I've been getting quite a few queries about the scholarship essay for the fellowships/grants at Wharton. This post will hopefully collate the information I collected to help me complete the essays. I will also write a bit about the approach I adopted.
I believe there is a single question that rankles every applicant. I will address it here:
Should I make a case for need or merit?
Most of the fellowships are merit-based. The need based grants are for people who are in dire financial circumstances. Given this fact, it is a trifle too risky to make a case only for need. Ideally one should devote most of the space to demonstrate merit and make a mention of need if he/she will really be unable to meet the part of the expenses not covered by loans. Since the financial aid office does not see the rest of the application, one can pick and choose from examples used in the application essays. However, the personal statement is only 500 words long and it would be wise to use one's discretion and wisely pick only 2-3 best examples to elaborate on. I personally feel this will be more effective than attempting to summarize every achievement within 500 words. It is not enough to just talk about achievements here, real merit can be demonstrated if one's learnings and how these learnings will enable him/her add value to the Wharton community is evident.
I feel the resume needs to be utilized really effectively here. Remember it's just a single page. So it can be used to quantify all your achievements and serve to trace out the milestones in your life(for which there is no space in the personal statement). A crisp resume with all the important stuff (bulleted and aptly bold faced) that logically leads to the explanations in the personal statement might just do the trick.
Another space-saving thing I came know is that it is not necessary to mention any particular fellowship(s) you are applying to. They themselves determine which ones the applicant is eligible for and evaluate him/her for all of them.
Hope this information is useful. Feel free to leave a comment about any query that you might have.
I finally faxed my scholarship essay and resume to Wharton. I'm supposed to have done it a week ago. For some reason, I was not satisfied with what I wrote and had to edit it again and again till I felt it was good enough. Thanks to iday who expedited the process with his prompt feedback. Now all I can do is wait for the scholarship decision to come out. Not that it will change my decision to go to Wharton, still it's something to wait for....
So now I'm at liberty to research the housing scene and figure out the logistics involved in signing a lease remotely from India. Looks like I might also have some people who can check out places for me in Philly. A cousin of mine lives there and my future roomie mentioned that she has a couple of friends in Philly who might help us out too :-). I'm hoping having people there will make the process a little smoother.
I'm running out of stuff to say on this blog these days. If there's something you want me to write about leave a comment, I will be glad to share whatever I know. Please do not ask me to post my profile and my goals and other such mundanities :D
Ciao!
I finally got denied at HBS. I will get a similar result from Stanford tomorrow and do not want to write a separate post for that :D.
For nearly a month now, I've been thinking about all things "Wharton". So naturally, I feel nothing now...
...An MBA is not one of them!
It comes with a HUGE price tag (More on this later maybe).
I guess this is written in bad taste, the bad taste lingering from the scholarship application :-). I've made some progress with my personal statement for the financial need application and my resume is ever-ready. I will submit them next week and go back to blissfully pure creative writing.
I'm going to Chennai for the long weekend, will be back on Tuesday. So I might be a wee bit tardy in responding to mails.
I guess I'm now faced with the boring part of the application process. I loved the never-ending cycle of writing, reviewing and rewriting essays. Now I'm loaded with paper work and am trying my best to motivate myself to do it. I have been doing Wharton's scholarship application at snail's pace. I am more excited about the housing and am making a list of apartments that I like from last year's housing guide. I'm doing this 'coz I like to see the map and imagine living in philly and riding a bike on those roads etc. Otherwise I know it's way too early to think about housing, all I can do now is dream :D.I'm reading the Hitopadesha (although my sidebar says something else). I absolutely love the names of the animals in the book :-), although I always need google to translate them from Sanskrit to English. I guess I will finish all the unread books on my shelf in the next couple of months and then I can buy more!!! Starting tomorrow I will get my exercise routine back on track too (hopefully)...
So have a great weekend everybody. It's Friday, so I gotta eat out today :-)
First of all a big apology to all of you for not replying to your comments/e-mails. Thanks a million for all the wonderful good wishes!!! I also thank all my blogger friends for the encouragement and support they have extended throughout my arduous application journey. And of course, thanks for taking the time to read all the good and bad stuff I've been dishing out regularly.
