The "what matters most" offer !

The B-school journey app journey has been a tiring one...and one of the key ingredients which helped me survive was the blog community here...and keeping my sanity as I read the blogs of various people and connected with em (so what if I did not make it to the top 10 blogs of the 24 nominated blogs - sour grapes..sulk!)

so to pay back to the mba-applicant blogging community...I am making an interesting offer....to read Stanford essays for next year for 5 applicants, who (if they take up this offer) must:

1) Blog about their application experience (during and after)
2) Promise to provide the same sort of feedback to 5 more applicants the year after
3) Are applying to Stanford
4) Will buy me a pitcher of beer, if they get in !

I will do only upto 3 iterations.
The reason that Im making this offer, is not to compete with admissions consultants (and no I do not aspire to be an admissions consultant or an ADCOM member after my MBA degree - though it does sound like a lucrative business, but my writing skills are far from well developed): I'm doing this to provide feedback (based on what I have learned) to share from my experience, in case you overlooked something.

So if someone wants to take up the offer for these five spots, message me at [ ashblog &t gmail d^t com] and I will post your blog link to my site and will provide you feedback on the app process

cheers
ash

Disclaimer: I am sure that B-school will get hectic, but I will try to mantain a turn around time of 1 week. I will provide only feedback, which may or may not improve the quality of your application. It will be upto you, the applicant, to put the feedback into context with your overall app strategy and do what you think needs to be done. If I do land up working in the Stanford student adcom, then I will not review your app incase I come across it.....
Further, feedback provided my include comments like "barf", "glib", etc...the applicant must have tremendous character to withstand some very honest feedback (blame the Dutch...I lost my political correctness in this country)

Reactions to my MBA admit

So, it has become official, about me leaving (still in discussion, sabbatical or quitting) and I have rcvd very interesting reactions, most of them being "why", "this does not make sense", "you dont need it" and NOT EVEN ONE positive reaction from work atleast (few positive reactions from friends). But the most interesting reaction that I felt like posting was from a friend (much older, very successful in a tech role) from bay area, who upon hearing that I will be coming back said:

It will be good to have you back in the neighborhood ... even if it does mean you're becoming a Stanford MBA. With luck, skill and dedication perhaps you'll avoid the all-to-common tendency of MBAs to forget everything they once knew about technology and common sense ;o)
Give me a shout when you're back in country... of course we'll never get together as Stanford Biz School folks have time for nothing but studying ... it's not like getting a PhD. in the sciences you know :o)

I really appreciated the frankness of his thoughts, which is why I value him as a friend so much. BUT...i ponder............

Why are b school folks always perceived as zombies of b school mantras? Is that how they are? sigh...i can only hope that these are specuilations, else i need a lot of luck and dedication to avoid that !

cheers
Ash out

How not to get into HBS

At the start of this post, I must totally admit that this blog entry is inspired by MBAJackAss's blog.

This is was the deal...HBS was my number one choice (tied with Stanford, I thought Id make the choice when I had to cross that bridge, fortunately the decision was made easier when I got my ding from HBS).

On a personal note, I am sorta glad that I got dinged for two reasons
1) Personally I am better off being in the bay area, as my wife is from there. So as I immerse myself into a lot of course work (though I have a feeling that she will be helping me with my cases too), she has her own network of friends and family and does not have to start from scratch.
2) I will not deny that not getting into HBS hurt my ego more, than hopefully my future career prospects and personal aspirations. Everytime in my life when I get too comfortable or cocky, such events happen, and they have a remarkable effect on cooling down my temprament and helping me focus more.

So, going back to profile analysis and why I did not get into HBS !

1) M/28/India (live in The Netherlands) - lots of applicants from this category, infact being of indian ethnicity and this age bracket hurts a little

2) GMAT 720, Undergrad - ChemEng (Bombay) top 5%, Masters - Petroleum Eng (Stanford)GPA:4.0 - I would consider this as a strong part of my app, as I am Indian but not from the traditional IT background, my GMAT percentiles were also reasonably balanced (86 percentile verbal and 90 percentile quant, 6.0 AWA).

3) 4.5 year work experience in the oil business working projects on 4 continents and 9 countries - at the outset, one could take this as a very strong point. However, perhaps the biggest frustration is (and I realised this as I had my mgmt consultant and I banking friends comment on my essays), is that most people dont understand this business, its critical issues (besides gas going to $4/gal) and whats cool here. For example, when I described some "cool" things which I did , most of my friends went...well thats not a big deal. But given that we work in a business with 4-5 other partners (competing oil firms), governments and NGOs, even simple things like agreeing on the route of a pipeline, takes one year and is a significant achievement. Also, trying to communicate the challenges faced by our business, I noticed that a lot of people could not relate to things, as they were "normal" in other businesses.
At the same time, not many people from this business apply for MBA degrees and it should have put me in the category of "novel" candidates (unless they bunched me with the "manufacturing" group)
[To understand this business better, I recommend reading a book called THE PRIZE]

