Showing posts with label mba applicant. Show all posts

Uncertainty creates huge amounts of work. All parties involved spend time and energy to gain mutual trust and clarity. Yet it can be allusive, because none of the parties involved want to end up with a bad deal. I have found this particularly true for me in my accommodation hunt

I was not lucky in the McManus (Kellogg halls of residence) lottery. In fact, I don't know anyone who has been lucky. So consequently, I've spent some time weighing up options - trying to reach certainty in what I wanted to do. What's most important to me? Proximity to campus? Proximity to the bars? Amenities, such as an onsite gym? Style of apartment? Whether I'd share with a another person? In the end I've probably ended up with what could be considered the safest possible option: an apartment in Park Evanston - the block with the second highest concentration of Kellogg students. Can so many Kellogg students be wrong? Surely I can trust the heard? To keep costs down, I'm sharing a 2 bed 2 bath with a fellow Brit. Again, sharing with a Brit will reduce some of the cultural shock and increase my certainty as to what the other guy will be like.

With the stress and time of finding an apartment has eased, the uncertainty now is whether we can get the lease sorted out smoothly. As we're not in the country, there are questions as to whether legally we need a Notary Public. They are a rare breed in the UK and cost a fortune, whereas in the US I understand (from Wikipedia) that it is as easy to become a Notary Public as applying for a library card. When I get to the States, I might apply. If we can get the apartment management to just trust us that we're not going to disappear off the face of the Earth, then the time and effort of this process will squish to nothing. Hopefully we'll get there soon.

In the meanwhile, I'm buying a whole stack off furniture off an international student who is graduating from Kellogg and heading back home. I just could not bare the thought of trying to set up an apartment piece by piece. Trips to and fro from Ikea over the week before school starts might be a fine Kellogg tradition, but not one I'm keen to partake in. The uncertainty I have with the furniture I've bought is around figuring out how to get all the furniture to the new apartment. Perhaps I can just put it into storage until I get there? Will it survive in one piece? Can I trust these shipping people when they say they'll take good care of it?

Despite all this, there is one thing I can say with certainty - I got my first choice KWEST trip. I can't reveal much more than that, as a tradition of these trips is The Big Reveal - that the participants don't reveal personal details about themselves until the end of the trip. However, it is interesting that there is already a rumor floating around. Allegedly one of the participants in one of the South American trips worked in the "adult entertainment" industry, if you know what I mean. Is it true? Would Kellogg admit such a student? Why would such a student need an MBA? Oh, the uncertainty!

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Bedroom entrepreneurs may be better off doing their thing at business school. A good B-School can provide all kinds of amenities to help your venture that your bedroom can't. Here are five of them.

(1) As a student, you can make all kinds of requests to companies that might otherwise get rejected. When Akamai started out of MIT, they called up Internet Service Providers and companies such as Yahoo. Because they were MIT, people were willing to talk to them. Because they were students, these companies didn't think these kids were trying to sell them anything. Tom Leighton's talk has the full story on Akamai; the company formation stuff gets interesting from 26mins.

(2) With an MBA from a top B-School, you get the credibility to do all kinds of stuff that might be more difficult to do otherwise. For your startup to get the attention of investors, such as VCs, some people moan that you need an MBA from some elite school with 20 board members who know Jack Welch personally, with an extremely complicated idea that has never been built. Alternatively, you might want to buy a company. Yes, really.

(3) You get something to show for those 2 years in the bedroom. I have several friends working on building businesses. The most successful among them have got a customer or two and can make a living. Others are still prospecting for their first customer, two years after they started (yep, not good). Those guys might have been a little bit better off doing an MBA in the meantime.

(4) You can structure your effort. Starting a business can be an unstructured effort that can seem to go nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Discipline can be difficult, with self-imposed deadlines swooshing by as time drags on. Some business schools provide a structured process for starting a business, providing stage gates and support for building a business. This brings some certainty and enforced momentum to the process. Wharton's VIP is one such process. Northwestern (Kellogg's parent institution) has the interdisciplinary Nuvention program.

(5) You'll meet all sorts of people who could help. Activities such as finding initial customers and getting funding could be made a little bit easier through a referral from an appropriate school professor, a class-mate who has worked at a company you are targeting or any number of other people. Some of these "people who can help" are prolific; just take the example of Stanford computer-science professor David R. Cheriton.

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"You don't need that - why do you need that for? You don't have rubella, mumps or measles", began my doctor. I could feel the weight of an already burdensome MBA matriculation process getting heavier. I need to submit my immunization records to Northwestern's medical center by the end of June. My medical practice does not have my vaccinations records for these early immunizations from my youth. Why? Because while all the other kids in the UK *were* getting their vaccinations as kids, I was in Sri Lanka. I'm not even sure I've had these vaccinations. My doctor was shaking his head - he did not think that the Northwestern medical center needed these records. I insisted otherwise; why else would they ask for them?

"Do you have lots of cash to burn?", continued my doctor, "because we can get lab reports done to check if you're immune to them, but it'll be expensive - very expensive". I wondered whether I had suddenly become some kind of science experiment for my doctor and his nurse. They had already spoken with great curiosity about the tuberculosis QuantiFERON test that Northwestern's medical center has required that I take. My doctor and nurse had never administered it before. To me, it seemed just like any other blood test - stick a needle in my arm and suck some blood out. To them it was out of the ordinary - tiny samples in three test tubes that needed to be shaken about a lot.

