Wednesday, May 23, 2007

The Final Post

The 2007 admissions did not materialize for me. My waitlisted applications at Wharton and Stern were eventually rejected. I will be reapplying next year. Thank you very much for your interest in my blog. Wish you all the best!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

WAITLISTED @ NYU Stern

The status update finally happened just about 10minutes ago.

Unlike Wharton, Stern likes you to continue the courtship into the waiting period. It wants to be pampered further, showered on with more accolades and essays. It would like to know, what in the last three months have made me better that the last 31 springs did not. That exactly is what I am going to do too. It is never over till the last bell rings.

If you know anything about handling the Waitlist at NYU, please let me know. Thank you!

Friday, February 16, 2007

A Petition to the Adcoms

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ding/index.html

Came across this link in the BW boards - a petition to the adcoms to provide feedback to all dinged candidates. It may seem that it is considerably more work for the Adcom to provide personalized ding feedbacks, I do not agree to that notion. If the application is infact read throughly multiple times, as claimed by each adcoms then adding a 5 line note by each of the reader to an online tracking system will not be too much additional work. The feedback can be part of the online application system itself. It will give a vast majority of applicants some valuable feedback to reevaluate their application. Not sure where this petition will go frm here. It has my vote.

When is no news good news?

May be when it is the last day of interview invites and you are bracing your clueless self for a DWI!

The email from NYU did not come in the morning; neither by the noon nor by the office close hour of 5PM. Since it was Feb 15th, the last day of interview invites for R1 submits I was thoroughly confused. What does this mean? Do the surprises of this admissions process ever end? So I picked up the phone and called the NYU admissions office. When I told I submitted the application by Dec 1st, she re-confirmed that I submitted a 'COMPLETE' application by Dec 1st. Then I walked her through the boring story of how misfortunate I was that my Essay 3 got lost within the Admissions office maze (of no mistake of theirs, only because of my bad luck! :-)). Did she give an all knowing chuckle then?, or was I becoming paranoidal? Then she told me in a loaded tone that if I do not hear anything back by tomorrow morning (ie. 16th morning) email, the admchair - an email now so familiar to me that I could type it with the pinky of my left hand when blind folded! I did not wait for the sun to rise; I email the respected chair right away. Promptly I received a reply back that the chair will get back to me within three business days. Wow!

What was surprsing to me was that all my mental tensions vanished right then. I did not care about the MBA admit anymore. I realized that I have done all I could do for this year, and now there is no gain to my life to continue to worry about the elusive admit. If it is to happen it should happen with all I have done so far. If it does not, then definitely this MBA race is not something which I am built for. I need it, but I do not think I can have everything that I want or need!

So, I got up shutdown the computer and went home to be with my family.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Dinged @ Columbia

There was an ominous feeling when I clicked through the links and login to reach my application status page. There, I found, a note starting with 'although' and I knew my campaign for a seat at Columbia was over. My RD application is dinged w/o interview by Columbia.

What all could be the reasons?, Too ambitious goals (some one spells it as u-n-r-e-a-l-i-s-t-i-c), age, not so stellar academics?, Well I might never know for sure. I will try to get a feedback session from Columbia.

It is sad, and I am disappointed. I hope to hear a different result from Stern this week. Then the long 6 weeks wait for March 22nd, the Wharton decision date, will be my next pit stop to know what 2007 is going to be for me.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Greater joys and the tollerable uncertainities

The greatest joy is that I became a father two weeks backs and that my wife and our son are both doing very well. The uncertainties, which does not even look worth mentionable now are that neither Columbia nor Stern cared to call me for an interview yet.

There are many reasons why I should be genuinely worried. People who submitted around the time I submitted have received their invites or decisions by now. As far as Stern is concerned there are only a few days more till the final bell - Feb 15th. For Columbia, since I submitted way before the Jan 10th deadline it is certain that the first reader of my app did not feel that I should be called for an interview. From what I heard there are couple of reads more, and if any one of those readers feels like he or she wants me to come to uptown I should get an interview call. I do not think my application is so good that Columbia is going to include me in the 20% admitted w/o an interview!

On the brighter side of things, a friend got admitted to Michigan! - Way to go girl!

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

NYPD Locates the Essay 3

From: admchair hide details
To: Ravanan date Jan 10, 2007 9:59 AM

Subject Re: Fwd: NYU Stern MBA Application Missing Items: Ravanan

mailed-by stern.nyu.edu


Dear Ravanan,

Thank you for your email and for your patience with the admissions process. We have your Essay 3 and it will be included with your application. Your status will be updated shortly. Thank you again for taking the time to follow up. We truly appreciate it and your interest in NYU Stern.

Best regards,

NYU Stern MBA Admissions

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Birthday Wishes

Today I turned 32. Four years back, when i was 28, a friend from the past (A Ph. D) made a very solid argument backed with historical evidence that, 'Life mein kuch teer marna hai to woh bateez ke pahle hoga'. Translated crisply it reads, "if you were to achieve something great in your life its going be before you turn 32". It stayed with me ever since. So, untold to anyone till now, and now told to a few dozen people in the blogosphere, I was secretly hoping that a Wharton Admit on Dec 21st will be my big deal before my 32nd B-Day.

When I look back, which is a natural thing to do on B'days I am happy. I have professional as well as personal satisfaction. I have been a good employee as well as a loved employer. I have been a caring son, loving brother, dashing boyfriend, responsible husband, loyal friend, devouted student and a taxpaying citizen. I have made a few good impressions on the societies I lived and I also believe that I have tried to help a lot of people. I hope people who like me outnumber those who dislike me by a huge number. I am thankful to thousands of people whom I met over the years and from whom I have learnt invaluable lessons of life. I am especially thankful to my teachers who instilled in me the ability to learn new ideas and skills with an open mind.

2007 is going to be an important year. The rest of my career is going to turn in a different direction one way or other. The excitement of embarking on the unknown is plastering a smile on my face all the time. Though I cannot detail that path here yet, I will be writing about my 2007 here sometime soon.