Emory University’s Goizueta Business School is pleased to announce that it is finalizing an agreement with an external partner which will provide loans to admitted and current international MBA students.  International MBA students enrolled at Goizueta Business School will be able to borrow for their MBA studies with a competitive interest rate and repayment terms.  A U.S. cosigner will not be required for this new loan program.  Specific details of the loan program structure will be available in the coming weeks after the agreement is finalized.

As highlighted here, I was now very nervous. But this news came in just at the right time. I would still wait before I start the celebrations. The terms and conditions are yet to be announced. But I am sure that there would be nothing prohibitive for the international students. I just hope that they decide to cover the expenses upto the costs of attendance.

Turned down the admission-offer that ISB had for me. The reason I am calling this as a bold move is that I have still not figured out the finances for Emory completely. Was busy in some other important tasks and have not taken any step on working on this in last few days.

But in any case, I am in no position to deposit INR 2 Lakhs that ISB would need as a deposit in case I want that safe in my kitty too. I am sure that Emory would come up with a no-cosigner loan that it is working on actively as per the Accepted Students website. Even in the absence of it, I guess I would somehow be able to arrange for the living expenses. 

I know ISB V/s Emory (with schol) is a debatable issue. I am very clear about what I want from my B-school and hence, clearly it’s Goizueta for me. I understand that this issue deseves a detailed post.. Don’t worry, it’ll be here very soon. Keep watching this space.

Going through the life-cycle of a number of MBA applicants through their blogs, I knew that after getting the admits, the next wait is for the official confirmation in forms of admission-packets. It’s a bit strange that even in this world of web and e-mails, how good it feels to have something tangible to see and show up. 

So I too was waiting for the official admission packets. In fact, I was regularly tracing the journey of my packet from Atlanta through  Hongkong through  Mumbai to finally Noida through the UPS tracking system. I was really waiting quite eagerly for this one. And suddenly, just 2 minutes after I had checked the status to be “Arrival-scan” at New Delhi, I got a mail from the office-mailroom informing me about the arrival of a letter for me. “They can’t be that quick”, I thought, but still reached the mailroom almost jumping and running on my way.

It was not the packet from Goizueta, it was the acceptance letter from ISB. The ISB letter was quite plain. It was simply the original mail this time in hard-copy format. No additional info of any kind. But as written above, it felt good to go through the contents again and again. 

And then, in the evening, the mailroom people contacted me again. And this time, it had to be from Goizueta!! I cut short whatever conversation I was having with my colleagues and rushed to the mailroom minutes before its closure for the day. And there it was: my admissions packet from the school that I’ll hopefully belong to in near future. The packet had a black leather folder with a Goizueta notepad. In addition, there were two letters one each about my acceptance and scholarship. And the best part was: a handwritten note by Director of Admissions, Mrs Julie Barefoot complementing me on my acadmic credentials. A personal touch like this surely does make you feel good. 

I was really very happy to see this. Monday wasn’t particularly a good day for me at office: some health issues, some struggle with the new line of work and then some more things.. But a moment like this makes you forget everything else. 

BTW, as you may have realized from the new category that has come up on this blog: “Go Goizueta!!”, I have frozen my decision to attend Goizueta. Have I arranged for the living expenses and other things already? Not yet! But I am confdent that I will be able to figure that out. Meanwhile, I initiated the wire-transfer for the initial deposit, but for some reason, it failed. (I got the mail informing about the same today morning.) I perhaps would need to do it the old fashioned way.(money order/DD)  :(

The Admissions Committee has reviewed your file and we are happy to inform you that you have been accepted to the Two-Year Year MBA Program. You have also been selected to receive a 100% tuition scholarship per semester. Your academic credentials, work experience, recommendations and essays were all very impressive.  We think you will make a great addition to the MBA Program!

 

This almost finalizes that I am flying to Atlanta coming July!!
I am so excited. I have been calling family and friends to inform them and get congratulated.  

Had to check the app-status on OPUS. Don’t they call their admits??

No info on schol yet, waiting for that eagerly.. Anyways, I am very happy right now.. Trying not to think about finances and other schools right now.. Just enjoying the feeling of success!

The interview started with the interviewer explaining to me about how the interview will proceed and how the interview fits in the entire process. After that we were on to the main course. AFAIK, it was a blind interview and my resume was the only thing that she had from my application. And there were a lot of Qs directly from my resume. Some of the Qs that i remember (in the order that I recall them):