Wearing a slight grin, the doctor must have sensed what I was thinking. Maybe they had seen the I'm not a science experiment look before? "Instead of doing lab tests, maybe we'll just give you the MMR vaccination; it won't do you any harm and we can probably give it to you for free". At last, the weight seemed to lift. Could it be true? Would I finally be able to tick these medical immunizations off my matriculation to-do list? I could see a slight glimpse at the end of the tunnel. "Hold on", I said as I flicked through details on Northwestern's medical form, "the MMR test requires two injections at least 28 days apart - which will be after the end of June deadline for these forms". Blank stares followed.

After waving his head for a little while, my doctor gave a heavy sigh, shrugged and walked off - leaving me with the nurse. Come Monday, I'll be calling up Northwestern's medical center to ask for their permission to prolong this agony further. Oh, what joy.

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An MBA opens doors. This week I stumbled upon a door that few take, yet is typically difficult to break open without an MBA from a top business school. Described as a high-probability way of making good returns on investment and entrepreneurial effort, search funds are funds that are typically only raised by alums of top business schools. Essentially, search funds are a way for entrepreneurs to raise money to acquire a company. Once a company is acquired, the entrepreneur works to improve the profitability of the company over a period of 5 years or so, before selling it on for a profit - taking a 30% share of that profit. Usually that 30% share will be worth several million US dollars.

I stumbled upon the idea at an MIT Enterprise forum event earlier this week; I had been to their events before. On this occasion, Jim Southern explained the mechanics of search funds and went through a case study of how search funds work. One of the ideas that struck me about Jim's talk was his point that in the normal entrepreneurial path of building a company, only 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000 people are successful in generating a multi-million dollar earn out. Yet, through the search fund process, the probability is more than 25%.

As Jim Southern's talk progressed, I got more and more excited about the search fund vehicle. The disheartening part for me was that the search fund process prefers acquisitions of companies with simple operational processes, e.g. a freight forwarding company or events company. This is because it makes it simpler for the entrepreneur to understand the process of the company and improve the profitability. Under this restriction, I would have to give up my preference for new media, which I have built my career on. Software development, which is at the heart of new media, can be complex - at times it can seem like a process that does not have a process. This makes it less than ideal for a search fund. However, I find new media exciting and engaging.

Consequently, at this stage - while I am enticed by the idea of search funds - I am reluctant to give up on my new media entrepreneurial plans. Setting up search fund might be a good "Plan B" for me though, if by my second year at Kellogg all else has failed.

The New York Times has a recent article on search funds. Stanford GSB has the most research and information on these funds.

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Kellogg has been keeping me more than a little bit busy over the last week or so. Almost quite suddenly, I've had a flood of correspondence from the school and a lot more to think about. What follows is a run down of this ...

Pre-Enrollment Courses. Kellogg not only has pre-term, but even has online courses for you to do before you get to even the pre-term. I had mixed feelings about this, but when they said that the courses has been designed by Kellogg faculty, I perked up a little bit. If Kellogg faculty were involved, it might well be a little bit interesting. Nevertheless, I don't think I'll be able to look at these until July - after I've finished work. Life it a little too busy at the moment.

Finances. My official loan offer came through from Northwestern. You can not help but stare at the amounts involved and gulp at it. I need to go through it all in detail and do some budgeting for myself for the next two years. I was at my bank this week when one of the "savings specialists" nabbed me to try and convince me to do something "more effective" with my savings. His eyes almost watered when I told him what I'd be spending it on.

Medicals. Some of the items on the to-do list that Kellogg provides makes me groan. This is one of them. I need to fill out a four page form describing my medical history. Worse, I need to get my doctor (GP) to fill in one of the pages. I handed the page into my medical center on Friday. He called on Monday night (after 10pm!) saying he was working late and would get back to me the next day with costs. It's Thursday and I've still not heard back. Going through and trying to find all those immunization records is killing him, I'm sure.

KWEST. Most of the other Kellogg admits that are blogging have made some mention of this already. I've been anticipating this a while. Registration opened at 10am CDT yesterday (20th May), but it took me a whole 11 minutes - it gets me thinking that I might not have been as quick as some others. Oh dear. At least I'm not going for the Mystery Trip. All my selections were pretty much in South America. I don't want to travel too far.

Accommodation. The other admits I've been in touch with are well into their hunt for accommodation. I've not been as quick off the starting block on this one. I'm favoring McManus, the halls of residence, mainly because it reduces complications for furnishing (most apartment rentals are unfurnished?) and tenancy length (I don't have to rent over the summer). I had already got my application in by the due date, 1st May. I hear we'll get results of our applications soon. Fingers crossed.

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At the end of June, I finish work. I will then have about 7-or-so weeks before arriving in Evanston and life at Kellogg kicks off with KWEST, the world wide service trips that Kellogg students embark on before pre-term starts. So I've started thinking about what I might be able to do during those 7-or-so weeks that I have off to recover from working life and prepare for student life.

