Summer Internship at Google

Started my summer internship at Google last week. Between the awesome gourmet food, scooters zipping around campus and great weather, I have managed to find some time to set my goals for the summer. I am working in the Biz Intelligence division on the OSO team.

Really excited about the next months and will post my adventures in GooglePlex. :)

Wharton Pre-Term - I'm lovin' it

Well, it's been a long time since I posted. Here's what has happened so far. Quit my job with Microsoft on June 1st. Did some non-profit work for a couple of months. Arrived in Philly at the end of July. 2 weeks into pre-term at Wharton.

The last two weeks have been a LOT of fun. To use the cliche, experiencing Wharton is like drinking water from a fire-hose. Between the academics, parties, team building activities, self-assessment sessions, lecture series and (did I say) parties there is sooo much going on!!

People seem really accomplished and down to earth. This was the primary reason I chose Wharton and I am glad to find genuine, humble and focussed friends.

I hope to be able to blog more often. But sometimes it is difficult to find the time. To sum up my W experience so far "I'm lovin' it".

Wharton Welcome WeekEnd

I was in Philly from April 6th to April 9th, as a part of the Wharton Welcome WeekEnd for the class of 2008. How was it ? Incredible !!

The activity-packed 4 day schedule was designed to give admits a flavor of Wharton life. So, in 4 days we attended a mock class, did a teamwork exercise, crawled the pubs in the area, went to a party every night, talked with alums, faculty, students and partners and saw Thomas Caleel wearing a tutu at Wharton Live !!

Waking up at 7:00 am and staying upto 3:00 am every night was a shock to my system.

In the team-building exercise, teams of 6 admits were asked to build a bridge of newspaper and tape. The bridge that balanced the most # of water bottles would win. Working with 5 strangers in a time-bound competitive environment was a revealing experience. Between the chaos, disagreements, "ahas" and panic we managed to build a winning bridge. But more importantly a winning team.

At the end of day, Wharton Welcome Weekend (WWW) convinced me that Wharton was the right school for me. I have paid my deposit and ready to matriculate in the fall.

Why Wharton is da bomb !

The last in my series of B-school application experiences is Wharton. The place where I will be in Aug 2008. Exciting !! Let me try and explain what makes Wharton so special to me and why is it the school of my choice ?

Admissions process: The Wharton admissions process was beyond doubt the most helpful, courteous and transparent of all the admission processes. The essays topics were not "tricky" or "fancy"; they were straight-forward questions aimed at helping applicants make the strongest case for their candidatures. One of my recommenders made an error while submitted the recommendation. Just one email to the Wharton S2S board was enough to get students to help me out and point me to the right contact in the Admissions office. Moreover, 10 minutes after I sent a mail to admissions my issue was solved :).

Interview: I mistakenly had set my cell-phone on "vibrate", instead of "off" during my interview. My nervous gf in Seattle, called me twice during the course of my interview. In other schools this mistake would have been deadly, however the 2nd year student was really friendly and also talked about how his family and friends were nervous as he waded through the interview process a year earlier. The questions were relatively straight-forward and he seemed genuinely interested in my answers.

School Visit: Both my visits to Wharton have been awesome. I met some really accomplished yet humble people. The culture that pervades the school blends a sense of strong camaraderie and a commitment to individual excellence. It was refreshing to see both see dimensions neatly balanced in the Wharton equation.

Results: Well, I couldn't sleep the night before the Wharton results. So, we went out and drank a lot. The alcohol helped me sleep and get up 4 hours after the results had been posted. I woke up to find 1 mail in my junk folder, that told me I was in. !!!

Getting into MIT-Sloan

Sloan is different: the campus visit, the essay questions and the interview reinforced this message.

Campus Visit: The first thing that struck me about the Sloan campus was how fragmented it was. The buildings were scattered and it did seem to team that students expend some energy compensating for the lack of cohesiveness of the campus.
The marketing class I attended focussed on Segmentation. Incidentally, the same topic was discussed during my visit to Kellogg. The difference in the approach was evident. MIT-Sloan was heavily quant focussed while the Kellogg professor talked about segmentation using an anecdotal real-life example approach. As the professor got into Eigen Values and Eigen vectors, I couldn't help but recollect my undergrad Computer Science days.
I got cold-called to make a 3-4 minute speech, in the Advanced Negotiations class. It was kinda fun standing in front of the brilliant MIT student community and make my little faltering speech. The students were very supportive and I was pleasantly surprised. I was realized that Sloan would push me and help me grow.
Overall, it was clear that the facilities are cramped and don't compare with some of the other top schools. However, I can see why Sloanies would absolutely love their school.

Essay Preparation: My girl-friend tells me I am emotionally-challenged when it comes to expressing my feelings. No wonder, the "tell me how you feel" part of the MIT-Sloan essays were the hardest part of the questions to me. I tried hard to open up and made sure I express my feelings the best way I could. In the end my essays painted a picture of a very real person; someone who has met with success and failure, and is willing to talk about both in a direct manner.

