Waitlisted at Tepper!

I just received my decision from the Tepper School of Business. I have been waitlisted at Tepper.

After all the efforts I had put into my application, I initially felt very bad after learning about the decision. But I have learned one thing from my Cornell Ding. It doesn't really help to spend a weekend in mourning over a ding. It doesn't really help in anyway.

I guess I need to move on and maybe focus on my applications for next year. I shall be posting my Tepper visit and interview experience soon.

Good luck to all waiting and also good luck to all planning to work on their applications!

Tepper Interview Invite

When god closes one door, he opens another one!

Today, I received my interview invite for the Carnegie Mellon, Tepper MBA program.
I plan to call them up in a day or two after talking to my boss as to options for a possible leave.

Cornell Interview experience @ Ithaca

This post describes my Cornell interview experience.

I received the Cornell interview invite email on October 31, 2007. The email mentioned the name of the contact person and asked me to schedule an interview by calling her up. Also if I was in the US, the email mentioned a preference for on-campus interview. So Ithaca it was!

This being my first interview invite of the year, I was very excited and called up the admissions contact person, the first thing next morning. I was able to schedule an interview over the phone after discussing about 2/3 alternative dates and finally interviewed about 10 days after the invite.

On the day on the interview…..

My interviewer was a person from the admissions office. There was also a second year student who sat through the interview for training purposes. It was the student's first day at the interviewing practice and hence he did not participate in asking questions. But after interactions with fellow interviewers, I learnt that from the second interview, second year students start taking active roles and adcoms starts being more passive observers.

The interview was very conversational and there were no odd ball questions.

Questions I was asked for my Cornell interview:

1. Resume Walk-through
2. Why MBA
3. If you have been so successful in your earlier jobs, why do you want to pursue an MBA
4. Why Cornell
5. Leadership example
6. Long term short term goals
7. I see that you are passionate about XXX, how would you incorporate that in your future work?
8. How would your subordinates describe you?
9. Team/work situation someone was difficult to deal with
10. Other schools applied to.
11. Any questions you have for the interviewer.

I had prepared for the interview, by reading my resume, reading all my application essays for Cornell and by reading various interview experiences online at clearadmit ( http://www.clearadmit.com/wiki/index.php?title=CornellInterview) and accepted interview feedback (http://www.accepted.com/mba/interviews/advancedsearch.aspx)

Good luck to all of you for any upcoming interviews!

Cornell Ding!!!

My first MBA application decision of the year.....School : Cornell, Date : Dec 7, 2007

I have been dinged by Cornell. I was expecting at least a waitlist and the ding was really hard to digest. But I know that I need to move on and try to make the best of whatever opportunities come my way!

Good luck to all for the upcoming applications and decision deadlines!

PS: Point to remember for future applicants. This year Dec 7, 2007 was the decision deadline for Cornell. They called up majority of the accepted applicants a day before the deadline. Also their application status website was not working for the entire day on Dec 7. So be prepared for all kinds of things on decision dates and try not to get too stressed out! I know that’s easier said than done….I was there 4 days back, ask me!

My Fave 5

My Fave 5 ( actually fave 7) - the schools I applied to/visited -

1. Wharton

2. Columbia

3. NYU Stern

4. Cornell

5. Yale

6. Darden

7. Carnegie Mellon

I shall post my class visit and application experiences for each of these schools in the coming days...

My Class Visit to Cornell Johnson @ Ithaca, NY

The Round 1 deadline for Cornell was October 10. I wanted to make sure that I had actually visited and learnt more about the Johnson Graduate School of Management before I submitted my application online.

So, I scheduled a class visit online for the first week of October. I planned to reach Ithaca the day before and looked for multiple lodging options. From online reviews, I realized that the ‘Best Western University Inn’ at Ithaca was where most visiting prospective students had stayed. However, due to lack of availability, I stayed at the ‘Ramada Ithaca Executive Conference Center’. I rate the hotel as below average. The rooms are really old and the entire hotel needs serious renovating. However it was ok for a night’s stay. Some of the positives of the hotel were excellent speed free wireless internet, very cordial staff and the timely free shuttle to anywhere on Cornell campus. I arrived to Ithaca by the Coach USA bus(http://www.coachusa.com/) from New York and would highly recommend it to anyone traveling from New York, but doesn’t want to drive. I got off at the State Terminal Stop at Ithaca and the Ramada Shuttle was there to pick me up (as I had requested before hand).

