Yesterday I talked with couple of ISB alumnis situated overseas. It was insightful talk. During the conversation, I came to know that some of the students received sign-on bonus. Some even pursuaded the companies to pay the interest for the loans! Proof of Negotiation skills!!

Now, my doubt. Does ISB consider all these(sign-on, loan repayment etc.,), while calculating the average salary? Did any of the current students received any such fringe benefits?

Some key views:

1. Only 4 hours of classes are held per day (that too only 4 days per week). All the remaining time is loaded with assignments etc., A sleeping time of 7-8 hours per day is achievable if you prioritize accordingly. Some spend hours in chatting, parties, watching television etc., If you think you can sacrifice those things for one year in ISB, you can recharge your body through out the year. But there is a catch. Most of the assignments are group assignments. So we have to go by the group’s sleeping pattern. The Gold medalist of that batch went to bed at 11 and got up at 6 and she achieved what she wanted. The person who talked with me slept only 4-5 hours per day, and he decided to socialize and party much and interestingly he landed a lucrative job in Goldman Sachs that too with highest salary in his batch.

2. Library facility is nothing short of phenomenal. Name what and you will have resources, books for that topic. For example, a big section is allocated for just “Interview preparation”! Sad thing is we will not have time to utilize the amazing facility to full extent.

3. Don’t be too focussed about what role you want[job]. Have some broader plans and backup plans.

4. If it’s possible to get a sabbatical from company[join back after one year], get it. You will be able to negotiate the package with new companies, with confidence [that you have a confirmed offer in your hand].

5. Shared accomodation means shared bathroom facilities too ! No Attached bathrooms in bedroom[Just wanted to clarify it]

6. Don’t worry about Resumes and placements from day 1. Spend time in understanding the concepts and knowing your batchmates for the first 4 core terms. Start the preparation for placements from October.

7. In Class participation, there will be shy persons (like me , interestingly the alumni was also a shy person, though i can’t believe it), there will be tight persons (rigid in views and one who comments “Kyaa bakwaas bhaat kar rahe ho??” kind) and there will be dilute persons (one who just talks for the sake of talking). In the end each and every view is unique. After all that’s the view point right?? So feel free to express your opinion and don’t get offended by laughters and comments…You will learn to enjoy it once you understand it.

I can remember only the above points. And there were some personal talks based on profile etc., Planning to speak with couple of Alumni in the upcoming weekend. Will update more.

Some of the admitted students have already received the information CD from Indian School of business. One of them was kind enough to upload the Faculty list for the first 4 “Core-terms“.

Term 1 & 2

Term 3&4

Impressive! That’s the only word I can say now.

I scheduled my lessons with Driving school yesterday. Following is the tentative schedule:

Feb 14 15:00-17:00
Feb 15 15:00-17:00
Feb 17 12:00-14:00
Feb 21 15:00-17:00
Feb 22 15:00-17:00
Mar 01 08:00-10:00
Mar 04 10:15-12:15
Mar 04 12:15-02:15 [Practical Examination]

Looks pretty much tight schedule..The success rate is less than 50% here in Belgium. Many people pull it off only 2nd time. Let me see if I can pull off. In case I pass, I can get my licence before March 15th. Belgian Driving licence is accepted almost all over the world, including Australia, Canada, UK, european countries, USA, Japan etc.,

Will I be able to take away some useful thing when I leave, let me wait and see..

The total fees is coming to around 1200 Euros as against initial estimate of 950 Euros. So need to get the excess money from my company!

I have started working out Hindu Crosswords for past 3 weeks. I can honestly say, it is very effective and educative hobby. You get to enhance your English vocabulary, learn new facts, places, personalities etc., Solving Hindu Crossword is two part. First you have to straighten the cryptic clue. Once you have the clue, you have to apply the clue and arrive at the final answer. Right now, I am able to get only 5 or 6 answers right. It’s not easy to solve the entire crossword..One of my friend’s dad has been solving Crossword for 20 years and even he finds it difficult to complete the crossword! If you manage to complete the crossword you can pat yourself on the back as you are one among the very few crossword experts…

I was wondering if it is possible to try out those Hindu Crosswords in PC. I looked around and found that it’s possible. But it will take 2-3 minutes of your time daily to make it PC compatible. I like to fill, erase and try out different combinations. With PC it becomes much more easier.