Interview: I was a little nervous for my 8:00 am Sloan interview in Seattle because I had flown in from Austin the day before and gone to bed at 2:00 am. Moreover, my gf had not picked up my suit from the dry-cleaners so I had no idea how I would survive the dreaded behavioral interview.
Anyway, the cleaners opened at 7:00, we were there at 6:45. I changed in the dry-cleaners store and headed to my interview. Incidentally, my interviewer was a little late, which gave me a little time to catch my breath. :)
She started off my telling me that the person who read my file had told her that mine was an extremely strong application. Well, that kinda boosted my confidence. We did only 3 questions: Tell me of a difficult time you faced, Tell me a little about the non-profit work you do & do you have any questions for me. I think I did really well in the interview and by the end of it I could tell she was selling the school to me.
On the day of the results, my interviewer left a voice mail on my phone, telling me I had gotten in. :)

My Chicago GSB Experience

Chicago was very high in my list before I started my research on b-schools. The intellectual rigor and the list of nobel laureates impressed me. Today, it is no longer my top-choice.

School Visit: The Chicago GSB was the first campus I visited. I am not a connosieur of architecture but even I realized that the Hyde Park campus was special. The Winter garden and the accessibility to students, teachers, classrooms and other facilities were neat.
I attended Professor Waverely Deutsch's "Small Business Entrepreneurship" class. Students were making presentations about business plans and the professor acted as the VC giving critical feedback. One of the three business plans seemed like a viable business strategy to me. Then they did a case-study of "Cranium": a board game invented by some Microsoft developers. It was a very informative discussion but I was a little surprised by the anti-microsoft undercurrent that seemed to pervade the discussion. At the end of the class, the Microsoft employee in me, couldn't help but voice my opinion about the misplaced anti-Microsoft sentiment.
I did get a sense that students were very focussed on getting that "finance" job after school. The emphasis seemed to be less on the b-school experience and more on finding a great job.

Application: I used my Wharton essay 1 as a starting point for the GSB essay. Since the school really focuses on "Why Chicago" I decided to invest the 500 extra words that I had to make this point. The "One day in the life of someone else" was probably the essay I enjoyed writing the most.

Interview: This was a real shocker to me.
I interviewed on campus so that I could meet with some of the students working in the non-profit clubs before the interivew. Unfortunately, because of scheduling problems and horrible SPRINT reception in the campus, I couldn't do so. (I have switched to Verizon :))
The person who interviewed me seemed a little .... ummm ..... mean. I got the impression that he was not interested in my answers. He interrrupted me several times and would snub me every 2-3 minutes. It seemed like he did not believe my answers and didn't give me a chance to clarify. 20 minutes into the interview, I was like .."what the @##$ is going on". Shouldn't I be doing 80% of the talking !! Having conducted over 100 interviews myself, I thought it was insulting and disrespectful.
Anyway, I made sure I made my points about "why I liked Chicago" and "why I think my career plans make sense" before leaving the room. I was happy that I managed to make my point clearly without getting mad or becoming incoherent. Before leaving the school, I informed one of the Admissions Committe members of my "surprising" interview experience.

I am still not sure how I got into Chicago given my horrid interview. Maybe the interview was an aberration. Maybe not all students are like my interviewer. But at this point in time, I do not see myself accepting the GSB offer.

My Kellogg Experience

Being lucky enough to have been accepted at Wharton, Kellogg, Chicago and MIT-Sloan, I thought I would share some of my experiences for the benefit of future applicants. Let's start with Kellogg ...

School Atmosphere - During my 2 visits to Kellogg, the two things that really struck me about Kellogg were the extent of social mingling in the beautiful campus and the friendliness of the current students. It was clear that the students valued the social experience of b-school highly. Additionally, current students were super helpful to prospective students. One of the students actually cancelled a meeting with a professor to answer the questions the prospectives had.

Classes - I attended Professor Sawhney's Technology Marketing class and Professor Steve Rogers' Entrepreneurship class. Technology and entrepreneurship are the areas I like, but by any metric these guys were awesome. Professor Sawhney was witty, informative and extremely sharp; covering content and answering questions with amazing clarity. Professor Rogers was brutally good. He cold called a number of students and pushed the students to further their own understanding. I ended up buying "Ben and Jerry's: The Inside Scoop" on his suggestion. Awesome read, specially since I am interested in social entrpreneurship.

Application Package - My primary focus in Kellogg's application package was balance. I tried hard to make sure that the reader finishes the essays with the image of a multi-dimensional and likeable person. I sprinkled information about my varied interests throughout the essays. The "evaluate the candidate as a member of the AdCom" is the trickiest Kellogg essay. I think they have put it in there to see if candidates can talk about their achievements in an objective and more importantly humble manner.

Interview - Since the Kellogg interview is blind and not a "make-or-break" part of the application my plan was to be consistent and conservative. Consistent with my essays so that the interviewer and essay-review are not in conflict about my candidacy. Conservative in the sense that the difference between an above-average and stellar interview is not much as far as an admission decision was concerned. So, I played it safe aiming for an above-average interview. I planned on being witty and funny ONLY IF I got a very positive vibe from the interviewer.
I interviewed with an Admissions Committee member in Evanston. Mostly standard questions straight out of Essay 1 and Essay 2. The more interesting questions revolved around the distinction between leadership and management. At the end of the interview we talked about my dog towards the end, as a response to what do you do in your spare time. Overall, it was a relaxed predictable interview.

On the last day of the Kellogg results I got a call from Adcom telling me that I was in !! :)