The Road Of Yellow Brick

Just another day at school

2010-03-02T00:35:00.003+01:00

Some people asked me how does a day at IESE look like, here is a good example from today:

8:30 Team meeting, discuss today's cases and the group assignment that we finished for today
9:15 Class 1
10:45 Class 2
12:00 Lunch
12:30 Meeting regarding my summer internship
14:00 Lecture by an Executive Vice President of a major Semiconductors company
15:15 Spanish class
17:00 Group project meeting
19:00 Rugby training, we have a game against ESADE soon and we need to be in shape (they won last time but rumors say that some of the players were hired semi-professionals from around the city...)
21:30 Dinner with my girlfriend at home
22:00 Work on group project, my part involves financial analysis of a small company
23:45 Read 2 cases for tomorrow

00:30 Write this post, final pre-sleep stuff

00:50 Go to sleep

I think that in total I've spent about 90 minutes on non MBA related stuff today. Just in case you got the impression that all we do is party and travel around Europe (which we do also of course!!!)

Keep on bloggin'

2010-02-23T16:19:00.002+01:00

So after a few months of silence and hesitation on whether I should keep this blog alive by writing about my MBA experience, I decided that my willingness to share is bigger than my laziness to sit down and write. From now on I will try to write (hopefully) funny and/or interesting stuff from this amazingly tiring but extremely fun and rewarding period of my life.

This weekend IESE is hosting the annual Doing Good & Doing Well conference, which is the biggest student-run Social Responsibility conference in Europe (Net Impact are our partners). You can check the website here: http://www.dgdw.org (I believe that registration is still open).

I am volunteering to help so I will try to write some interesting stuff after the conference.

IESE Ranked 3rd in Europe

2009-06-17T22:06:00.003+02:00

IESE was recently ranked 3rd best MBA in Europe by employers, according to TopMBA:

http://www.topmba.com/research/global_200_business_schools/top_business_schools_2009/

"Welcome IESE 2011" - A video made by the Class of 2010

2009-06-05T19:43:00.001+02:00

Check out this amazing video created by the Class of 2010 to sum up their first year, and to welcome us to school:

The MBA Oath

2009-06-04T02:02:00.005+02:00

Have you heard about this Harvard Business School Alumni initiative?

http://mbaoath.org/

Basically it's an oath to be signed by MBAs, like the one Medical Doctors sign. I think that it's a nice idea in a certain way, but might acknowledge the current trend that says "MBAs are responsible for the current crisis" - which is of course plain dumb.

IESE MBA Admitted Weekend for the Class of 2011

2009-06-02T20:18:00.001+02:00

Last weekend about 30% of our class went to Barcelona to attend the Admitted Weekend. IESE had organized this amazing two-days event as a way to help us know each other and the school better.

Some future classmates arrived as early as Wednesday to the city, and were lucky enough to watch Barcelona beat Manchester on the Champions League Finals, the city apparently went wild after the game, and I wish I could have been there and be a part of that historical night..

The actual Admitted Weekend started on Friday afternoon with a coffee at the school’s cafeteria followed by a welcome session with Eric Weber, Associate Dean of IESE.

We then went to the Terrace in the northern campus (which has an AMAZING view of the city) and enjoyed a nice cocktail and dinner, with the participation of some students of the Class of 2010.

By 10pm the official part of Friday was over, and we started the “unofficial” part. First we went to grab some food somewhere in the city (I don’t really recall where it was, the Spaniards of our class took us there) we had great Pizzas and laughs. Then someone mentioned a party at Motke’s place, Motke being someone from the Class of 2010. We went to his flat (which was awesome, about 250m2 and a huge balcony) and saw that some 2010ers and 2011ers were already enjoying the party. By the peak of the evening we were about 70 at that party. There was a live DJ session and beer-pong, as well as nice chat and we got to know each other a little bit better.

I grabbed a cab and got some sleep at about 3am, but some people stayed even longer.

The following day started early with a breakfast and a nice presentation regarding MBA logistics (Global Loan, IT services etc.) then we had a great presentation of the student counsel and of the different social activities that we’ll be having throughout the year. I don’t really know when we’ll have the time to sleep but I guess that you just get used to studying until 4:30, doing 3 cases, attending presentations or cocktails, doing some sport activities and then going out. It seems that IESE students sleep about 3 hours a night…

Next up was a big lecture where we joined IESE MBA Alumni and learned about the Financial tools behind the Global Crisis. The lecture was fascinating in my opinion, although I’ve heard some classmates saying that it wasn’t the best idea for a lecture on Saturday morning (they were the ones who stayed at Motke’s party until sunrise I guess).