Since 21 December, I have been caught up in a whirlwind of work, I went home for 3 days last weekend and I tried really hard to enjoy the fact that "I'm into Wharton" but never had enough time. And when I visited the admitted students website and when I got the admit pack from Wharton, I went crazy with all the information I was suddenly bombarded with. Being my usual obsessive self, I had an attack of paranoia about a whole bunch of things. However, this weekend has been a blast. I'm reading blogs and catching up on e-mail and most important of all- sleeping. After talking to a couple of students, I have rested my fears and am smiling again :-) Also, the enormity of going to Wharton has sunken in finally and I keep telling myself "Wow, Wharton!". Yes, I've ruled out the possibility of HBS and am more keen on Wharton than Stanford :D
A couple of days ago, I went to a party with all the Wharton students who are in India. It reinforced my impression of Wharton and the people at Wharton. I met both Indians and non-Indians and they are all really friendly, down to earth, very smart people. I had fun getting to know them and am glad that 2 yrs at Wharton is about a lot of fun and partying too :D
That's it from me at the moment. All the Best to all the Round 2 applicants as they submit their apps and prepare for the "hit the refresh button" game. Wish you all a very Happy New Year and here's hoping all of us have a great year ahead. Have a Blast!!!
PS: I'm sorry about all the e-mails I have not responded to. I'm not in a position to review essays 'coz of my work load. I will respond to any other questions that you might have as soon as possible from now on. On a side note, I purposely do not respond to queries about my identity. I prefer to maintain at least a semblance of anonymity whenever posssible :-)
And I'm in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Words fail me at the moment...
I'm grinning ear to ear now:D!!!!!!
I just got the call at 11pm IST. I could not wait to get off the phone, for I wanted to call my mom, my friend and my uncle who decided to gift me the iPOD which I was supposed to pay(or rather already paid) him for :-) and of course write a post. At least this post comes when I'm still totally excited.
This is super cool!
Yes! I saw the mail first thing in the morning when I came to work. At exactly the same time a huge catastrophe popped up too. So my blog had to wait for nearly 8 hours before I could sneak in some time to write a post.
Ah! The sweet taste of success...
I'm having nightmares where Colonel Aureliano Buendia hands me my ding letter from Wharton with a vicious look in his eyes. The next moment hundred-year-old Ursula smiles at me saying it's only a dream and I have 5 more days to go. Then I dream that my Chicago decision gets lost and I never come to know what the final decision is.(Don't ask me how this can happen). Guess I should resume reading Freud to interpret these dreams. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.
One Hundred Years of Solitude was amazing, but now I'm worried if I got a tad too involved in the book(as I do with everything I read). So I'm going to read really light stuff(see sidebar) for the next few days. Let me see if I get some pleasant dreams then...:-). I really wish I could fastforward 5 days and get it done with.
The HBS hub interviews in India happened over the last 3 days(or is still happening). It makes logical sense that they will give every candidate invited to interview the choice between alumni and hub interview. Going by this logic, every Indian applicant who has to get an interview invite has already received it by now. So I've completely lost hopes on HBS. What I don't understand is their justification for waiting till 17 Jan to announce a ding that is decided more than a month earlier.
As for Stanford their latest newsletter claimed that they have sent out "a lot of invites" and they still have " a lot of invites" to send. I came across speculations that this implies that they have 50% invites to send out still. I would just say that there is reason to harbor some hope still and leave it at that. But the irritating thing is if one doesn't get an invite by 20 Dec, then it's a long wait till early Jan before the adcom comes back from winter break. This is agonizing to say the least. Maybe I should stop hoping about Stanford too and just be in peace. It's simply impossible though.
Now that I have poured it all out, I'm off to do something more constructive :D
PS: It's ironical how the title of this post and the title of my blog contradict each other so perfectly!
My blog's begging me for an update and I'm staying away from all things "MBA" to help me get through the grueling wait. I've also decided not to write posts that list tips to tackle the admissions process until the admission decisions are out. I can't get myself to dish out advice before I actually know for sure that my way works :D. So this post will just be about what I've been doing to fill my time while I wait it out...
I've been having a delightful time as I spend hours buried in books. Reading is an addiction to me and I used to read a lot even while I was applying, but there was always the time constraint and the nagging feeling that my essays would benefit from the extra time. Now I'm back to sitting up all night when I cannot make myself put a book down. I splurged at the Strand Book Festival at Bangalore. I made 2 trips and bought 15 books.
Some of these are books I've been meaning to read for a long time, some of them just caught my fancy, some of them I've already read but didn't own a copy. I've already finished reading Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies and Of Mice and Men in the last 10 days. That leaves me with 12 more to go. I guess I will not be buying any books over next 2 months or so.
