HBS interview (And Stanford)

HBS interview went well. Everyone was very friendly (staff, interviewer, fellow invites, students). I can't really give any non-redundant advice except that even though they've read your essays, they still may ask you Why MBA, Why HBS, etc. As for the rest of the quetions I was prepared for all of them. There are great lists of Accepted.com and on B/W forum.

Got the Stanford invite with some real big banking hot-shot. Hopefully he doesn't bat me around like a little rabbit. We'll see

Good and Bad

Well the good/bad news is a single piece of news. I got an interview invite at Harvard today. So now I have to do my interview prep again, psych myself up again, and nail another interview.

If I get into Harvard then I don't have to make the tough decision between Wharton and Sloan. If I don't get into Harvard, then I'll feel regret for the rest of my life for potentially screwing up the interview. I think that a Harvard invite means a 2/3 chance of getting an acceptance over the "usual" 50/50 of other schools.

I'm not even sure how much more my life will be different if I go to HBS. HBS is great. I will learn, grow and meet amazing people. I know getting into Wharton and Sloan is great, and that lots of people would like to be in my place, but somewhere deep down I'll feel bad if I don't make it into HBS.


ps-- Stanford, you're my dark horse. You with your crazy, wtf, "What matters to me and why essay". Maybe I f-ed it up, maybe that's why you haven't written yet. Or maybe you're busy getting my essay framed?

Sloan loves me

I got a call and email from Sloan. I think I am really blesse to have gotten into 3 great schools (Sloan, Wharton and Haas). It makes me want Harvard and Stanford even more now, but the other 3 schools are great and I shouldn't be greedy. Good luck to everyone out there.

In At Hass!!

Got the call from Haas a little bit ago. MIT is Monday 5pm. Luck be a lady!

Berkeley done; waiting for Sloan

So I took care of my Berkeley interview. It went well. I didnt' realize that if you are going to do an alumni interview they are never going to have anything but your resume. I have to say that it was a great relief and easier than Sloan with its super-probing questions.

I think this is the Super Saturday weekend at Berkeley and I think the decisions are coming out soon. As in, perhaps Monday. Haas has had the worst flow of information of any school. It isn't bad, just different.

Sloan is coming out with all R1 offers on the 30th, which is over a week away. I am quite worried. I think my interview went well, but one never knows.

How I studied for the Verbal section

RC (reading comprehension):

There really isn't too much technique to these. I think around 75% of the passages are fairly easy nad aren't too long or too technical. The other 25% are a b*tch! They are long, have tons of technical terms, and are generally fairly hard to get a handle on. What I did to beat these was too basically take notes. When you start reading one of these you'll know it from the start. When they start dropping tons of names, or when they start mentioning flaggella, etc, you've got one. Just take some notes for each paragraph and you'll get through these.

CR (criticial reasoning):

These aren't too bad or have too much technique to them either. Sometimes on the really hard ones I needed to draw diagrams. I learned some interesting tips from www.gmatrescue.com and from the Kaplan 800 book. But is basically came down to drawing out their reasoning in a diagram. Also, the hard ones on the tests were harder than anything I've seen in any of the practice materials. I think it is really hard to write a good one of these questions.

SC (sentence correction):

I just couldn't get better at this section. I think I would get only 50% of them correct. My suggetion is to read books, lots of them. This gets you into the groove of understanding what propper sentences should look like. There are, of course, tons of grammer rules you can remember. I did manage to memorize some of these, mainly the more technical ones, like many/much, etc.

AWA

You know the drill. Just write a lot. And I did. The argument one is a joke. And issue one, you just have to BS it a little but, but that poor english grad student grading can tell if it is really bad BS.. thought the computer program can't tell the difference.

The test day

Well I had my test scheduled for 1pm which is a good time, not too early, not too late. I got to the testing center in Chicago and there were many people waiting to take various tests. I was unfortunately informed that the ear-plugs that I have been practicing with for the last month were not allowed. I heard some information that they would be, but instead I was issued this CHEAP CHEAP unforfortable plastic ear-muffs. They did a POOR job of blocking out sound.

So I was called to take the test, they take your picture, etc, and I sat down. It was quite noisy in teh room, sweeky chairs, people going in and out, etc.

The Essays:

Let's start out with the result first. I got a 5.5.

I busted through each essay in 20 mintues. I was super-hyped up, and I wrote a ton. That's what all the books/guides tell you, just write a ton. Well I wrote a ton, and I thought I did a good job, but I still got .5 off. Well still not bad.

The Math:

Result: 95%

This part was HARDER than all the practice tests, besides Kapalan. Using the OG hard questions, www.gmatrescue.com , and the Kaplan 800 questions. You need to know things stone-cold for this. There were really tough probability questions which gmatrescue.com really helped me with. Going over and over the hard DS questions in the OG really helped me. You just have to find your own groove in doing these questions.

The Verbal:

Result 95%

I didn't need much help in the RC or Criticial Reasoning, but my SC was horrible. I think they only thing that helped this was reading many books, many months before the tests. I have heard of many people studying grammer to help out SC, but I knew I was "ok" with the rest of the test, so I just concentrated on the math. Also I figured out my own groove for doing the hardest CR questions.


Here's a funny/weird blog:
http://killthegmat.blogspot.com/