1. Download and Install Across Lite in your PC. It’s free.
2. Join the “thehinduxword” yahoogroups. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thehinduxword/
3. Go to their File section and download a file “WhyMyOwn_BK.zip” with a description “Why I make my own X-word”.
4. Follow the instructions in the file and you will be fine.

Click to see bigger picture.

Alternatively, email me and I will send the files to you. If anyone know about free file hosting, Let me know. I can upload the files, so that others can download from my site.

I sent the DD from my bank to ISB some days back. Today I called up the admission committee and they haven’t received anything yet. Looks like postals were not delivered on Tuesday due to some local holiday and yesterday was republic day. So I am expecting the DD to reach by today or tomorrow. Thinking about this all day now. Adcom promised to send an email as soon as they receive the DD.

UPDATE: Admission committee updated me on receipt of DD.

Yesterday was rather ordinary day. Inspite of my efforts to cheer myself up, I ended up dull.

Lessons learnt:

1. Don’t talk rubbish, even if you want to do it intentionally.
2. Generally I don’t like listeners constantly sidetracking from the main issue. I can bear it to some extent. But not perpetually. It gives you a feeling that you are talking unworthy things. If someone sidetracks, just stop talking and look at their eyes. Don’t lose cool.
3. Praise graciously. Don’t be stingy. [I am generally a good praiser, but sometimes I am unable to do it].

Yesterday, I was browsing through the list of Faculty (visiting & permanent) of Indian School of Business. The list is quite impressive. Following are the list of schools from which professors visit ISB to deliver the course.

Wharton School of Management
Kellogg School of Management
Columbia Business School
Carlson School of Management
Anderson School, UCLA
Stern School of Business
University of Illinois, Chicago
Georgia Tech
Queen’s School of Business, Canada
Darden Graduate School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University
Marshall School of Business, South California
IESE Business School, Spain
London Business School

All these professors are well-respected in their fields, have published numerous papers, books etc., have won many awards and are serving in presitgious posts like Vice Dean, Co-Chair, Director MBA programs etc., But it was surprising to note that most of them are Indians. Every one has amazing educational backgrounds. Important is that, these professors are excellent pedagogies, which can be substantiated by numerous teaching awards and fact of being elected by students as best professor in their respective colleges.

ISB did a best thing by following the Visiting Faculty model. I believe that learning from Best professors enhance your learning and understanding of the subject. As John Hammond (played by Richard ottenborough) says in Jurassic park, “No expenses spared!”. No compromises has been made on teaching. The permanent faculty strength in ISB is also on the rise.

Google is unleashing yet another creative idea. Search on Videos. Read the full story to find what inspired this venture.

http://video.google.com

The following article & images from Rediff.com made my day. I salute these little bravehearts. No wonder they will be paraded in caparisoned elephants. They deserve it and the national attention they receive, will provide a never-ending supply of energy and motivation to succeed in their lives.

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2005/jan/25sld.htm

I was reading the Business Week insider article, summarizing the interview with Stephen Chambers, Oxford. Here’s the final question thrown to him..

How do U.S. students like Oxford?

A: What they tend to rave about is twofold. This bsiness school is a department of a major university, so you can associate with physicists, lawyers, and historians from outside the business school. You also get the chance to attend an 800-year-old institution, which inspires an amazing amount of loyalty. You have to wear a white bow tie for exams and a gown for dinner, and people love that.

Wearing a Bow-tie for exam and gown for dinner is not my cup of tea! But it is interesting though..Hope ISB doeesn’t have any such practices

________________________

Some excerpts from the Interview with Steve Canale,General Electric

Q: What do you look for in an employee?
A: We’re going to the top schools, so we’re already pretty confident that these people are sharp and have the right credentials and aptitude. What we’re looking for is cultural fit, people who are willing to learn and don’t have huge egos. GE is a meritocracy. We reward and promote based on performance. People here have to handle change and high growth. To fit in, you have to articulate your ideas well and be able to span the different organizations of the company.