The next day, I took the shuttle again and arrived at Sage Hall about an hour before my scheduled class visit. All the business school classes and social events at Johnson take place at the Sage Hall building. After reaching the school, I met Michael Corbett at the Admissions Office. I think he is one of the most cordial and well-informed admissions officers I have met. He knows it all about the admissions process and is really cordial and helpful. Michael mentioned that my host for the day would be there to assist me about 15 minutes before the class. He suggested that I go out in the atrium and talk to current students and learn more about the school.

This experience at Johnson was like that at no other school. Since current students in the atrium are used to meeting prospective students, I actually had current students coming over and introducing themselves. They were interested to know what were my interests at business school and actually put me in touch with a couple of students who shared similar interests. This gave me about half an hour to learn more about the school, recruiting opportunities and also life at Ithaca. You will learn immediately that ‘COLLABORATION’ is the mantra at Cornell and students really enjoy being there.

Coming back to the admissions office, I met my host for the day who escorted me to the Finance Class of interest to me. I found the class I attended to be of average quality. The professor seemed nothing outstanding and I found that student discussion or class participation was conspicuous by its absence. I do not want to judge the school by one class, but I somehow got the feeling that the professors here were some good and some bad. I decided that if I ever got accepted, I would have a serious in-depth discussion with some of the current students I had met before making a commitment to business school education for 2 years. The current student who was my host for the class, was really cordial and answered the questions I had for him. Also he was very positive about the reputation of the school for finance.

Apart from the professor, another thing I did not like about the classes was that all of Johnson’s MBA classes are held in the basement. As a result of that the classrooms look a bit dull and unattractive. The entire school building called sage hall has been renovated a couple of years back, but still I would have loved to see classrooms with lovely windows.

Coming back to the admissions office after the class visit, I was introduced to two current students who were going to host the information session for about 5 prospective students like me. We started off with lunch and a very informal discussion. I enjoyed the discussion with the students and was glad to learn about the Johnson being a top school for Finance, excellent recruitment at New York City, collaborative environment at the school and their love for the school. The students later presented us with an information session about the school and the MBA program. This was followed by a tour of the Sage Hall which left me impressed by the modern facilities at Sage Hall. Couldn’t they have made one small change....Have classrooms at place other than the basement!!!

Another important point, before visiting Ithaca, I was really concerned about the fact that Cornell was at a place seemingly nowhere and maybe I would feel really depressed and lonely there. But, meeting the current students here, I have somehow changed that opinion.

Completing the visit, I left school and took the Coach USA bus again to get back to New York. All in all, I was impressed by Cornell.

Pros: Ivy League, Great school for finance, excellent and open-minded students

Cons: Basement classrooms, average faculty, About 4 hour drive from New York.

Hope this description helps you in your Cornell Visit and wishing you a very positive experience during your visit to Ithaca!!!!

What the mortgage crisis means for prospective MBA students...

As we prepare for our MBA admissions interviews, it would be resourceful to be well-informed about the mortgage mess and to be well-equipped to have a meaningful discussion about the credit and mortgage crisis with our interviewer.

A few articles that maybe of interest:

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/07/subprime-overview.asp

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5771.html

http://www.stockhouse.ca/blogs.asp?page=viewpost&blogID=314&postID=43982

What the mortgage and sub-prime mess really means for prospective students like us....

As we stand at the threshold of making a $100k investment (if we are admitted to a business school of our choice), we need to bear in mind that if we are interested in finance, that summer internship is going to get even more competitive. No field in finance is spared and investment banking, corporate finance, sales and trading or private equity are no exceptions.

As you make the choice of the school you want to pursue your MBA, 'RESEARCH' about your areas of interest and narrow down to the areas that you are most passionate about. Also make it a point to research whether the firms in your field of interest consider your school as a core school for recruiting. As more and more financial institutions like Citigroup, JP Morgan, Bear Stearns find themselves affected by the mortgage crisis; they are going to leave no stone unturned to save costs. Recruiting budgets are among the first in line to be revised and are expected to shrink further with corporations visiting only their core schools for recruitment (atleast for the time being).

Do your research, weigh your risks and make the best decision!!!