MBA Abroad

Did you know that the addresses in your mail box can actually predict your career prospects. The more dappled your address list, the more wide-ranging your career graph will be. This has broadly been the finding of a recent study conducted by Prof Adam Kleinbaum, an assistant professor of Business Administration at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

And Prof Kleinbaum discovered this after studying lakhs of email headers of some 30,000 employees of a company at two different periods in 2006 and 2008. He studied how communication changed over time, which led to a change in connections and thus a change in career prospects.

Prof Kleinbaum spoke to PaGaLGuY

Tell us something about the study’s initial days?


The study was conducted at a large, well-known U.S.-based information technology firm that I call "BigCo". The subjects of the study were about 30,000 employees of the firm, a significant chunk of its US employee population. The data collection took nearly two years to complete and the analysis has been ongoing for the past four years. This particular study examined how a person’s social network evolves over the course of her career, but was part of a larger initiative to understand the role that informal social interactions play within large organisations.



What were the most expected findings?

The most expected finding was that within large organisations, people with static careers generally have less advantageous networks than people who have experienced mobility within the company. In the paper, I analyse the networks and career histories of tens of thousands of employees, but to pull out a single example, I describe "Kellie," a consultant with the job title of IT Specialist. Kellie worked in a medium-sized office in a Louisiana city, where a few hundred other employees were based. During the seven years of career history, Kellie stayed in the same job, in the same office and was not promoted. Correspondingly, Kellie’s network was relatively focused: all of her contacts are in her own job function and nearly all are in her own business unit. She has some contacts in other offices, but nearly all are in her home state. Quantitatively, Kellie’s network is less advantageous than 94% of BigCo employees.

In contrast, "Bill" held a position similar to Kellie’s at the start of my observation, but then he moved. His first move was into the Software business unit, where he continued to serve as a consultant. Next, he became a technical sales specialist for the software unit. This was a natural transition, given the expertise Bill had developed in earlier roles, and one with ample precedent at BigCo. Compared with Kellie, Bill has a larger, broader, more diverse network.

And what were the most startling findings?

The most starting finding was that among the people who have had dynamic, mobile careers, the particular pattern of mobility matters a great deal. People who have moved along well-trodden career paths have networks that are moderately advantageous. But the people with the most advantageous networks are people whose career histories have been atypical for the organisation. Take "Sheryl," for example. At the start of my observation period, Sheryl had much in common with Kellie and Bill. But two years later, she was promoted to the executive ranks into an administrative role in the IT consulting unit. A year later, she moved into a marketing role. After three more years, she took an assignment in the manufacturing function of the corporate supply chain group, working in the corporate headquarters. A sequence of transitions like Sheryl’s is highly unusual at BigCo : fewer than 7% of people have careers as atypical as hers. And correspondingly, Sheryl’s network is significantly broader and more far-reaching than that of either Kellie or Bill.

But companies also have ‘silent workers who believe that work tells?

I think that for certain types of work or certain types of job, the quality of one’s work is driven to a significant degree by the quality of one’s network. Take, for example, creative problem-solving. One might argue that creativity is the act of the lone genius. But it turns out that lone genius is the exception, not the rule. Research shows that far more often, creativity results not from thinking hard, but from interaction with a diverse range of different people whose different backgrounds lead them to approach a problem in different ways. People whose networks bring them into contact with such a diversity of perspectives are far more likely to have good ideas than people who interact primarily with those in their own work group.

Are woman as efficient at networking? There is a concern about reputation?

Yes, there is little doubt that men and women have different patterns of interaction. In another project from this paper, I show that women actually interact more broadly, and with a larger set of people than men do, at least within BigCo’s U.S. employee population. Of course, the more important question is why do these patterns occur. Further research is needed to really understand gender differences in network. In terms of societal perceptions, the research on gender teaches us that people do perceive powerful, agentic men more favourably than powerful, agentic women. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go before both genders have equal opportunities in the workplace.

Does the info work well for non-American employees and countries?

We don’t know whether the finding that atypical careers yield network benefits holds outside the U.S., but I would be willing to hazard some speculation. My guess would be that the more a national culture values conformity, maintaining appearances and saving face, the less likely it is that this result would hold. Independent of national culture, I think the results would be more likely to hold the more opportunities there are for value-creating collaboration between the business units of an enterprise.



There is a thin line between networking and keeping contacts for personal benefit?

The question of how individuals’ interests diverge from the interests of their organisations is a very interesting one in a broad range of domains. It certainly is interesting in terms of networking as well. Within large organisations, I think most of the time people both build and use their networks in ways that benefit their jobs. In this sense, their own interests are well-aligned with the interests of the company.

Is networking taught?

Yes, networking can definitely be taught. I think it begins with a willingness to view one’s social capital – that is, the set of resources that we have access to through our relationships with others – as an asset that is worthy of investment. I teach it at Tuck.

Does networking also mean basically keeping the right contacts to be used at the right time?


I think effective networking means building strong and meaningful relationships with a broad and diverse set of contacts. Different people can provide different kinds of benefits. Colleagues in another department in your organisation may provide a novel perspective or useful political information. Classmates at business school can provide insights into what a job in a particular industry might be like. Former bosses might provide opportunities for future advancement. There is benefit in maintaining a broad and diverse network. Of course, sometimes decisions have to be made about how or when to "call in" a favor from a contact. In these situations, the best approach is to think through both costs and benefits as well as the effect that the request will have on the relationship. It’s counter-intuitive, but sometimes asking for a favor can actually strengthen a relationship by making the other person feel more invested in your success.

What about those who have not managed to network for most of their corporate life


It’s never too late to start! Of course, there is great value in long-standing relationship. Part of the value lies in the fact that it’s much easier to befriend big, important people before they become big and important – I think this is especially important advice for current or prospective MBA students. But for those who have not managed to do much networking, I think the way to begin is to view your network as a resource that you use to create economic value and which is therefore worth investing in. Viewed this way, networking may seem more like an essential tool for success than an uncomfortable activity to be endured.


The first batch of 8 women to enroll for the MBA program at HBS

Fifty years ago, the Harvard Business School (HBS) faculty voted to admit women into the two-year MBA Program. Since then, about 12,000 women have graduated from its MBA, Doctoral, and Executive Education programmes. And today, women make up 40% of the first-year MBA class of some 900 students.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of women's admission to the two-year programme, the HBS undertook an extensive survey to study their alumni, their aspirations, their journeys over the last five decades. Prof Robin Ely (female), the School's Diane Doerge Wilson Professor of Business Administration and its Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community was assigned the job of heading this all-embracing investigation.

While the findings of this survey will be officially made public sometime later in the year, PaGaLGuY touched based with Prof Ely for a foretaste of the findings.

Prof Robin Ely

Below are the some of the answers.

What is this survey about?

The Life and Leadership After HBS survey aimed to open a dialogue with our 79,000 alumni worldwide (including MBA, Doctoral, and long-program Executive Education graduates) about the views they hold, the challenges and opportunities they have encountered, and the choices they have made. We hope the preview of our findings will spark conversations that will extend and deepen interest as we delve more deeply into the data and develop a comprehensive report to be released later this year.