Between getting my business plan and dummy prototype in order and crawling through the usual migration tasks, everything else seems to fall in the category of improving my skills. I wonder if I'll get round to any of it. Perhaps there are things I can add?

• Learn touch typing, 'cause I type fast like a monkey at the moment. TypingWeb seems like a good (i.e. free) starting point.
• Get into weight training regularly. Been on the to-do list for the last 4 years :-/
• Learn everything there is to know about venture capital (gasp!)
• Improve cooking skills, 'cause calories are a problem in the US
• Learn speed reading, 'cause I'll be doing lots of reading, right? Been on the to-do list for the last 8 years :-/.
• Improve web presence - LinkedIn, About Page on blog etc - sort it all out.
• Learn golf?

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I'm planning to set up a business while I am at business school. Before I applied to business school, my plans for this ambition started as a distant and vague notion. Following admission to Kellogg, they developed into a plan. This post represents my latest thinking on this plan; my latests thinking on how I might go about achieving my ambition.

I'm building a web start up. Why? Because my career has been centered around the web and it is what I know best. The barriers to entry are low - these days just about anyone can build a website. The differentiation comes in the user experience of the website and job that it satisfies. As I previously mentioned, I believe there are big opportunities around content and the Internet - everyone seems to be struggling with a model for making money from content on the Internet.

Fit with B-School. I realized early on that some ideas fit the environment of setting something up while at business school better than others. If the product or service of my business has similarities / links to services provided by clubs or other entities at business school, then I can leverage those entities. If it is a luncheon product, perhaps it could be initially distributed by the shops at the school? If it is a new type of publication, perhaps existing publications at the school can be persuaded to fund a issue? My plan is to create a web based service to entice the community at Kellogg. Who knows if it will succeed, but I'm sure going to give it a shot. If it is successful there, it can be expanded beyond these boundaries.

Recruitment. Rather than pursue the rounds of recuitment that the rest of the student body participates in, I anticipate spending the first year seeking seed funding to build a prototype system over the summer. I am then looking at the second year as time spent seeking venture capital investment to build the business properly.

Sketch of the current plan.

Before Kellogg:

• Complete a business plan for starting and developing the business; develop an elevator pitch.
• Piece together a mock-up dummy system.

First year at Kellogg:

• Test the concept out using whatever low budget / free tools there are (the mock-up system).
• Get fellow students to use the service; get feedback for improvement.
• Find mentors who can help reduce the number of mistakes I make.
• Seek investment to do work over the summer to establish a real service that can work.
• On securing funding, hire a team to work on the business over the summer.

Summer internship

• Build the service as a prototype.
• Seek out potential B2B customers of the service, i.e. companies that may want their own branded version of the site.

Second year at Kellogg:

• Continue marketing the prototype service and building the user base.
• Seek venture capital investment to build the service from prototype to full service on graduation from MBA.

After graduation:

• Build full service. Grow the business.

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Towards the start of my career I worked in a team that investigated technical problems on online gambling websites. We'd get calls from grannies who claimed their betting account had been hacked. "From 8pm to 12:30am, it was me who was playing on the account", they'd say, "but from 12:30am to 4am, it was someone else... please can you return my account balance to what it was at 12:30am". Investigating the call, we'd find that from 8pm to 12:30am the account had been racking up and winning money on the online slot machines - lots and lots of money. Then, quite suddenly, from 12:30am it all spiraled downward - losing money fast on those same slot machines. Could it really be that someone hacked into this granny's account and gambled away all her winnings?

In this team I worked in, we kept online journals of every problem we were investigating. We journaled a lot - the the eight of us would average writing 30 journals a day, each. We did it because the journals proved extremely useful. When that granny called up again, a quick search revealed that we had a serial fraudster on our hands. When we didn't know how to solve a problem, we quickly thought of new approaches by looking at how others on the team had solved similar problems. Most of all, journaling forced us to commit. We had to write down and commit to a plan of how we were going to investigate the problem. Then we had to do it.

For me, the habit of journaling from the early part of my career has developed into a way of working. Through the MBA application process, the team seems to have consisted of bloggers going through the same MBA admissions process. We peeked at each others' posts to see what was going on - who has interviews? who has been admitted? what are their profiles? The posts of MBA applicant bloggers of the past have been just as useful as those journal entries investigating online gambling problems. I know I've used Jag Paw's essay advice and taken heed of Ameya's thoughts on essay reviewers. ClearAdmit's Best of Blogging awards have become particularly useful for spotlighting where to look. So, I feel honored to be ranked in these awards for 2009 - thank you ClearAdmit and all those who voted. Congratulations to everyone on the list: particularly Tieny, whose lovable personality and passion for Columbia has always shone through.

For those embarking on the MBA application process, just know that you too don't have to suffer at the hands of thieving grannies and other tricksters to need a reason to start blogging. There are plenty of other reasons to blog. But that's another thought for another day...