Q: Are the pay packages you’re offering now more competitive than they have been recently?
A: They’ve always been competitive. But in general, bonuses and stock options are still down, and salaries only increased about 4% compared with last year. MBA recruiting has picked up a bit in another way: Instead of having one or two job offers, MBAs now have three, four, or five.

Q: What advice would you offer an MBA who wants a job at GE?
A: Don’t be as concerned about getting a job as you are about getting the right one. You need to know where your heart and passion lie. One commonly made mistake is to think of things too broadly without realizing exactly what you want to do. For example, if we’re interviewing someone for a sales and marketing post in the ECLP and he tells me he’s interviewed for finance and Wall Street jobs, I am a little bit suspicious.

Q: What skills do most MBAs need to improve?
A: GE has set a very high bar on integrity, ethics, and governance. A lot of the schools have sharpened their focus on those areas because of the problems over the last few years in Corporate America. We welcome those efforts.

Q: What’s the one thing that an MBA can do to impress you?
A: It’s very nice to get an e-mail or, in some cases, a written letter expressing interest in your company or asking additional questions. I like the idea of someone going out of his [or her] way to link back to the company and say, “Hey, General Electric, I really appreciate your time,” as opposed to treating it as just one more interview. It sounds basic, but it’s amazing how many people don’t do it.

I was browsing through isp-pgp-04 yahoogroups and stumbled upon the following post.

Best, DAN

Daniel Mitchell
MBA Candidate
ISB - The Indian School of Business
www.isb.edu

Last year, my company sponsored me the cost for acquiring a Belgian Driving Licence and the associated training costs. To start off with, I prepared for the Theory examination in April and successfully cleared it. The Theory exam comprises of 40 multiple-choice questions. One needs to get a minimum of 32 questions right. On top of this there will be some “serious offence” questions thrown. If anyone screws up with more than one serious offence questions, he is declared fail, even if he has answered 38 out of 40 questions right! The questions were in dutch, so I took the assitance of a translator. He will translate the question in English and he will not repeat it second time. So need to be very attentive. Was an interesting experience.

Having passed the theory examination, I started my driving lessons from driving school. The total cost of driving lessons is 1000 Euros! A total of 20 hours of driving lessons will be taught. That’s 50 Euros per hour. I completed the initial phase of 8 hours driving lesson and I was instructed to acquire a temporary driving licence and to practice on my own. Since I didn’t had access to any car, I couldn’t practice. I am starting off with my remaining lessons this week. I think I have forgotten all my previous lessons . Anyway, I will just take up the lessons and if I am lucky, will pass the practical examination. The Belgian licence is accepted almost in all places in the world. It’s intersting to note thatn the Indian International licence is not accepted in Belgium!

I have wondered many a times about what life has in store for us. It’s fascinating to think about the future that lies ahead.

I love meeting up with as many people as possible and learn interesting things, hear amazing stories, grasp wonderful hobbies and so on. It’s how much you learn from others and from the world that makes you a more possessed person.

I have rejected many things in my life as “not my cup of tea”. Only when someone makes you understand the “other side” of the subject in question, you tend to develop an interest. Be it crosswords, music varieties [Italian, mexican,hindustani, carnatic, classical, western etc.,], gaming, cartoons, films, quizzes, business, stocks, real estates, technology, electronics, sports, aspirations or any personal traits..

Looking back, I have inspired many and been inspired by many. It’s the essential purpose of life “To Share”. When you give, you receive.

The upcoming one year in ISB is going to be a professionally and personally enriching experience in that aspect. I can learn about 319 interesting personalities and their interests in life. It’s the social and networking aspect of the MBA in ISB that appeals to me more than anything else.

While I was browsing the net, I stumbled upon this link..Thought It would be relevant to post it here

http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/lyr2001/rdec2001/02122001/r021220011.html

December 2001. - Inauguration speech given by Prime Minister Mr.Vajpayee

The ISB set up in a sprawling 250 acres campus has affiliations with Kellogg School of Management, The Wharton School and London Business School. It offers a one year post graduate programme in management and a series of Executive programmes.