4) Recommendations: reasonably solid. Though I was told by some of my recommenders that they had to talk to some of their counterparts who had mba degrees (as they told me later), because it turns out that:
a) the European style of writing recommendations is very different from the American style
b)European recommendations tend to be more generic
However, I think that my recommenders must have put in EXTREMELY solid recommendations, as I did get into Wharton and Stanford

5) Leadership skills: HBS has a strng focus on this. Since my early days as a student in school to my college days, to my current position, I have held leadership positions and hence was very confident. However in my leadership essay, I described a leadership situation in the oil business, and in retrospect I feel that though it was a really good example of leadership, people unfamiliar with the business could not relate to it (ofcourse the failing is mine, for not being able to understand my audience and cater my essay)


6) The essays: I think this was the most important part of the app for me. And I was always a little uneasy with 1 essay. I think, I nailed all the essays but for the most important one "THREE SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENTS". The biggest mistake I made (or so I think), is that I chose three generic achievements. eg. my time at Stanford and how I evolved then from a student who had just lived in India, not travelled anywhere in the world to a person with a broad view, working and leading different student societies etc. But I get it generic. I put in too many details of what all I did as a student. Similarly for my other achievements, instead on focusing on something specific like ,say delivering reserves numbers for company X in country Y to the SEC, with solid detail of the challenges and what the achievement was); instead I spoke about the achievement over a protracted period of time, with too many examples, and was not able to communicate clearly, what the challenge was in each case and why it was an achievement.
Perhaps that is the reason why, I was not even invited for an interview at HBS. So my advice for essays would be:

1) Understand your audience. When you know that they might not relate to your job/line of work, dont be in denial about it. Tailor your essays so that even a high school student with zero business skills understands what you are tryin to say.

2) Focus your essay topics on specific examples and cases. The problem with being generic is that you may not be able to specify in detail what the problems were and how the solutions made sense

3) Dont shy away from hard metrics. Put in those numbers, eg. as a result of this, company X saved $50 million for the next 3 years

Any comments?

cheers
Ash

Interesting study link for Excel !

http://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~pecklund/ExcelReview/ExcelReview.htm

Stanford Essay A: What matters most and why?

As a follow on to my previous post, on Stanford Essay A, what matters most and why?

I had promised to post more on this essay, once I got to know the result from Stanford, which fortunately was positive. It is my strong belief, that:
a) This essay cannot be written in one go. It needs several iterations to evolve
b) Stanford is definitely looking for people, who are driven by certain fundamental beliefs and convictions. Deep down inside, I believe, that we all are indeed driven by some beliefs and convictions, and it takes some introspection for us to understand this. I discovered this, much to a pleasant surprise, during the application process (read previous post on this evolved)
c) Be honest, cos if you are not, it will not be your voice, and i honestly believe that a true and honest voice connects better with the reader...


So this is what I wrote in my essay. Because of the personal nature of the essay, I am not going to post the entire essay and shall just post the first few paragraphs. But this is what drives me and forms the basis of my beliefs and this is what I hope to be honest to, for the rest of my life.

I am posting this on the site, to to illustrate that the Stanford Essay A is not about one's writing abilities, but it is all about reflecting on some honest thoughts which drive the individual, and penning them down (sounds easy, but it takes a lot of time).

Cheers and best of luck with future B school apps.
Ash

As a young kid I remember being disappointed in my geography classes to learn that most of the planet had already been explored and that one could circumnavigate the world in 24 hours, unlike the 3 years that it took Magellan’s crew. I have since discovered that the joy of exploration lies in discovering new societies and cultures for oneself; even if the exploration begins by filling out forms in long immigration queues, instead of landing on sandy beaches propelled by winds bellowing in the sails of a wooden ship.
I have found meaning in exploring cultures to discover the ideas and practices that define the fabric of the society. In the process, I try to see how they could contribute to other societies, and help people break out of traditional approaches to embrace change and new ideas.

Hello from Alexandria

Howdy there !

 

Greetings from Alexandria...Egypt...the exotic city on the north coast of Egypt...which boasts ruins right from the ancient Greek times to the Romans..to the Pharoahs....to Islamic era....a city of contrasts and a city of delights....absolutely splendid...though nothing compared to the hustle of Cairo (was there last year)....

 

For those of you who ever travel to Egypt....besides visiting the pyramids and other ruins..id highly recommend looking at the Roman ruins...they are quite pretty...and make sure that you step outside your wonderful hotels and instead of eating....braised duck with mandarin sauce...try some street food...here are some good recommendations...top of the list has to be something called 'Khushari'...its a medley of speghetti..rice..macroni...made in tomato sauce..topped with lentils and baked onions.....served on the side with garlic and hot sauce....mmm.....it totally kicks asss....ofcours then there is the falafel...for those of us in Europe who are used to eating this after a night of getting pissed ...this preparation is starkly different....ofcourse try the stew made with beef and okra....

 

well....now..im off to sit and soak some sun (desparately need that living in holland)....will keep you folks posted...on the personal front..i find that my negotiating abilties and stakeholder management skills need drastic improvement....3 days on the ship with 8 other family members...and i lost it at the dinner table last night...nice gentle thoughts...nice positive things....

 

ciao ciao all

ash