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The call came in on Saturday morning, waking me up at about 9am. "Can you help on Monday night?", he asked. Within minutes I had been enrolled to help at a public speaking event that one of my MBA application recommenders was organizing. This was the third recommender, requested by some of the schools, for extra curricular activities. Though I could think of better things to do with my time, such as working on my business plan or doing some much needed house-keeping, this guy had taken time out of his days to help me. I should return the favor. So I did. However, this indebtedness pales in comparison to the prospect of a bigger weight of debt: financial debt.

When I enrolled on at Kellogg, I also submitted a financial aid form to the Kellogg finance department with the details of my salary and savings etc. A few weeks ago they provisionally offered me a loan. The formula they used seems to be:

loan = ( estimated cost of living for 2 years - savings ) / 2

You are given a loan for only one year; you apply next year for further funding for the following year. I understand that I'll get full details of the interest rates and terms in May.

What really gets to me about funding my MBA is the thought that I could surely be doing something more worthwhile with my savings than going bankrupt and then taking on debt. If I put my savings down as a deposit on a mortgage backed property, I could rent the property out and recoup the mortgage payments and then some more. My money would be working for me, as some would say. On my current trajectory, I'll be leaving business school with a negative bank balance over my head and finding myself working for the money to pay off the debt. This thought worries me doubly so because I plan to divert off the beaten path and create a venture. A high salary and bonuses to pay off that debt are not probable.

Yet, what keeps me on this path is the non-financial opportunity. At business school I will actually be in an environment offering above average odds for creating a successful startup, from access to mentors and investors to formal dissection and analysis of businesses and business plans. Even if the start-up adventure fails, the MBA will still leave me in good stead for the rest of my career, giving me a noticeable credential.

Perhaps most importantly for me, I'm not sure when I will have such an opportune moment again to establish a business. Some of my friends liken my plans to a gamble, and a big one after taking account of loss of earnings and the cost of the experience. I'm quite a risk averse person and do not quite see it in the same way. I think there will be all sorts of tacit benefits I do not even comprehend yet. For example, if I were to be in the position of my previously mentioned recommender, in dire need of help on a Saturday morning - I think about who I have built relationships - who might help me in such a situation. I then compare that to the relationships I might have built following the MBA. Based on what I've seen of the class thus far, I think my odds of success will be higher with those MBA folk.

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The redial list on my phone features over 20 random numbers. This is the remanent of what for me turned into a panic-stricken Monday 13th April, a public holiday in the UK. It was on that day that I started looking at the documents necessary for my US visa interview I had the following day. I had been lazy. I had not counted on needing a special 2 inch by 2 inch photo for a US visa application. Nevertheless, after numerous phone calls, I found a photographer who would take my photo on a public holiday - adding £10.99 to my rising bill for the visa application. I spent the remainder of the Monday filling in forms and printing them out.

I arrived at the US embassy on Tuesday at 13:20 - a little while earlier than my 14:00 appointment. When they handed me a numbered ticket, the number of which would be called out for my visa interview, I realized that the appointment time was merely to control traffic flow. The waiting area resembled the departure lounge of an airport - rows of people waiting and looking at screens showing the current ticket numbers being serviced. When my turn came at 15:20, I walked over to one of the cash till style counters. The guy behind it simply took my forms and put it into an envelope. After they took my finger prints, I was told I had to wait another while for my number to be called again. At 16:20 I was finally called to another cash till style counter to have the interview. It lasted mere minutes. The guy interviewing me asked me questions straight off the forms I had filled in:

• where do you work?
• what is your job?
• which universities have you studied at?
• where will you study in the US

I was not sure whether he asked these because he was reading the form for the first time as he talked to me, or to check what I had put down was actually written by me! The only original question he asked was "what are you going to do after the MBA", to which I replied that I may return to my employer in the UK. Following Le Redacteur's previous advice, I figured it best to tell them what they wanted to hear - that I did not plan to stay in the US - than complicate them with everything going through my head. As though I had spoken a magical password, he then said "your visa is approved". I did not even have to show my financial statments / loan offers, showing that I could financially support myself, or evidence of "social and economic ties" to the UK - both required in the official requirements list.

After the interview, there was yet more waiting and queues. There was a queue to pay the £15 to get my visa couriered back to me (yes, further adding to that visa application bill). At 16:40, I finally got out - free of one less headache on the way to matriculation.

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When I enrolled at Kellogg by submitting my deposit, I also submitted my I-20/DS-2019 Request Form to the school to allow me to apply for an F1 student visa. The I-20 finally arrived from Kellogg a week or two ago. On Friday I moved this process on to the next stages, which meant getting myself financially bled three times.

• First, I paid $200 online for SEVIS. I don't know what SEVIS is, other than it is a necessary evil.
• Then, I had to call up the consulate in the UK to book a visa interview. They charged £1.50 (~$2.20) a minute and the call lasted about 10 minutes. For some reason this felt the most painful of the three charges. Maybe this was because I could feel the money slowly and surely drawn out of me, whereas the other transactions were quick.
• Thirdly, the visa interview itself cost $131 dollars.

I've scheduled the visa interview for next week. I'm hoping it is trouble free; the documentation they've sent through lists numerous reasons for abruptly canceling the interview and have me arrange (and pay for) another interview, including arriving at the embassy with a mobile phone.

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It looks like the applicants applying in Fall '09 are already sniffing around, doing research. Following my previous rant, here are 5 more things that I think prospective applicants should think about.