One challenge for our research team was to balance dual goals—better understanding the complexities of our alumni population as a whole, while also closely examining gendered dimensions of life and career that we believe are crucial to advancing women leaders. This preview highlights key findings around gender, but the full report will include further results that are broader in nature.

The student demographics?

The survey was launched in late 2012. Researchers from HBS collaborated with Abt SRBI, a research firm, to conduct the study, which included a cen­sus of the 12,000 women and a stratified random sample of about 14,000 men (25,810 women and men were invited to take the sur­vey). Of those alumni contacted, 6,458 completed the survey and shared their life experiences and perspectives with us, a response rate of 25% (3,786 women; 2,655 men; and 17 who did not speci­fy their gender). The data about our alumni population have been properly weighted using standard methods; and in accordance with standard reporting procedures, all percent­ages reported here are weighted.

The alumni who completed the survey attended the MBA or a Doctoral Program, a Comprehensive Leadership Program in Executive Education, or early offerings such as the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration, a one-year, non-degree program taught by HBS professors that predated the admission of women into the School's two-year MBA program beginning in the fall of 1963.

The key take-away of the survey

A few.

*Contrary to media reports and cultural stereotypes, nearly three-quarters of alumnae ages 31-47 (Generation X) and the majority (57%) of alumnae ages 48-66 (Baby Boom generation) are working full time (compared to 95% and 72%, respectively, of men in those generations). Our figures indicate that a far larger percentage of our alumnae are working full-time than the media (and common beliefs) would lead one to believe.

*About two-thirds of women caring for children full-time (and nearly two-thirds of those working part-time) report regular commitment to or significant leadership responsibilities in pro bono and volunteer work, such as community or professional associations, educational causes, cultural institutions, or other non-profit places. These women have higher levels of community engagement than alumni overall. We take this as an indication that even women who are not in the full-time paid workforce are using their business and leadership skills to make significant contributions to society.

*Nearly all alumni (men and women) (98%) rate “quality of personal and family relationships” either “very important” or “extremely important,” and 78% gave it the highest rating (“extremely important”) among the nine aspects of the personal and professional lives we asked them to rate in importance and about which we asked them to rate their satisfaction. This latter figure (78%) is especially striking—no other item was rated “extremely important” by greater than 40% of respondents.

*Among career-age alumni (under age 67), we found no gender differences in the importance placed on “meaningful and satisfying work,” “professional accomplishments,” and “opportunities for career growth and development”; however, women rate their satisfaction with these aspects of their lives lower than men by about 10 percentage points. (The ranges are about 40-50% for women and about 50-60% for men, so satisfaction isn't terribly high for either group.)

*Women (about three-quarters) are much more likely than men (about half) to agree that structural factors, such as “exclusion from informal networks,” “lack of influential mentors and sponsors,” “lack of a supportive work environment,” and an “inhospitable organisational culture,” are barriers to women's advancement into leadership roles.

Any startling finding?

Contrary to many media reports and cultural stereotypes about elite-educated women, only about 10% of HBS alumnae (women) ages 31-66 (Generation X and Baby Boom generation) are at home full-time caring for children.


Did you find full-time fathers in your survey?

We came across very few men who are at home full-time caring for children.


Any sense of disillusionment with women post marriage/kids wanting to work again?

There is a good deal of disillusionment due to the belief that large numbers of women have given up their professional dream for home and children, but our data suggest that the disillusionment may be ill-founded, in that the vast majority of our women alums are in the paid workforce and the small minority who are not are nonetheless engaged in unpaid work outside the home. In addition, of those who are at home full-time caring for children , only 11% indicate that they do not plan to return to the paid workforce; 11% are unsure; and 86% plan to return to the paid workforce at some point in the future. All this said, responses to open-ended questions indicate that the workplace is a difficult place for both men and women, who are equally invested in maintaining high-quality personal and family relationships.



Hungry anyone? (Photo Courtesy:

http://bit.ly/13ARZpD)

Update on September 19, 2013: The ownership of this plan is currently under dispute with Jakub Dzamba, a PhD candidate in architecture at McGill, claiming ownership of the idea. For more details, view here


Five students from the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, Canada offered a rather innovative (read bizarre) solution to the challenge of the 2013 Hult Prize, considered by some as the Nobel Prize of the b-school arena. Responding to the challenge of developing a viable social enterprise to tackle the challenge of food security for urban slum dwellers, these students have offered crickets as an inexpensive source of food as well as a new source of income.

The plan is simple – provide inexpensive cricket producing kits (about USD 6) to urban slum dwellers where they can grow the crickets, process them, use them as a food source and sell them in various forms. The model kit is similar to an Ikea laundry basket, approximately one metre tall and one metre around. The kit would need soil with eggs in it to be put in, then food and water approximately every day for several weeks. There is no gathering of crickets involved in the process. The food will largely be compost or waste, and the outputs, after consumption, will include reselling the waste of the cricket.

Now, whatever your personal opinions are about the solution, the judges of the Hult Prize competition sure think of it as a brilliant idea. The team is one of the five finalists in contention for the prize. Shobhita Soor (24), Zev Thompson (31), Mohammed Ashour (26), Gabriel Mott (37) and Jesse Pearlstein (28) are the five brains behind the project.

While the idea sure seems clever, there remains one fundamental issue. People might not be ready to let dead insects occupy their dinner plate just yet. Infact, many people who hear about it might get grossed out with the idea. However, research done by the team brings out an interesting fact that nearly 80% of the world's countries such as Thailand, Laos, Mexico, Ghana among others and 35% of its population consume insects as part of their regular diet. According to the team, far from being grossed out, the people would appreciate insects being available year-round in a regular market. The team also draws an analogy between crickets and Sushi. “Crickets could be today what sushi was 25 years ago: an exotic food that seemed disgusting (raw fish?!). Today, in North America and Europe, sushi restaurants are extremely common and sushi is considered completely mainstream,” quips Zev Thompson, one of the students who worked on the project.


(From left to right: Mohammed Ashour, Zev Thompson, Shobhita Soor, Gabe Mott, Jesse Pearlstein)

For those places where insects are not consumed, the students have offered fortified flour that is part ground cricket and part regular flour (wheat, corn, rice, etc. as locally appropriate). The whole crickets would be ground and regular flour would be fortified with them. Their research indicates that up to 70% by mass can be cricket and the product still performs roughly like regular flour.

Moreover, if one is to go by their study, crickets are highly nutritious. Apart from being particularly high in iron, they are comparable in protein to beef or chicken, gram-for-gram. In addition, they are high in B vitamins (B1, 2, 3), and Zinc. They could also tackle specific nutritional deficiencies, in particular protein and iron. But how do you eat them? Crickets seem more like prawns which cannot be eaten daily. Zev offers a solution, “We liken them to lentils in an Indian diet than to prawns. They can also be mixed in curry or stir fried, or the flour can be consumed in flat bread,” says Zev.