• Tell me about this “Art of Living” course. (Had mentioned on my resume, Told her about the course that I had completed and how I continue to draw benefits from the same for managing stress)
• Tell me about your current project. (Told her that currently I am in a transition phase as my team is getting changed. Then covered the new role shortly and the work that I have done in my current team in detail)
• About the new role: do you know any of the guys beforehand? (No, though I have now attended a few meetings with them) 
• Business School is a lot like this, you get to meet a lot of people and you need to start off as soon as you join. How do you react to such situation?  (Explained with an example of my first project in the current job. She complimented me for quoting an appropriate example to stress my point.)
• Why did you leave your job in company X? ( Told her about the learnings and some good things from my company X experience, then told her that the work had become a bit repetitive and I was looking for more challenges)
• Tell me how you went about getting a job in company Y. (Told her that company Y is one of the most selective in industry. Explained the process in detail. She sounded impressed ; told me that getting in Emory is surely not that hard. ) 
• Why MBA? Why now? (No “Why Emory” explicitly)
• What do you look in a school when you consider apping to it? (Here goes “Why Emory” indirectly)
• Leadership experience. ( Told in details about my extra-curricular pursuits)
• What would you contribute to Goizueta community? Which clubs would interest you?
• Tell me about  time when you went an extra mile. (Told a work-related story)
• What do you know about Atlanta? (Told her that I am a quiz-guy and no business Quiz is complete without a Q on COca-Cola. (She loved that!!) Told her what I know about Coca-cola, Sun-Trust Bank and Olympics. Also quoted the comment from one of the students when she was asked what she loved most about Atlanta. (Location! Location!! Location!!)
• After this, she went on to describe Atlanta’s location in detail and some advantages of being in such a location. (This sounded positive. )
• One word that your (a ) Boss (b) colleagues (c) extra-curricular group members (d) family and friends would use to describe you. (Gave some adjectives; was not asked to substantiate any of this)/* There were some more Qs, which I don’t remember now.  Will add if and when I recall)

She stopped here and ask me  if i have any Qs. I asked about GALA. She explained in detail and them mentioned that getting into GALA is not that easy, but surely that is not as hard as me getting into company Y. (WOw!! She remembered what we had discussed right at the start..  This sounded good. ) Then, I asked about the possibility of getting a no-cosigner loan. She mentioned that this option is no longer available to intebnational students, but advised me to look for innovative ways like getting multiple cosigners. ( I just hope that this Q does not make her believe that I dont have the money)

Overall, the interview was a very good experience. There were lots of “great!!”, “Your teammates must love you for that.”, “That’s no small achievement” kind of comments. I am very much hopeful on this. I do hope that I’ll make it. Keeping my fingers crossed!!

So what next?? Ihave decided that I am not going to apply anywhere else this year. I would rather concentrate on the interviews of the remaining schools. Here’s a quick wind up of the four threads that are still active:

• Tuck: They have written back after waitlisting me and an interview is coming up in first week of Feb. I am also getting an additional reco from professional front. There have been some positive updates for me professionally. (No promotion yet, but some increase in responsibilities) Hope my recommender covers these well.
  But one thing that worries me is the money-factor. Even if Tuck takes me in, I doubt the availability of fin-aid for a candidate that they had earlier decided to waitlist.
• Emory: The interview is coming up in a week from now. I do feel that I have a good chance here.
• ISB: Interview done. The results would be coming on Feb 10. The wait is already killing me. Not sure how I am going to survive waiting for three more weeks.
• Darden: This has been pretty weird. I have dug extensively on BW forums, Pagalguy and admissions411. No Indian applicant has reported an invite yet. The official interview dates were upto Jan 9 only and although Darden says that they can decide to interview a candidate any time b4the decision date, I have almost lost all my hopes. But I find it improbable that they have already sent out invites to Indians, but none of those in active on  any forums. Somehow I get a feeling that if they don’t call me for the interview b4 the decision date, another WL is coming my way on Jan30. ( Naah, I don’t believe that they’ll ding me w/o an interview.)

So as you can see, it is not all rosy. But still,as shahrukh says in OSO, “Picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost.” (“The movie is not yet over, my friend”) I am hopeful that the movie will end on a happy note in next few weeks.

PS: Some of u may have guessed this already; The title of the post (“i think i’ll stop here”)  is a quote from a current favourite book: Fermat’s last theorem. It’s an amazing book, do read it.

Even today, the application won’t be considered complete. My recommenders have got the links earlier today and in all probabilities would be submitting within next 12 hours. And then, Goizueta Application office will compile the transcripts that I sent in mid-November and the GMAT score that I had sent on my G-day (June 2007) . And only then, the app would be ready for review.  It seems that it’ll take at least 2-3 days more.. 

Some confusion was there about the submission deadlne time. Had got a mail from the adcom stating that The deadline for submitting your online application is 11:59:59 of Dec 1, 2008 (IST)

AFAIK, if you do not state AM/PM, the time should be taken to be in 24 hours format, which would make the submission deadline as 11:59 AM. Now, instead of confirming from the adcom, I decided to slog it out and meet the noon-deadline. So finally, I submitted my application at about 11:15 in the morning today. Called my recommender for the 5th/6th time since Saturday to remind him about it. And he submitted his recommendation in time too. After that the first thing I did was to check Pagalguy and there some R1 admit had confirmed that it’s actually 11:59 PM.

In any case, I am happy that I did it well in time. The essays have come out very well finally: surely my best set of essays so far. Though I am not sure whether they gave me chance to present my complete picture, but I am sure I did a very good job. If nothing goes wrong terribly, I am confident of getting an interview call.

In other updates, Emory interviews have been suspended in wake of Mumbai events. And I am having my first B-school interview tomorrow. Fuqua had offered me a telephonic interview with an alum, but fortunately, the alum expressed interest in meeting me personally! The interview is scheduled at 6 in the evening tomorrow. I am nervous and excited, confident and scared all at the same time.

Now, this call is surely not unexpected.. When they’re shortlisting on basis of GMAT score and resume, I was almost sure that I’d make the cut. But still an interview call is an interview call and a special one, if it’s the first one of ur apping season.

Feeling a bit panicky now… Need to slog it out in next 4 days.. (In parallel, am also doing ISB apps. )