Stanford GSB (Optional Deferred Program for College Seniors)

For Stanford GSB there is no exclusive program for college seniors such as HBS 2+2. However, they encourage seniors to consider applying to the MBA program. Harvard usually takes in around 110 college seniors through its 2+2 program. The number of students who get in through optional deferred program are quite less according to me. I think the number is less than 10, but it's just my guess. But, I still encourage college seniors to apply as you learn a lot about yourself. It is a self-realizing process and the satisfaction is immense. You also get to know which areas you can improve in. And, you get that extra few crucial years to improve yourself than you would have got if you had started applying after working for a few years.

Few of the qualities they seek in an undergraduate applicants are
1) Intellectual Vitality: This can be demonstrated through many ways but not only by grades and test scores. GSB considers our attitude to learning to be as important as our aptitude. Stanford wants to shape the future and they want to see our passion, dedication and genuine interest in expanding our intellectual horizon. They would also like to know whether we mastered any concepts that are not immediately relevant to our immediate career, to carve a path in ambiguous environment. This helps GSB to know whether we will be able to support the school's goal of developing knowledge that deepens and advances the practice of management.

2) Demonstrated Leadership Potential: By this, they would like to know about our character. This leadership activities can be demonstrated through activities, research or internships. They want to know more about our personal motivations and convictions, and our ability to confront complex, unfamiliar issues with good judgement through our essays.

3) Personal Qualities and Contributions: They want to know about our experiences that significantly influenced how we work with others, beliefs, passions, dreams, goals which would help them evaluate how we can not only contribute to, but also, how we can benefit from GSB. College seniors who get in normally have high maturity and self-confidence.


Also we should be able to articulate why we need to attend business school. Ultimately remember, Stanford wants to change lives, change organizations, change the world.

Continuing with MBA applications but slowly

I am continuing with my MBA applications but at a slower pace not only because of my college work but also because I am applying to the deferred program. So even I apply in the third round since they would be taking me in after 2 years, I don't think it will make a difference whether you submit before the first round or the second round. It is very important for me to get a deferred MBA program due to personal reasons (I hope to get into Chicago Booth or Stanford). The other significant reasons why I am applying to the deferred programs are I will get to work for 2 years and thereby be able to better to participate in the case studies discussion and also when I apply for jobs when I am finishing my MBA it would be easier for me to get recruited compared to a candidate with no work experience. My essays for Harvard were not very done. I will do better for my Stanford and Chicago Booth applications. To better I am taking a lot of time especially in my essay part and hopefully it comes out very well. I will most probably apply to those two colleges late december or early January.

B schools that contacted me over the past week and entrepreneurship awareness camp in Anna University

Everything, for the big day, has been arranged for the event tomorrow which is conducted by the students of entrepreneurship development (ED) club of Anna University. This event is being conducted in coordination with IIT, Kharagpur. The event includes guest talks by George Anand, Founder CEO, Semantic Learning, Pravin Shekar, Co-Founder, Dexterity Ltd. and Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder, Bharat Matrimony. This is the first time that founders from 3 companies are giving a talk on the same day to the students. The ED club is showing good progress after it was inaugurated on April 3rd 2009. We had the first event called the "First Step" on September 11, 2009 for which the chief guest was Chandu Nair, who is the President and Director of Scope eknowledge centre. He is an alumnus from IIM, Ahmedabad, the most prestigious management school in India. And the event to be conducted tomorrow is our second event and we hope many more will follow. During the "First Step", we not only had an insightful talk from Chandu Nair but also various events were conducted by the members of the ED club for the college students. The events ranged from business quiz, marketing a product to generation of ideas and creation of a business plan to use the money allocated to them judiciously.

Also, last week, since I had taken the GMAT and subscribed to one of its services (GMASS) in which I could be contacted by bschools, I was initally contacted by Jarrod Goentzel, Executive Director, MIT for Master of Engineering in Logistics for a degree in the same. The master program in supply chain management will probably be a good option for me but after some years, considering the fact that I haven't yet finished my under graduation and also the fact that I have been employed in BEROE which is mostly related to supply chain management. So I might probably apply for it after a few years but at first I will have to compare how it will help me in achieving my career vision and whether it will be a better fit for me than the MBA option. A lot of things to be considered!

I was also contacted via email by shealyn.rentschler@chicagobooth.edu for applying to the Chicago Booth summer scholars program. I don't know as of now whether I will be applying to that as the dates of its program are clashing with my starting dates of my job. So I most probably will not apply to that.

One more bschool which had contacted me through GMASS was willamette university which has a specific program meant for college seniors which had really excited me. Moreover there is no application fees for submitting an online application. This was a school which I had never come across. It was nice that they had contacted me. The only fees I would paying for applying to that university is to send my GMAT score report to that college. This college is located in Oregon and the tuition fees and the cost of living are very less compared to other b schools like Harvard and Stanford. The only thing which perturbed me was its ranking and also the schools average GMAT and GPA was much lower than I had which made me think whether this school is really worth applying to. But anyways I have decided to apply to just find out where I stand and whether I will be selected for its program. If I don't get selected for this, I would definitely drop my plans for applying to Stanford and Yale this academic year. I will work for a couple of years and then apply to the top universities across the world.

INSEAD, LBS, IMD which are very good business schools like Wharton, Chicago booth and so on, want work experience which is why I am not applying to those schools as of now. I really wish they start accepting individuals with no work experience but superior academic ability and leadership skills like Harvard, Yale, Stanford at least by providing them with a deferred admission.

I think I have written a lot now. A lot of students whom I have met have asked about time management skills and strategies. So, my next post will be based on it. I remember reading an article based on it some time back in Harvard business review. I will link that to my next post.

Prior to application of HBS 2+2

My application to HBS 2+2 program meant for the college seniors started about a year back. Ever since I started it, I started going through a variety of websites, blog, contacting alumni etc. I started to draft my essays only around april this year. During the same time, my classmate and I co-founded "The Entrepreneurship Development Club" in our college. I am the President of that club and my friend/classmate Jeremiah (a.k.a Jerry) is the CEO.

Before assuming the post of the President of Entrepreneurship Development Club, I was the student executive member of SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) for a period of one year and one of the two college representatives to the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN). Entrepreneurship has always interested me and Im have a strong passion for it which led me to lead a 5 member team to participate in the Youth Business Development competition conducted by Oxford Said Business School. I have also done 4 internships in a few countries.

I thought I had a good shot at getting in HBS due to my high GPA around 3.7/4 (I am ranked first in my department) and my reasonable extra curricular activities. The reason why I got rejected to the HBS was probably because I didn't analyse myself thoroughly. However, the entire application to the HBS was a self realising process through which I learnt a lot about myself in terms of who I am, where do I want to go, what do I want to do in life and so forth. My internship in the US made me realise my strengths and weakness and also how much and why I wanted to do an MBA. My strong analytical skills combined with my desire to learn new things and my excitement to make substantial and lasting change to a business client makes me an ideal candidate for management consulting. Applying to HBS was the best decision of my life as I would have not known why and how strongly I wanted to be a management consultant. So to every candidate for an MBA program who happens to come across my blog my advise to you is to apply as early as possible to the MBA program so that you will know what you want to do in the future and be focussed in achieving that task.

Having said that, I am off to edit my essays for the stanford application.