Additionally, according to research done by the team, the easy availability of crickets around the globe makes them a good solution to the food problem. According to their interactions with cricket farmers, these insects are very easy to work with. Crickets can consume varied food sources, and are not too particular about their growing conditions. They do bite on a rare occasion but do not sting. As for harmful effects, concentrated toxins like lead can be a problem but the danger is the same like in other foods.

The idea sure looks good on paper but the team hasn't done enough to check its practicality in real life. The team still hasn't interacted with the urban slum dwellers who are the targeted beneficiaries of this solution. Although, there is an informal market for insects and the students intend to formalise this already-existing market, it doesn't see an easy job to pull-off with the common perceptions across insects. “It was based on months of intensive research, but without verifying conditions ourselves we don't really know anything about its viability. This does not aim to change anyone's behaviour, but to give people more options for nutrition and income,” adds Zev.

The logic of cricket flour also seems a little absurd. For people who do not consume insects, eating insects will not be acceptable in any form. However, the team disagrees. Says Zev, “In regions where insects are not commonly eaten it is not usually due to vegetarianism. You are looking at it from more of a mathematical standpoint, but people's habits are more nuanced. Even if we produce flour that is cheaper and more nutritious, it could be hard to sell in some markets where consumers are extremely averse to change. We will need to find a marketing guru to succeed. Fortunately we will be able to take several months and really get our feet wet. For now, it's a great idea and nothing more, and I hope that with enough work we can develop it into a serious solution.”

So, for now, this one just seems like a crazy idea which might help the team reach closer to the 2013 Hult Prize, but not really change things on the ground. Perhaps the idea is guilty of offering too simplistic a solution to the growing problem of urban food security.


Suhail Abidi, Stanford GSB MBA 2013


What would you do if you had to pay absolutely nothing to do your MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB)? Suhail Abidi, a Stanford MBA 2013 from Lucknow, who joined with a full waiver of tuition and expenses due to the Stanford Reliance Dhirubhai MBA Fellowship chose to study a course in computer programming at the Stanford engineering school instead of doing a summer internship so that he could communicate with coders better at the startup that he plans to found after graduating. He talks to PaGaLGuY about his experience.

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What is your background, why MBA and how did you land up at Stanford GSB?

I am a chemical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. After engineering, I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers and stayed there for four years. I then had some failed attempts with a couple of startups for less than a year. I had applied to Stanford GSB meanwhile where I got an admit and landed up here.

I had always thought I would study an MBA sometime after engineering. In fact, I had joined one of the good institutes in the country, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow right after graduation. But after reaching there, I found that I was as clueless as I was when I had joined IIT Kanpur. So I quit it after a week. IIM Lucknow was near my house and my family stayed close by. But I was so confused and there were so many intelligent people around me who knew what they wanted to do. I was just feeling out of place there and I left it. Then, after two years, I was about to join IIM Calcutta after making it through the CAT for the second time, but didn't as I was still confused.

But after working for four years at PwC, I understood myself better and realised what kind of skills I had missing in me. One, I had no idea how technology products were built even though I was working as an IT consultant for PwC on good government projects. I had had no exposure to the private sector where the real work was happening. Thereafter, working in a startup made me realise that there was a lot I needed to learn before I could actually run a company on my own. I had no idea about leading people, product design, product marketing, product entry or even basic financial modelling. I thought this was the right time for me to go for an MBA because after the startups I knew what I wanted to learn.

During this time, I came to know about the Stanford Reliance scholarship and I applied for it. They help you take the GMAT and also help your Stanford application financially. You write an essay as to why they should select you. They shortlist the top 50 finalists and pay for their GMAT and Stanford application fee if you apply in the first round of admissions. That took away a lot of friction I was facing in taking the GMAT and also in applying. They were already paying for both. I know this is not the best reason to apply but it was one of the catalysts.

Did you apply to other schools?

No. I started with Stanford and fell in love with the application. The first question in the application was, "What matters most to you and why." It took me more than a month to answer it.

So what matters to you the most?

Creating opportunities for others and providing them with the awareness and the resources to avail these opportunities. That's what drives me. There's a lot more to it but in a nutshell, this is what it is. I applied to Stanford and fell in love with my essays. I then showed them to one of my friends and he helped me improve them. I had no time to apply anywhere else, nor did I feel the need. I was so much into the Stanford application writing process that I felt already connected to the school and I wasn't ready to go anywhere else. I felt that this was the place for me. I told myself that even if they didn't take me this time, I will apply next year.

So then you got through and realised it was going to be a free ride for you due to the Reliance scholarship.

The admissions director Derrick Bolton calls people up if they make it to the MBA class. I didn't get a call till the evening and I was really sad about it because everyone else in my circle was getting calls. The number I had given on the application was not functional any more. So I called up my friend and we both went to the Vodafone store and reactivated the number. I then got a call, “You have been selected for the Stanford GSB 2013 MBA batch and you're a Reliance finalist.”

I was so happy that I didn't even think about the implications of being a Reliance finalist. After a day or two, I got a mail from Stanford GSB explaining that all my expenses would be taken care of.

Knowing that you wouldn't have to pay for the school yourself, how did you think your MBA experience was going to be?

I didn't really analyse this. I was never in a position where I had been selected for Stanford without a scholarship. So that was not a consideration. But over time, it has affected me. For example, I didn't do a summer internship after my first year. I instead registered at the engineering school at Stanford for the summer quarter because I wanted to learn how to code. I think without a scholarship, I might not have done this. I would've taken an internship for the money. It has taken the pressure off me in a limited way. It is positive. It's not bad to have a scholarship.

Has the comfort of the scholarship led you to take any risky decisions that your batchmates wouldn't take?

I don't think that the people here feel a lot of pressure of paying back the loan. GSB gives a lot of financial aid to students who actually need it. The payment terms are not that difficult and people know that they have a safety net, that with a Stanford degree they will always land up a job. Paying back the loan is not their biggest concern. I don't think anyone decides which courses or activities they will take up thinking they have a loan to repay.

A lot of people here come from private equity and investment banking backgrounds. I don't think the loan affects them at all. In my case, I ended up paying a lot of money for that Stanford engineering school course instead of earning a lot of money from a summer internship.

At Stanford GSB, MBA students don't pay for what they do during the summer quarter as such, as they are all interning for those two months. When I told them that I wanted to join a course at the engineering school, they didn't even know how they would charge me... whether it will be the engineering school fee or the GSB fee. Nobody from GSB had done anything like this before with the engineering school. In the end, it all worked out and I paid the GSB fee.

Were there other students who took courses elsewhere?

People at the student office told me that it has not been done before. That's why they were confused about how to bill me for the summer quarter. I still haven't figured out how exactly they have billed me.

What was your summer school experience like?

It was a typical undergraduate engineering school structure with basic programming courses. CS145 is the code name for the class for Introduction to Databases. Anyone can take the class. There were engineering school students, both undergraduate and graduate, mostly from computer science backgrounds but some from electrical as well.

