My B-School journey (Part 2 of 3)

Admissions Status: Kellogg (accepted & attending), Michigan Ross (accepted). Duke Fuqua (accepted with scholarship), Wharton (wait-listed), Harvard (Ding), MIT (Ding), Darden (Ding)

Introduction and structure of the Post
I divided my post into three parts. Part 1 was published last week and covered two topics: school selection and GMAT. Part 1 also provided some information on my profile as an MBA candidate.
That post is available here (https://www.beatthegmat.com/my-b-school- ... 82929.html).
This part covers four topics: school visits, recommendations, essays and applications submission.
I hope that readers preparing for B-school admissions find this helpful.

I've structured the post as follows:
Part 1 - The decision to apply and the approach to school selection. Why MBA?
Part 1 - GMAT
Part 2 - School visits
Part 2 - Essays, including networking and reviewers
Part 2 - Recommendations
Part 2 - Applications submission
Part 3 - Interviews
Part 3 - Decisions
Part 3 - Preparing for School, including networking

School visits
Time: August 2010.

Once I'd finalized my list of schools to apply to, I decided to schedule school visits. This is not necessarily something that many international students do. I had put some budget aside for this specific purpose. My thinking was fairly simple and the case for visits was a straightforward one: I wanted to approach the admissions process with a lot of focus - to be certain that I was making the right decision, and also to not leave any stones unturned. I had estimated that a 10-day tour to visit 5-6 schools would set me back by no more than 1/15th of the tuition fee for the actual program. So, in the medium-term, it was certainly an investment worth making.

I planned a 10-day trip to visit 6 schools. The visits were characterized by thousands of air-miles, lot of research before every visit, and a number of business cards exchanged with students and faculty. I used the visits to witness and feel the culture of each school first-hand. I talked to students and faculty, especially those involved in areas of study which I was keen to pursue. It was my opportunity to see the infrastructure first hand, spend some time reading in the library and see the club notice boards. That was my way to begin imagining myself as a student in that institution - a feeling that ultimately would serve as a great motivation during the tedious and unforgiving process of writing essays. Also, I imagined, and in hindsight, correctly so, that the visits would help me to re-order my school preferences that, so far, had been based only on secondary research.

Ultimately, the visits helped me cement the decision to apply and do an MBA.In the process, I also met new people, and stayed in touch with them through the course of admissions and thereafter - as a rich and useful resource. Above all, the visits left me with some great (and honest!) anecdotes to add to my essays.

My general tips on school visits are as follows:
- If you have the time and money to visit the schools, I recommend it highly. (Of course, subject to travel permission/ visas etc)
- Do your research about the school before-hand. Read the school guides (available for free and can also be purchased from various websites). Review the school websites thoroughly so that you don't end up asking questions or seeking information which is readily available. You want to try and maximize the value of your interactions, and demonstrate depth, so that the visit serves a useful purpose.
- Plan your visits. Contact your networks. Use the student ambassador links on school websites to contact the students and faculty beforehand in order to schedule your meetings. If you want to do 5-6 schools in 10-days, you are really talking of no more than a day or day-and a-half per school, after accounting for travel. Hence, you want to make the most of the 12-16 hours you have on-campus.
- At the end of every visit, remember to invest some time and make school visit de-brief notes, especially when everything is still fresh in your mind. I found these notes really helpful during the essays brainstorming stage (more on that in the following section).
- Ultimately, just remember that you're about to make a $250,000 purchase - most likely to be more than what most of us invested or will invest in our first mortgage. The visit is your chance to find out about the product you're putting your money on. You should take it seriously and ask insightful questions.
- Stay in touch. And even when you return home, don't forget to show courtesy by thanking those individuals who invested their time to talk to you and show you around during your visit.

Some relevant resources:
https://www.veritasprep.com/business-sch ... l-reports/
https://www.clearadmit.com/sg.html
https://www.mbamission.com/guides.php
https://www.beatthegmat.com/research-mba ... s-f43.html
School websites

Essays, including networking and reviewers
Time: From August 2010 to October 2010

By the second week of August, I had visited 6 of the 7 schools to which I was applying. I had lots of notes from each visit, and I had an updated preference order for the schools. At the end of July and early August, I had reviewed the essay questions for each school for the 2011 admissions. I also reviewed notes and materials available on a number of MBA admissions websites and blogs, to form an all-round understanding of the questions and key pointers related to each.

Looking back, I had a three-stage approach to this part of the applications process. Firstly, I created a calendar of deadlines for the schools that I was targeting, and allocated timescales for completing the draft and final essay for each school. Secondly, I ensured that the process started with an overall brainstorming at the start, and then a school-specific brainstorming before preparing essays for each school. Thirdly, I ensured that I had current students, alumni or friends (preferably from each school) lined up to review my essay drafts and provide critical feedback.

As I was targeting 6 schools in Round 1 (that later became 7!), my calendar ensured that i was focussed on hitting the timescales and not building early slack at the cost of schools that were scheduled for later.

The initial brainstorming involved a lot of reflection and dumping all my past achievements, education history and key milestones on paper. I forced myself to think through why, in the past, I made the decisions that I had, and how my journey since high-school had taken shape. I also thought about my plans for the future, both in the immediate future and in the medium term. As a more experienced candidate, I had to make sure that I could demonstrate a clear career objective, a concrete plan right after business school, and a fairly well thought-out medium term plan.Once I had all that data on a few A1 sheets, I categorized those in various buckets such as leadership, team-work, initiative, risk, family/ personal etc. Of course, many points cut across multiple buckets. The idea was to ensure that I had relevant labels attached to almost everything that was on the A1 sheets. This approach was influenced by a success story interview I saw on beatthegmat website. Please follow this link if you're interested:
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/03/ ... -interview
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/03/ ... -interview

Thereafter, for every school, I undertook another brainstorming session which involved focussing on the specific essay questions. The purpose was to create an outline structure for my responses to essays. Again, I drew heavily from the brainstorming from the initial stage, and added more detail to specific stories in order to ensure that I responded effectively to the essay questions.

