My Quest for MBA

It started on a rainy night. I and Karan Singhal (my collegue in Qwest) happened to go to my home to share some thoughts and have dinner together. He told me that he is looking out for MBA and working for it. He shared his views on US schools, IIMs and ISB. He was conviencing. When he finally left at about mid-night, it just occured to me that I wanted to do MBA when I was in college. And I was no more pursuing it because everything around just got settled. I was in a good job. Job was interesting, challenging and well paid. Yet I knew that I wanted MBA, though I was doing nothing about it. After 2 hours of considerable thought process I decided to meet Karan again in the same night at 2:30 AM. It was raining heavily outside but then I had to meet him. So I called Karan and asked him if he is still awake. As I hoped he said yes and since I didn't know his home we agreed to meet at a circle close to his home. I took my roomy's bike and reached the circle while rain was still heavy. We had another hour of talk where I gathered lots of information about how to begin Quest for MBA.

In next week I found about coaching institutes in Bangalore. There were three major players; Career Launcher, IMS and TIME. I gathered some more reviews and finally decided to go with TIME Kormangala, Weekdays morning batch. Another collegue of mine also started his preparation along with me. I also found about the coaching institutes for GMAT and Essay consulting services. I made few visits to Princenton Review but found the deal too expansive. So I was at my own for GMAT. In next week I registered myself for GMAT date, for August 4th. Next two months I dedicated to prepare for GMAT. I started with Barron, moved on to Kaplon and finished with ETS official guide. ETS official guide is costly but it is worth. I scored 700 in GMAT. That was the first milestone.

For next two months my days were dedicated to CAT preparation (other than office) and nights were dedicated to research on US schools. I spent considerable amount of time to select universities. I was able to develope an algo which can help one select the universities based on the profile. Do contact me if you need the algo or just join IIT-GMAT@yahoogroups.com. Weekends were for Mock CAT preparation and analysis, strategy rework etc. And then about a month ago I finished my US applications and submitted them. Last before CAT was only for CAT. I finished all the TIME material and some other books also. Finally wrote the exam. Resuls were OK I got 99.77 percentile. Yet I got calls only from Indore, Lucknou and Kojikode.

I also got interview calls from McCombs, Kellogs and ISB but I could only convert it to ISB. I decided in favor of ISB between the options that I had. Now the quest is over and I am going to ISB for MBA. It was a very difficult year and very challeging one. I am happy to get results and I would soon be a MBA.