Thursday, September 27, 2007

Essays, essays. essays...

A long time status update has been due from my side and as the title of this post says, my life these days has just been essays :)
I sincerely started writing essays some 12 days back and since then i haven't had time to think of anything else..anytime i get free, i am thinking about my essays :)

I started with Ross essays and i am about the complete their last essay. I have already mailed some of those essays to my reviewers.
The most important career goals essay took much less time for me as compared to other essays. In fact i had everything in mind before i wrote this essay and just had to pen my thoughts. So that didn't take much time. Though i will know how well i wrote it when it comes to me after reviews :)

But lots of stuff is left to be done, other than the essays
- I still haven't made my resume
- I have sent my documents for getting my transcripts.
- I have talked to one of my recommenders and explained her in detail about the whole process. - I am yet to finalize my second recommender, though i have 2 people in mind
- I haven't started essays for any other school, though i have researched about my R1 schools in detail now.

I hope to progress more in coming week, in fact i have to start running now to meet those R1 deadlines....hope i am able to get things done on time..

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Apps process started - Second step towards the goal

This week i started with the app process - the second step towards my goal after GMAT.......I hope i complete it in time and with full satisfaction...

But in just 1 week i have realized that this second step is gonna be harder than the first one :) ....

Okk i will start with the schools i have shortlisted:-


1) Chicago
2) Stern
3) Ross
4) Darden
5) Wharton


Also there are some more schools :) :-


1) Stanford
2) Duke
3) Haas
4) UCLA Anderson
5) Kellogg
6) Tuck
7) Emory



So that's make a total of 12 schools and you people can see all the confusions i am into right now :)
Also i cannot apply to more than 2-3 schools in the R-1 deadline because i am already very late for the whole process, the rest of the schools i will have to push to R-2, which will reduce my chance of me getting in due to my IT-male profile :)
I am yet to spend some serious time on putting in thoughts for my essays, but will probably start that tomorrow. I am really stuck on even how to start writing right now.....perhaps, starting to write the essays is the most difficult part of the apps. I hope i make a good start....

D-Day - GMAT Experience

I took my GMAT appointment at 8 AM and i never gave a single test at that time. Many people said that give at least one test at 8 but i didn't listen. I believe, Its all in the mind I gave all my mock tests between 10-2PM. Actually i had to go to library to give the tests.Also before the exam i only slept for 5 hrs. Somehow didn't get sleep till late Anyways, i reached my centre at 715 AM and waited will 730 to enter the center. Those 15 minutes i used for self motivation Entered the exam room at 750AM after completing all the formalities.

Selected the schools and then started with AWA. I had the format to write the essays, wrote the essays in that format and was able to put in good ideas in them. All in all was very satisfied with my performance here, given that i had put only 2 days of prep for this section. Took a 10 minute break in which i had 1 Red bull. Again motivated myself for the real test now.
Then started with Quant. Initially Quant questions were easy and i was rechecking all the answers till Q10, but after Q10 difficulty level started increasing and questions were taking lot of time. I had to speed up after Q 17 and didn't recheck any of my answers after that. I got some 2-3 probability questions in between which i was able to answer. Overall the difficulty level was same as that of GMATPrep. For the last question i had 2 minutes and i started it leisurely. It involved some large calculations and finally when i came with answer, it didn't match any of the choices, and only 15 seconds were left. I had to guess this one. I knew that i will not be able to hit 51 in Quant. Anyways, my aim was only 50, not 51. I knew with 50 in Maths i can still do well. So i was satisfied.
Now took another 10 minutes break. I took another red bull . Looked into the mirror, said to me that here starts the most imp 75 minutes test. It all depends on these 75 minutes whether i will make it or not, so just motivated myself to have confidence and give my best shot.

Started verbal with 2 SC's, average difficulty level. Then came an easy CR.Got my first RC at Q3 which i marked comfortably and i was confident of my accuracy till now. Then came a series of SC's and CR's. SC's were getting difficult. At Q 10 gt my second RC of 4 questions. It was a large RC but i handled it well. After this there were 3-4 SC's in line, some of which were difficult and took time. Then at Q24 got my third RC which was small but a difficult one. At Q33, git my last 4th RC, average length and avg difficulty. After Q31 it was getting difficulty for me to concentrate because the feeling of result kept coming in my mind. Tried hard and was able to concentrate for some more moments, but i had increased by speed now to complete the test ASAP. Also after 15 th question my speed reduced due to difficulty, so i had to increase my speed after 28th question to bring it back to 2 minutes per question. This is imp because last questions are imp and you should have time for them. Finally i had 12 minutes for last 5 questions. took my time for these question. Also now i was worried since i didn't get any bold face CR till now. So again i felt difficult to concentrate. Finally Q40 was a bold faced huge CR which was very difficult and i took 3.5 minutes to mark it. Then for last question i had 2.5 minutes still left. Marked it in 1/2 minute and clicked on next with 2 minutes still to go.

Now, i could hear the beat of my heart and was feeling very tense. The bad thing is you have to fill an 8 page survey after the verbal section and i was getting very tense while filling it .Finally i got the screen to accept / reject scores. And clicked on report scores. The page hanged to calculate my score and for me the whole world hanged in those 5 seconds. I knew had done well but still i was very nervous. I knew i couldn't have scored below 740 and somehow thought that my score should be 760.

I Closed my eyes and prayed. When i opened my eyes, i saw 770 ( 50, 45) - was shocked for 2 minutes. I couldn't utter a word just kept looking at the screen. Months of hard work just splashed in front of my eyes. Thanked God, looked out of the window to check if everything is real and called the test admin. She asked me to click next. Didn't want to get past that screen but clicked on End test.Took print out of the score, switched on my phone and already my friends were calling me :)

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

GMAT Official score report arrives - they like my writing skills

Finally i got my Official Score Report yesterday and they seem to like my writing skills :)

I managed to score 5.5 in AWA. Though i know that it just translates to 83% but personally for me, its more than enough. I hardly prepared for this section in last 2-3 days only and only practiced 1-2 essays. Also i don't think that my writing skills are that great, so i felt good on seeing 5.5

Now at least, everything which could be done from GMAT side for my apps has been done, now starts the actual game of apps when i start writing the essays.

Will keep you all updated. Also coming soon, my prep schedule and my D-Day experience.