Subsequently, I started work on writing the first drafts and stringing together the whole thing. I also drew from my notes during the visit in order to substantiate my reason for interest in that school, and demonstrate knowledge about the school.

The network I built during the visits was also helpful when I needed to clarify something relating to a school, or required some additional information which I may have required for my essays.

In order to summarize, my tips on essay-writing are as follows:

- It may sound cliched, and you may have read this in many places, be yourself. I cannot begin to stress how crucial this is. Essays are a means to presenting yourself through written word. Ultimately you have to do the same during the interview. So there is really no where to hide.
- If you be honest and be yourself right from the start, it will also help the admission team figure out whether or not you are the right cultural fit for the school. And this is critical - if you end up getting admitted to a place that you do not fit into culturally, you'll have a miserable 1 or 2 years! In my case, for instance, I think that the type of person I am is absolutely aligned with the culture of the three schools that have offered me a place. That's no coincidence!
- Focus on your positives and achievements. Don't underestimate your experiences. Remember, you bring something valuable to the table - in some cases, that may be exactly what a school is looking for, while in others it may not. The idea is to play the odds honestly and hope that it clicks.
- Revise your essays many times over. I re-visited the final drafts I'd prepared for schools after many weeks, and was able to have a very different view. The time lag allowed me to make amendments that I had not even thought of earlier.
- Finally, don't let the process bog you down. It is likely to happen. But you need to keep reminding yourself of the objective. I found it useful to access MBA forums and discussion threads to read about success stories and read how I was not alone, and that thousands of other people like me were also preparing for the admissions.

Some relevant resources:
https://www.mbamission.com/blog/2010/06/ ... 2010-2011/
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/business ... ays-series
https://www.clearadmit.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Book: Your MBA Game Plan: Proven Strategies for Getting into the Top Business Schools [Paperback] By Omari Bouknight
School websites

Recommendations
Time: From August 2010 to October 2010

You should keep in mind that until your recommenders submit their recommendations online, your applications are not considered as completed. Recommendations, and the timing of it, is probably the only part of the process that is not under your direct control. You simply have influence over it. And therefore, it's important not to underestimate the importance of starting early, getting it done, and ensuring that it does not end up holding up your online application.

Most importantly, just as you wouldn't rush your essays at the cost of quality, you should not rush your recommendations at the cost of content and quality. Many admission and school websites state clearly that recommendations are the only third-party component of your application which the school relies on as a valuable support to your application. Recommendations should turn out to be a tremendous endorsement of your strengths and skills, and together with your essays, provide a 360 degree view of you as an applicant.

I discussed my approach with my recommenders very early-on in the process. Due to the high number of schools I was planning to apply to in the first round, I selected more than 2 recommenders in order to spread the work-load and be able to have some flexibility depending on the application. I selected people who knew me and my work very well in a professional capacity. I met with them early-on and had an open discussion about my plans, motivation and objectives for applying to B-schools. I took them through my approach to essays, and the key areas that I was looking to highlight for each school. I also took them through the calendar of submissions and agreed some tentative timescales. There was no point hiding from the reality that I was applying to the schools and there was every chance that I may not make it and carry on in my current job. Equally, the fact was that I was looking to invest in myself and take a medium to long-term view of my career in pursuing this opportunity. And if, after all this, you find that the recommenders are not committed or do not appear convinced, then I suggest that you should consider getting someone else on-board!

My tips on the recommendations stage are as follows:
- Have a clear view, per school, of what you plan to include in your essays, and the gaps and endorsement that you want your recommenders to plug and provide, respectively. During my discussions with the recommenders, my aim was to ensure that there were minimal overlaps between the two recommendations for every school.
- You should remember to thank your recommenders. After the submission and depending on cultural nuances, take them out for a drink/ coffee/ meal or hand them a voucher or a bottle of wine. But do it. I may have had to go to Round 2, and hence knock on their doors again. Trust me, after a heartfelt thank you note at the end of Round 1, it would have been much easier to arrive at their door-step once again.

Some relevant resources:
https://www.clearadmit.com/ss_reco.html
https://www.mbamission.com/blog/2009/08/ ... endations/
https://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/01/ ... mendations
Book: Your MBA Game Plan: Proven Strategies for Getting into the Top Business Schools [Paperback] By Omari Bouknight
School websites

Applications submission
Time: From October 2010 to November 2010

The only reason I've added this as a separate section in my de-brief is because I think this is an underestimated part of the process. Many candidates take a first look at the online application a few days or a night before the submission deadline. However, I feel that it is always useful to take an early look at the application and gather the required data before hand.

I was surprised when I saw that a lot of information was requested relating to my background and work history. Luckily, I had enough time to gather all the required information, and did not have to update my application in a rush.

Also, there are warnings on most school websites that their admission servers may have issues or slow down in the few days prior to the application deadline. It goes without saying that you should avoid leaving it all to the last minute. My recommendation is that you should start your application and complete most of it much in advance, and save the file on the server (which is something that all school applications allow you to do). By doing so, you leave yourself relatively little to do closer to the deadline (for example, simply uploading your essays and then submitting your application).

PART 3 (covering interviews, decisions, and preparing for school including networking) to be published soon...

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