I've also been creating an online book catalog which I will link up on my blog once I'm done with it. When I was in college I promised myself I will buy at least one book every month once I start earning. Looks like I've more than kept up my promise for I have collected over 100 books in the last 2.5 years. The sad thing is some of them are in Chennai, so I can complete my online catalog only after my next trip to Chennai in a couple of weeks.
I bought myself an iPOD! I got it sent from the USA 'coz of the hefty saving I can make. It's on its way to Chennai and I will pick it up when I go home, after which my life will become much more musical :-)
That's all the updates I have. Now I will go lose myself in the world of the Buendias...Ciao!
I'm really happy to say that "My Wharton interview went off very well!"
I had my interview at the Mumbai hub this morning. My day began with an interesting start. First of all I had to wake up at 5 am, which is simply unhealthy for a purely nocturnal creature like me. Since I'm not familiar with routes in Mumbai my uncle and aunt insisted on accompanying me. We made a train journey in a surprisingly empty Mumbai local, had a relaxed breakfast and leisurely strolled down to the McKinsey office in Mumbai where they dropped me off. I was right on time at 8.45am. But poor li'l me had no clue that it takes 5 minutes for a lift to come down from 3o odd floors. So I was waiting for the lift when I should have been seated in one of the overseized couches in the plush McKinsey reception. And to add to my agony, when I reached the 21st floor, the receptionist with the plastic smile informed me- "The interview is on the 24th floor ma'm". Thankfully the fire exit was nearby and I did not have to put up with the tardiness of the lift. I ran up 3 floors, 3 steps at a time. I leave the state of my suit, hair and face to your wildest imagination. I went in and there was this guy smartly dressed in a suit, waiting for the interview too. On enquiry I found out that his interview was at 9.45. I thought I was done for, but nice guy that he was, told me that I was right on time, that the interviewer and the receptionist themselves had just come in. Phew! I will gently remind you here that I went through all of the (e)motions mentioned above in an interval of no more than 5 minutes :D
I had exactly 5 more minutes to smooth my hair, stop panting like a dog, check my dress and shoes:D and all the other girl stuff:-). My interviewer took me into the room at 8.55 sharp. She put me at ease in no time. She asked me if I lived nearby and I promptly informed her that I came from Bangalore and that I had spent the past 2 hours travelling to the venue. This must have explained my rather dishivelled (I'm just assuming this, 'coz I'd not seen a mirror in the last 2 hours :D) appearance. Thus we come to the end of my "interesting start".
My interviewer was a really expressive person with a lot of smiles to offer, which made me comfortable instantly. She took a full 3 minutes (don't ask me how I know the exact number...) to peruse my resume completely and she said "Crystal Clear". A small "yippie" to myself and a polite "thank you" and a smile to her. She started off with "What is your current role in your organization". I gave her an idea what the product was and what I do, clearly separating the technical and non-technical aspects of my job. Then she asked me "Why do I want an MBA?". I took the liberty of telling her that I would elaborate on my goals before I get there and did just that. I spoke about my goals, why those goals (which covered nearly 7 years of my life:-)) and how I think an MBA can get me there. Then came "Why now?". Simple, honest answer followed. After that she switched topics by saying "So we have spoken about your leadership at work and extracurriculars..." Here again I took the liberty of telling her that my list of extracurriculars is not complete and elborated a little on the left out aspects. She wanted to know about "1 strength and 1 weakness". I gave her a true strength and a true weakness (I don't care if it damages my prospects). Then I gave her a discourse on what I expect out of Wharton and what made me apply to Wharton.
That's pretty much the list of questions as such. But I had the luxury of guiding the interview in whichever direction I wanted. So in the course of the conversation we spoke about Social consciousness, IT industry- who are the major players, Mumbai life (Although I've never lived there, I've been there enough number of times to know a lot about it and of course, I love Mumbai!), the disparities between the upper and lower economic segments of any city. We also touched upon topics like idealism, why Indians return to India from the US, the safety net in European countries etc. I don't know how it happened, but our conversation was peppered throughout with such extremely interesting digressions. Finally I got to ask her some questions, for which she gave me very detailed, insightful answers.
She gave me feedback (which I did not ask for of course :D). The words "exciting", "impressed" and "successful" were used! I thanked her, told her it was very nice talking to her and left. I ran out of the door and called my anxiously waiting mother to share my exultation. When I noticed the time I realized we had been speaking for 45 mins (15 mins more than the stipulated time). I'm sure the guy who was waiting for his turn must have cursed me :-).
I don't know if this will convert to an admit, after all the interview is not the make or break in Wharton's holistic process. I came out feeling completely satisfied and that is all that matters to me at the moment. I will not blame the interview if I don't make it.