After the lecture our class went up to the terrace again, this time for Paella lunch (yes please!). We got a nice tan and got to talk even more with each other. Conversations became a bit more interesting than the basic “Where are you from?” “When are you moving to Barcelona” etc. We actually started getting to know each other, here and there people burst out laughing and the general atmosphere was great.

At about 2:45pm two tourist buses arrived on campus. These were these open buses with two decks and a guide. We had the COMPLETE city tour, saw all the interesting parts and got a nice tan (it seems that sun is always high up in the sky in Barcelona).

After the tour some of us went to have early drinks, most of us went back to the hotels to get some rest and get ready for the evening, where things got serious…

The Bar of the Week (BoW) committee organized an awesome evening for us. First we went to a bar up on the Tibidabo mountain, events are a bit blurry for me from there on. I believe that we went to a night club where we had a special area only for IESE students. Drinks were a bit expensive (or at least I believe so, as the next morning I woke up with 45 cents, and a chewing gum, in my pockets) but we had so much fun. I think that some classmates went to the beach to watch the sun rise, but I was sleeping in my bed by that time J

That’s just my angle of the Admitted Weekend, there must be at least 20 more events that happened during those crazy 72 hours… Anyway I had so much fun! I am eager to start the MBA already and meet up with the rest of the class, who couldn’t make it to the AW.

Confirmed : precourses for the Class of 2011 are cancelled

2009-04-27T16:06:00.003+02:00

I just received an email from Javier Munuz, Director of Admissions, confirming that the precourses for this year are cancelled. Although some classmates are concerned about missing out important subjects, Mr. Munoz made it clear that all precourse material has been integrated in our classes.

Until our promotion, IESE has offered optional precourses before the official start of the program; Students were able to freshen up their Accounting and Statistics skills, or learn them from scratch if they came from a non-technical background.

This year, IESE has decided to avoid having students come at different times to start their MBA, by beginning the year with Business Spanish followed by the Orientation Week.

Moving to Barcelona? Watch out!

2009-03-14T11:10:00.000+01:00

So I'm starting to look for a flat in Barcelona, as we move there this summer. I look in various websites and send emails inquiring about properties.
Some of the answers are ok. However, most of them are a new (?) kind of fraud, whose purpose is to steal your "security deposit" money and disappear.

I managed to identify some recurring details that can be found in the fraud emails:
1. Very bad English, looks like an automatic translator gone mad
2. He speaks about him moving with his family to West-Africa
3. He asks for weird details about you and your family (do you party a lot, do you drink alcohol..)
4. He talks about god (!)
5. He says that money doesn't count
6. The rent price is very low

if you see these details in an email, watch out!

One of the emails I got:

Hello,
It is my pleasure that you are interested in my house.Thanks for your email and it is my gladness hearing from you.Thanks for the email and also Yes, I am Mr.John Movic. I owned the house and also it is situated at Address: 162 Provenca, Barcelona 08036, Spain.
Actually I resided in the house with my family such as my wife and my only daughter before and presently we had packed due to my transfer from my working place and now situated in the (West Africa) and presently my house is still available for rent for(600Euro per week) including the utilities like hydro,washer and security. Moreso Now, i went for a Work Transfer .Pleases i want you to note that,i am a kind and honest man and also i spent alot on my property that i want to give you for rent,so i will solicit for your absolute maintenance of this house and want you to treat it as your own, money is not the main problem but want you to keep it tidy all the time so that i will be glad to see it neat when i come for a check up, i do that once in a while.I also want you to let me have trust in you as i always stand on my word. And the below is the final question that you must answer to qualify for this the rent of my house? Moreso,Hope you have a nice working day and your lovely family,Infact i will like to meet all of you when coming to visit you soonest.A deposit of (500Euro ) must be made for the security deposit.It is also understood that if this application is accepted the security deposit shall be refunded to the applicant.Upon acceptance, this deposit shall be retained as the security deposit.. When so approved and accepted, I agree to execute a lease for ___________ months before possession is given and to pay the balance of the security deposit (500Euro)prior to the move in date. If you are not approved or accepted by me, the deposit will be refunded, the application hereby waiving any claim for damages by reason of non-acceptance which i may reject. This inquiry includes information as to my character, general reputation, personal characteristics and mode of living.Bellow is the tenant rent application form:

Address: 162 Provenca, Barcelona 08036, Spain

Also,Pls answer these questions below:

======= RENT APPLICATION FORM=======

(1)Your Full Name_____________________

(2)Present Addre(where you reside now &Phone#__________

(3)How old are you __________________________
___

(4)Are you married _______________________

(5)How many people will be livingintheflat_______________
(6)Do you have a pet_______________________

(7)Do you have a car ________________________________

(8)Occupation_________________________________

(9)How long are you willing to stay______________________

(10) 1 or 2 month deposit needed___________________

Looking forward to hear from you with all this details so that i can have it in my file incase of issuing the receipt in your name and contacting you.Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get the documents and the keys to you,please we are giving you all this based on trust and again i want you to stick to your words,We are putting everything into Gods hand,so please do not let us down in this property of ours and God bless you more as you do this,you can call me #(+2348035465664).
Regards.
Mr.John Movic.

