Isn’t in weird?? I had quit blogging just after the last post on my blog, which said “Don’t quit!!” Well, I was too much tied up with deadlines at office.. Everything related to B-school journey had almost come to a stand-still: so no b-school research and therefore no blogging as well. :’(

Actually, an “almost” can be added to the “No” in B-school research mentioned above.. I did manage to sneak into Pagalguy at times or to check what’s going on with some blogger-pals.. So what else I have done in past few months: (This also includes the non-blogged stuff when I was active in the research.)

• Attended B-school events:: I can confidently say now: never miss an admission event of a B-school that you’re even remotely considering. Marketing is a subject on every B-school curriculum and it seems the adcom people have mastered it to full.. More about this in my next post.
• Helped fall’09 applicant friends: I had a vicarious experience of apping to B-schools by helping some of my good college friends and a few net-pals with their essays. I believe now I do have at least a rough idea about what is liked by adcom and what not. Hope this experience will help me when I start penning down my own essays later this year.
• Some reading: As I said in my “Not ready for MBA” post, I feel thatthat not many of us have a good idea about B-school life and different B-school specializations. Moreover, I feel that reading about some Business barons can also instill some business sense in me. So have ordered lots of books. (I’m an obsessive book-buyer, though can’t call myself an obsessive reader. ) So far, I’ve completed “Snapshots from hell” It’s a book about a student’s first year at Stanford GSB: a must-read for every B-school aspirant. Right now, reading Ten-day MBA. Next in queue are: Montauk and Lou Gerstner’s autobiography.
• Blog-hopping: Though I did not write much on my own blog, but I keep my B-school instincts alive by visiting blogs of some fall’09 applicants. A lot of them have got good admits this year and this may prove handy when I apply.
  

Will try to be more regular here now..

Now if you’re a regular visitor here, I’m sure I’ve managed to startle you at least a bit. :D After all, just in the last post, I was “Not ready for an MBA right now.” Actually the status at my end is still the same. I’m not applying this year, but many of my friends are.  Some of these are real-life friends, some online ones whom I’ve not even met. It’s their apping process that’s keeping me busy. :D It’s mostly the review of the essays.  (and drafts for a reco in one case) As I was done with my GMAT way back in June, I had plenty of time for the endless B-school research. So I’ve slight upper hand on some of my friends who had almost no time between their GMAT and apping. So I pitch in as a self-certified application-consultant. Yup, I love to help people, but surely this time it is not entirely for philanthropic reasons.  

Many of my friends suggested me a dry-run this year: apping to schools in which you’re not interested. I don’t really buy this idea. I don’t find it worth the effort and the money. If you’re targeting a top-15 school, how would apping to a lower school give you an idea of the competition and what your dream school wants from an applicant? And let us say you give it a full-hearted effort and bingo!! You get an admit with a full-ride at one of the dry run schools. Now won’t it be too tempting to accept the offer and save yourself a year and a great amount of money. And then you’ve missed your dream schools even without giving them a try. I’d better keep the dry-run schools as the “Safe Schools” next year. This time I do want to know the application process in and out, but only second-handedly.

What else I’m doing on the B-school front? I’m attending every B-school event that happens in the NCR area. So far I’ve attended Stanford, Wharton and Ross; also visited the stalls for Tepper, Duke, Stern and some more at the recent MBA fair. Tuck and Darden are to follow in November. Planning to learn a foreign language, though have not yet decided which one. Other than that, I’ve started finding time for activities other than office-work and apping process. I’m now a regular at the office TT table and also am back to reading. Had almost stopped reading books other than OG, Kaplan and Manhattan. Coming to the books, I’ve just started “Snapshots from Hell” by Peter Robinson. It’s about the author’s life at Stanford GSB: the first year in particular. This is considered one of the best books on B-school life. Hope to learn a thing or two about the MBA life by the time I finish the book. Hopefully that’ll be another blog story here.

I guess I’ve to conclude now; need to get back to the Emory essays. Will try to be more regular on the blog again.