I joined engineering summer school because I wanted to learn to code. Being an IT consultant previously, I had to talk to techies all the time and when they talk back, you don't understand them well and that's a little embarrassing. Even in my brief startup experience, the same thing happened. I would talk to the tech person and he would come back to me saying this is what he can do and this is what he cannot do, and why. If you're not able to understand why, it's a little difficult given that I wanted to work in technology. Some basic knowledge of computer programming is essential. You might not be the best coder but you should be able to talk to people who code for you. So I took the most basic programming courses, front-end technologies and Javascript and worked on HTML, Javascript, C, SQL and a bit of PHP.

You could have learned basic programming skills through books. Why invest two months in a classroom for it?

You have a point. But given that all these resources were available to me before I took up the class, the truth is that I wasn't able to do it. It's like asking why one should go to school when everything is available online.

In a classroom, the learning is exponentially different. Besides, Stanford professors are the best technology faculty in the world. They are the best at their conceptual understanding and teaching that to people. I was sitting in a class with so many intelligent people and working on well-designed deadlines for different projects, grasping each concept one-by-one in a scientifically designed manner, by the best people who are always there to help you.

If you're stuck, one bug in a program can take hours and hours to solve. Here you have 24-hour support on the internal forums from professors, teaching assistants and classmates. I guess this is a very different learning environment. But then, this sort of class structure is the key reason I know computer programming today.

What do you plan to do after your MBA and how did Stanford prepare you for it?

I'm working on an idea and I plan to do something of my own (he explained his idea in detail but didn't want it to be written about). Let's see how things shape up. I will probably stay in the consumer tech industry. For that, I took up courses in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital, Angel Investing and Venture Capital, Formation of New Ventures, Strategic Management of Technology and some of the Strategy courses.

If somebody wanted to be an entrepreneur, which course should he or she definitely take up at Stanford GSB?

There are a couple of courses. I bid for them but I couldn't get all of them. One of them is Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital. It teaches a lot and you get to interact with people who've built big businesses and done well with them. Peter Wendell (founder and a managing director, Sierra Ventures) teaches the course along with Eric Schmidt (Chairman, Google Inc).

You have to bid for them and there's a lucky draw and in a random order, people are allotted the courses they asked for. You might or might not get your favourite course.

Which clubs did you join at GSB?

I'm the president of the Gift Committee, which is a committee for students for giving back to GSB. When you graduate, you pledge some money that you will give back to the school over a period of four years. The Gift Committee coordinates that and at the time of graduation, we provide a cheque of the money collected from our alumni to the dean. I am also the president of the SASA (South Asian Student Association) and I was member of the senate. I was also a part of the Tech and Entrepreneurship Club and the Private Equity club.

The tech club organises a lot of BBLs ("brown bag lunches"). Speakers come and talk about what they are doing while students have lunch in brown bags, hence the name. The entrepreneurship club also has a lot of BBLs.


Dezsö Horváth, dean, Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada


In an ideal world, Dezsö Horváth would have liked his 25-year-long deanship of Canada's Schulich School of Business, York University to see through a full-fledged MBA program run by the school on Indian soil.

But with the foreign universities entry and regulation bill still languishing with the Indian government, for now Horváth will have to fall back on plan B. Starting September 2013, Schulich will re-launch its two-year AICTE-approved "twinning" MBA program from a 20,000 square feet temporary facility near the Hyderabad airport in collaboration with the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation. The school used to run this same program previously with Mumbai's SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, which it discontinued after raising its ambition to go it alone in India. Under the twinning arrangement, students will study the first year in India and the second in Canada at Schulich's original Toronto campus.

But it's not really the same old wine in a new bottle, Horváth insists. "With SP Jain, Schulich professors were teaching only two courses in the first year. Now all the first year courses will be taught by Schulich professors who will travel to Hyderabad from Canada. Also with the AICTE approval, we can run the courses the way we want," he says.

About 30 Indian students with an average of four to five years of work experience (three years of minimum work experience are an eligibility criterion) have already been admitted into the 'Schulich India MBA'. These students will pay about $10,000 lesser on the program than those who study the program entirely at Toronto yet gain access to the Canadian job market after completing the two-year MBA.

But this is not what Horváth originally set out to do. A firm believer in the global nature of contemporary markets, he would have rather run the Schulich India MBA at a full-fledged campus that would have as many foreign students as Indian. "It has not been easy," he says. "The foreign universities bill has refused to move forward in the Indian federal government, but then again nothing else in business is moving in India either."

Yet, he says he doesn't regret investing several years of his energy on setting up a campus in India rather than at Singapore, Dubai or Hong Kong. "Singapore is already overcrowded while Hong Kong is the wrongest place in China to set up a campus in. If it has to be China then I would rather consider Beijing or Shanghai. But China's population is ageing," he explains.

India on the other hand, he argues, has a young population that produces at least 3,000 to 4,000 high quality graduates every year, which would be Schulich's ideal market. "There is no truly global MBA program in India that these graduates can go to," he says. If all goes as per plan, he wants to introduce Masters degrees in accounting and finance at the Indian campus, programs he argues nobody in India offers yet.

For all the promise of a program delivered by international faculty, at $60,000 (excluding living expenses) it will cost more than twice the price of a degree from the Indian Institutes of Management. Unless every admit into the Schulich India MBA manages to find a job in Canada or the USA, they will find it hard to repay any debt incurred in studying the program using salaries earned in Indian rupees.


(Photo: Derek Key)


Fewer people on the planet are applying to an MBA in the United Kingdom, Indians being the fastest reducing group. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency of the UK government, MBA applications to the country's schools have dropped by 10-12%. Of this, the steepest fall has been from Indian applicants at 24.7%, dropping from 5,015 students to 3,775 between 2011 and 2012. While some British b-schools blame the slow economy for the tumble, others hold inconvenient immigration rules responsible. The declining rupee has been a dampener too, increasing studying expenses by 15%.


(Number of students from BRIC countries who went to the UK to study MBA)

Pranav Rathi, deputy recruiting manager with Leeds Metropolitan University has noticed this decline for 3-4 years now, ever since the global economy took a beating. But Cana Witt, who is with MBA Careers Services at Lancaster University says that the fall is particularly stark this year – last year 38% of the class were Indians, this year they comprise 26%. “But we also made adjustments to our classes so that all nationalities were represented equally so that has also brought down Indians' numbers,” Witt adds.

John Paul Kawalek, director of MBA at Sheffield University Management School admits to facing challenges getting applicants since the government's post study work (PSW) permit decision last year (which prohibits non-European students from staying in the country after graduation unless they have an employer-sponsored work visa.) “Currently our classes have 20% Indians, but we want that to go up,” said Mr Kawalek. Sheffield, like other universities, is offering scholarships to Indian students, which have been on the upswing lately to beat the current dismal scenario. Schools in general say, that the market perception about UK's unfriendly visa rules for Indians is deterring people from applying to the country's MBA programs.

Vibha Kagzi, Founder & CEO of boutique admissions consultancy, ReachIvy, holds the slow job market in the UK responsible and has been seeing a surge of applicants for Canada and Singapore instead. She agrees however that the top schools in the UK haven't been hurt that much. While Vinayak Kamat, director, GEEBEE Education, a company that assists students in pursuing overseas education, says that the quality of students going to the UK has also undergone a change. “Specialised courses, which are not available in India are the need today,” he adds.