It’s been 3 years since the speech was given. ISB looks promising and is living up to it’s expectation, not an easy job. I agree it still has a long way to go in terms of increasing research capabilities, permanent faculty strength, achieving accreditions, becoming reputed world-wide etc.,. But the roadmap is pretty clear and I feel, ISB is going in the right direction..Every year, the competition to get into ISB is increasing. All this increases the quality of student body. This attracts more recruiters and lucrative jobs. This simple cycle, happening year after year, is vital in building the brand and reputation. The brand and reputation attracts more quality professors. I am glad that ISB is caught in this ‘positive’ cycle. In this 3 years ISB has grown to such an extent that even traditional giants - IIMs are looking in to the one-year market. GLIM, Great Lakes institute of management is another example. MBA market is becoming a very competitive environment. Conducive for excellency..Hope the trend continues..

After seeing ebloggy crash 3 times in less than 3 months, I decided to look for stable options. I am glad that I stumbled upon “Wordpress” and “blogsome”. Wordpress is the hot topic in blogging community. State-of-the-art. The Administration interface is one of the best and exhaustive I have ever seen..Slowly, I will port my blog entries from ebloggy [Way2Top] to this, once the site is up. Looking forward for a long-term relationship with this blog

Here’s offering prayers to Lord Ganesh..May this venture bring me good luck.

I had certain questions regarding Class-Participation in “Indian School of Business”.

“I came across the concept of “Class Participation” and the marks awarded for it, in the blogs of Raja and Sujayath.

How does Class Participation work? Is it just asking some relevant questions and answering the questions of professors? or one should give presentation to the entire class? How is the marks allocated? Would somebody make a note of who asked so many questions and who didn’t open his mouth? Finally, is more marks allocated for more questions? Curious ”

Replies I received:

“Class Participation (CP) is the most talked about topic at ISB. Some love it, some hate it and some fear it. Some of the weirdest comments can be heard as part of CP.

You would discover the many charms of CP when you land up here. ”

-Raja

“I have taken couple of courses at sloan school of mgmt, and each couse had certain percentage of the marks are class participation.

Class participation would be more predominent in classes containing case studies, cases for the following classes would be given and you need to analyze the case before going to the class, in the class there would be discussion about the case, here comes the picture of class participation, the more you add to the discussion the more class participation marks you get. To this aking inquisitive question will add to class participation. (The procedure for tracking class participation was the TA had an excel sheet, with coulums like number of points added to case discussion and so on…)”

- Kranthi Kiran

That’s interesting…Will be fun!

Dear Mr Viswanathan,

ORIGINAL OFFER LETTER WILL FOLLOW

Huh! What a relief..Man I am floating in cloud nine now..Time to relax for sometime.

I have been going to bed at 12:30 a.m and getting up at 7:00 a.m for the past 4 days. That’s 6-and-half hours of sleep. I am in office at 8:30-9:00. Slowly but steadily I am working towards “6 hours sleep”.

On the lighter note, 8 hours of sleep is 33% of our life. 6 hours of sleep is 25% of our life. A gain of 8% of our “life”time

I had a very great weekend. Completely relaxed. Didn’t do anything apart from cooking, eating, sleeping, fitness and watching movies.

I initiated the download of “Tom and Jerry - Complete Collection (William Hanna and Joseph Barbera)”, some days ago. The download completed on Friday night. Total of 7 GB!! 10 Cd’s. I am very very big fan of Tom and Jerry, especially to the Hanna and Barbera saga (1940-1958). If there is one cartoon which people world over like, of all ages, it’s the “TOM & JERRY”. (Well, Flintstones is another i believe).

The collection comprises of 115 episodes, including the 7 academy award winning episodes and 6/7 academy nominated episodes. I had watched only 50-60 episodes till now. It was thrilling to watch the remaining episodes.

Time to have fun for sometime

I went through my whole application package yesterday. I have good academic credentials (on par with ISB standards). Good GMAT score(710). Strong essays. I spent nearly 20-25 days in essays (includes first-drafting, reviewing, polishing etc.,). I feel my essays have come out really well and conveys my candidacy strongly. Also, going by the rapport and respect I command with my bosses, I feel they would have given strong recommendation letters. Now this leaves me with Interview. Even though I was skeptical about the interview after completion, in retrospect I feel that I have done OK. Some of their questions were mainly aimed to test how marketable I am? How focussed I am? What plans I have for achieving the goals? What compensation I am aiming at? etc., (questions related to POST-ISB). All these makes me feel that they have made up their mind about me (in a positive way ofcourse!)..

