ISB DELHI ADMITS MEET INVITE- 28th Nov, 2009 3pm onwards

The Skewed Sex Ratio - Effect and Fallout on the New World

When I told one of my friends that I'd gotten into the ISB, the first thing he did was pull up the class profile and check the male-female ratio. The things he said after that are well beyond the purview of civilized human conversation, but I'm not gonna get into that right now. My mandated task, today, is to talk about the sex ratio at the ISB!

His college, "MET" had been rated one of the best colleges in Asia because of the low male-to-female ratio. His was almost 1:1 when he was there. Mine is 3:1. (Seeing the batch this time, I'm tempted to believe that it will rise to 9:1!)

So what does this mean for us? The ISB Class of 2011. It means a few essential things:

1. Don't come here if you wanna make the naughty with someone else. In this class of intense competition, if you do make the naughty - the boys of the school will hold a parade in your honour and felicitate you at the LRC

2. The Sk(r)ewed sex ratio means that lesser boys will be out on night walks and on the phone, etc etc, making class more competitively intense because everyone had read their cases last night.

3. This intense competition will result in the poor suckers in relationships on campus having to cut their phone calls shorter and try and study more. Resulting in intense strain on relationships. This will result in more break-ups, probably some infidelity, sex, lies and videotape.

Going on a tangent here... but I'm seeing that increasing the male-female ratio is beneficial coz the student body gets more hours studying, right? All the Male Chauvinist Pigs who're with me on this say "Oink!"

With the efflux of time, the students will get intensely stressed as the humungous guy population realises that they're not gonna ever go on a date with anyone on the campus, so they start lurking around the NIFT campus nearby. Some even pay visits to the other notorious-for-relationship-walla-bschool-in-the-vicinity-with-a-name-horrifyingly-similar-to-ours!

Pre-joining, guys are already discussing male stripper options and the possibility of enough alcohol helping blur the fine line between the sexes. Compound it with the passage of time. Shaadi.com and Bharatmatrimony.com are the most patronised websites on campus. The management knows that blocking these sites will trigger rioting. Campus IT refers to these sites as "Sensitive" sites.

The student body begins to complain to their parents of a lot of pressure and stress. Parents tell their families and friends that the study load is too much and people begin to revere the ISB brand for the grueling course work. R-E-S-P-E-C-T! But at the same time, the students look haggard, guys take to drinking and praying to demons for a good bride. The arranged marriage market picks up and the gossiping aunties of our colonies receive patronage when they should only get the chappal.

All this because there aren't enough girls in the school.

:-(

(by the way: why hasn't anyone invented a smiley for "Crap!"?)

Doing the math....

Quoting from Chetan Bhagat, our life is just 2500 weekends.... isn't it? (considering we live another 50 years :P)

ISB => 48 weekends.

Spend/week => 40,000 rs (approx)... (wow.... getting closer to my monthly salary)

Spend/day => 5555 bucks (approx)... (looks fancy isn't it?)

Well it ain't a big deal of math to figure this out...

But what if,

1) You fell ill?

Imagine dragging yourself with a real bad cold, splitting headache, high fever and a big haaachooo.

Invested cost lost =>40,000

Opportunity cost lost =>40,000 (worth classes lost)

and a ten rupee panadol/aspirin

Stay fit brothers and sisters. Start your fitness regime well in advance. Lots in stake. :)

2) You fell in love?

Love at first sight, first conversation, that euphoric moment.

Even if it lasts a month,

Invested cost lost => 1.6 lacs

Opportunity cost lost => 1.6 lacs (worth of classes lost in the euphoric moments)

Expenditure cost => C'mon bun tea is not going to work..

Stay away from eye-to-eye contact, hand-to-hand contact, neck-to-neck contact, conversations that sound like music, music that sounds like your conversations, his used cups, her chocolate wrappers and anything that provides feasibility for current to pass. Lots at stake :)

3) what if you overeat?

only 60,000 rupees meal coupons is going to be given i believe.

Hyderabad is the land of great food for the non vegetarians.

Imagine one chicken biriyani costs 80 rs, one coke 20 rs, one chicken tikka 100 rs, dessert 50, simple breakfast 50, snacks 60, sutta(optional) 40, coffee 20 => thats 420 bucks (love this number)

Thats wiping off an additional 1 lakh (as 60000 is covered under 20). (not covered under loan)

plus possibility of repetition of point 1.

Eat light. fight like a hungry dog.

4) What if you are sleepy?

Needless to say, if you feel sleepy for one hour during the classes everyday, that's a 365*40,000/7*8 lost => 2.5 lacs :)

learn power naps, learn meditation. (i heard that it helps)

5)......................

WYSINWYG

(Shot at Tampere, Finland as the summer was just setting in)

Random thoughts...

Both see the same things but yet the things that each one perceives differ so much.

Both feel the same things but yet the feelings differ so much.