So now I'm back in Bangalore and really need to sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........
I had my Chicago interview with an alum this morning and it was nothing like what I had expected out of an admissions interview! The usual Why MBA, Why now and Why Chicago were there. But there were lots of other delightful conversational elements to the interview. We discussed things like my fears, my way of handling uncertainty in life, pros and cons of being an only child (which I am), why I became an engineer, why I work where I work, what do I do. I had to profess my commitment to my goals and why I think they are practical, how will I embrace and adapt to change, which one will I go to if I have to choose between the schools I'm applying to.
Then our conversation took a tangential turn towards Chennai (where I grew up, he's from there too), the good old music scene in Chennai and how it has become lack-lustre due to all the westernization, my school, his school, tamil brahmin outlook and upbringing, Indian roots and values etc. etc. (My apologies to my non-Indian readers, for giving such an India-centric discourse). We also spoke about creative writing and books. We discussed our views on objectivity, capitalism, life, the universe and everything :-). On a more serious note, it was a relaxed candid conversation which brought out the person in me.
He assured me that his feedback will be positive. However he also mentioned that he cannot influence the admission decision which will be based on the rest of my application too and the only thing that may deter me from getting in is lack of work experience. His comments were "You are a young woman with a lot of dreams, I like your energy and don't worry you will make a magnificient B-School grad"! It was music to my ears :D
He urged me keep him posted and approach him for anything that I might want. He was a very approachable and extremely dynamic person. I'm really glad we had so much in common to talk about.
I'm taking a break! I will start preping for Wharton sometime next week.
PS: Although I have covered everything that we spoke about, this was not the exact chronological flow of the conversation.
Update: I just checked my Stanford app status. It says "Your application is complete and currently under review." Someone might be reading my Stanford essays right now. I really hope he/she likes them :D. I really like it when things are moving...
Yes, I got an interview invite from Wharton a while ago. After a lot of deliberation I decided to go to the Hub interview at Mumbai, India. I decided to shell out all that money mainly because I don't want to go through the tension of waiting for replies from busy alumni :).
There's a connection between "a day before the deadline", Wharton and Me. My app turned complete on 25 October, a day before the deadline. I got my interview invite today, a day before the deadline. Will they give the decision also a day before the deadline? Ha Ha. Maybe Wharton won't but Chicago will. Yes, the Chicago adcom just sent a mail saying they are releasing their decisions on 20 Dec instead of 4 Jan. This makes my wait shorter by a good 15 days. Cool!
Now I'm overflowing with love for these 2 schools. Of course I need to sleep now if I have hopes of doing well in the Chicago interview. Gnite! Tonight's gonna be a happy night!
My Chicago interview has been postponed to 16 November. It's good 'coz I get some time to prepare. Although it will be a miracle if I really get some preparation done. I went back to work after a week and found truckloads of work waiting for me. So I left work at 9pm :-( I will try and get back early tomorrow and the day after.
As for Wharton, I have my fingers crossed. The reality is I'm trying not to think about it so that I don't get all negative and morose before my Chicago interview.
Other than that I'm numb, brain dead and sleepy at the moment. I'm off to bed. Gnite!
I just reached Bangalore after my trip home. This trip did me a lot of good because I could check mail only once a day for the past 9 days. I was forced to be at peace and not think about my apps. And of course 4 days flew by in preparing for and attending my friend's wedding. I managed to revive my slumbering social life.
Now that I'm back, I've decided not to check e-mail "hopefully" any more, the disappointment each time I see a bunch of promotional mails is irritating (to put it midly). I hate to be among the last to get the invite from Wharton, the wait is excruciating. I hate it even more if I have to wait all this while to just get a DWI. 16 Nov will seal my love or hate for Wharton. Till then we will continue to share a vacillating love-hate relationship. One consoling factor is that people whose app turned to complete on 24 Oct have started getting invites only on Friday. Hoping there is at least a vague semblance of chronology in the process, I should get my invite, if I'm getting one at all, in a day or two. I guess that's enough speculation about Wharton for the day.