Currently there is a battle,going on within me, between my confidence in my ability/application and my sense of humility. A battle between being confident about admit and being anxious about the outcome..Though I would say ‘anxiety’ has a slightly upper hand now..

So, I have to come to a conclusion. If I get admit, it’s a win-win situation for ISB and myself. If I get rejected, well it’s the loss for ISB. That’s the attitude I have stuck to. No more posts related to my anxiety will be published..Just the final outcome ..

http://onmarinasandsinfullmoon.blogspot.com/2005/01/interview-prep-again.html

A student from previous class (of 2004) has written us a wonderful mail today. THANKS for his support. I am sharing it because it may help some of you folks preping for ISB interviews. Here it goes:

(more…)

There was an useful information shared in ISB’05 yahoo groups. Thanks Rohit Sharma.
http://www.coolavenues.com/mbasp/qa_isb01.php3

The above link summarizes all statistics about ISB. The following piece of information caught my attention.
Program Admission Statistics
Number of students applying: 2500
Number called for interview: 600
Number selected: Shortlisting done of about 250 persons
Numbers finally admitted: 219 students

That’s a selectivity ratio of 10%! This year the application fees has been reduced to Rs.2000/= from Rs.5000/=. Also GRE scores and CAT scores are accepted as an alternative for GMAT. These factors would definitely increase the applicant pool. May be 6000+??? A selectivity ratio of 5%?? All these makes me worry more…Wait..”worry” is not the right word..”Anxious”, that’s the correct word.

An admit among such a competition would be a great feeling..7 more days to go!!

During the past 6 months, I have developed a bad habit. Waking up pretty late in the morning [8:00-9:00]. Somedays I am in the office at 9:00 and other days I am in at 10:00. Not good. If I have taken a resolution this year, it is to manage with a sleep of just 6 hours and to enhance the ability to wake up at the desire time [read early]. Part of the reason for my late awakening is because I sleep pretty late around 12:00 or 1:00 in the night. Other reason is that I am thinking [or dreaming consciously] way too much in my sleep. When I wake up in the morning, I feel drowsy. So my biggest challenge for the upcoming 2 months is to enhance the quality of sleep and to decrease the quantity of sleep. Will help in B-school and in life as well.

I called up exactly at the suggested time. A male voice answered the phone. I introduced myself. Then he introduced himself as an Alum working for Microsoft and Manager(Admissions) introduced herself.

The following were the questions that were thrown at me:

1. Tell us about yourself which you haven’t mentioned in the application or which you want us to know. [I mentioned some characteristics]

2. Example of one of the characteristics mentioned for the above question.

3. Questions on the Ethical dilemma case that I wrote. [I stumbled a bit here in search of correct words..eventually I recovered]

4. What is De-risking methodology? [I mentioned the term in resume. So be prepared with all the ‘terms’ or ‘jargons’ you mention in your app/resume]

5. Questions about client/location/industry/domain/role etc., [It is good to prepare yourself with the domain you are working with. I was grilled here for almost 5 minutes.]

6. Issues on outsourcing. How it is perceived in Belgium and Europe? How you tackled the situation?

7. How do you do Project Estimations? How do you approach estimations for complex projects? How accurate were your estimations?

8. Questions on Post-ISB. [Grilled on each and every line! for almost 6-8 minutes]

9. Questions related to Belgium, location, Culture, main sources of income etc., [Was a cakewalk]

10. What you are passionate about. [I mentioned about blogging in between. So some questions were related to the blogging].

11. What cultural differences you faced in Belgium and how you tackled it?

12. How you won the offshore project from a Fortune 50 client ?[I mentioned about this as the proudest moment of career].

13. Did you learn any new languages while in Belgium?

14. Any questions for us? [Here i did the blunder. For a moment my mind was blank. I couldn’t think of any questions which I thought about beforehand. Somehow I managed the situation]. Finally they wished best of luck and said the results will be announced during Jan 15-20.

