Since long I wanted to do an MBA from a top international B-School. However, right after graduation when I got an opportunity to work for an investment bank, I jumped at it. I did understand that most of the reputed business schools in the world would require a minimum of two years’ work experience for admission.
My job gave me many opportunities to learn and grow vertically and horizontally. I was also sent to the USA for a project for a few months. I took the opportunity to know about the business schools in that region and even visited few of them for a better understanding. However, my international MBA dreams came crashing down, due to some family issue I had decided to stay back in India..
After an initial disappointment, I started researching about b-schools in India. ISB felt like the best of the options. What was even better about ISB was that it had a similar admission process as most of the international schools (for which I was preparing my whole life). The immediate thing I did was to start preparing for GMAT. I decided to go to classes for my prep.
The quantitative section did give me nightmares initially but with some professional support, I was able to score a 720 on my GMAT. Pretty good for someone who wasn’t confident about Math right? However, though I could get shortlisted with this score, just a good score didn’t do the trick. I was just getting started. The admission process still had two more important and not-very-easy steps to go. The next step of mission ISB admission was my application which entailed writing essays and getting recommendations.
Though you must write about yourself, your future plans and your past achievements, it is definitely one of the most difficult and nerve-racking things I had to ever write in my life. I made an exhaustive list of all my achievements and experience in my previous academic, professional and personal life. I had also made a list of professional goals and ambitions.
My admission consultant helped me in sorting out my achievements and deciding in which ones to keep in the essays. My consultant and I had zeroed in ona few key achievements that truly represent me. I was very happy with how my essay turned out. I would recommend you to take professional help for this because it proved to be a game changer in my case.
Then came, the round I dreaded the most, The Personal Interview. This part needed me to do a lot of work as I tend to get very nervous in interviews. The only remedy for my fear though was prep and practice. Thanks to my amazing consultants, I had enough practice for my personal interviews.
My mentor at the consultancy helped me work on my body language and answers. My consultant provided mock interviews which helped me experience the energy and atmosphere of an actual admission interview. Their feedback was of a great help for me to optimize my preparation.
When the actual interview day came, I kept all the tips my consultants gave me in mind, I went in with confidence and a smile on my face. It wasn’t very easy, but I kept my cool and answered all the questions with a palpable confidence. I did my best and had my fingers crossed for my result.
After a few days, I got to know that my long dream of getting into a ISB business school came true and my hard work paid off.