(1) The schools will say that you should apply when you are ready. In reality, some points in time are better than others. The schools want to fill the class with a certain number of students from each age group. I would suggest thinking about how to optimize your profile. HBS published a distribution for graduation years for the class of 2010 here (search for the "Class of 2010 Graduation Years" post here).

(2) Think about your profile.The schools make money on every application they get. It is in their interests to let you think that you'll be admitted. The profiles on the schools website do not really reflect the makeup of the students admitted. On the website they are more diverse than they really are. Get advice from someone who has lots of experiences in seeing applicants admitted and rejected by each of the schools, e.g. an admissions consultant with lots of experience or an ex-student who reviewed applications for the school. They should be able to give a good view of your chances.

(3) Your background. As well as filling the class with a certain number of people from each age group, certain numbers from each career background and various other characteristics will also be sought. If you have an opportunity to work in an area from where there are lots of people going into MBA (e.g. your company's strategy department), I suggest they are being recruited from that department for a reason and that it would be worth doing a stint there. It might even be better to work at a company from where there are many people going into MBAs, e.g. McKinsey.

(4) What do you eat, breathe and shit? I know a guy who was admitted to all the top US schools. He described himself as someone who "eats, breathes and shits biotech". If he made as distinct an impression in his essays, I'm sure he would have come across as someone who is both convincing and could also become a world class biotech person of the future. Once the school has read your application, will you leave as such a distinct impression? Montauk refers to this as positioning (in the marketing sense), but I doubt many people market themselves well. (I don't think I did). Your positioning should be so blatant and distinct that your recommenders will shout about it in unison: e.g. "this guy is one of our foremost biotech evangelists".

(5) Do something amazing in the year leading to you applying. Make it real, easy for a layman to understand and something that the school can shout about. Remember, as soon as you are admitted, the schools do shout extracts back at the class describing the impressive feats of their admits. I mentioned some in my DAK debrief and Tieny mentioned some his Columbia open house debrief. Some of the things I've heard shouted about are "x person won x athletic award", "y person won the national stand up comedy awards" and "z person started a charity". I suspect the trick is to not come across as bragging.

These are just my opinions. Please complement them with the views of others who have gone through the experience or who help applicants through the process.

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I've been spending far too much time flicking through the catalog of KWEST trips. KWEST is the week long world wide service trip that Kellogg students attend before pre-term. The trips for 2009 don't seem to be up on the website yet, but we were given a booklet of the 2009 trips at DAK1.

Many Kellogg students talk about KWEST as though it is a relavatory experience, "you will meet your best friends for life there!"... The only thing that I'm convinced about is that it has to be worth doing, given all the hype. There must be 38 or so different trips, each led by 5 students who by then will be in their second year, with 25 matriculating first years joining them.

Every country in North, Central and South America must be represented between the various KWEST trips, along with every Caribbean island. There are also a dozen European destinations and four trips to elsewhere in the world. Each trip has a page in the booklet and you'd be forgiven for thinking that each trip was competing to win the prize for cheesiest advert. The headings include "Eco-Seekas In Costa Ricas", "Scandinavia: Do Blondes Have More Fun?", "No Spain No Gain" and "We don't keep score in Ecuador". They are quickly followed by a few brisk paragraphs of Kellogg's best copywrite, such as:


Descriptions of various activities the group will participate in follows. The activities range from snorkeling to hiking, skiing, "general debauchery" or whatever it is the environment facilitates. To cap off the cheesiness, the trip leaders include photos of themselves in their craziest outfits and give themselves nick names such as, "Freeze Tag" Fry, "McDreamy" and "These hips don't" Lai.

As for which trip I'm going to sign up for, I'm veering towards the central or south Americas. I still have plenty of time to decide on which one specifically...

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My experience of applying for business school was one hell of a long haul. I think I first started thinking about doing an MBA in the Fall of 2006. It took me a long time to get myself moving; it took me until early 2008 to get my GMAT done. Then it was a whirlwind season of essays, interviews and everything else. Orlando has posted some excellent advice on shaping up an MBA application. Apart from what he has written, if I were to go through it again, there are some specific things that would have been useful for me to have known upfront. This advice may not be for everyone. What a relief that I don't have to take heed of it.

(1) The GMAT: Do the GMAT Prep software practice tests over and over again, reinstalling and installing the software to squeeze out as many new questions as possible. Particularly in the math section of the GMAT, the questions on the real exam are the same as those in the Prep software except with different numbers substituted in. You will eventually start to recognize the question types, from which you can start developing methods to tackle each type. The Manhattan GMAT forums were great for learning the theory behind the questions. I started copying the questions from the forums and grouping them into similar types. The Manhattan GMAT books are great for understanding the concepts.

(2) Get an "inside" contact. Can you find a recommender who is an alum of the school, yet who is still appropriate to do your recommendation? I know a girl who was denied by all 8 schools she applied to, except the one for which a recommender was an alumnus. I'm sure there are other factors to her applications, but I'm also sure the alumnus appeal is a strong influencer on some schools' adcoms. I know a guy who has gone a step further - he has started developing friendships with current and former student MBA application readers. Will they put in a good word for him when he applies? Perhaps most ambitious would be to impress faculty from the school. If you impressed them, would they make a note? ... Some people might ask "Am I gaining an unfair advantage"? I'm sure the adcoms are already wise to these antics. Among several thousand applicants, you might just be gaining a "fair shot".

