Term 1 reflections

The term is done, the grades are out and I am in the middle of the recruiting season. Here are my reflections after term 1 at HBS
1. There is no point stressing about grades. In a section of 90 people the person who gets 11th and the person who gets 80th are given the same grade!
2. Converting $ to Rs will lead to absolute distress and tension that is totally not worth it
3. HBS does not have all type A’s. there are a ton of normal and nice people
4. Boston winters can be survived. (or am I speaking too soon?)
5. since 50% of the grades are subjective, there is a lot of human element and luck to the grades.
6. People here are tensed about the job market and the economy but the placements for the EC batch have been better than last year

PS: back from a great winter break. More about it in the next post!

Chills, Thrills and official start of recruiting

I know its been a while, but time is increasingly becoming a luxury here. Among the new stuff thats happened since the last time is the official kick off of the placement season for the summer. HBS holds recruiters at bay for the first 2 months of the MBA program which is great considering the amount of time that is invested in going for the recruiting receptions, presentations, dinners, coffee chats etc. I wonder how students from other schools manage it right from day 1. I am suddenly so happy to be at HBS.

Anyways, Among other news, boston is fast disintegrating into a cold, wet and boring city where it gets dark by 4 PM!!! Where I come from, this is a huge shock to me. Since afternoons are mainly sleep time for me and I go out with my section in the nights, I had totally missed this early darkening effect. Last week, I came out of a networking event from 3 to 4 PM and stepped out and was astonished to see it so dark. For a moment, I thought my watch had stopped working. One of my sectionmates who has lived all her life in Boston told me that it was going to be like this until Feb!!

This winter break, I am going to visit 2 of my good friends from undergrad. I am totally excited about it.
More later.

Time management

I heard a lot of people say that time management is the most important thing in a B school and being in one, I thought I should perhaps try figuring this one out in more detail. Lets start with the specifics and list down how a student should go about allocating his/her time in a day.

1. Case prep- This would take 6 hours for a 3 case day and 4 hours for a 2 case day (as recommended). Lets assume on average 5 hours per day

2. Classes- 5 hours per day

3. Sleep- as this is important in order to stay human and not become a zombie- lets say 5 hours per day

4. Learning team (study group)- 1 hour per day

5. Gym – 1 hour per day

6. club activities- Assuming an average of 5 clubs per student and one weekday per club- 1.5 hour per day

7. Recruiting activities- includes industry weeks, resume tips, networking with recruiters etc- 7-10 hours per week or roughly around 1.5 hours per day

8 Guest lectures/speaker series – 1 hour per day

9 Power nap in the afternoon- 0.75 hours per day

10. Section events (drinks/parties/movie nights etc)- 2 hours per day

If you add up all the times , it comes to around 25 hours and in this I have not included time for personal hygiene, phone conversations/ skype/ laundry etc.

Every time I think that I have not managed my time well, I find myself revisiting the list above and wondering where the hell should I save time. Should i not spend as much time on the cases ? or should i sleep for fewer than 5 hours? or should i stop going out for section events?

After a month at HBS, I am still wondering.

Update (week3)

Its been 3 weeks at HBS and I have the following updates. Due to lack of time, I am going to simply list them and go over the details hopefully later-

1. I am in Section A (Go A!) and last week we had a hand off roast by the EC students of old A (as the last years Section is called). They managed to get quite a lot of info about us from facebook etc and some of my section mates were badly roasted. Overall it was fun though and I enjoyed it.

2. I have the following subjects in Term 1- Leadership and organizational behavior , Technology and operations management, Finance 1, Accounting and Marketing.

3. The enthusiasm of the professors here is really contagious. Sometimes their sheer presence in the classroom is enough to get everyone interested.

4. I have joined a total of 5 clubs. I hope I will be able to do justice to all of them.

5. The career development office has already started sending us feelers about resumes and companies and recruiting policies and the general trend due to the bad economy etc.

