I attended a B-school fair last year. There one of the adcoms (from Vanderbilt or HEC, Paris i remember) gave this simple magic formula. I’ve started using it; so thought of sharing it with my blogosphere friends.

When you’ve completed the essay, give it to somebody who knows you well: a friend, a colleague, your wife or anybody you deem fit for this. You may be wondering, what’s new here.. The new part comes here:: Give them only the essay, not the question.  And then, ask them  to guess the question.
If they guess the question correctly or are even close,Bingo!! you’ve been writing the  essays well. At least you’re answering the questions!!!!
But in case they guess “What did you learn from a failiure?” or ”Tell us about a challenging time in your life” when the question is “Tell us about a constructive Criticism that you’ve received”, may be the forced-fitting hasn’t come out well.  The theme and the story may remain same, but perhaps you need to concentrate less on the challenge faced and more on the post failiure/challenge feedback,

Hope that helps!!

I had started my journey with just ISB,Hyderabad as my only aim.. Gradually I opened up to NUS. Next in were middle-tier US-schools, which were a bit affordable in terms of living expenses and chances of scholarship.. But as I delved deeper into the B-school research, I almost fell in love with the MBA programs that top US universities offer.. And to make my dreams true, I got to know that all top universities offer you a loan without any co-cosigner !!
“Check your pocket and the loan conditions before you apply”, advised the gurus.. But from my latest experiences, I’d refine that to  ”Check your pocket and the loan conditions even before you start researching a program.” In case, you’e very sure that you can’t get somebody to co-sign your loan, this is the first thing that you should look for, else it can be quite annoying if you get to know about it after you’ve decided that it’s a school that you’d love to atend.

Tepper gave me my first heart-break in this regard.. Last year, when I was still contemplating about apping for Fall’08, I had set my eyes on Tepper.. I loved their General Mgmt program and vistas that are open for you in the tech-industry once you graduate from there.. I had even sent them my GMAT score..(though that was mostly w/o research, just went by the CMU brand name at that time). Later got to know that Tepper strictly needs a cosigner or a credit history in US before provide loans to international students. Talked to a current student and she confirmed the same.. Had done some of my research by then and it really pinched to drop it off my list.. 

A similar thing occured with Haas last week.. Before I started researching on Haas, I had made sure that the school does provide loans to international students w/o a cosigner .. What I missed out was that the maximum amount one can borrow is limited to the cost of tuition minus any scholarships that you get, which means even if i manage to get in with a decent schol, I’d need to bear the cost of living. And for Haas, that comes to be in order of  a whopping INR 17 Lakhs for 2 years!!
So had to drop Haas too!! 

After this, I decided to follow the mantra listed above.. Instead of delving into details of specialization, available career choices, city, class-size, chanes of getting in etc, I started exploring the availability of no-cosigner loans at all the colleges that I had still not struck off my list.. Of course, I’d be applying the other filters later, but no use exploring a school which you can’t afford.. RIght??

 The funda here is simple:: Any school that needs a cosigner for any loan is surely a no-go for me. Any school that offers a no cosigner-loan upto cost of attendance remains on my list. (to be checked for rest of the details). And what about schools offering a no-cosigner loan upto costs of tuition?? Well, these are something I need to check.. Will depend on the city and the expenses involved and whether I can afford the same..

So here goes a first level round up of whatever I discovered over last 48 hours:

• No cosigner loan upto full cost of attendance::Stanford,Ross,Tuck,Duke,Emory,Yale.
• No cosigner loan upto full cost of tuition::Haas, Kenan-Flagler,Kelley.
• Need a cosigner :: Tepper, UCLA Anderson, Mccombs, Fisher, Marshal.

I know a number of names are missing from this list.. Those are either the schools that I had already dropped off my list for some other reasons or the ones that I’ve not started researching yet or those for which I cud locate a clear statement on the issue on their site.

Hope this list is useful to others too..  Just adding the customary disclaimer:: Though I’ve taken care to cross-check things from my personal record-sheet before posting it here, still I’d advise everyone to do his/her own research before taking a decision.. (Also do let me know if you locate any discrepancy in the data above.)

BTW, I do feel that this was just the right time i discovered this. I was in process of pruning the list of my target schools and as you can see above the first level pruning is done for me by just applying the no-cosigner filter.
So coming up next:: the list of the schools I”d be apping to. (Have already delayed it by 3 weeks. )

Now this was one of the best things regarding overseas MBA that I had heard in recent times. Over the last few months, I’ve been used to listen to horror stories of upcoming recession, Visa problems, Striggle with internships and more things like that.. This was making life a bit tough for me as after having delved so deep into US B-school research, I desperately want to have that experience first-hand. But at the same time, it’s not easy to ignore the mentioned factors, particularly for a middle-class Indian.

But this news was a new ray of hope for me.  Considering that my long-tems goals are in India and I only intend to  just for 2.5-3 years in the States mostly due to 2 reasons: to have some quality work-experience that’ll make me a strong candidate for recruitment when I return to India and to pay off my loans. (Yup, this time may not be enough for paying off the loans completely, but still at the end of this duration, I expect the remainder would be easily payable in the INR salary  as well.) 29 months was just the right period for me as per my plans.  That would mean no problems even if there’re Visa-problems later on..
I hurriedly finished off the meal and rushed back to check the details of the story. And this was the time for the heart-break. The extension is only for science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) students. Read more here: http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1207334008610.shtm Somebody at Pagalguy interpreted it to be applicable to MBA students as well. He dug out a list at Stren where “Budiness administration” falls under the list of ” Engineering Technologies” (How?? )  But I was not convinced. And a Google search made sure that MBA students are not covered under this extension.  (See the “eligible STEM degrees” questions here. )

So what next?? I hope B-schools will push this matter further  and get the extension extended to MBA students. Meanwhile I’ll continue working on my finances and see how things turn up. Anyone having any update on the issue, please let me know by dropping a comment here.

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..