40 years since ODIs started

After 2961 ODIs ever played

After hitting 46 ODI centuries

After playing for 20+ years

After playing for 441 ODI innings

After playing for full 50 overs in his 442nd  innings

He gives us ….. The ultimate ODI innings

February 16 was the day Johnson (Cornell) GSM released its decisions for R2. That was the day I saw the unexpected. I got my first wait-list. This MBA journey has been an interesting one with almost everything coming into picture. I got dings, one admit and now one wait-list.

Johnson (Cornell) is definitely my top choice and I would just love to spend two years in Ithaca. This wait-list is another opportunity now to testify that I am really interested in joining Johnson. So it is time for a little more leg work towards converting this wait-list into an admit. I now need to get back to Johnson adcom and start identifying potential areas to improve my candidacy.

An important thing here will be the process followed at Johnson (Cornell) for the wait-listed candidates. Johnson follows a rolling process here and they can take anytime to take me off the wait-list. I am an international candidate and there are many things that I will need to cover up before moving to US. I should receive a decision on my Johnson application hopefully by May in order to complete my VISA application in a smooth manner. I understand that there is a lot of time for that but looking at the Johnson wait-list chat at Accepted.com for last year, it appears that it can take an unpredictable amount of time to come off from the wait-list. However, the Johnson AdCom is good at taking into consideration such situations. Moreover, the picture will be more clear after March 10, 2010 which is the deposit deadline for R2 admitted candidates.

My blog readers: Any advice is welcome.

This post is intended for those who are thinking about applying for an admission to an MBA program for Fall 2011. This might seem a little early for this but I believe this is the best time to start preparing for GMAT (if you haven’t already done so) and research schools. When I started my school search, I started after I gave GMAT and as a result I was a little pressured on time. Researching schools requires patience and involves more than just compiling the average of all the rankings available on the internet. Here are some of the steps that one can (or rather should) begin with:

Identify your target post-MBA field: If you are interested in a particular field of work then start by identifying the reasons behind it. Many times, and as was the case when I started, the information available is huge and many things appear to be related to our target career. If you are an engineer and interested in consulting then Strategy (Management) Consulting, IT Consulting – Implementation, IT Consulting – Strategy, Product Management, Organization Development and Restructuring, or more; almost everything will seem to be interesting and worth to pursue post MBA. If you are interested in moving into Financial Services but have limited exposure to it, understand the difference between Investment Banking, Investment Management, Corporate Finance, etc.

An important thing in choosing the post MBA target field is the ability to connect it with your interest and what you have done till date. If you cannot link your post MBA goals with what have you done till date, it will be difficult to convince the AdCom that you are serious about your target field. It also reflects your efforts at achieving your target goal and in this difficult market, it is a necessary thing to do. This way the AdCom will be comfortable in reading your application as you will have a lot less difficulty in securing a job post your MBA. If a student cannot find a job in 3-6 months post MBA, it is a negative mark on the school’s career development office and hence affects the school’s rankings and marketability.

Research school related to your target field: Sticking to the schools that are relevant to your target field of work is another important thing. Some schools are very good for finance, some for technology management and some for strategy consulting. Identifying the correct set of schools is very important as sometimes a higher ranked school need not be the one where you will gain most benefit to take your career further. Many times school location plays in important role here. For example, NYU (Stern) and Columbia are amazing when it comes to Finance. Being in NYC, both schools enjoy an unlimited access to Wall Street firms and majority of the students get jobs there. Similar argument holds for UC Berkeley (Haas) for a career in Technology. Sticking to schools relevant to your career goals will give you access to a big alumni network relevant to you.

Research the school Curriculum, Faculty and Infrastructure: This is another very important aspect of b school research. A school with strong and wide curriculum in Finance will be more relevant for someone interested in Finance and less for someone interested in Strategy Consulting or Marketing. Look for prominent faculty members at each school. Having prominent faculty members who are well-known for their research and corporate involvement adds to the strength of the school’s ability to market its students to the industry. Also, look for the infrastructure at each school. If the school has made good investment in its infrastructure, you will benefit from it. For example, look for how much a school spends on access to real-time data and software for trading if you are interested in Financial Sales & Trading. This will help you in gaining practical experience. You can visit the school to see the classes in action and the infrastructure in place. Or may be even the support for your partner if you are married.

A good resource for identifying relevant schools is a ClearAdmit Career Guide to your target field. For example, the ClearAdmit career guide for Consulting is helpful in identifying the best schools for Consulting. It is not a full fledge guide for developing a career in Consulting. It’s purely a guide to b schools for Consulting. It covers some of the best known business schools for Consulting. The main pros of this guide is the details on each school. It has details on the curriculum structure, core and elective courses relevant to Consulting (more specifically Management Consulting, but also has more), list of prominent faculty members at each school and more.

You can gain an understanding of what exactly the school is known for in the market, the most recent class composition, placement statistics, Consulting companies that visit the school and whether the most sought after companies visit the school or not. It also has the details of relevant courses, organization of these courses (like when exactly  can a student, during his/her  two years take these) and the level of flexibility offered by the school. Some details on the relevant student clubs and events sponsored by the school are also mentioned in the guide.

All in all, it is a good source of information for identifying the correct school for your target field. However, these guides cover only the top schools in each field. As you know, getting in at a top school is not an easy task and sometimes even luck is important here. Moreover, these guides do not carry any information that you will not be able to find on the internet or using other sources. But, these are a good source to begin with. You can start researching on the schools not covered in these guides by looking for the same information (and more if you know any) as mentioned in these guides.