I'm in!

2008-12-01T16:51:00.004+01:00

Just received the great news from IESE, I'm in!

I'm so excited!!!! After having called family and friends, I'm off to the gym to run 10km in order to calm down a bit.

Updates

2008-11-27T08:03:00.001+01:00

IESE - Interviewed this week, went OK I think, waiting for a final decision in about a week.

ESADE - Got an interview invite yesterday, will interview next month.

HEC - Waiting with sending the application until I know what's going on with IESE.

INSEAD ding

2008-11-06T11:40:00.004+01:00

Got the ding from INSEAD.. What an emotional rollercoaster. :(

Anyway, I can't change their decision so no need to waste energy on that. I now need to prepare extremelly well for my IESE interviews, less than three weeks from now.

IESE Update

2008-11-06T10:16:00.000+01:00

Got an interview invite from IESE :)

I'll be attending the upcoming open day (Nov. 24) and will have my interviews there.

IESE Application sent two minutes ago

2008-10-23T14:19:00.004+02:00

After doing some last minute changes to my CV, cosmetic changes mostly, I sent my IESE app. Crossing fingers now.

On the INSEAD front, BusinessWeek MBA forum s report that some candidates are already receiving interview invites (two weeks before official deadline for interview notification). I'm hitting on the "check mail" button as fast as I can, but no love yet from the Fonty dudes... THE PRESSURE!

Good Luck to everyone who applied for R1!

Why French Public Universities Suck

2008-10-15T09:51:00.005+02:00

(A non-MBA related post for a change)

I've been studying for 3 years in a French public university. The institution in which I study is famous in France and is considered one of the best in its area in Europe. Because of that, the surprise that I had when I started attending the university was huge. The university is so badly managed, and the classes are so weak, that I wonder how any French descent researcher ever came out from this institute and others alike.

Let me explain why.

1. Student acceptance and success rate in studies: French public universities are "democratic". That means that anyone can just sign up to a university, the only demand is that he has finished his high-school education successfully. Let me repeat that: no entry exams, no application to send, no recommandation letters, no interviews, nothing! although this idea is great in theory, it sucks in reality. Students have to do zero effort before attending university, so a lot of them just attend default universities because that's what everyone else does. They have no motivation, and remain in their high-school state of mind. You can see them in amphis talking loudly with friends, or on the phone. They are there because they didn't know what to do in life after high-school, and it was so easy to attend university and make daddy and mommy shut up.

Beside the obvious consequence of having lots of teens hanging around without a real desire to study, lays a more dangerous one. Schools know that they have way too many students admitted than the industry and academy can absorb later when they graduate. A direct result of that is that they came up with a brilliant idea to filter students by making them fail in exams. The best proof is that according to a survey published last week by the OSEIPE (http://www.oseipe.univ-paris5.fr/IMG/pdf/TAB_doc_final_24sep08.pdf) only 21% passed from 2nd to 3rd year of Psychology undergrad. Let me rephrase: out of every 100 students, 79 failed to pass to third year. This is HUGE!

So you have a lot of failing students who lost 1 or 2 years of their lives, just because schools found a stupid method to adujst graduation numbers to available jobs post-graduation.

2. Teaching method: So you have the obvious lectures, boring and anonymous. Without student-teacher interaction whatsoever. And then you have the TD, or Travaux Dirigés (Guided Work) where you'd expect to see some reflexion and interaction right? well think again. The entire french teaching method, at least in my university, is based on boring lectures. I guess they never heard in France about group work, cases, projects etc.

3. Anonymous student and bad social life: In a French university, the student is completely anonymous. You'll never speak with the professor and don't even dream that he'll know your name even if you took a small class with 25 students in it. Don't wait to be invited to a students party or a university social event, these just don't exist. Of course the students could organize something, but the sad fact is that student in France attend the university closest to their parents' home, so they can live with them during school, and keep on seeing friends from high-school. The students social interaction is limited then to the casual "bonjour" to faces that you've been seeing for 3 years every day.

Maybe I'm just in the wrong French university, and maybe in other schools the situation is better, but from what I've seen in the last 3 years, French universities suck!

TOEFL results in

2008-10-08T16:06:00.005+02:00

OK, I was relieved to see my TOEFL scores today, I got a total score of 111 which is more than what INSEAD requires (105). I've immediatley sent the scores and so my application for INSEAD is officially complete. Waiting to see if I'm invited to interview...

