Last day for BoB voting!

Last day for voting for Best of Blogging is 24 April, 09, so do be sure to get your votes in! (no matter whom they are for! although my blog would feel honored to receive some votes :)).. i always believe one should participate actively - whether by voting or making a choice depending on the situation.. so fellow bloggers, if you have been chosen as one of the lucky 50 nominees (25 applicants, 25 students) for Clear Admit's BoB awards, do be sure to make your voice heard :)

In other news, work is starting to drag now. What is it about change that suddenly makes time go by slowly. I mean time really flew by when we were all busy with the B-school applications.. And then things got slow at the time of results.. then things picked up again once admissions were done.. and now things look a little slow once again :S

However, I know this is just momentary.. this precious time will also fly by and before we know it, we'll all be starting our MBA experiences!

We will probably look back on this free time, so here's how to make the most of it:

-Read.. read books, magazines, fiction, travellogues, news headlines, editorials. Whatever makes you happy.
- Eat.. hahah okay I know I know, we will get food there, but what I meant was: Eat food which you have wanted to have and never got around to .. like your aunt / mom / grandma's food or something. or even food you make yourself! now is the time to learn new recipes, cook, eat and enjoy!
- Stay fit - we will all need to be mentally and physically alert to tackle the gruelling coursework and ofcourse the myriad student clubs out there! so go gym, swim, play tennis, badminton, even table-tennis is a sport after all :D
- Follow sports - The IPL has just regained momentum, for all the cricket fans over here..
- Blog: I hope we'll all spare time for our busy lives to stay up to date.. I for one, would love to keep hearing about what my fellow bloggers are doing, and what activities they are busy with.
- Sleep: Who doesn't need their 8 hours of sleep? Actually, I think the whole 8 hour sleep theory is really a myth - it's totally subjective. For all you sleep-needers though, sleep all you can..

Hahah! So yea, thats my list of to-do things.. could do with some suggestions though :)

Good luck voting!!

Cornell Johnson Interview..

So get this.. Johnson's results are announced on March 18th (i think), and they are apparently interviewing up til March 17th! wow! anyway so I was just notified last week of an interview invite, and I scheduled it.. here's a re-cap:

I had my Johnson (Cornell) interview last night, which lasted for 40 minutes. It was on the phone with an ad-com representative, and was a blind interview. The questions were pretty routine:

-Why MBA, why now, what are your post-MBA plans

- Discussion on your career to date, what roles you have had, skills learned etc

- example of a time when you had a conflict in team and how you reacted to it

- example of a leadership situation - where you had to convince a colleague or team about something they disagreed with

- Why Cornell.. this I feel is the most important aspect for Johnson. They really want to see how motivated you are to attend Johnson, whether you'll be a good fit, and whether you actually have an idea of what they prize themselves on

- What 3 adjectives would I use to describe you to the Admissions committee 

-What student clubs are you interested in

- What Immersion Program will you join

- Any questions for me

Basically, I spoke to a few friends who are current MBA students / alums before my interview, and also got a feel from them regarding the community, culture, opportunities, Cornell's strengths etc. Made sure to mention this in the interview, and the ad-com person was quite happy to hear that I actually knew people studying there.. I think they really want you to know as much about the school as you can at this stage.. 

A few points I think any Cornell prospective should consider discussing are:

-it's extremely collegial, small, collaborative community. average class size is roughly 260 only, so you know everyone on campus. you don't feel lost.

- Strength of immersion programs

- Cornell connections - you benefit from overall Cornell University's resources, curriculum, activities etc.

- Brand name

- Strong alumni network

:) Good luck to other prospectives!

Accepted at Fuqua!!!

So remember my Duke result was (much) awaited.. well I finally got it, and here it is: ACCEPTED!!!! woohooo! am really happy now that it's finally sunk in!

The tension before was almost unbearable, got a weird nervousness, butterflies in stomach and all that... the Businessweek forum suddenly became quite a happening place as all of us in the same boat, tried to pass time and bet on when exactly the result would come out :P lols..

anyway so yeah , somewhere around 12.00 noon ET (night time where I live) I got an email from Fuqua telling me to check my status .. in the email was another link, and finally I clicked to see a nice-looking admissions letter open!! :)

Went a little numb initially so it took time for the words to get absorbed in the mind :) many congrats to fellow-Fuqua admittees, and best of luck to all others... here's to the 1st woo-hoo of this MBA process..

Time after some Time...

I used to love that song.. 'Time after time' by Cyndi Lauper, when I was a kid. .. somehow the 80s songs are just so unique, don't you guys think so? And that ever-favorite classic 'girls just wanna have fun'.. anyway, so i saw another great program yesterday on the travel channel. its called planet food, and it basically links great scenery, great places with great(looking) food. yum. my kind of program!

anyway so yesterday they focused on greece, and particularly 'cretan food' which is supposed to be one of the healthiest diets in the world, due to the reliance on olive oil and fresh veggies. pretty interesting.

in other news, i just realised yesterday that i have been more-or-less dinged by Johnson (Cornell), as their final decision is released on march 18th, and all admitted people have prior interviews. Considering the fact that i still haven't been called for an interview, i think it's time to put the missing pieces together :) anyway thats okay. there's really no way of figuring out what clicks for x school vs x school. I guess they do have some kind of deciding factor, although i believe that to a certain extent, it all comes down to luck. fate, or kismet.

