On your marks, get set, GO! eeer... Apply!
So there I was, planning to go to B-School with no idea how to get there, where to go, with an amazingly pathetic undergraduate GPA of 2.234. Hey… I did undergrad at Tulane, New Orleans …ok?!
At the time, I thought I’d give the whole thing a shot and just see where the cards fall. I approached the process in three steps.
• Step 1 – The incredible, computer adaptable GMAT
The first thing I did here was look at my strong points and weak points as a person, analyze how I study best, and then choose a program that best fits my needs. I researched all the usual suspects, Princeton Review, Kaplan, 800 Score and Manhattan GMAT, finally choosing Kaplan for it’s history, in depth program, word of mouth / forum recommendations, money back guarantee and the fact that their class program would best suit my needs as a student.
In retrospect the program was beneficial, and one I would recommend to anyone needing a push to study at home. Their strategies for the exam were beneficial; however their practice tests missed certain questions that I later found to appear on the test itself. Taking the “practice test” did tell me where my weaknesses were, and where I needed to improve. I initially scored a whopping 520 (OUCH!) on the 1st day of class, and would later do better in the Kaplan tests – but I will say that you should expect to score approximately 100 points lower than what you get on any of the practice exams provided by the test prep program you’re taking.
In the end, all I can advise anyone to do while studying for the GMAT is practice, practice, practice – practice until your eyes bleed and the simple mention of the word “GMAT” makes you nauseous.
• Step 2 – Get your crap together.
When I first thought about the MBA, it was to get out of my current job, I was doing well but the pay was killing me, I needed to make a career move, or should I say jump forward, and an MBA was the quickest way out.
Then, my life went into upheaval, the CIA thing, relationship hell, health problems (I had a titanium rod in my left tibia, that the body was rejecting, let me tell you not too pleasant). I began thinking as to why was I getting my MBA, what did I really want to do with my life, where were my core interests, how could I apply myself to work within those interests, and towards them? Simple profit motive to get an MBA became less and less substantial in my search for a program, and core skills and the places that I wanted to be with my career had become much more important. I knew that I needed to get out of the U.S. – I looked at what I was good at, and as if out of nowhere, pieces started falling into place.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to, who want to go get their MBA, and just move on up in the same industry job, what have you. It’s the same rhetoric over and over. A friend of mine living in Paris told me, that when he was studying at ESSEC and working in the admissions department he would see one application after another that seemed as if had come from one and the same mold. Inherently, you need to be you, and express to the school and admin committee what makes you, you, and why you stand out from all the other nincompoops trying to get ahead in life as well.
• Step 3 – Research and Destroy
Schools – At the offset, having no idea where I was going did not really help me in this endeavor, and I needed to do a sizable amount of research on each school that I would later apply and not apply to. My fist choices were Columbia, Stanford, Yale, UCLA, Georgetown and LBS.
However, and whatever you may think of rankings, school credibility etc… throw out the window. Look at what you want to pursue, MIT MBA’s are tech heavy, NYU Stern, Columbia and LBS are finance heavy, Harvard and Yale are very general (Yale does have a great joint degree program MBA / Russian & Eastern European Studies). Some use the case method, some use teams, some number crunching, and others a mixture – find what’s best for you, why you think that way, and then chose your schools.
Me, in the end I chose the following schools, based on emphasis to internationalism, I rank them in “my” order of choice. IESE, ESADE, RSM Erasmus, LBS, HEC Paris, Columbia, Georgetown, Imperial College of London: Tanaka, ESCP-EAP. In the end I applied only to five programs. Each one of these if you do the research is quite different, but to me each fit a specific area of study that others did not, I also knew that I wasn’t really partial to schools in Anglophone countries as I wanted to pick up another language or two while studying.
These were my baby steps, I’m skipping over a lot of material here, but most of it is irrelevant or just plain droll, if there are any questions, comment, and I will try to answer them as best I can in future posts.
At the time, I thought I’d give the whole thing a shot and just see where the cards fall. I approached the process in three steps.
• Step 1 – The incredible, computer adaptable GMAT
The first thing I did here was look at my strong points and weak points as a person, analyze how I study best, and then choose a program that best fits my needs. I researched all the usual suspects, Princeton Review, Kaplan, 800 Score and Manhattan GMAT, finally choosing Kaplan for it’s history, in depth program, word of mouth / forum recommendations, money back guarantee and the fact that their class program would best suit my needs as a student.
In retrospect the program was beneficial, and one I would recommend to anyone needing a push to study at home. Their strategies for the exam were beneficial; however their practice tests missed certain questions that I later found to appear on the test itself. Taking the “practice test” did tell me where my weaknesses were, and where I needed to improve. I initially scored a whopping 520 (OUCH!) on the 1st day of class, and would later do better in the Kaplan tests – but I will say that you should expect to score approximately 100 points lower than what you get on any of the practice exams provided by the test prep program you’re taking.
In the end, all I can advise anyone to do while studying for the GMAT is practice, practice, practice – practice until your eyes bleed and the simple mention of the word “GMAT” makes you nauseous.
• Step 2 – Get your crap together.
When I first thought about the MBA, it was to get out of my current job, I was doing well but the pay was killing me, I needed to make a career move, or should I say jump forward, and an MBA was the quickest way out.
Then, my life went into upheaval, the CIA thing, relationship hell, health problems (I had a titanium rod in my left tibia, that the body was rejecting, let me tell you not too pleasant). I began thinking as to why was I getting my MBA, what did I really want to do with my life, where were my core interests, how could I apply myself to work within those interests, and towards them? Simple profit motive to get an MBA became less and less substantial in my search for a program, and core skills and the places that I wanted to be with my career had become much more important. I knew that I needed to get out of the U.S. – I looked at what I was good at, and as if out of nowhere, pieces started falling into place.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to, who want to go get their MBA, and just move on up in the same industry job, what have you. It’s the same rhetoric over and over. A friend of mine living in Paris told me, that when he was studying at ESSEC and working in the admissions department he would see one application after another that seemed as if had come from one and the same mold. Inherently, you need to be you, and express to the school and admin committee what makes you, you, and why you stand out from all the other nincompoops trying to get ahead in life as well.
• Step 3 – Research and Destroy
Schools – At the offset, having no idea where I was going did not really help me in this endeavor, and I needed to do a sizable amount of research on each school that I would later apply and not apply to. My fist choices were Columbia, Stanford, Yale, UCLA, Georgetown and LBS.
However, and whatever you may think of rankings, school credibility etc… throw out the window. Look at what you want to pursue, MIT MBA’s are tech heavy, NYU Stern, Columbia and LBS are finance heavy, Harvard and Yale are very general (Yale does have a great joint degree program MBA / Russian & Eastern European Studies). Some use the case method, some use teams, some number crunching, and others a mixture – find what’s best for you, why you think that way, and then chose your schools.
Me, in the end I chose the following schools, based on emphasis to internationalism, I rank them in “my” order of choice. IESE, ESADE, RSM Erasmus, LBS, HEC Paris, Columbia, Georgetown, Imperial College of London: Tanaka, ESCP-EAP. In the end I applied only to five programs. Each one of these if you do the research is quite different, but to me each fit a specific area of study that others did not, I also knew that I wasn’t really partial to schools in Anglophone countries as I wanted to pick up another language or two while studying.
These were my baby steps, I’m skipping over a lot of material here, but most of it is irrelevant or just plain droll, if there are any questions, comment, and I will try to answer them as best I can in future posts.
posted by ... j at Friday, April 28, 2006
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