Besides that, I talked recently with Jacek, an ESADE '08 grad, and the chat we had confirmed my idea that I would be as happy to be accepted to ESADE, as I will be to be accepted to IESE. Both schools seem strong in rankings, both schools use cases (even though IESE uses only cases whereas ESADE uses them along with other teaching methods such as lectures and projects).

Another important factor for me is the social style of the school, as I really want to spend my MBA experience in a pleasent and fun environement. It seems that both schools excell also in that, both places seem very friendly and alumni with whom I talked were extremely nice and helpful.

Anyway, enough dreaming - I first need to be accepted to at least one school in order to actually be able to decide where to go finally.

INSEAD Application sent yesterday

2008-09-30T09:52:00.002+02:00

OK, So 7 months after I typed the first word of the first essay, I've finally made some last minute changes and sent my application to INSEAD. I must admit that it was the scariest "submit" button I've ever clicked on...

Of course I had to do some things in the last minute, like realizing that I had to send Official Grade Transcripts by the post and not via email. I hope it gets there before Oct. 1st which is the deadline for the first round of admissions.

In addition to that, I passed the TOEFL only 10 days ago and didn't receive the scores yet. This sucks and I hope that admissions will review my app for R1 even though they don't have the scores yet.

I hate waiting but I guess I have no otherchoice. The date for the interview decision is Nov. 7. Will keep you updated.

Good luck to all applicants!

Official GMAT results came in

2008-04-29T21:14:00.006+02:00

I just received my official GMAT score by email. The scores of course didn't change, but I was given my AWA score, which is 5.5. A great score to seal this part of my application.

My GMAT debrief

2008-04-23T09:09:00.011+02:00

Here is my debrief after yesterday's insane performance. I was able to get 760 with 49 in Quant, 44 in Verbal, 5.5 in AWA
I know that personally I get lost in long debriefs, so I'll try to make this as short as possible.

*** My 760 (99%) debrief ***

Prep CATS done

GMATPrep1 #1 570 34Q 35V
GMATPrep2 #1 650 40Q 39V
PowerPREP1 #1 640 47Q 31V
GMATPrep1 #2 660 45Q 35V
GMATPrep1 #3 690 47Q 38V
GMATPrep2 #2 710 47Q 41V
PowerPREP2 #1 720 49Q 39V
Kaplan CAT2 540 34Q 25V
PowerPREP1 #2 710 48Q 38V
GMATPrep2 #3 730 49Q 40V
Real GMAT: 760 49Q 44V

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To create my prep strategy, I had to realize that I have three major weaknessess: 1/ I work full time and couldn't take any vacation. 2/ I have problems focusing for long periods of time. 3/ I am not very strong in math. 4/English is my third language, so English idioms are not well known to me.

In addition I had to realize my strong points: 1/ I can study by myself complicated stuff. 2/ I study best while practicing a lot 3/ I love challenges.

With these weaknessess and strengths in mind, I decided to prep for at least 3 months, and to put at least one hour a day. I also decided to prep by myself because I could solve batches of 20 questions, take a long pause and do another batch. I was afraid that in a prep course I will only do what I have to do, and not push myself to my limits.

From now on I'll refer to some crucial points in my prep:

GMATPrep and PowerPREP: I took every test at least three times and it was the single most helpfull thing that improved my skills. This is amazing and like someone said: you feel like you're cheating when you see the real exam that looks exactly like GMATPrep. I urge you to solve at least twice every test.

Other CATS: I did Kaplan CAT2 about one week ago, and got 540. Enough said, this test is pure horse crap.

Books: I started with Princeton Review 2008 which is great for the basics, then I moved to Kaplan Premier 2008 combined with OG11. I worked on this for about a month and then added the verbal and the quant books of OG11 to the prep. Last two weeks I bought MGMAT SC but I will discuss this later.

Net sources: The best advices came from http://www.beatthegmat.com . I tried to solve difficult questions that were posted, and also put some the question that I couldn't solve. The forum is great and they have a lot of resources to download. One of these resources are the BTG flashcards that I printed, I used them to refresh old material during the last week of prep.

Simulated conditions: I believe that the GMAT should be approached like a sports competition, and I trained myself that way. For example, I saw that at the end of quant sometimes I have about 1 minute per question, and that my hit rates are very bad at this point, so I solved batches of 5 questions in 5 minutes and tried to adopt smart guessing techniques. This was very useful during the test as I had to guess about 4 questions in the Q part. Another part of the simulated conditions is again the prep tests, that I took at the exact same time of the day as the real GMAT, I also asked my girlfriend to come into the room where I was doing the test and to disturb me, so I can practice room disturbance as well.

