H/S/W to M7 to …

I started showing interest towards MBA way back in 2002. During those days only Harvard, Stanford and Wharton (H/S/W in short) were considered top programs. Other schools were considered a compromise. Today the list has grown to become M7 (Magnificent/Magic 7). Kellogg, MIT, Chicago and Columbia have been added to the Top 3 and are considered good programs. Five years from now, is it going to be E10 (Elite 10)? Possible 3 additions could be Tuck, Ross and Haas. Or if the focus is International, the additions could be LBS, INSEAD and IMD. What is the possibility of E10 or S15 (Splendid 15)? And what are the driving factors?

To answer the question, I decided to analyze the applicant pool in 2000 and in 2007.

GMAT Test Takers in 1999-00	190264
GMAT Test Takers in 2007	219077
Increase	28813
Increase %	15.14%

Data from GMAC

The number of GMAT test taker has increased by 15% from 2000 to 2007. But the class size of the top 10 MBA programs have increased only by 5.6%.

H/S/W	2001-2002*	2008-2009 *
Harvard University	1742	1908
Stanford University	730	741
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	1566	1640
Total	4038	4289
Increase		251
Increase %		6.21%

M-7	2001-2002*	2008-2009*
Harvard University	1742	1908
Stanford University	730	741
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	1566	1640
MIT (Sloan)	717	746
Northwestern University (Kellogg)	1200	1200
University of Chicago	1016	1125
Columbia University	1155	1220
Total	8126	8580
Increase		454
Increase %		5.58%

US News Top 10 schools	2001-2002*	2008-2009 *
Harvard University	1742	1908
Stanford University	730	741
University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	1566	1640
MIT (Sloan)	717	746
Northwestern University (Kellogg)	1200	1200
University of Chicago	1016	1125
Dartmouth College (Tuck)	398	500
University of California-Berkeley (Haas)	484	486
Columbia University	1155	1220
New York University (Stern)	840	838
Total	9848	10404
Increase		556
Increase %		5.645816

* Data Collected from BusinessWeek and included the class size of first year and second years at campus

Assuming that the number of applicants who could be admitted to the top 10 schools increased at the same rate as the number of GMAT test takers, we can see that the increase in class size is not able to accommodate the number of applicants. If these 9.5% (15.1 – 5.6) applicants decide to go for an MBA outside the Top 10, then quality of the class outside the Top 10 would increase. In the coming years, many of the top 10 schools would reach its maximum capacity and would have to deny admission to many qualified candidates. The directors of admission of many top programs have comment that 60 to 70% of the applicants are eligible for admission but are denied because of limited class size.

The class of top program has be traditionally been hired by the Investment Banking, Management Consulting and other Industry in almost equal portion. The growth of the Private Equity, Venture Capital and Hedge Funds industries in the past few years has taken away most talented away from IB and MC. So some of the lesser know IB and MC have to go to outside the Top 10 programs for hiring.

There is one major problem for the programs outside Top 10. The schools find it difficult to hire and retain quality professors. The number of quality professors has not increased at the same rate as the increase in MBA candidates. There is lots of competition among top programs for hiring good professors. Soon the market forces will come into play and many more would take teaching as a career and fill up the gap.

Better hiring coupled with better incoming class would increase the popularity of the programs outside the top programs. If these programs could maintain a good infrastructure and teachers, they can make it to the E10 or S15 in the next 5 to 10 years.

Being a Guest at Wall Street Toastmasters

First I should explain the decision to join a Toastmasters club. I always believed that I am a good in giving interviews and presentation. I have aced 90% of my job interviews and have done quite well with my presentation to international audience, Asian (Taiwanese, Malaysians, and Singaporeans) to be specific. But I tanked in my Wharton. On introspection, I realized that all the interviews I aced were technical in nature and I knew the type of questions that are going to be asked. Even my presentations were technical in content. MBA interviews are different from job interviews. The questions do not have a right answer and many questions are unpredictable. In most of the MBA interviews, the interviewer would be from a different industry/background and the candidate should make sure that the answers are easily understood by someone from a different industry and keep the interview engaged. Ok, I need to develop my interviewing skills.

A major goal of MBA is networking. Good social skills are required to make the best use of MBA. Though I am not bad at social skills, I have scope for improvement.

I was looking for opportunities to enhance my interpersonal and communication skill. Earlier I had taken a course in “Business Communication”. The course helped me in a theoretical understanding of how to take interview, attend a group discussion, etc., but I did not have much opportunity to practice and take feedback. I thought Toastmasters could be a good forum to practice. So I decided to attend a Toastmasters meeting as a guest.

The club closet to my work was the “Wall Street Toastmaster”. The meetings are held on 2^nd and 4^th Thursdays between 12 – 1 pm. Yesterday (5/22) I attended a meeting as a guest pushing my usual lunch time by 1 hrs. From the name of the club and its location (one of Goldman Sachs building), I was expecting a lot of Wall Street Analysts and Associates in the meeting. When I entered the conference room, I was asked to choose any seat among 2 rows of chairs around an oval table and have a name card. The agenda and a review form/ ballot papers were placed at each seat.