As you all know, the d-day for duke-dom is approaching. 1 day away as i speak. yeahh :) finally the wait will be over, and i can either cross another one off the list or make a nice :) next to it. hehe.

I've lined up a 2 week vacation in end March. Phew!

Fellow bloggers, would love if you can predict which continent & country i am going for on a vacation :) HINT: its not easy! but still, bring on the comments and guessing!!!!!!

Post-application stress reliever

So I have nothing much new to report (since my last post was just a few days ago), yet I still felt the urge to write. The recent sporting fiasco vis a vis sub-continent cricket has put me in a bit of a downer-mood and that's having an impact on my thought process :P I guess I am trying to mentally prepare myself for the 'ding' (or was it ring?) awaiting me in a few days... sheesh, I wish this tension would just go away! 

Tried watching ' Doubt' and man is that one slow movie. So here's to a stress-free tomorrow. 

And then there were eight...

I had a flashback of that murder mystery today.. 'And then there were none' by Agatha Christie.. funny, huh, how counting the days till March 10 (D-Day for my Duke Fuqua app) reminded me of that book... so yea, here it is. 8 days to go till I get my 1st 'decision'.

It's been a long walk though. Still remember the Duke deadline and how I was so relieved when I submitted the application. phew. that kind of relief is just phenomenal. i guess what follows stress is often relief. who can forget the stressful days of thinking of what to write in applications, mulling over how to write it, how to make it look /sound good, and how to edit it...oh man, am i so glad that's over!

anyway so despite this anxious sounding blog, i guess it's okay. if i've waited 54 days already (jan 7th onwards), then i guess 8 more really can't hurt. 

in other news, I had a fun-filled weekend.. meeting old friends, gym-ing, snoozing, movie-watching, organizing a surprise party and yea, relishing some yum desserts!

no news is......what news?

So yale and cornell still haven't gotten back.. and here's where i'm questioning the age-old wisdom of "no news is good news".. ah, well, the people who coined that phrase definitely weren't mba applicants!

oh well, there's still plenty of stuff to do while waiting i guess. met a client today who thought an mba degree is useless. its funny though when you run into people like that. you start to doubt yourself when people tell you mbas have flooded all the markets, and that its no longer a distinguishing factor. hmm. 

came across something new today. isn't it great discovering new things? 'kinesis routine' is what i learnt today from my gym instructor. it's the new routine to make muscles, tone yourself and the works. pretty interesting stuff... although i have to admit, i think i prefer the good ole treadmill, stepper and cycle... :)

Boothing the Booth

So I don't know why I chose the subject as that, but i guess it kind of goes :)

So here it is, my recent Chicago Booth interview experience!

As I'm an international applicant, and Booth could not find any available alumni in my country, I had a phone interview with an admissions representative. We set up the time and date well in advance.. and here's what the conversation was like (about 35 mins long); no surprises, usual MBA interview questions -

-Why MBA?
-Why Now?
-Tell me about yourself starting off with early years.
-Why did you switch from x job to x job?
-What surprised you when moving from x job to x job?
-Why Booth?How would you contribute?
-What do you outside of work?
-Why do you want to come all the way to America? :)
-ST and LT goals?
-What student clubs are you interested in?
- Any questions for me? (I had quite a few)

Some interesting questions I remember are:
- How do you think the work environment / work culture would be different in the US compared to x country (where I am from).
- Where else have you travelled in the world?

We even had a brief discussion on New York, as a city :P so all in all, was quite interesting..
the interviewer was friendly, relaxed and an easy conversationalist..

My advice to any future applicants / interview awaitees would be...have smart questions to ask at the end..be well prepared, re-read your essays and app.. look up previous interview experiences from accepted.com and clear admit.. the most important thing is to be yourself and know WHY you will be a great fit at Chicago Booth! :)

ciao :)

Laziness?

Ever since i got done with the writing part i.e. ESSAYS of the MBA apps, ive started feeling so free! its like i have lots of time at my hands to do all i wanted to do when sacrificing time for the mba process... ah it sure does feel good having some free time!

here's some of the stuff ive re-started / indulged in since Jan:

-Reading a lot of books

- catching up on my long list of movies.. speaking of which, what did fellow bloggers think of slumdog millionare and curious case of benjamin button? i really do get why both have been nominated for best movie.. my bet's on slumdog millionaire!

- swimming! aahh what ayy life :) its the most relaxing activity

-gym-ing: this is how my waiting-for-decision-frustration is taken out!

- baking: new recipes, lots of time, good fun..

-...and lastly, work...sigh going to office seems so hard every morning..what is it about winters that just deem sinking into a warm quilt the best thing to do...

:) so thats one way of spending the time until waiting for the MBA decisions!

wiling away the days..

Time seems to be passing by so fast.. its actually a bit strange.. other bloggers speak of how time has slowed down after the app process, but for me it's just the opposite! i can't believe its already february and we have just 1-1.5 month to hear back on final decisions! yikes! things at work are also quite busy, hence the busy-ness.. no complaints though, its much better than being free!