The part that you can improve easily and that the most significant effect on your score is the Sentance Correction part. I saw that I wasn't hitting above 85% during the last month of prep, so I ordered the MGMAT SC book which was great and helped me improve SC to about 95% hit rate. I am sure that it helped me a lot in the real test. Work on verbal this is very easy to improve and improves your score a lot.

Psychological aspects and stress: I considered the gmat a challenge, and tried not to stress because of it. I knew that the pause between Quant and Verbal can have wierd effects on your mind, so I drank my redbull and did some push-ups, while telling myself that Quant was hard because I performed well, and that I know how to handle Verbal. It's all in your mind so try to control the stress. Answer one question at a time, and don't try to auto-assess during the exam.

That's it for now. I will answer some questions on the http://www.beatthegmat.com forum if someone wants to ask me something.

Cheers and good luck to you all. Scoring high in the GMAT is an achievable goal for everyone!

SMASHED THE GMAT!!!!

2008-04-22T18:15:00.000+02:00

Total score 760 49Q 44V

An amazing feeling when I looked at the computer screen!

I am absolutely shocked right now, will debrief later....

G -2 : Last GMATPrep ...

2008-04-20T17:27:00.004+02:00

I took the last prep exam before the real thing today, and scored a record breaking 730 with 49Q and 40V. Like I say after every GMATPrep or PowerPrep - I wish the real exam will look like this!

It's now 17:29 and I will read the flashcards from http://www.beatthegmat.com for the last time, and then take the evening off. Tomorrow I'm going to chill with my girlfriend in an amusement park and try to forget about the GMAT. Tuesday is the G-Day and I'll update you after I'm done.

Good luck to everyone who is about to take the GMAT !!!

G -7 : PowerPREP and more

2008-04-15T12:15:00.002+02:00

With the GMAT in a week from now, I needed to get my confidence back after yesterday's Kaplan CAT and my weak performance in it, so I went and redid PowerPREP1 which I have already done two months ago. The scores were OK with 710 and a split of 48Q 38V.

I saw some repeated questions but I tend to fail on these, due to overconfidence, so I believe that all in all, the test is a good measure of my current GMAT skills.

I hope to achieve my goal of a 700+ score next week.... Wish me luck!

Kaplan give me back 3 hours of my life!!!

2008-04-14T16:21:00.004+02:00

I just completely wasted 3 hours of my life, doing Kaplan's CAT2 from the CD that came with the Kaplan 2008 book. Kaplan CATs are known to be harder than the real GMAT and to cut your score by 100 points so you would go and join one of their expensive classes. But even though I knew it would be hard, nothing prepared me to this shit... this test was RIDICULOUSLY hard, with every reading comprehension paragraph lasting at least 60 lines, and extremely difficult and long critical reasoning paragraphes.

I managed to get a mindblowing 540 with 34Q 25V split.... I won't even put it in my scores list, unless I get more than 700 in the real GMAT and then I'll put it just to show how stupid Kaplan CATs are.

update: I scored 760 in the real GMAT. Conclusion: don't trust Kaplan CAT scores.

IESE open day in Barcelona

2008-04-12T19:29:00.004+02:00

Last week I traveled to the sunny and lovely city of Barcelona, to attend the open day at the IESE Business School. I will write a short article because I don't have much time, as my GMAT is in 9 days.

I arrived to Barca the day before the open day, and enjoyed a nice afternoon of sun by the beach. You don't need me to explain how great is this city, but in case you don't know yet that the location of a b-school in Barcelona is a great advantage, just Google "Barcelona" and you'll understand yourself. Better than that - go there and feel the vibe for yourself!

Fast forward to the open day then. I arrived one hour too early to the IESE campus, a small campus in a rich neighbourhood of the city. I used the free time to explore the buildings and grab a much needed morning coffee in the bar. The prices are low and the service is great.

I then moved to the amphi were the first part of the open day was held. We were about 60 to attend, and first to speak was Javier Munoz, an associate director from admissions. He asked us to introduce ourselves and I was impressed by the diversity of the profiles. He then explained the structure of the open day and showed us the standard marketing presentation of the school.

