions in April. I had been looking through their site and reading blogs of their students for a long time.

I sugges to give yourself six months to only look through which schools to apply to, why and which rounds.