For those still insisting on the UK for their MBA, the reasons vary. Mumbai-based investment banker Chirantan Patnaik will be studying at London Business School and Abhishek B has accepted an admission at Warwick Business School. Both have opted to study in the UK despite the expenses involved because of their belief in the quality of schools. Giti Tyagi will be studying at Cranfield Business School because she specifically wanted a one-year program. “The international exposure will do me good. Am willing to risk the present economic scenario,” she says. PaGaLGuY spoke to a couple of students who have recently graduated from UK universities but are headed back to India in search of a job. Not willing to share their names, they vouch that the job market is really bleak back there.


The four at the Red Ants Pants festival


A thought struck four first-year students of Harvard Business School last November, as they discussed summer internship possibilities: Why not leave the beaten path of working with a high-profile company and actually set out on a learning adventure?


They gave it a thought and six months later embarked on a 60-day and 6000-mile journey. An exploration to study entrepreneurs in the little known corners of the country and see innovations for real. Their journey, or rather movement called MBAs Across America, has already got the MBA community abuzz. The four - Amaris Singer, Hicham Mhammedi Alaoui, Casey Gerald, Mike Baker were not bosom pals before, but now realise they share a common goal – that experience is not about big money, just big learning. Today, they are in Las Vegas exactly half way through their expedition. They move to Albuquerque (New Mexico), New Orleans (Louisiana), Asheville (North Carolina), and Washington DC. PaGaLGuY spoke to Hicham who says the final aim of the group is to build a network to support entrepreneurial ecosystems for today's and future MBA students.



Mike and Hicham at a local cafe near White Sulphur Springs


The four come from diverse professional backgrounds (tech, retail, and marketing economic policy) and family backgrounds too. Of the four, Hicham spent several months in India when he worked at Google Asia-Pacific, based out of Gurgaon, Mumbai, and Bangalore. “We see this summer as much more than a road trip; we see it was a call to action for our generation of MBAs.” said Hicham.

Their experiences have been loaded. For their first stop, the team worked with Detroit's Social Club Grooming Company that has given hair cutting a brand new spin. In Montana, they got together with Sarah Calhoun, founder of the Red Ants Pants company which makes work wear for women as well as the Red Ants Pants Music Festival. “What we saw was that this community has turned a lonely cow pasture into an unforgettable music festival and celebration of women leaders, working family farms, and rural communities. Now that is one powerful community,” said Mike. In Boulder, they came in touch with the MADE Movement, an advertising agency that is dedicated to supporting resurgence in American manufacturing. “These guys left what are considered ideal jobs at a good advertising agency to create a venture they were passionate about,” Hicham cited another example.



Amaris basking in rustic delights with the Red Ants Pants guys


The journey of course did not happen for free. The team raised $15,000 through a crowd funding campaign as well as a sponsorship by Four Points by Sheraton which has agreed to sponsor their housing for the summer. The team invites PaGaLGuY readers to join the movement by liking them on Facebook (www.facebook.com/mbaxamerica), following their blog (mbaxamerica.tumblr.com), or reaching out at [email protected]. Besides hoping that their cars don't give away for the next four weeks, the four are looking at few creature comforts. Together, the travelers want to write a different story about the business future: one where dreamers, doers, and purpose-driven MBAs come together to make their local communities stronger.


L to R: Amaris, Mike, Hicham and Casey at Made


(Photo: Francisco Diez)


Next Saturday, three successful alumni from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, USA shall be in Mumbai to talk about their experiences of studying at the legendary American school and how the education has helped them in their careers. Our friends at ReachIvy, an MBA admissions consulting firm, will host and live-interview the alumni as part of their Speaker Series events.

  • When and where is the event?
  • Event: ReachIvy Speaker Series - MIT Alumni
  • Date: August 10, 2013
  • Time: 6.15 pm
  • Venue: 2nd floor, Kilachand Conference room, Indian Merchants' Chamber, Churchgate, Mumbai

If you are interested in applying to MIT or to b-schools abroad in general, you should attend this event.


Entry is FREE Exclusively for PaGaLGuY.com users
interested in attending the event. Use special code 'PAGALGUY' while registering for the event.

(See more details at the end of this article).

Who are these alumni?

Gautam Shewakramani received his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2009. He received a Bachelor of Science from the College of Engineering, University of Notre Dame in 2005, where he double majored in Computer Science and Film. Gautam is the CEO and Founder of AudioCompass, a venture funded technology start up that helps you travel smart by turning your phone into a personal tour guide. Prior to founding AudioCompass, he worked in the Strategy and Operations group at Deloitte Consulting, and at a Quantitative Equity Hedge Fund managed by Deutsche Asset Management in New York. He is an active member of the Mumbai Chapter of the MIT Alumni Association.

Pritika Hingorani received her Masters in City Planning from MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) in 2010. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics & Political Science and a Minor in the Growth & Structure of Cities. Pritika is currently Associate Vice President in IDFC's Policy Group, a infrastructure policy think tank that conducts independent research and provides policy inputs to government ministries and the Planning Commission. Prior to MIT, Pritika worked in economic consulting in the International Trade and Anti-Trust practices of Charles River Associates, in Washington DC and London. She was on the admissions panel at both Bryn Mawr and MIT.

Ruchi Jain graduated from MIT in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. At MIT, she was a teaching assistant for Course 12.000, 'Solving Complex Problems'. She also received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2013. She has worked with Bain & Company in Boston as a management consultant, and with Teach For India in Mumbai. She currently works with Healthspring, a start-up backed by funds such as Reliance Ventures and Narayan Murthy's Catamaran Ventures. Ruchi has interviewed undergraduate applicants for MIT as an Educational Counselor since 2010 and has spoken at the MIT India Pre-Orientation program for the last two years.

How can you gain FREE Entry?

Register for the event here and enter the special code 'PAGALGUY' in the 'You are a..." field of the registration form. Then at the entry desk of the event, give the attendant your name and you will be allowed free entry.


Hope you are able to benefit from the event.

"We are supremely nerdy and unapologetic about it... We had ice-cream study breaks at MIT like there are breaks at any other college. But we'd make our own ice-cream using liquid nitrogen right on the spot. So we were really, really nerdy."

If you've ever considered studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA in life, watch this 1 hour and 32 minute long video of an interview of three MIT alumni by Vibha Kagzi, who runs ReachIvy, an admissions advisory company. The alumni have studied across the engineering school, business school and department of urban studies and planning at MIT.




The video was shot at an event in Mumbai on August 10, for which PaGaLGuY users were given free entry. The full video of the event has been shared exclusively for PaGaLGuY users who couldn't attend the event. Enjoy the video.

Do you ever wish you had a second chance to meet someone again for the first time???

Well that's the feeling you will have if you do not prepare well for your MBA interview...

Contrary to popular belief you can actually prepare and prepare well for the MBA Interview.

Let's start by first understanding the system that goes in to the interview process:

The MBA interview at most top b schools is a test of what you know. By design it is supposed to test the strengths and not weaknesses in a candidate. It is not usually a stress interview but sometimes it appears like that due to the situation candidates put themselves into.