(3) Take care of the little things. If you are applying to several schools, your applications will start to look similar - even when you try to make sure they are not. The subtle instructions in the applications are what matter. For example, the Kellogg asks about your "career plan". Harvard asks about your "career vision". Stanford asks about your "career aspiration". Wharton asks about your "career goal". I would suggest mixing up these terms will send alarm bells to the reader.

(4) The hunt for financial scholarships starts now. Applying in R1, I thought I would have plenty of time to look at scholarships and grants after I was admitted. I was wrong. Deadlines for some opportunities are before even the R1 deadlines, such as those for the Rotary Club. If there is one thing harder than getting into B School, it is finding someone that will give you free money to go.

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The business schools try very hard to differentiate themselves. Yet, just reading Tieny's Columbia admit weekend debrief reminds me of how similar the top schools are... right down to bragging about the achievements of the admits at the admit weekend. The business schools are more similar than different. As soon as one innovates something, the others quickly copy. Several years ago MIT started the business plan competition. Now every top business school in the world has a business plan competition. Among the Kellogg class of 2011, I'm sure there is even a Miss Evanston to rival the Miss New York in Tieny's Columbia class.

However, there are some things for which a school just has so much more shear enthusiasm, it is not copied - or at least copied very well - by other schools. These are those things for Kellogg. If you know anything about Kellogg, you know them already. However, this is my take on them:

• The adcom will sometimes play down the strength of the school in Marketing, to ensure Kellogg is seen as a well rounded school. However, from having professors blogging on super bowl adverts to having an extra day during the Marketing conference for Kellogg professors to update industry executives on the latest marketing thinking, the enthusiasm for marketing just seeps out. It is hard not to notice that there is a lot going on at this school when it comes to marketing. I sometimes wonder whether Kellogg has admitted so many of us bloggers deliberately, given the free marketing that we have and some us will continue to provide the school.
• At some business schools, students are viewed as the product of the school. They have little influence on how the school is run. Kellogg is on the absolute opposite end of the scale - student participation is a massive part of Kellogg experience. There seems to be almost no aspect to the running of the school that the students play some role in. For example, I was shocked to learn that even the Honor code, that thing that everyone signs to certify that they will not cheat, will respect class mates etc - even the Honor code is policed by students at Kellogg. After you graduate, your involvement continues. In the first few years after graduation, you will be called on to conduct admissions interviews. As time progresses, and as your career success unfolds, you may be asked back to talk at events or classes. Some MBAs even come back to the school to serve as faculty. The relationship between students, alumni and the school is carefully engineered to be tight.
• Team work and developing soft skills plays a central role at Kellogg. I understand that even one page essays are given as team assignments. As is often the case with team orientated work, how long it takes depends entirely on how well the team get along. As a corollary of all this team work, the students also seem to spend a lot of time socializing. One alum once said to me, "9pm to 2am was blocked out four days a week on my Outlook calendar as drinking time". Some people will frown at this, but I think this is great. So much socializing can only lead to perfecting skills such as of small-talk, which is a key part of Western - and particularly US - culture. The BusinessWeek specialty rankings, based on data from MBA recruiters, bears this out: Kellogg grads top both the soft skills metrics of Teamwork and Communication.
  

All of the above is nothing new; it is the kind of information that is already in the guide books. Yet, I have to say that I have really only started appreciating these differentiating aspects of Kellogg now that I'm on the way there...

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I've been reflecting on my recent trip to the US, and in particular the lifestyle differences between Europe and the States. Really, I'm comparing London to Chicago and New York, but generalizing to Europe versus America makes for a more dramatic blog post. Many MBA guides and experts will compare European and American programs, but few will consider the lifestyle issues. So today, I've decided I should highlight these for anyone considering programs across both sides of the pond...

(1) Food in the US has more calories than that in Europe. In the US, it is difficult to find a sandwich with less than 500 calories. In the UK, most sandwiches will have less than 500 calories. Portions in the US are big. You could eat your entire daily caloric intake at a cheap oriental place serving Chicken Teriyaki. And whereas in most places the Teriyaki will have been just grilled, you can be sure the Teriyaki you happen to be eating has been deep fried first before grilling - to ensure you get all those extra calories for your buck that the dollar provides. Serves me right for going to a cheap oriental place.

(2) In Europe, things are spelled a little funny. It's true. Why would you spell centre with a 'r' before the 'e'. Surely center makes more sense? It gets worse: In some parts of Europe "hello" is spelled "guten tag".

(3) In the US, weird units are pervasive. At zero degrees Celsius, water turns to ice. At 100 degrees Celsius, water boils and turns to steam. Zero and 100 - simple and intuitive numbers to help anchor cold and hot. What is Fahrenheit anchored in? We're only just getting started, because there is pounds, rather than kilos and a host of others...