The meeting started with the self intro of Guests. Surprise! There were 6 guests – 2 from of them were from advertisements and one recent MBA graduate. Since it was the term end for office holders, mementos were presented to them. The Toastmaster of the day – Meghan presided the day’s meeting. There were 2 prepared speeches. First one was by an Indian, who was giving his 8^th speech. He talked about travel locations in India and his speech is supposed to use visual aids. He had some cool pictures of places in India. The second speech was by a girl who was giving her ice-breaker speech. She talked about her own public speaking experience. She used lots of cue cards and the speech was like reading from the cue card. We were given few mins to write our comment about the speech and choose the best speaker.

Then comes the fun part called table topics. A question is posted and anyone can talk about it for 1 to 2 min. The questions were very creative and challenging. Vika had done a good job. Around 8 people made some funny impromptu speeches. Few questions I could remember are:

1. If you were a bird, where would you immigrate for Winter
2. If time and money was not a constraint, how would you travel from New York to California?
3. Give a tag line for promoting Fish as an alternative food
4. What crazy accessories would you fit to you bicycle?
5. If you are allowed to be part of a TV show for one month, what would it be?
6. If you have lots of time, what would you like to do?

We were asked to rate the best table topic speaker. Then the evaluators (Patrick and Eugene) for the prepared speech gave their comments – both positive and constructive – which helps in improving.

Ash was the Ah/um counter and gave the count for each of the speaker. And the time gave the timings of all the speeches. Meanwhile the feedback/ballots were collected and the winner of prepared speech and table topic speech got Toastmaster ribbons as awards. The feedbacks from each participant were given to the respective speakers. Ooh cool, so many feedback for improvements. Finally Joe provided a feedback on the whole proceedings of the Meeting. Wow! A perfect 1 hr meeting. I did not feel hungry.

I felt that I should join Toastmaster at the earliest and get benefited. I was expecting a lot of people with poor communication. On the contrary, most of them had very good communication skills. So lots to learn from them. The group was diverse, not just Quant guys or from any one particular ethnic group. Good. Overall a positive experience and long forward for the next meeting.

Discussion with Robbie Walker of Accepted

Discussion with Robbie Walker of Accepted

I had subscribed for Accepted.com's MBA Telethon, a 15 min free consultation with one of the editors of Accepted. But on the day of Telethon (5/13/2008), I could not get the line and had to leave a voice message. Now I feel lucky that I did not get the line. I got a good 45 min discussion with Robbie Walker on 5/17.
Here is the summary of our discussion. She had already gone through my resume, summary information and my concerns. She first let me ask any question I have. I start with the usual question of an MBA applicant – What are the best schools for me to apply given my profile and reduce the chances of ding. The Robbie recommended are:

1. Ross: I knew she would recommend Ross. Ross is old Indian applicant friendly with a good general management program.
2. Kelley (Safety): I did not expect Indiana. Robbie said that Kelley is a top 5 in Entrepreneurship.
3. Tuck: Tuck was in my radar even in my last application season. I could not apply due to lack of time. Heard a good info that Tuck is also old applicant friendly
4. Marshal: USC has come into my radar recently. They also have a 1 year program. The school is taking lots of new initiatives – a characteristic of a good leader.
5. Haas: She also asked me to re-apply to Haas as they have a good social impact program.
6. Wharton: Robbie check with me if I will be interested in re-applying to Wharton. I said yes. She asked me to request a feedback from Wharton. I have did that already, but got the news on Monday that I have been not selected for feedback.
7. UCLA: UCLA has a good entrepreneurship program
8. Kellogg: For a good general management focus and older applicant friendly.
9. U Chicago: Robbie is from UC and knew about the school well. I always considered it as a finance school and never gave a serious look at the school. As per Robbie, though Chicago is a quant school, it loves non-traditional careers.
10. Darden: She mentioned to have Darden on my safety list. Man! I would love to go to Darden. It would not be a safety school for me.
11. UNC: Robbie asked me to included Kenan-Flagler in the list of safety school. UNC is again a school I would like to attend
12. Yale, McCombs, Oxford and Cambridge: I brought in the discussion of Yale for its good non-profit program. U Texas at Austin for good entrepreneurship program and as a safety school. Oxford and Cambridge for its 1 year general management program. Robbie was quick to reply that she does not know much about Oxford or Cambridge and someone else from Accepted is a specialist with European programs.

Then we discussed about strategies to increase admission chances. Robbie asked me to apply to 6 to 8 schools with a wide range in ranks for mitigating risk.

Finally we also talked about Accepted.com ‘s services and how they work. I was very happy with a 45 min free consultation with Accepted.com

In the coming days I have to do more research in the above schools and choose a right ones and apply at the right time.

Story So Far ...

The idea of doing an MBA has been on my mind for more than 5 year to help me be successful entrepreneur. I took the GMAT twice in 2003 and was not happy with the score. Then I decided to strengthen my profile by starting my own business but it was not successfully. Closed down the business after 2 year. After working for a startup IT company for 2.5 years, took the GMAT again in dec 2007 and got a decent score 740 (51, 39, 4.5).
With all enthusiasm I applied to Wharton and Harvard in 2nd round, INSEAD and Haas in 3rd round. None of the 4 schools showed love to me. The consolation prize was an interview call from Wharton.
Though my backup plan was to try part time or Executive MBA, my friends and family convinced me to try one more time. Jeremy Shinewald of MBAMission was good to provide me feedback on my Wharton application. If you got rejected from all the schools you applied to and thinking of re-applying, I recommend a feedback from Jeremy. Contact him before the next application season at jeremy@mbamission.com
Now I am a 32 year re-applicant with 9 year of IT experience trying to strengthen my profile before the next application season.