6. I was wary of typical HBS students being very aggressive and bar hopping every day and while there are students like that who get all the press here, there is also a vast majority of students who have varied interests and I enjoy talking to all these people over lunch and dinner.

7. We are on our section retreat this weekend. Its a 3 hour drive to a place called jiminy creek and almost the whole of our section is going. It should be fun.

Analytics @ HBS

Have successfully completed 2 weeks of the pre- MBA analytics program at HBS and its been a great experience so far. A brief of the courses done in the last 2 weeks-

Accounting
We learnt about Balance sheets, profit and loss statements, cash flow statements and methods to interpret them.

Finance
A beginning course on how to look at the financial strength of a company through its past performance and future forecasts. We also looked at valuations and how much a company is worth if it is being bought off or sold.

Quantitative methods
This course focussed on basic statistical methods like hypothesis testing, regression etc. As an engineer, I found this course somewhat redundant but for people from other backgrounds, it is a good course.

And of course, not to mention all the social events that were held over the last 2 weeks to help us get involved and start knowing the others in our batch.
The RC starts on 8th of Sep and am very excited to see how that goes.

Advice

Have got some mails/calls from friends/juniors/strangers about B-school applications and there seems to be some common doubts/myths among all of them which need to be dispelled. I have mentioned a few here. The list of course is not exhaustive.

Myth 1- A GMAT score between 690-720 is low and has to be explained in the optional essay

Well! Stating what everybody usually has to state about GMAT being only a qualifying score and is in no way treated as a cut off, I would also like to say that for most of the colleges in the US, the range mentioned is more than adequate to get a look in into the application. Of course, a bigger GMAT helps. But, if you start obsessing about your current score and start explaining it in optional essay etc, I think it comes across as being insecure.

Myth 2- Leadership has to do with having about 50 people work under you.

Cannot be farther from the truth. Leadership is very personal and unique and is exhibited in teams of 2 to a million. My advice, dont try to define it among conventional notions, look inside your life and I am sure you would have examples to prove that you are a leader.

Myth 3- Work experience of 2-3 years is less for applying to B-School

The truth is that you should apply when you feel ready. Think about whether you have enough personal experiences and insights to speak about say supply chain or private wealth management or whatever industry you are from in front of say 500 people and make sense. If you feel you do, apply and dont think of how many years you have put in.

Myth 4- Round 1 is better than Round 2 for applying

I have not noticed any discernible difference in the 2 rounds. Its obviously better to apply in round 2 if application is not ready by round 1 deadline rather than rushing it. For the record, I rushed one of my apps in round 1 last year and did not even get called for the interview. A well prepared application is the key to i/v calls not the round in which you apply.

My visa interview

I had my visa interview on 5th of June. Went well overall and am happy and relieved that I got this out of my way. Though a lot has been written about the visa process per se, I would like to add my comments on the subject. A couple of points to note for potential applicants-
1. Fill up the forms DS156, 157 and 158 in advance and revisit them for mistakes a couple of times before taking the prints.
2. Dont forget to pay the SEVIS fee of 200 $ . It is not explicitly mentioned in the vfs site.
3. For the chennai consulate, you will mostly have to schedule an emergency meeting as the regular days are washed off
4. Keep your documents of funding ready-either through loan or fellowship or funds from self and family .

Questions asked-
1. Which university?
2. When did you pass out ?
3. Where have you been working?
4. How are you funding your studies?

If the documents are in order, this should just be a formality. All the best.

HBS 2010 application essays- My analysis

HBS has released its essay questions for fall 2010.  Here is my take on them

1. What are your three most substantial accomplishments and why do you view them as such? (600-word limit)

One of HBS’ long standing questions, this is also according to me the simplest of the lot once you have selected which 3 achievements to portray. Leadership should  of course come through strongly in all 3 accomplishments. Quantifiable results are generally easier to portray but if  the applicant has examples of leadership and achievement in softer areas like community or personal values, it could show some diversity in the application. My suggestion is to keep the language simple and try to cover 3 different areas of expertise among work, community, extras, academics etc.

