Been there done that!!

Am ecstatic! And since this is not college-admit-decision season ,you can comprehend what might be the reason for my ecstasy. Yup! I finished my GMAT today and fared well :).Conisdering my old score an increase of 80 points in the overall score is pretty much an achievement in itself. And of course breaking the 700 barrier always feels good too.

I was one of those bees who heard and read the Phoenix tales of GMAT re-takers,who came out with flying clours in their second or third attempt. And today am happy to be one of them.

Am satisfied with my section scores too;coz, I improved in both V and Q.
Am waiting for the AWA scores now. I did fair in that section and am curious if I can stand up to the score(5.0) I got last time.

But this is no time to get complacent....my top choice school has the first round deadline in the first week of October. So I've got to tighten my seat belt and speed up over the runway now.

The top 5 B-School admission event - Boston

Last night's Boston Penn Alum-Kaplan sponsored B-School admissions event was the first I admissions event I ever attended. Since I am applying to 2 of the 5 schools, it was a good place to start. Althugh I was familiar with most of the parts of the discussion, some of the tips the speakers gave out were pretty interesting. It was also interesting to know that all the 5 schools had not seen any significant inceases in the # of applications last fall,like what Buss. Week had predicted.But that still won't guarantee that would be the case this fall, after all the effects of recession have taken more dramatic turns lately.

The bottomline of the discussions was when youw rite your essays , apply for schools and attend interviews. Don't compare yourself with what the schools look for...ideally the schools arent looking for a student with the right quotients of A,B and C.They want to see who you are and what you can become and how well you fit into their program.

Surprisingly there wasn't much discussion - neither from applicants nor from panelists - about the financial aid situtation.

After the event I got the chance to meet with the asst. director of admissions and career mgmt. at Kellogg ask her a few of my queries and got some suggestions.

Over all nice event....am looking forward to attend more of these.

Is it a change of trends?

Browsing about colleges, I came across this BW article today. The fact that it dates back to March makes some of the facts a little less relevant and wrong as of today(most of the fin. companies like Goldman Sachs, State Street have already paid back their TARP duns are not subject to the H1-B restrictions anymore). But overall, it conveys the truth about the changing attitudes of international applicants to US B Schools.

The undisputable fact that a 2 year study at a US B-School is painfully costly seems to play a major role in the attitude of applicants of today's hard economic times. Lets face the fact here, times are tough and Americans are not willing to proclaim their land as "land of oppurtunities" anymore,especially not for foreigners. They want to emply their own citizens first (the EAWA act , remember!). Investing around $100K into your education in this scenario and without any prospects of getting a monthly salary in $ denomination does seems like a huge huge risk, especially when your family is involved(like with my case).

But then , the ROI is not bad at all, even if an interational student doesnot land with a job in US, he/she can very well go back to his/her home country where a MBA from a top 25 US B School is still a rarity. The Indian and Chinese students have seem to taken this hint as way back as 2004-5. And with perfectly desirable B Schools like ISB at home, most of the Indian applicants are shifting their focus too. After all,you spend way less money than you do in US (compare $30K to $100K ) but still end up with the same employment prospects.

All said and done, it is up to you and only you to choose which is best for you. I'm only hoping that this trend continues to make international students a coveted prospect by most US b-Schools,in which case I am at a benefit. :D

Charted plan for prep

I'm in week 2 of my 5 week pep now.
With careful observations and useful lessons and experiences from others in my path,I've charted for myself a plan of 5 weeks for my GMAT.
This is how it looks =======>>

Meanwhile I tooka GMAT Prep test after week 1 , just to see how my performace was and the result was more than satisfactory :). Unfortunately my good performance on the GMAT Prep has made me a little lethargic for the last 2 days. Am starting afresh today and hope to achieve my self-driven deadlines.

Until next time - chow!

What have I decided on?

Well...this is it!5 more weeks to go for me.......My decision to finish up my re-take of the Big G bye end of August,I hope, is sound. This will definitely give me a decent amount of time to spend on my apps.Meanwhile I have started narrowing down on the colleges..yeah I know, few of you have come up with the list looong back :)...One thing,for sure, is decided...I wanna apply to colleges that have a good reputation in teaching Marketing and Business Strategy.I've decided to specialise in these for various reasons....in fact I have not decided looking at my options, but have come to the conclusion based on asking myself this one simple question "What would I love doing?",coz I strongly believe that one only excels at doing something one loves...

Also,reading the latest blogs of students starting their MBA journey this year has been a source of inspiration.
I hope to be at this place next year :)

It's strange that I found myself to be the only conspicuous female on this journey this year.....hmmm wonder why no other females make much noise! :P

PPI - The standardised reco!

The latest into the list of standradised tests / application procedures for admission into graduate schools is the personal potential index(PPI) from ETS , the body managing the GRE. Read article here

ETS has come out with this standardised management tool for recommendations a student needs to file in his grad schools application. Apparently this tool helps measure the qualities that a grad school seeks from a potential student by asking the reccomendors various questions.

As of now I don't know how long a PPI taken at a given time is valid.ETS hopes that PPI will become as standardised and prevalant as the GRE and GMAT by 2010 spring at the earliest.

One doubt I have about the effectiveness of PPI is how a reco taken 3 years ago is reflective of the students current abilities, I personally feel that the recos should be customised accroding to the various grad school applications.We'll have to wait and see if PPI really helps the process of recomendations.

Meanwhile the acceptance of GRE scores for GMAT admissions is killing me whenever I think about my killer GRE score of college days....which currently has expired :)!!!

Re-take....Action!

With a 42 in Q and 38 in V, my GMAT re-take prep starts today.
What agenda do I have? I have with me, the GMAT Offical review - Verbal and Quant.
A ton of practice questions , thanks to internet resources.
I want to re-take the GMAt Prep exam , may be next Monday.
Meanwhile my schools short list is getting into shape.
More updates on that , keep watching.