Identify your reach: Identifying the school within your reach is another equally important factor. A reach school is the school where your statics (GMAT, GPA, exp, etc) are competitive with that of the most recent class profile. This way your application will not be at any disadvantage when compared with that of the rest of the applicants and you will have a good chance of making it. Applying only to dream, but out of reach, schools is a bad strategy as you might not get any admit. Identify 2-3 reach schools to apply to and also identify 1-2 safe schools. Also, keep one or two dream (out of reach) schools in your list as business school application process also involves a little bit of luck. You never know when exactly she smiles on you.

Connect with the students: Another important aspect of the research is networking with the current and former students of each of your target schools. Current schools will give you an idea of the current situation at the school. Like the latest curriculum developments, career scope post MBA, current placement scene, etc. Also, get feedback from the school alumni on how are they finding their education/time at the school useful in their career. This will be useful in understand the amount of effort you will need to put-in in each area once you begin your MBA.

Financing your MBA: The last but equally important factor. This is more relevant for internationals than domestic applicants but I hope everyone finds some useful information here. Domestic applicants usually have many options to fund the MBA. There are many loan schemes available in almost each country. Some are backed by government (and hence low-interest rate) and some are available privately (and hence easily available). Do a research on the estimated expenses for your study and your ability to repay the expenses in a reasonable duration. You don’t want to pay instalments for 20 years of your life, do you?

Also, for international students, many time loans without co-signer are not available. However, some schools have special programs where the school acts as a co-signer for you. In this case, the rate of interest might be high but you will still have access to funds. Before applying to a particular school, check if you can manage to pay its fees. I had to remove/change two schools from my “Reach” list because the schools didn’t have such loans in place and I do not know anyone who can act as a co-signer for me in US.

In some cases, you can try to apply at a lower ranked school (lower not in the rankings list but in your preference) and where your application will be strong, to secure some funding. This way your expenses will be less and you might just manage to fund your MBA easily.

Like I mentioned before, this is the correct time to start as you will have enough time to cover everything. I hope you have managed to read this long post completely.

I am now done with Johnson (Cornell) interview. It was so far the longest interview session that I have had and it was really good in terms of the questions I faced. The interviewer already had a set of questions before hand but she hadn’t seen my file before. The questions were given to her by the first reviewer of my file. There were questions on my work, on my journey so far, on my career  goals and some questions on team work. 

The interview went fine but there was one thing that went really really bad. My phone call got disconnected four times during our 50 minute talk. I felt really embarrassed by this poor reception of the phone even when the phone was on full network. I have given telephonic interviews for jobs before and I hardly ever faced such a problem. But this time, the problem blew up like a volcano. At first everything was going fine. But after about first 25 mins, things just flew with the wind, completely out of my control.

The interviewer was very friendly and she kept her cool even with these disruptions. She was pretty much experienced with taking interviews and I guess these phone disruptions will not result in my disqualification. The interview was scheduled for 45 minutes but the interviewer gave me extra time due to these disruptions. I have written to the adcom to check if another round of interview is required (in case they were not able to get answers to all the questions they had). Let us see how this matter proceeds from here.

The results will be out on 16 February. The phone disruptions were very bad and I really hope these won’t be the last defining factor in the adcom’s decision on my application. Till then let us keep praying.

• Previous Week: Lots and lots of work in office.
• Last Friday: An email from Ross stating my Reco 1 is still needed (Say WHATTTT…How did this happen?).
  • Recheck and recheck the confirmation emails from Embark.  Recheck my recommendation status online. Write to the AdCom. Write to the AdCom.
  • OOOPPSSS … I am not the only one who is facing this problem. Some problem with Embark. Some people were even asked to send essays after they got the interview call. ( This is what was reported on BW Forums. So please don’t hit back at me asking for a proof.)
  • So that means ….  AdCom very busy. Leave a voice mail with the details.
  • Should I talk to my Recommender to send the scanned copy of the reco to me? Should I? Should I?
  • Will he appreciate disclosing the Reco to me? Will he? I guess Yes. I guess No. But I don’t want to read what he has written especially after I have waived my right to view the recommendation.
  • So ask him to send the Reco to Ross directly?
  • Next (working) morning. An email from Ross: “Everything is fine.  We have all of your recommendations”
  • Phew. Ross admissions team is good. They respond to voice mails as well.

• This Week: Back to work.
• Now: A production release of my team’s work this Friday starting early morning.
• Suddenly: W@#$#@#@$#$#$%#$^$&%*%&^(&*)(!@# ??? Bim Boom Smash.
• Next: A telephonic admissions Interview with the adcom at Johnson (Cornell) GSM  on Friday night (early morning Saturday for me – so no sleep on Saturday). Better prepare for it Now. I really mean Now. BUT HOW???
• Then: Post release work that will take my Saturday and Sunday.
• Soooooo: UNC-KF decision on Monday.
• Noooooo: Gruelling project planning meetings for new work for the entire next week (provided this release doesn’t throw any surprises at us )
• I Wish: If only I had 48 hours in a day.

I guess it would have been the same

PS: The words in Red represent the conversation between me and my friends while I was trying to explain why I won’t be able to go with them on their sudden call for drinks to hang out with.