(4) Particularly outside London, life is just not as advanced in some parts of Europe as in the States. There are large swathes of Europe that are still struggling to get an Internet connection, let alone broadband. Whereas "Free Wifi!" is a way to attract consumers in bars and cafes in US towns such as Evanston, free wifi is just unheard in many parts of Europe. It doesn't help that the French pronounce Wifi as "wiffy", as in "something smells a bit wiffy here".

So there you have it; four points of consideration when you weigh up the likes of INSEAD, IMD and LBS against Wharton, HBS and Kellogg.

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Kellogg's admit weekend, DAK, was pretty intense. What struck me most about the event was the scale - for the 250 or so admits at the event, a large workforce of upwards of 200 current students must have been involved to make it all work: career panels, club fairs, KWEST trip fair, "section time" leaders and much, much more.

Some of the highlights for me were as follows...

• I turned up at the Prairie Moon bar on Thursday 5th February for the DAK welcome drinks. With lots of brown wood and dim lighting, it seemed just like the small town bar I imagined it to be. The admits attending DAK were split into six sections of 30 or so people. My section, the Jugheads, were having welcome drinks in this bar. I was assured by one of the other admits, "yeah - the section names we have now are the junior version of the real section names... the equivalent real section name for Jugheads is Bigjugs". Unfortunately, he was wrong - they're called Bucketheads. We had six or seven current first year students acting as section leaders. Confident, talkative and upbeat, I found the section leaders to be really great stewards for that evening and the rest of DAK - a huge contrast to the sometimes nervous looking admits wondering who to talk to.
• Admissions Director, Beth Flye kicked off the Opening Ceremony on Friday. She welcomed the admits. "I don't know what kind of vitamins you're taking", she said, citing the admits' average GMAT of 719, average GPA of 3.6-something and a host of startling admission essay extracts. These extracts included people who had started voluntary organizations, released music records, achieved significant athletic success, hosted weekly cable tv shows and more besides.
• Professor round-table lunches featured members of the faculty talking through what their programs covered. I attended those for Media Management and Entrepreneurship. Michael Smith talked about how the Media Management program sought to answer questions about varying forms of media - professional and user-generated, proprietary distribution and open distribution - and the challenges businesses faced in order to develop business models that generate revenues in the current advertising (and wider economic) downturn. Scott Whitaker surveyed the entrepreneurship offerings available at Kellogg. I was surprised not only by how many admits were interested in entrepreneurship, but how serious they were - asking really deep questions, such as how they could get a head start on doing something entrepreneurial at Kellogg.
• Marketing Mini Class: I found this to be thought provoking and entertaining. The class started with the professor asking "what is marketing?" and taking responses from the audience. He then delved into the importance of customer insight based marketing versus marketing that lacked customer insight. For example, Marmite customers take pride in that some people hate the taste marmite. Consequently, Marmite used this insight to develop the successful "Marmite: you love it or hate it" series of commercials.
• Strategy Mini Class: After we had read a mini-case, the professor asked us to identify why Costco was so successful and how they would fair in the current economic climate. The session was mostly done through eliciting responses from the audience. I had thought the session would go in a particular direction relating to supplier power, but was impressed when it went on a tangent about membership fees that also seemed appropriate.
• Careers Service Overview. The center seeks to train students in the life skill of finding jobs, rather than just providing them with jobs. They have staff that work with you through the entire process of determining what you want to do to mock interviews to celebrating the success of getting offers. A testimonial by a student, where she described her story and the doubts she faced, was particularly effective in describing the process.
• Scavenger Hunt, games and other "section time". These were kooky, just as our sections leaders described them, but they were actually a lot of fun. I thought they helped the admits get to know each other somewhat and lowered inhibitions. Our scavenger hunt included piggy back races and dizzy bat.
• Welcome address by Dean Jain.
• Dean Jain told the story of how he had joined Kellogg. His supervisor had told him that there was no future in math and that he should join the top marketing school, Kellogg. He wondered why the top marketing school would take him, the worst marketing person. Despite this, he had an interview with Kotler and others. He presented some math which perhaps no one on the panel understood. Kotler asked, "this is marketing?"; Dean Jain replied "this is the future of marketing". 
• He described how Kellogg had risen to become a top 5 school:
• Focusing on developing students' collaborative working skills, interviewing all students that apply so as to evaluate their soft skills and focusing the MBA on developing soft skills such as teamwork.
• Through recruiting exemplary faculty in basic disciplines rather than competing for typical business school faculty. This is in turn helped Kellogg produce unique research.
• Through initiatives throughout the 70s and 80s, such as the Executive MBA program, spreading the quality of the program by word of mouth. "For word of mouth marketing to work, there needs to be many mouths".
  
• Dean Jain ended the session by looking to the future, developing the school's brand, global perspective and a number of other things I can't remember right now.
  
• An alumni panel of three Kellogg graduates offered their advice. They all agreed that the Kellogg alum network is close-knit and there is an implicit understanding that Kellogg alumni will help each other when called upon. They urged admits to use the opportunity of business school to develop their networking skills.
  
