What are you made of...

Frequently while writing the essays we get overly obsessed by our work experience and academic performance and forget that we are not the sum of these two alone.. there is something more to us that make us different from all the others having a similar profile or similar experience. This is reflected in the our culture, choices we make, our approach to problems, things that keep us going. Frequently this  is overlooked.

I came across an excellent blog on this aspect of the application...

Will i be proud to call you a fellow alum

This blog talks about essays "merely putting some why's and examples to the Resume"

Something worth sharing....

So what's your style

A friend of mine,after reading my essays, said an interesting point . This friend was born and brought up in India. Six years back he went to US to pursue an MBA degree and is living in US since then.

He told that there are couple of ways to write a paragraph.

• One is Deductive Approach. Here you say a lot initially and then arrive at the end result towards the last part of the paragraph.
  
• Other is the Inductive Approach. It means you state what you want to mention in the first couple of sentences then expand them in the later part of the paragraph.

The writings and presentations in US are generally more inductive rather than deductive. We Indians typically tend to follow the deductive approach in all our writings. Mine is no exception. He told that it would help me if I am more inductive in my essays (though it is the content of the essays that will make the eventual difference).

Something worth noting ....

Its the same bitter sweet feeling....

Finally ...
The application season has started in full flow with most of the schools announcing their essays and the opening up their online application forms.

The month started with the results of Reliance Stanford Scholarship application. For most of the applicants it was a disappointment. To be fair quite a few applicants (including me) overlooked the financial-need angle and might have failed to 'demonstrate financial need' in their applications (though this may not be the only reason). As for me I sincerely hope that this is not sign of things to come. Last year I started with a bang (read admission offer from ISB and interview call from Wharton and Yale - all coming within a span of a week or two) and ended with a whimper (dings dings and more dings). Hopefully this year will be the different from the last.

I am presently working on the Columbia Applications and I am now back those dreaded essays. I started with the Columbia application because....

• It is "The Columbia Business School!!!!!!!" - an obvious choice for someone who wants to pursue a career in Investment Management.
• It has rolling admissions. i.e. earlier you apply, faster will you get to know your result. (remember my Plan B?) I want to be better prepared if thing start going the way it went last time
• I didn't apply to CBS last year. So I can start with a clean slate. This gives a bit of physiological comfort which is very essential for the first application.

Initially I had planned to complete the application by August 15th but the way things are moving I think I wont be able to submit it before Aug 21. I have consciously refrained from looking into my last years essays at least till the time I have the first draft of essays with me and I will be be devoting more time in the online application forms, something I failed to do last year.

This is all for now....

Keep reading (especially my blogs:) ....

Keeping blogging.....