Mr. Munoz was followed by the associate dean, whose name I didn't write down. He explained about the program in more detail. What I thought was more interesting in what he said:

1st year of the program is very rigid academically and very demanding. Consists mostly of core courses.
2nd year is more flexible, with lots of electives and a possible exchange program
Between the two years there are 4 months for internship, exchange or language courses.
The MBA program is based mostly on the case method, with about 70% cases and 30% lectures in average. Over 700 cases are seen over the two years, and about 2-3 every day!!
Class size is ~215 (he said that it was the smallest top-10 MBA program, but let me remind you that ESADE is even smaller, maybe the associate dean doesn't include ESADE in his top-10), average age 27 years old.
Every year, about five students are thrown out of the program due to bad grades. (the system is basically z-scoring and you're not allowed to have too many bad scores below the average)

About Spanish studies:

A month of intensive Spanish course before the start of the first year
Followed by Spanish lessons every day of the week except Friday (1.5 hours / day)
Second year you can choose electives in Spanish
Your wife/husband can come also to the Spanish classes (even though he/she will for them)

About the exchange program:

The exchanges are during the first semester of the 2nd year.
The list of possible exchange locations is very long, but some schools are in the global top-20 and worth mentioning: LBS, CEIBS, Wharton, Sloan, Duke, Darden, Kellogg, HEC-Paris, RSM

Financing your MBA:

Tuition fees for the entire program (two years) are currently 64,900€
You can get a 100% loan with no guaranties only requirement is to be admitted to the program
He did mention the interest but I forgot to write it down :(
You start paying 6 months after graduation

After this important lecture, we went on a coffee break in a lovely bar inside one of the campus' buildings. The standard were very high, and reminded me of my visit to INSEAD. From the bar we left in small groups to do a campus tour, which wasn't really helpful. We then returned to the amphi for one of the open day's most attractive parts - the case . We were given by email a case to study about the Barcelona Football Club and some issues it had in the past. To summarize the one hour and a half of the case course: it was absolutely BRILLIANT! very interesting and actually made me want to go into sports management :) I don't want to ruin the surprise for people who will attend the open day in the future, but I really had fun and it only made my view regarding cases stronger, for me the case method is the best one to learn and assimilate new concepts and theories.

After the case we went to the other, new campus just up the street. This new campus is so amazing it will make you go "WOWWWW" even without you noticing it. It's like a modern palace made of the most expensive materiel out there and put on a hilltop overlooking Barca. Simply amazing. We sat in a restaurant-like huge room, 8 at a table, and on each table two current MBA students from 1st and 2nd year. We could discuss with them during lunch, and I really liked this concept. Besides the lunch which was great, we were able to talk freely with the current students and get their views on the school.

To finish the day, we went into another amphi, in the new campus this time, for a career services lecture and an alumni panel. This was very interesting for me, but nothing really new was told. The only discovery for me was an interesting rating of job opportunities drawn by careers rep featuring industries' willingness to recruit MBAs and the MBAs' willingness to join the industry. on the low-low corner were retail, high-tech and telecoms meaning that both the industry and the MBAs weren't so much interested in each other. on the other extreme end were of course finance and consulting. The interesting thing for me was to see that heavy industry is on the high side on its willingness to recruit MBAs and on the low side for MBAs wanting to go there, which will leave me with less competition and maybe better salaries after I finish my MBA.

Some general final thoughts about IESE and the open day:

The facilities are just amazing. For example each amphi has three projectors aimed at three screens with different angles, so every student can find his optimal viewing angle. You also have a plasma screen on the wall behind your back, it's for the teacher so he can see the current slide himself.. how cool is that?!
The school has a very elite feel, I think it's partly due to the strong relationship it has with the Harvard Business School.
The case method is great and even though they do A LOT of cases at IESE, I still think it's the best for me.

So, to sum it all up, I think that IESE was so far the best school I've seen, and I put it as the top priority in my list. I encourage everyone who read this and who consider getting an MBA to go and visit IESE to see for themselves, that Barcelona has one of Europe's best kept secrets in its suburbs.

G -11 : PowerPrep2 for the first time

2008-04-11T15:08:00.005+02:00

Today I wrote for the first time PowerPrep CAT number 2 and got my highest score so far: 720 with score split 49Q 39V I only wish that the real GMAT will look the same!

TODO today:
* Read RC part of Kaplan 2008
* Do at least 6 RC texts

TODO saturday:
* Review SC in my new MGMAT book
* Do at least 40 SC questions
* Do at least 20 Quant questions from OG11

New GMAT date

2008-03-29T11:08:00.003+01:00

I decided to change my GMAT exam date, from 5 May to 22 April, as I feel that I'm getting as ready as I can be, and don't want to lose the momentum. so we're D-25! Good luck to me.

INSEAD visit

2008-03-29T10:10:00.003+01:00

Driving through the forest of Fontainebleau and into the small countryside town center, I tried to imagine myself living there for 10 months, going to the market first thing in the morning to buy fresh cheese and fruits, then sipping a coffee in the Café around the corner as I watch old women carrying bags full of wine, sausages and huge tomatoes. Only later on in my INSEAD in-house event, I realized that any connection between INSEADers and the "outside world" is happening when they go out drinking late at night, after having spent the entire day learning, discussing and having fun in one of the most amazing campuses I've ever seen.