I seem to have the same rotten luck with Stanford. My application status still says "Submitted" while others are seeing their's turn to "Complete, Under Review". Murphy seems to love me. "If I can get denied,I will" OR "If I get an interview invite, I will be the last one to receive it". I feel like an eternal optimist rapidly metamorphing into a wretched cynic. (Just the usual drama, don't you care about it :D)
Today was the most different birthday I've ever had. One of my best friends got married today. So I had an added reason to celebrate. My group of 5 friends from school spent the past 3 days together and we had a lovely time. We've known each other since kindergarten and have been really close for the past 14 yrs. We've literally grown up together. Although another one of my dearest friends was not with me to celebrate my b'day, I was really happy to be with my friend on her wedding. I have taken a week off from work. Yes I decided that this wedding was worth spending some of my vacation leave on :). It was great reminiscing our school days together :)
On the application front, I wish I'd got an interview invite as a b'day gift :(. But of course it's still 8 Nov in the US. So there's hope still :D. I have my Chicago interview on Sunday. I think I will start preping tomorrow.
That's it for now. Ciao!
I had my Kellogg interview today and it went off pretty well. I am a little disappointed because the interviewer seemed slightly disinterested and cursory. This was one feedback I read about Kellogg interviews repeatedly and maybe I should have expected it. But of course I'm not complaining, it was pretty good!
First the interviewer set the stage, set expectations and explained "the role of the interviewer and the purpose of the interview" in the entire process. We ordered our coffees meanwhile. Then we started off with the usual "let's start off on an open-ended note, you could maybe talk about your experience and I will ask you questions as we go on". I then had to describe "an area of development and how I have adressed it". We then branched off to talk about "one time when I made a significant impact on my team at work and how important is my role in the team and how important is my product to my company". I had to then follow up this answer with "what I think are my strengths". We then talked about "few technical details of what my product actually does, who are the customers and how would they use it?" Then we went on to discuss "what my company does and what is their current strategy". Finally I spoke about "a leader/manager I admired and what are the traits I think a leader should have". Now that was the end of my career stuff.
We moved on to "Why MBA, Why Kellogg?". This is where my "actual goals, how I would achieve them and why the path I'm thinking about will get me there" came in. Then I had to answer a couple of follow up questions about "the exact expectations I had from my post-MBA job". And that brought us to the end of the interview and I could ask my questions. I had 3 questions to ask and I did.
I had not touched my coffee till that moment. I drank it while the interviewer took some notes. We indulged in some small talk, paid the cheque(I was not allowed to pay) and left the place.
On the whole, very average interview, no stress, no grilling, nothing exceptionally interesting. I did reasonably well, no faux-pas and I will leave it at that. This interview will not reduce my chances of getting in. I learnt a lot of things which I will use in my Chicago interview :-)
I have bolded the questions instead of listing them out because I wanted to capture the flow of the interview. Hope you find it useful!
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I got an interview invite from Chicago-GSB!
Today is the day they begin to send out their invites. I was hoping for one, but didn't imagine I would get it so soon :-). I was chatting with a friend on google talk when I suddenly noticed that I had 2 mails in my gmail account. I was almost praying that one of them should be an interview invite. And it was! Maybe it does pay to submit early, 'coz my application went to complete status even before the deadline :D.
I'm grinning ear to ear and am not low anymore. Thanks to everyone who cheered me after my previous post.
I have decided to postpone submitting my Columbia app till end of November, mainly because I came to know from the adcom that they start reviewing regular decision apps only from 10 Jan 2007. Now, there is so much conflicting info about this on the net. There are sites such as the one I quoted earlier which have the admissions staff claiming that there is an advantage to applying on the early side of the regular decision. So I decided end of November is still early enough to have an advantage if there is one :-)
I'm suffering from super low motivation, which is another factor that is hindering me from writing my Columbia essays. People have been getting interview invites from Wharton. I try hard not to think about it. After all my application turned complete only on 25 Oct. But it's pretty bugging that I submitted on 1 Oct, 12 days before the deadline, and have still been brutally victimized by the randomness of their processing. People who submitted 5 minutes before the deadline saw their app go to complete on the same day and have started getting interview invites :-(. To top it off, there is just one all-encompassing answer - "The process is random, complicated and non-chronological". All this makes me dread that I may get dinged directly. I know I am overimagining, but I am! And I'm unable to prevent myself from doing so. So be it.
I don't know whether Harvard's and Stanford's silence is a boon or a bane. I alternate between loving and hating their process :D. Sometimes I feel it's good I don't see a bunch of applicants constantly updating some thread about the number of times they hit F5 every second. At least I just feel low, I don't stress. If I join that group I think I will freak out completely.
As for Kellogg, I already know 2 people from Chennai and Bangalore who have got interview waivers. I keep wondering whether it's a good thing to have an interview or not. Anyway I have my Kellogg interview tomorrow. So wish me luck!
|
