My MBA Journey -Part 8 (Preparing B-school application)

As mentioned in my last post, I started working on Cambridge and Oxford applications simultaneously. Although each school offers its own application in its own format, some of the questions ("essays" in b-school jargon) more often than not do appear frequently in most of the applications (wordings of the essays could be different).

From my experience, I can vouch for the fact that knowing the answer to the question “ WHY MBA” is extremely extremely important and I have seen most of the students faltering in answering this or lacking clear vision/understanding as to why do they really need an MBA degree. Plus there are many other questions which are also important. And so it is extremely important to know the answer to each of them very clearly (that would help you in your interviews as well).

If you try to directly answer a b-school essay before doing your homework, chances are high that you will end up missing/losing some of the good points. So before starting to prepare a b-school application (or even looking at the essay questions), kindly spend sufficient time to write down in as much verbose form as possible the answers to the following questions in a word file (the more the effort and time you spend here , the better will be the quality of your application and hence higher the chances of your selection)

1. Why MBA?
2. Why now? (or why not 5 years hence or 2 years ago)
3. Why this college?
4. Why are you unique? (or why should the college select you over others)
5. What are your short/long term goals? (or where do you see 5/10 years down the line)
6. What are your 5 strengths and 5 weaknesses?
7. Detailed summary of your key accomplishments/achievements in a) academic life and b) professional life
8. 3-4 leadership experiences in a) academic life and b) professional life
9. 3-4 mistakes in professional life and the learning from them
10. ......

(The list is long and if anybody wants the entire list (with some rough answers), kindly leave your email ID in the comments section)

Frankly speaking, preparing application is a bed of nails and the biggest nut to crack in applying to a foreign b-school.

This was the phase where I spent countless hours trying to figure out who really I am. I had to go through my entire life of 25 years to pen down each and every important /not so important incident that had happened in my life. This was the time when I felt like giving up; I kept on getting frustrated but still somehow managed to survive this atrocious phase.

Once I was ready with my initial list of answers to the questions mentioned above, I started to draft the answers to the essay questions asked in Cambridge and Oxford applications. Simultaneously, I made many new friends (b-schools’ alumni) via Orkut communities, LinkedIn and other social networking sites.

I kept on sending the drafts of the essay answers to my newly made friends and I was very lucky that many of them did send back the reviewed documents in time, again and again. This process started in December 2008 and went on until Feb 2009 when I filled up my last application.

Finally after about 50 days of gruelling hard work, multiple reviews of essays, endless communication with innumerable alumni and unthinkable irritation, I was able to finish my first 2 applications. Because I had put my best foot forward in the last few weeks (at least I think so), the journey ahead (as far as the applications of the remaining schools are concerned) was not as rocky and bumpy. There were some hiccups but otherwise I was pretty comfortable with the remaining applications. And this happens with each and every candidate who does the maximum hard work in the beginning.

Tips /Advice for students in the phase of preparing applications:

• Do connect to as many alumni/current students of the b-schools you intend to apply as possible
  
• Spend as much time as possible in preparing the 1st draft of every essay question
  
• Take the review of b-schools’ alumni/current students very seriously and do incorporate it in your next draft of essay answer
  
• Pray regularly to Almighty and do interact a lot with your parents (as only they are the ones in the entire world who will give you the best advice unselfishly )

PS: All those interested in some reference material on b-schools applications (or sample b-school essays), please leave your email ID and small introduction in the comments section.