I arrived early to meet with some current students and take lunch with them. The food was great and one could choose between Italian, Grill, Veggie, Asian, French, and much more. The prices for students are a joke, for an entire meal you'd pay no more than 4-5 EUR drinks included. The chat with the current MBAs was fun and I started to feel great about this place.

At exactly 15:00 the event started, in a very nice amphi where 60 of us were sitting. First to talk was Antonio Fatas, the MBA program dean, who basically showed us the standard INSEAD presentation with stats available in the website. He then was BOMBARDED with tons of questions, that had nothing to do with what he talked about. At first it made sense but then it kinda got annoying and I though people should wait a bit and let the guy talk before attacking him with endless amount of very detailed questions.

After his short session, we had a sample class. The subject was Finance and more precisely: Introduction to options, Antonio (we're buddies now :-) ) called the professor, Pascal Maenhout and I saw arriving a guy that looked no more than 25 years old. I don't know the dude's real age but he sure isn't your typical finance professor. Regarding the class itself, I think INSEAD were very brave to choose a subject that can be very dull, and in which people's knowledge in the class can vary from none to expertise. They took a challenge and Pascal showed us that even a finance class, if taught the INSEAD way, can be actually fun and interesting. I don't know if I'll be admitted to INSEAD, but at least I know what exactly is a short put position and what happens when it's out of the money. Kudos to professor Pascal, who gets very highly scored by INSEADers every year.

Next was a coffee break thatI really can't compare to HEC's coffee break a few days ago. INSEAD guys (and I think Andrew Bueno was the brain behind the day) prepared an extremely stylish coffee break with small cakes, fruits, cocktail snacks etc. I was impressed (later on in the cocktail I was even more impressed).

After the break we had a short session with Romauld Gallet from Career services. His presentation was kinda standard as well, but he stressed out two important points in my opinion:

INSEAD's career services count 22 full-time employees. (whereas HEC had until recently only one person, and now has 6 and 1 part-time). Even if you take into account the great size of the program (>800 students per year) it still is a lot of time put into helping you find the perfect job after graduation.
Nowadays INSEAD tries to enlarge the Industry recruitment offers, as it detects a global shift toward that direction. The major domain remains of course consulting, with 35% of the promotion going into consulting positions worldwide.

Next was maybe the single most important lecture in the entire day, with Leila Murat from admissions. She said that when an application is reviewed, four criteria are measured:

Leadership potential: you have to emphasize the dimensions in your current position, to show steps you have taken in your career and to explain why you took these steps.
International motivation: living or traveling abroad is not enough, you have to prove that you're open-minded, and are basically a global creature willing to live or work anywhere in the world.
Academic capacity: your academic history (GPA, reputation of the institution) as well as the GMAT scores are taken into consideration. Regarding GMAT: she said she didn't even look at the general GMAT score, but only at the split percentiles (Quant and Verbal apart), and both must be above the 70th percentile in order to be considered for admission.
Ability to contribute: through your personality, personal achievements, things you've learned from mistakes and failures. All of these are assessed mainly in your interviews as well as in the different essays.

Some other minor points that were interesting in Leila Murat's session:

AWA score in the GMAT exam: almost meaningless for admissions at INSEAD.
You must speak at least two languages upon entry and at least three when graduating. You can take language classes during the MBA year but it is highly recommended to complete the language assignments before entering INSEAD.
Recommendations should show leadership potential as well as talk about your personality.

After admissions we were sent to the restaurant where a cocktail was waiting for us. As I mentioned earlier, this was even more impressive than the coffee break. I took an orange juice as I needed to drive back home, but beer, red wine, white wine, sodas, etc. was also available, as well as little cocktail snacks, we were joined by current MBA students with whom we could mingle. The cocktail was very nice and I got some very important personal insights from current MBAs, but the time was already past 20:00 and I was getting very tired. I took the car and drove out of the forest and into the highway, singing to myself "born to be wild" and wishing I could drive back into the magical forest of INSEAD, as a future INSEADer.

Visit highlights:

Free coffee at the bar, will turn you into caffeine addicted in no time.
Overwhelming experience, the campus itself is amazing with sports facilities, new and highly equipped buildings, and of course the gorgeous Fontainebleau forest and its Château.
A cell phone rings during the sample Finance class, and the teacher says "that's Champagne", explaining later that it's an INSEADers tradition to buy a bottle of Champagne for each time their cell phone rang in the middle of a class. The bottles are later consumed in special evenings.

HEC visit impressions

2008-03-25T16:24:00.005+01:00

I went to the open day at the HEC campus in Jouy-en-Josas, about 30 km south-west from Paris.