As we all gather together to be part of the same class, each one of us are going to derive, experience, feel and share differently but yet we can't be the greatest class that ISB has ever seen if we are not operating in common grounds, amalgamate the best in each one of us, and string together like a bunch of beads rather than bouncing off like marbles.

You know what i am saying?

Solving the B-school admission process conundrum

I wanted to write something for the future applicants who might be reading this blog.
Here is my attempt at solving the admission riddle that has baffled many (including me) and will continue to baffle scores of applicants for a long time to come. At the outset I feel that we have made the entire process of trying to understand the success factors for an admit very complex through over analysis and exaggerated notions across forums, discussions which have left me both amused and bemused. At the end of the day, B-school is just trying to select a group from a super set of extremely talented people that it feels will make for good decision makers

Any decision making is done in 3 layers: Strategy, Planning & Execution
Strategic decision making is long term. Decisions taken here give long term direction to the company and set its competitive strategy. These cannot be reversed easily if taken once and generally require huge capital outflow. Hence they are risky and require serious insight into industry, envrironment, operating procedures and internal & external constraints with experience, strong analytical framework and the ability to think laterally to support it. All of us post our MBA will enter this layer sooner or later irrespective of our job functions or industries. A management institute's objective is, therefore, to make its students ready to take this responsibility by imbibing the necessary rigour (analytical or otherwise) required and will therefore try & zero down on those specific qualities among its prospective admits that will make the dissemination of this rigour both supportive & sustainable. So what are these qualities?

1. Analytical skills: This is the first and foremost requirement that any B-school will have from its students. Needless to say, business studies have become very analytical in nature with the increasing use of mathematical & statistical models to aid decision making. How can you prove your analytical skills to the school? Contrary to the popular opinion, it is not just your academic background or GMAT scores that can prove your analytical skills. It can also be proved through the work experience or any initiatives that you might have taken which required you to work with numbers.
2. Understanding business & the operating environment: This tests the extent to which you have moved up from the daily execution of your responsibilities. How well have you understood the business, its critical drivers and tests your foray into planning. Planning could be in terms of internal resources - men, material, or money or external - competitors, service providers, vendors, customers, banks, financial institutions and other intangibles such as patents, branding etc. Another factor here is the innovation - both commercial or technical. Business problems and situations can be very unique in nature and working on the basis of templates or standard solutions can seriously impede the thought process.
3. Energy level: A good decision maker is also a leader and vice versa. And a leader should have energy level that is not only infectious but also sets pace and motivates his followers. This is tested through the initiatives that you might have taken at work place or in your social life (which we popularly call Extra-curriculars). This also shows your commitment towards acheiveing your targets and objectives.
4. Communication: Effective communication is extremely important. It is simply how well can you understand others and can make others understand your point of view. In my personal opinion, ability to listen and understand others is a greater challenge and difficult to cultivate. This is effectively tested through your essays and the interview.

Now something on essays
An adcom member has to read around 100 applications every day. Do you think he is not fatigued? Ofcourse he is reading day in and day out the examples of passion, hardwork, leadership skills and other generic traits that we all tend to mention inadventently in our essays . If yours is the 95th application that he is reading in a day, how do you make sure that he suddenly sits up and takes notice? Get rid of all generic language in your essays and move into the specifics. If you are a financial analyst, tell him how a particular pharmaceutical company that you had researched had behaved. Use numbers and arouse his interest.

There is a fifth factor also and the most critical one. Its called LUCK :). If this is not on your side, none of others factors will work.

Disclaimer: This post is entirely my personal opinion and how I view the admission process as.

Admit

(Just for gag....No offense to people who did not make it)

I was thinking of a perfect one liner response if i had received my reject mail.

1) you kidding me?

2) could you reimburse my application fee and my travel?

3) are you sure?

4) yea yea..nice try..april is far away

5) 20 lakhs brother....you may want to rethink about the decision?

6) I just got into Harvard... na na na nananannna nana...

7) I am filing a "right to information" suit

8) I demand compensation for having caused me mental stress and trauma

9) I can wait.... seriously...

10) You know who i am?

11) I forgot to mention my relation with Osama in the app.

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My toast to all the Fighters in this blog!!

Ever since I entered the world of "MBA" preparation and application procedure, I used to wonder what it felt like with an admit letter from a top university in hand!! And today with many edited essays, interview prep sessions, and more than a thousand pg blog visits... finally I am living the moment.. the coveted moment which each one of us has waited for..

Not sure if many of us have experienced it before with some great offers pouring in earlier than the ISB offer.. but I still feel there is nothing which can dampen this experience. So all of my fellows, here's a toast to everyone's hard work and their never-ending spirit. Let us all keep this blog alive before we hit the class room.

Hoping to see a vibrant class with many friends whom I plan to discover over the coming weeks through lazy chats and blog posts..

PS: I am happy to find a class not so full of strangers!!