Two sleeps to go ....

So the time has finally arrived. Two more sleeps before I head off to Madrid and undertake an opportunity of a lifetime !!

I have been on a bit of a sabbatical from work so I have had plenty of time to prepare for my departure. I have had a 3 month holiday, probably the longest holiday I will have for a very, very long time, sure am glad I gave myself such a long break before the MBA. I think I am going to need all the reserves of energy that I have accumulated....

The visa application process was quite tedious but thankfully all that has been sorted. For those of you looking to do your MBA in foreign countries, do remember to allocate plenty of time to the visa application procedure.

Well, my Spanish is not really where I thought it would be at this point. I am still only capable of holding some very very basic conversations. So getting around and getting things done in Madrid should be a nice challenge :). I've also heard that it is snowing in Madrid........You see in Australia one very rarely sees snow outside the ski resorts so the whole concept of snow in your backyard is a bit of novelty for me.

I think the whole experience would be tremendous and I cant wait to get stuck into the adrenalin charged, action packed, sleep deprived, eye-opening, life-changing, ego-building, ego-destroying, friendship forming & opportunity grasping MBA @ IE !!!

Adios.

Why I joined IE

A prospective MBA student asked me about IE recently, and I gave them a bit of a spiel on why I joined IE, etc. Since I have crystallized my thoughts on the matter, I might as well blog about it:

Hi XXX,

Well I am not officially part of the school as yet but I will be starting my MBA in April this year. I will be heading over to Madrid in a couple of weeks to attend the Spanish classes and pre-courses provided by the school.

In regards to the school, I think it would probably be best if I explained my reasons for choosing IE. I have a financial services technology background from Australia, and I've worked closely with a few blue chip companies. Post the MBA I am endeavoring to transition into Management Consulting, hopefully at a top 4 firm.

I decided to choose Europe for an MBA because I thought the perspective provided by the American schools was quite inwardly focused and the European MBAs provided more of a global experience. Also, I thought the return on investment was much better, as the cost, monetary and opportunity cost, was much lower.

In terms of consulting schools in Europe, I thought the best schools to consider were LBS, INSEAD and IE. I thought my 4 years experience was a bit short for IMD so I didnt apply there. I applied in a pretty tough application cycle (09) and I got waitlisted at LBS and INSEAD so I chose IE. I did consider HEC Paris but I decided against it because I thought the school was too French and did not quite have the diversity and the international flavour of IE. I also thought about Oxford / Cambridge but they are better known for fields outside of business, so I didnt apply there either.

In regards to job prospects, the Spanish economy is in a pretty poor state. However, I think the rest of Europe will be on a pretty steady road to recovery this year. I also believe that my best shot at a consulting career is in London, so it is likely I will be there after my MBA. IE has a very strong record of placing students in top consulting firms. When comparing with European schools IE is probably only second to INSEAD in this department.

Of course IE is also very strong in the Entrepreneurial and Corporate Social Responsibility fields.

Anyway, I hope my spiel above was helpful. I would be glad to help by recalling my experience in the INSEAD/LBS/IE interviews.

All the best with your MBA search.

Meeting my classmates online

Ok - so I have been procrastinating this whole blogging business for quite a while now. I thought it was time to get back into it.

I am about 4 weeks away from traveling to Madrid and starting my MBA. I have started talking to a few of my future classmates through Facebook and it has been great. Im looking forward to meeting this amazing group of people shortly.

I am currently reading a book called "Ahead of the curve - two years at Harvard Business School". Its written by an ex-journalist who is describing his time at Harvard. The professional backgrounds of the people I have met so far seem quite similar to the MBA class at Harvard. Probably the biggest difference being that there are less Investment Bankers at IE and a few more people with a general management background. Of course the class at IE is much more diverse than the class at HBS. The book is a great read, I would recommend it to anyone who is considering an MBA or is about to start an MBA - its very insightful.

Alright then, I'll sign off for now - back to the Spanish lessons.

Adios.

The GMAT Beast

Well it has been a little while since I sat the GMAT so this blog entry might require clearing of some cobwebs....

To be honest when I sat for the GMAT I wanted the score to be a true representation of my ability. I knew that diligent preparation for the exam was quite critical to my B-School chances, but while preparing for the test I was mainly looking at regional schools.

As I live in Sydney, this automatically meant some Australian schools such as AGSM and Melbourne Business School and some Singaporean schools such as Nanyang Business School and NUS Business School.

However, I managed to score a 710 in the exam and that got me thinking about other bigger opportunities...I also got fantastic encouragement from my dad who urged me to aim for the absolute top.

I still ended up applying for Nanyang and NUS and I managed to get in, but I knocked them back in pursuit of some of the best schools.

For the GMAT prep, I went through Kaplan's GMAT800 and completed dozens of CATs from GMAC, McGraw-Hill and 800score.com. I thought the 800score.com application was pretty good and the CATs were a great place to formulate a test strategy...but I thought it might have been just slightly easier than the actual test. Not by much though.

As most people say, I thought the CATs sent by GMAC were probably the most accurate predictors of my score.

I ended up with pretty poor scores in the first couple of tests that I did (below 650), but my scores improved steadily over the last 2 months of practice. I remember though, I sat for a Manhattan GMAT sample test about 2 weeks out from the actual test. At this point I was averaging about 700, but in the Manhattan GMAT test I somehow scored a 560!!

I was completely freaked out..not really sure what happened, perhaps they make the sample test extra difficult so students get encouraged to join the classes.

Anyway on the actual test day, I think the best strategy is to focus 10,000% and dont let anything ANYTHING distract you from focusing on the test. Its quite draining considering it takes about 4.5 hours for the whole test......

The GMAT computerised test scales your score as you go, you start off with a medium level question and the questions get harder if you start getting them right. Obviously your score improves too. This means the first 5-10 questions of each section are far far far more important that the last 5-10 questions.

I remember messing up the first question in the quant section, I managed to recover but ended up with a 45 for quant. (42 for verbal), total score of 710.

Anyway so much for the GMAT, it was an experience to remember. Its quite a unique exam and I think its a good scale of one's ability to handle pressure as much as anything else.

Caio....

Introduction

After having spent numerous hours over the last year indulged in MBA blogs I thought it was finally time for me to setup my own blog and contribute back to the online GMAT/MBA community.

In April 2010 I will be embarking on the International MBA at IE Business School in Madrid, Spain. IE Business School is one of the premier business schools in Europe and in the world and I am extremely excited about the upcoming 18 months.

I have managed to resist the temptation of blogging up until now. My fear of jinxing my chances has been the primary factor that has held me back, but with my admissions out of the way, I am raring to go.

For those that are interested, in the next few blogs I will be talking about my experience battling the GMAT beast, going through the roller coaster of the admissions cycle, and my career aims and ambitions post the MBA.

After that I intend to blog about a planned trekking expedition to Nepal, and then finally my experience in Spain as I go through the MBA.

Hopefully it will all make for some good reading.

Adios !