The village is beautiful, with nice old-fashion houses and vast open areas filled with trees and fields. I walked by feet from the RER (train station) to the campus, a distance of 800 meters. I could of course have taken the shuttle bus but I'm an adventurous dude.

On site I quickly found the MBA building (HEC is a big business undergrad college as well) and entered the hallway. People were sitting around in sofas and discussing important looking stuff (although I quickly saw on an open laptop an image of what seemed to be a recent holiday in the mountains). On the tables were the latest issues of the Financial Times and the Les Echos (french economics paper) free of charge.

I took the elevator to the first floor and entered room 106, where I met the person who arrived before me, an American working for an NGO in Africa. In addition people who came later were: a French engineer, a French manager from Shell, a French IT consultant, a French young politician and a French army captain. Lots of French although only 20% of the MBA class is supposed to be French.

The room was new, clean and very well equipped with Bose loudspeakers, a big white board, a video projector, very comfortable chairs, clean new desks. I had the feeling to be in an high-tech firm meeting room rather than a French university (you should see one from the inside to understand how ugly it can be).

The first guy who spoke was in charge of Development for HEC in Spanish speaking countries, he explained what he saw as HEC's strongest points :

Academics only count for about 30% of the HEC MBA value, the other 70% come from personal development and individual and group experiences.
FT ranked HEC first in Europe for two years in a row (although true, the ranking he refers to is "Top European business schools" thus including Masters, EMBA, Part time MBA and online MBA)
HEC is a 16 months program which he believes to be the perfect compromise between academic quality and not being away from the job market for too long.
MBAT, the MBA sports Tournament seems to take an important place in the school life, and he actually stressed it out as being one of the strongest points of HEC (who is the organizer of this tournament).
A possibility for a dual degree (two MBAs) with NYU Stern, ITESM and 5 other European schools that I didn't recognize (not top 10 in EU)
Very strong exchange program with a lot of strong schools all over the world (22 schools only in the US including UPenn, Duke, Darden and more top-tier schools)
40% of the faculty were recruited in the last four years, in an attempt to score higher in MBA rankings.

Next lecturer was a French guy from Career Development, who presented the service's efforts to support students and alumni in their career search:

Self assessment using specific software, seminars with professionals, meeting 1-on-1 with HR specialists.
They help you build a full and a brief CV.
Two days seminar with a pro about job search, salary negotiation, etc.
They have two full times employees who travel around the world and present student profiles to employers.
They have companies coming to the campus almost every Tuesday to do presentations and talk with MBAs in informal cocktails.
Most of the class wants to work either in France or UK, last year 57% actually worked in these countries.
They work real hard on the brand recognition of MBA in France (not known enough yet).

We ended this part of the day and followed a current MBA student from Japan to a classroom to attend a real MBA class. The course was Strategic Management and a case about Domino's Pizza was presented. The experience was AMAZING to me. First it was very informal, with students wearing Jeans and t-shirts. Second, the general feeling was extremely nice; The professor told jokes, made funny comments and was a great performer overall. The lecture was interesting as well, and included a case discussion, a powerpoint presentation and a video who was funny as well as interesting.

My feeling after the class was: "Please let me stay here for two years!!!"

The rest of the visit was not very interesting, we ate at the cafeteria (nice decent food), and saw around the campus and the student residence. The MBA residence is apart from the other residences, and includes new and not so expensive rooms (500 EUR for a single room of about 20sqm), they also have a room for parties called the Piano bar, a washing machines room, vending machines and a very useful foosball table (table soccer).

Visit summary :

The campus is very nice and the MBA facilities are great.
Prospective students seem intelligent and interesting, a perfect future network.

Entrepreneurs' street in Jouy-en-Josas

D -60 Study Summary

2008-03-24T19:01:00.002+01:00

Solved two quizes from the Kaplan CD.
Critical Reasoning #1 hit 75%
Problem Solving #2 hit 68.75%, and ran of time for the last three question, because I did a stupid mistake of trying to solve one question for over 4:30 minutes. Ignoring the last three questions I hit ~85% which is a great improvement over previous batches of similar level PS questions, so all in all - I start to show strong performance in a previously weak area.

Lesson learned today: Don't put more than 2 minutes on a Quant problem, remain aware of the time passed.

First post

2008-03-24T15:53:00.003+01:00

Hello everyone!

This blog is mainly for me to document my progress in my current objective:

To obtain an MBA from one of Europe's top-10 business schools.

I'm currently in the stage of GMAT preparation, and will take the test in 5 May 2008 (60 days from now). I will try to write here interesting insights from my GMAT prep, school visits, essay writing etc.

Please feel free to comment and reply to my threads, you can also ask questions regarding MBA & GMAT and I will try to help if I have the answer.

Cheers