Total time: 30-35 minutes.

When I did a post-mortem on my performance, I feel that I could have done a lot better. Anyway, that’s the way interview goes..Now another wait of 15 days. I have done all I could do and hoping for the best. Wish all applicants good luck. Do well, remain calm and be honest.

Just completed my ISB interview.

Till now, I was pretty confident about making into ISB. But after attending the interview, I feel it’s going to be 50-50. I will update more on my interview experience soon..

I was going through the Businessweek “MBA Insider” and came across the following experiences of ISB applicants. Would be useful for other potential overseas applicants.

Comments from Student 1:
School: Indian School of Business (Hyderabad, India)

Scheduling the interview: I was emailed a date and time.

Location of interview: Telephone interview.

Preparedness of Interviewer: It was evident they had reviewed my application as they asked me specific questions from the essays I had written.

Interviewer University affiliation: Admission officer and alum

Atmosphere: Started off on a relaxed note, and then went on to probing questions.

Questions asked: Anything else that you would like to tell us that you haven’t already mentioned in the application? What do you do at work? Since I had wanted to switch from IT consulting to business development, they asked me an example of how I would garner more business from my present client. My long term goal was to set up an e-commerce start-up. They asked me to name the top three e-commerce sites. Which countries I had lived in, and whether I liked US or Europe better. Any foreign languages I knew, and how it had helped me in a foreign land. An example of leadership shown at work. An example of how I dealt with conflict at work. Why would I call myself a team-player. Few questions on domain knowledge - I was consulting to maritime shipping companies, so I was asked to explain some terms used in that industry. Any questions I had.

Length of interview: 20 minutes

Additional comments: It’s good to re-read your application just before going into the interview. Remain calm, as it is more of a friendly chat than an interrogation.

Comments from Student 2:
Scheduling the Interview: The telephonic interview time was sent to me.

Location of interview: I was based in Australia. The interview was telephonic.

Preparedness of Interviewer: The panel had gone through my application thoroughly. My profile and my case study was well read and I felt that they had prepared questions on my work experience, my case study and other application essays.

Interviewer University affiliation: Admissions Officer, Alum working in Microsoft, Current Student.

Atmosphere: Overall atmosphere was relaxed. A few times they asked me some more stressful questions but I was precise and straightforward and tried to maintain my calm.

Questions asked: I was working for a software firm. The following questions were asked of me:

• What is the difference in various leading services software firms with respect to their Business models.
• Where do you see software industry going into future?
• Why do you want to do MBA? What are your plans for post-MBA ?
• What is a typical function of corporate strategy? And of mergers and acquisitions? (In my application essay for what I would like to do post-MBA, I had answered that I would like to go in corporate strategy role focusing on mergers and acquisitions.)
• Revenues and profits of the company you’re working for last quarter? Last year?
• How are you different from other software professionals?
• Instances where you have demonstrated leadership skills?
• Why have you chosen this school?
• Some Questions related to case study?
• How do you see RF ID going in to future ( I had mentioned working for a Retail Client)
• What are the areas of concern in RF ID?
• Questions related to my role in the organization I was working for?

Length of interview: 35 minutes

Additional comments: Tips to aspiring applicants:• Be sure you know your interview panel well. Ask their profiles if they just introduce themselves by their name. Once you know your panel, you can correlate your responses better to the kind of questions they are asking.
• Review you application material thoroughly.
• Make sure you have numbers in your tips, the revenue and profit numbers of the organization you are working for or numbers related to your industry.
• Be thorough with your profile.
• Why MBA? And what you would like to do post MBA?
• Why have you chosen this school?
• Introspect as to what differentiation you bring to the table. Try to explore areas where you have demonstrated leadership skills be it work, social, undergrad or in any hobbies you are pursuing.
• Be relaxed. The interview panel might try to gauge your reaction by putting you under stress.
• Do not waver once you have answered. Confidence is the key.
• Don’t show your desperation to get into any particular school. This is not the end of the world. If you are the right candidate, the school needs you as much as you need them. This attitude will also surface in your confidence and relaxed approach.