There are many types of questions asked at the MBA interview but most of the questions are profile based. The interview panel has little time to read the entire application and essays before the interview so they skim through it very quickly. Due to this the essay quality matters a lot.

The 'Why MBA?' questions is almost a given in every interview. Many candidates make the mistake of assuming that panelist will be satisfied with superficial answers like NETWORKING and KNOWLEDGE.

As most evaluation at the interview is aimed at finding out if you can be PLACED, Career Progression or Placements are not a very bad thing to talk about as an answer to these 'Why' questions.

Another question that is almost always asked revolves around the 'Plan B Post MBA'. The elements of this 'Plan B' first of all should be achievable and secondly should inspire confidence and not stress out the placement team.

While 'Long Term Goals' usually are not considered very important, they provide good fodder for questions and cross questions at the interview. Candidates are usually not logical and unprepared with answers for things they plan to do 5 to 10 years down the line. While this is understandable, every MBA worth the salt wants to be an Entrepreneur in the long term. Candidates need to think of something less creative and more logical.

Professional help always helps ace that interview. If it is available you must avail it.

Some of the larger Federal Universities that participated at the QS APPLE conference in Seoul South Korea had something very distinctive about them. All of them were formed out of mergers of smaller Universities that took place in the past 3 years in Russia.

These are not edge cases in Russia. During my conversations with the Directors, Rectors, and faculty members from these Universities, I found out that Russia (Moscow, as they would mention it) has been proactively trying to merge Universities and in the process the Government is trying to create really large institutions with strengths in multiple disciplines.

Funding has been a serious problem with the Russian Universities, and most of them agreed that they have't been receiving a lot of International students interested in studying at their Universities.

With more local dependence for generating revenues for their programs and research, the Government seems to have initiated the merging process. The stakeholders feel that this allowed for synergies that would help these new federal Universities to be capable to creating disruption in the domain.

These new mergers have also brought in their own set of challenges. I asked the members of these Universities to be candid about their thoughts on advantages and challenges. This is how they responded:

Advantages:

- funding was always a concern, and the competition amongst smaller institutions with similar research and programs wasn't really helping. Internationalization process needed money, which wasn't available. The merger process has ensured that there is a steady funding from the Russian Government

- scale of operations, number of programs, new programs in English, recruitment of additional faculty who would teach in English, etc have improved. All these weren't strategically important prior to the mergers, but now these are critical success factors and a part of the job description for Directors of various programs

- Quality of work, competition, and overall attitude towards internationalization has improved, since the new mergers have brought in more and diverse ideas, best of available talent together on the discussion table, and now the benchmarking is against the best in the world

Challenges:

- Senior people lost their jobs, and such things have brought in a sense of insecurity that wasn't seen before. This has increased stress levels amongst the mid-level academicians as well as the leaders in specific programs

- Processes have increased. The same decisions that were being made within 2 levels of discussions now have to go through 4-5 levels. Also, arguing with bureaucrats for things that are academic or even administrative in nature is at times futile. Operational efficiency may therefore be suffering

- Attitudes are yet to be merged actually. People from different institutions/universities that got merged have come with a lot of baggage and the liberal ones are feeling the heat in idea generation and conversations.

Is something like this needed in India? Will this solve our higher education problems? What do you think?

One rarely expects to find a fellow Indian in South Korean Universities, leave alone finding an exchange student doing a semester in one of the oldest and most respected Universities at Seoul.

Against all odds, and by some sheer luck, I ran into Simarjit Kaur - an exchange student at SKKU Seoul, from (hold on to your horses) - Sweden. I wanted to get the perspective of exchange students at South Korean Universities and their experiences interms of culture, learning and career, alongside the reason to be there.

The Indian-ness of Simarjit is unmistakable (given her way to courteously greet me with "Sat Sri Akal") and she impresses with her confidence and no-nonsense approach to the discussion. These qualities and more would probably help her in a career in Business Law that she has chosen to pursue.

As an exchange student, Simarjit shared that she wanted to start her career in Asia and she chose Korea for the quality of exposure in her subject. She intends to start working in Hong-Kong. I was intrigued by the fact that there wasn't much of culture adjustment issue that she had to face during the exchange program. Although, she mentioned that things are pretty slow and inefficient in the administrative parts of the University along with a culture bias against women being active part of activities/clubs in the University (this, I think, goes parallel to the dismal equal employment opportunity existing for women in South Korea)

Simarjit mentions that perspectives are now changing with Internationalization at South Korean Universities and specifically at SKKU. Rooted to her own Punjabi upbringing but being a global citizen with the openness to start her career outside her comfort zone, she embodies the quality of exchange students visiting SKKU and other such Asian Universities.

Her suggestion to prospective exchange students it pretty clear - do your research properly on the programs, credits, and faculty well before you reach these Universities, and one needs to be prepared to sort out alien experiences alongside cultural bias when one lands into the exchange programs.

A bright future awaits you Simarjit!

The numbers of B schools has increased but with the growing competition getting admission to them is an endeavor .The best way to get admission is to prepare an effective application with the all the major components in place which generally impresses the admission committee and brighten up your chances of getting selected. Although the admission criteria varies from school to school but the common factors that most of them look for are academic qualifications, personal background, extracurricular activities, personal achievements and accolades and most importantly work experience. In short all the core areas are important but the most critical one is the work experience.

Most of the MBA degree programs are looking for people with practical business experience although they have not specified the duration. Most of the top B schools are looking for applicants with a minimum of two years full time work experience and some as many as five to six years and this equation is a multivariable one although average works out to three years. If someone has less than two years of experience they need to reconsider their decision to apply for the business schools and the professionals suggests them to wait for a year or two to gain enough of the this experience. So it's very difficult to figure out since sometimes it even depends on the candidates intelligence, leadership quality, tea work capacity and other key qualities. According to a survey conducted in 2012 the MBA applicants are increasing their work experience prior applying for programs and it shows that the ratio of individual with five years or more have increased. There are even some schools in Australia who accepts students without a bachelor's degree if they have enough work experience.

Some of other benefits of the work experiences are as follows –

• Working with different companies in different locations and interacting with vide variety of people helps in building up the leadership qualities and even builds up communication skills. Schools prefer knowledgeable students who can actively participate in classroom discussions and elevates the standards of discussions by sharing their practical experience which can be enriching for others and differentiates them from others and create a niche for them.

• It builds up the ability to take risks and you start learning from them and even if you make mistakes, it will be a learning lesson for you to not repeat the same in the future.

• While classroom learning and theory is important but the practical experience has an edge since people with the practical experience are capable of generating ideas and are innovative and can disseminate those ideas to the profitability. No matter how long you have worked for and what kind of job you were involved in, you have to be a winner with a knowledgeable and realistic approach to get into your dream school and turn into an accomplished individual.

An increasing number of students are deciding to move abroad for higher studies for the value it offers and once they decide for it, the next step is to choose the destination. They have a whole lot of choices but to finalize the ultimate one is tougher.