• Keynote Speaker: Scott Smith '76, former President of the Chicago Tribune. His main message was that perceiving the situation is often under-rated compared to taking action. The compared this to the current economic situation, where a lot of action had been taking, but has the situation been correctly perceived to choose the right action?
• The Closing Ceremony took place in Chicago itself, with buses carry the admits to the River East Art Center for dinner, followed drinks and partying in Martini Park. By this point, many of us had got to know each other quite well and the evening was an opportunity to develop those friendships further over buffet lunch in the exquisite surroundings of River East, as well as dancing and joviality at Martini Park, which seemed to be full of beautiful people. I thought it was great night of gossip and final ultimatems between admits, "have you decided on Kellogg yet?".
  

There were a number of other activities beyond the above. I won't go into these into detail, though they were useful. These included information sessions and events such as Financial Aid, day-in-the-life diary of a student, a session on academics, "Continental breakfast" of bagels and pastries every morning, a fair for the various KWEST trips at matriculation, a fair showing the different clubs at Kellogg, dinner at a "genuine" Chicago Pizza resturant, career panels where second year students offered advice on pursing particular careers, a night out at the Keg bar - which seemed just like my undergrad binge drinking days and a tour of various accommodation options on Sunday morning. It was a packed schedule.

I met some awesome people over the weekend. I thought I would be able to get along with most of the admits, and really become tight-knit with some of them too. Three of of the Kellogg admits who have been following my blog managed to identify me :-O. It was good meeting to you guys. This article tip is a good one, French girl - thanks.

Updated, 7th Mar '09

• Orlando's photo/videos via his blog

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As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I met my Kellogg interviewer and a few other alumni for drinks. They gave me their top tips.

1. Be prepared for American weirdness. Kellogg students like to sing Bon Jovi's Living On a Prayer. They like to sing it a lot. This is because the chorus "oooh, oh - we're half way there" has particular resonance apparently: half way through the MBA? half way through life? half way through the jug of beer ?... you get the idea.
2. Go on KWEST, the service trip before starting at Kellogg. Some of your very best friends after Kellogg will be people you met on this first trip. Each of the trips attracts a different type of crowd. In fact, on each trip you go on while at Kellogg - you develop a close set of friends (though none as close as those on your KWEST trip). So, also go on the Ski trip. In the past it has been highly subsidized by the banks. A large number of students in the class go. It's a great party.
3. Internship hiring will start quickly. Be prepared for it: CVs, etc. Most people think they have the first term to figure out what they want to do over the summer. They are wrong.
4. Waive as many courses as possible. You want to get on to do the advanced courses, which is where the really interesting stuff is.
5. Network, network, network. There are opportunities to meet a lot of people from a great many companies. Some people start keeping spreadsheets detailing each who they've met, their contact details and some memorable details to remind them of that person.

Another interesting thing that became apparent: most US students go on international KWEST trips, whereas the international students go around the US. Secondly, McManus halls is also mainly international students, wheras US students prefer to get apartments.

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Unlike Soni, I’ve been getting some attention from the Kellogg. I've exchanged a few emails with my designated "buddy", who is a current first year student at Kellogg. He keeps trying to call me at the most awkward times. Strangely enough, he happens to be someone I met a while back. My alumni interviewer has also been in touch. I've now also met all his Kellogg friends in London. I might post about that later this week. I'm surprised by the attention, and also touched. They must think I'm some kind of Rockstar. More fool them.

Kellogg’s admit weekend is called "Day At Kellogg" or simply DAK. It takes place next week. I received their welcome email recently. It starts Thursday 5th Feb evening and ends midday-ish on Sunday. That's my kind of "Day". The agenda is packed quite tightly and includes all kinds of wonderful stuff. Some of the highlights are:

• Welcome addresses
• Mini-classes
• Professor Roundtable Lunches
• Careers Service overview; breakout lunches
• Parties
• Financial information sessions
• Housing tours
• Alumni discussions

Since I am making the trip from the UK, I’ve decided to stick around a little longer in Evanston - up to the Wednesday after. I am hoping to get some pre-MBA prep done that will edge me closer to my post-MBA goals. My tentative plans for the extra days include

• Meeting with some more current students, including hopefully Shahid Hussain.
• Checking out the Technology Innovation Center (Northwestern's Incubator)
  
• Attending the PE/VC conference, all day Wednesday.
• ... and a few more things I still need to get in touch with people to sort out.
  

On Thursday I plan head out to NYC for a long weekend with some friends – a holiday! All in all, it should be a good trip. I'm especially looking forward to meeting my future classmates. I’ve learnt that I’m in the "Jugheads" section at Kellogg. Isn’t that the stereotype for dumb-asses? :-/ I’d rather the section is called "Rockstars". Because, you know, I am one…

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While Sammie and Glammie have been talking fashion, I've been talking to a current Kellogg student about a different kind of essential wear: thermal underwear.With temperatures touching -32 Celsius at times in Evanston, apparently this kit is absolutely necessary. Another friend has warned me: "get ready to adopt a whole new sense of fashion". Yikes!

I don't think I've ever lived or experienced that kind of cold before. The furthest the UK reaches is perhaps -10 Celsius. Chicagoland winters has already scared off one Kellogg admit ;-). I'm imagining my eye-lashes freezing over, becoming brittle and falling off. Oh, what horror awaits. I better order my thermal underwear.

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