2. What have you learned from a mistake? (400-word limit)

This essay if reflected upon correctly can make or break the application. Remember that they do not expect the applicant to be gods gift to humanity and they expect that he/she makes mistakes, learns from them and corrects themselves. Reflecting on the mistake and taking corrective steps and then showing improvment would be an ideal way to frame the essay.

3. 1- What would you like the MBA Admissions Board to know about your undergraduate academic experience?

This is an ideal essay for early career applicants as it creates the right platform for them to tell the ad com about their undergrad experience. As they have asked specifically about academic experience, it makes sense to write about some good examples of leadership or teamwork resulting from an academic project or experience from undergrad.

3.2- Discuss how you have engaged with a community or organization.

This is a good essay for people involved in non-profit or community experience to highlight their role and results. This should be chosen only for those with significant community experience and not to speak of the one time that the applicant volunteered to donate clothes for the under privileged.

3.3- Tell us about a time when you made a difficult decision

New essay for this year’s application but goes well considering their overall theme of leadership and decision making skills. if the applicant has an experience in which he/she has had to take a decision/risk without having complete information or has had to take a call in the face of adversity and then has stood by it despite opposition will be  a great example.

3.4- Write a cover letter to your application introducing yourself to the Admissions Board.

I was a little surprised seeing this essay introduced newly for this year as it generally tends to repeat some of the stuff written about in earlier essays. A good applicant will be able to use this essay to identify an underlying theme to all other essays and highlight the same. This will be a tough one to write without making the adcom sleep. Best to avoid it if possible.

3. 5-What is your career vision and why is this choice meaningful to you?

Standard career and long term goals essay.  The applicant should remember that the adcom is asking for a vision and so necessarily it may be on a theoretical frame. But if he/she can make it sound convincing , it can be a winner. For those applicants whose long term visions with respect to careers are still evolving, it would be better to let this one go.

I had spent a month and a half writing/reading/editing the HBS essays. All the best for all the applicants out there. I had a great time writing them. You should too.

Housing- Dorms or Apartments?

This seems to be the pressing question among the admits these days.  Dorms also known as Residence halls offer simple affordable living for the single student. On the upside, they are cheap, convenient and tunnel connected to the classrooms and on the downside, they are really small and one has to be content with very limited kitchen facilities.All utilities like laundry, TV, mail room and sometimes bathrooms are shared with other Hall residents.

Apartment (Harvard Affiliated ones) are of the standard studio, 1 BHK, 2 BHK etc sourced through the Harvard Real Estate Services. They come with private kitchen, bathroom and utilities. Ideal for families and students coming in with partners.

After debating the issue for about a week, I have decided on the Dorm for the first year. If things go well and my debt does not go overboard, I will consider taking an apartment for the second year.  The lottery process for Hall allotments starts on 15th may and will get a room by 18th. Lets see whats in store.

Updates

Have not had a lot of time to post so am just going to give bullet point updates about the latest stuff going on with premat etc.

1. My financial aid decision has come. HBS has given me a  generous fellowship and this makes my loan amount completely manageable instead of tending closer to the monstrous 1 Cr. INR that I thought it would.

2. My I-20 has arrived at my permanent address following my fin aid decision. Have asked my folks to courier it to me ASAP.

3. ACC 200 unfortunately seems to be lost in translation. The mid term packet that had to come to my proctor has been stuck in the mail for the last 2 weeks. Should call up/inform BYU.

4. Am putting in my papers here on 15th May. Should give me around 1 and a half months in Hyd for the first time in 7 years.

5. Have filled an application for a dorm room at HBS. I hope I get a room. They are subject to availability therefore keeping my fingers crossed. Have also filled up an apartment application just in case the dorm thingy does not work out.

That more or less covers the happenings since the last post I guess. And yes, I have made it through IIMB My dream finally comes true though is going to remain unfulfilled.