The list of top destinations is given below –

USA

It is the most preferred destination of all and the numbers of students enrolling for US universities are increasing day by day. Indian students enroll for undergraduate, graduate and post graduate program. Some of the most popular universities are Harvard University, Yale University, California University of technology, University of Michigan, Columbia University.

UK

It is one of the popular destinations for international students owing to its high quality of education. Even though one has passed out his secondary school exams from his country the student has to undergo one-year foundation course to qualify for higher courses in UK. The undergraduate program lasts for 3-4 years while different universities offer pre masters and a one -year program. A student has to take up a subject and specialize in the same. It would prepare the student to take up a Masters program eventually. The major degree is the postgraduate degree which stretches for one to three years while the research degrees last for one to three years.

CANADA

Canada is fast growing as leading destination for the international students. The literacy rate in Canada is as high as 96 % and government is taking initiatives to promote the literacy in an emphatic manner. Most of the universities offer graduate and undergraduate program. Higher education can be pursued just after the completion of compulsory secondary education. One can either switch on to job just after completion of undergraduate course or take up higher studies for masters or postgraduate degrees. Masters degree can be attained after the completion of one or two academic sessions. Post postgraduate courses one can focus on research work for doctoral degree, which is the highest level of study. London School of Business and Finance, University of New Brunswick, University of Canada West, Mohawk College are some of the popular colleges of Canada.

AUSTRALIA

Australia is fast catching up with the US and UK in terms of student enrollment for higher studies. They facilitate the students with diplomas, bachelors and masters degree and even doctoral as well as postgraduate diplomas. Students pursuing higher education have the discretion of enrolling in flexible subjects at the choice of their institution. Deven Verma of Melbourne University says “The education system here promotes creativity and enables one to think independently and equip with the skills which will later on help them in dealing with the practical situations in life.” Some of the famous universities are the Australian National University, Melbourne , Sydney , University of Queensland, University of New South Wales, Monash University, University of Western Australia and Adelaide University.

When the time comes for you to interview with your target MBA program(s), you may inevitably find yourself fretting and wondering, “What if I don't know the answers to my interviewer's questions?” The admissions officer, alumnus/alumna or student who interviews you will not ask you about esoteric topics and will not expect you to answer questions pertaining to management disciplines. The vast majority of the questions you will encounter in your interview will pertain to your life and experiences.

As your first step in preparing for your interviews, take time to reacquaint yourself with your own story, especially as you have presented it to the school thus far in your application. Go back and reread your essays, contemplate pivotal moments in your life and consider your major accomplishments and failures. By doing so, you can perform at your very best during your interview.

While most business school interviews are straightforward opportunities for an admissions representative to learn more about a candidate's personal and professional background, goals, reasons for selecting a specific school and leadership/team experiences, interviews can vary dramatically from school to school and sometimes include a few peculiarities.

So, what constitutes a “tough” interview, and how can you best navigate one?

Stoic interviewer: Some interviewers can be unemotional, refusing to give the candidate any indication as to whether he/she is making a positive impression or not. Of course, when an applicant is under intense pressure, this perceived lack of approval can be misunderstood as a sign of disapproval. The key in managing such an interview is to tune out the interviewer's lack of emotion. Focus on your answers and do your best to not be distracted by anything about the interviewer. “Reading” the interviewer in real time can be challenging—concentrate instead on showcasing your strengths.

Philosophical questions: Most candidates expect to discuss their experiences and accomplishments in their admissions interview, but not their values and philosophy on life. Harvard Business School in particular likes to understand applicants' motivations and will ask questions like “What is your motivation to succeed?,” “What drives you?” and “What gives you purpose in life?” The key to answering these sorts of questions is pretty simple: expect and prepare for them in advance .Do not assume that all the questions you will receive during your interview will be experiential.

Persistent questioning: Sometimes a tough interviewer will continuously delve deeper into a subject, such as by repeatedly asking, “Can you be more specific?” or “Can you tell me more about that?” These kinds of pressure tactics can be disconcerting, but the key is to simply stay on topic. No matter how persistent he/she is, the interviewer is always essentially asking you about a subject that you know quite well—you! Just stick to your agenda, and you will be fine.

Be comfortable and relaxed and start preparing!

This article is contributed by mbaMission

1. What's the reason behind doing a BRICS University Rankings, when you already have an existing set of rankings for Universities at your end?

Pretty simple – I honestly think that educational systems of the emerging markets are strong, but hard to compare with the US or the UK systems / budgets / progress level. I've been to dozens, if not hundreds, of universities in Russia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, etc and at pretty much each one of them there was something what could make them famous. However because the educational systems for a very long time were supported by state and didn't have to operate on a competitive market the Universities have no idea how to highlight that these countries are also great as research and study destinations. Comparing likes for likes will hopefully allow us to shed light on the emerging markets and raise interest to the institutions from BRICS.

2. It seems that you are fitting an obvious data requirement into an existing product at your end.

Not really – for the pilot we've looked into over 30 indicators which were publicly collected and discussed by the Russian universities. However as an international ranking company it is our responsibility to make sure that we only use accurate and validated data, so some criteria like “Revenue of the spin-off companies” couldn't be used as such information is not publicly available for confirmation. Of course, we trust the universities when they submit their data, but some errors might occur plus we also use third-party data to ensure objectivity. The indicators we've suggested to the QS Advisory Board were in line with our established practice, though we might still have some challenges confirming accurate number of faculty members with PhD degree for some Indian and Chinese universities.

3. What are the key indicators in this ranking that, you feel, University stakeholders should refer to (once it is released)?

I think academic reputation and collaboration with employers are two indicators which should be studied carefully. Academic reputation is a complex one, it is linked with other indicators – such as research productivity and quality of this research which is reflected in Scopus, as well as international collaborations, co-authorhips, activity of the university staff at the international events, etc. Employer reputation is the market – or customer if you wish – voice, telling the universities about the quality of their “product”, their graduates. Which, in fact, is also linked with the teaching quality and thus is a proxy for “Student per faculty ratio” indicator.

4. Who else could use this ranking system other than the Universities?

As for every QS ranking, it is not that much for the universities, it is for the young professionals who want to plan their future career and want to know what else is out there, beyond their home country. Employers, state officials, media and other users of the rankings are also quite important, but I'd say candidates are the main focus.

Praveen Suthrum, MBA Class of 2004 at Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, is co founder & President of NextServices, a healthcare management and technology company. His work spreads on a wide canvas from running operations to marketing to technology.

What are your most memorable moments at Ross?

The entire experience was memorable but here are a few specific ones that come to mind.

Working with Professor C.K. Prahalad outside of a classroom environment to create an experimental version of the Ross multi-disciplinary action projects (called XMAP). As students, we researched and wrote case studies that became part of the book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. The book was published by the time we graduated and is today a management bible.

Another memorable experience was MTrek where incoming MBAs join senior MBAs on a trek. We met in South Africa and went on a trek to Lesotho. My fellow trekkers became my greatest buddies throughout school. This was one of my first exposures to the University of Michigan.

What did you gain from your experience with Ross?

The classroom experience taught me structured thinking.I learnt to analyze problems by breaking it down and thinking through them in a more methodical way. It's outside of the classroom that I had most of my learning through intense interactions with classmates and faculty (who are very good friends today). I also met my fellow co-founders, investors and advisors at Michigan and started our company NextServices. We did most of our initial work in the erstwhile student lounge. Ross shaped my thinking - it made me grasp the core of business and its role in changing the world.

Ross continues to influence my thinking several years after graduation. As an alumni, I conceived a technology convergence model for the book The New Age of Innovation authored by Professors C.K. Prahalad and M.S. Krishnan - the book was named one of best books on innovation by Economist and Business Week in 2008. Presently, I serve on the Alumni Board of Governors for Ross.

What is your advice for students aspiring to get into Ross & other top MBA institutes?

There are two things to keep in mind: to fit in and then to standout. GMAT rankings, GPAs, work experience help the school determine whether a candidate fits in and can withstand the academic rigor of Ross. Assuming those are in shape, applicants must identify how they standout and not hesitate to talk about the diversity that they represent. They must view the entire application, every interaction as a single whole that allows the school to understand them better. More importantly, applicants must be themselves and not worry about being a version that they think a school might want to see.

Indian applicants usually fit in - they have a sound academic and work background. They must work on standing out - not only from the wider application pool but also amongst themselves and other international applicants.

Your Experience at IE

IE is a truly amazing business school. The school breathes entrepreneurship. Here it's not a cliché when I say that the only limitation is ones initiative and energy. Introducing an innovative project or even a specialization can happen within a period of months. We try various things, some tend to be successful, and some are lessons we learn quickly. Considering this is not the norm for traditional educational institutions, we run like a start-up. There's always something happening at IE, one soon learns that the challenge is keeping track of all of it and prioritizing what to do.

Your Alma Mater

The last few institutions where I have graduated from are University of California, Irvine; S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research in Mumbai and College of Engineering, Trivandrum. Each of these have been very different in both content and style.

Your Current Research Activity

Currently I am working on a project that looks at organizations that have engaged in IT outsourcing in the last 20 years. I map who outsources information technology services to whom and make predictions on how this network of partners affects outsourcing contract terms. It is quite interesting that with a great degree of accuracy it can be shown that firms with greater connections tend to enter into longer term contracts. These contractual connections therefore act as a mechanism to signal reputation.

Your Area of Interest

Moving to Madrid from California, I was concerned that I would miss hiking and camping in the mountains. It turns out that Madrid offers plenty of opportunity to hike, backpack and bike. The long daylight hours of summer and the cloudless skies in the winter are just perfect for being outdoors. I try to hike at least every other weekend.

Awards

The Microsoft award (Cash Prize - $5000) by International Network for Social Network Analysis for my paper “Social Networks and Contract Enforcement in IT Outsourcing”.

The De Sanctis award for best single-authored paper based on a dissertation at the OCIS division of Informs (Cash Prize - $250).

Future Plans at IE

Our program already includes international immersion weeks, exchange opportunities, hands on projects with companies, executive speaker series, career immersion programs, job prep workshops, language lessons etc.But we need to do more. We are currently bringing out a practice-oriented specialization working with a leading advertising agency to help students launch their careers in advertising and communications. To stay competitive in the long run we are experimenting with MOOCs, flipped classes, classroom data analytics.

One Tip for Indian Students

Learn Spanish. There really is no excuse not to. In fact, start learning Spanish the day you decide to come to IE. It's easy to get by the whole program without being able to speak a word of Spanish, which makes it all the more important to be committed to learning it. That is by far the easiest way to distinguish yourself as you apply for jobs whether in Latin America, Spain, US or back in India.

"Thank you for all your help. I wish I had met you earlier. You know you are like an Agony Aunt..."

Complements in my line of work are not rare but this one left me completely speechless. It made me wonder why do people get so desperate after things have gone wrong.

Yes I was playing some sort of an Agony Aunt of the Premium MBA Prep Industry when I had taken it upon myself to provide free DING analysis for the R1 rejects of ISB and some high quality Anxiety Counselling for people wait listed by ISB after round one.

Of the 65 cases I have dealt with so far at least 50 have had a bad/ avg. interview encounter which was totally avoidable had they prepared well.

Close to 45 people had issues with representing themselves correctly with essays.

10 or 15 who were DINGed had a GMAT score close to or more than ISBs Avg GMAT score of 720 and I attribute their failure to totally avoidable flaws in the way they portrayed their candidature first in their Essays and then at the Interview.

The Gods Gift to Mankind attitude does not help you see...

I firmly believe that at least 55 (85%) of these candidates could have had ADMITs had they taken professional help to edit their Essays and prepare for their Interview.

I know a lot of you may be thinking that professional consultants are expensive but remember you are looking at making an investment of 3 million so honestly should 5 to 15 grands matter?

Also there is this entire argument about 'Ethics' that people put in there way when making up a case against paid consulting for MBA prep and will happy go to a friend or family member for unpaid but unprofessional .

To all of them I have one thing to say...

"Remember a paid coach created Sachin Tendulkar and unpaid advice from friends and relatives led to the Mahabaharat."

Wish you all the best for the Round 2.

1. What's the future of rankings in an age wherein information asymmetry is being solved through the internet and user generated common resources?

Well the principal means by which rankings are consumed is also via the internet but the larger the volume of data available the more important independent rankings will become as a means of shortlisting to a manageable number of choices. User-generated material currently fails to engender sufficient trust in isolation - especially around such an important choice as choosing a university. It is more commonly used to corroborate an existing viewpoint rather than to help form one.

2. If Universities and bschools decide to disclose/furnish all data in a common pool for the perusal of candidates, will it undermine the value of rankings?

On the contrary, the more open institutions are with their data the more robust and sophisticated the rankings can and will become.

3. There are so many methodologies across the world for rankings. As a candidate, how would I decide which methodology to follow or trust?

Well it's mainly down to personal choice and which methodology aligns most closely with your view on what is most important. However, if you want an independent quality standard on rankings perhaps look no further than the IREG Audit (www.ireg-observatory.org) which to my knowledge is the only formal external assessment of rankings. QS remains the only international ranking to be IREG Approved in May 2013.

4. What's next for you after the BRICS University Rankings?

The next round of our well received subject rankings will land early next year and we are looking at other regions too. Most of all we are seeking to listen and respond to the needs of international students and universities.

5. How have you improved your rankings (methodology and output) over the past 5 years?

Survey response numbers have grown dramatically, we have increased the number of universities included, worked hard to strengthen the shared understanding of our data definitions and revised and evolved our data collection systems and processes as well as introducing additional lists which now collectively allow larger numbers of institutions to highlight their strengths.

6. What are your expectations from Indian government in terms of participation and usage of the BRICS University Rankings?

I met with the Minister for HRD, Shashi Tharoor , as well as the Education Secretary. The overall read I got from them is strong support for Indian institutions supplying data to all international rankings but that their focus was improving Higher Education for the Indian context and rankings are only really important insofar as they can provide a yardstick to contribute to the broader effort. The BRICS exercise will feature a much larger number of Indian institutions, so naturally is of interest to a larger part of the sector, but the overriding conclusion from our event on Friday was the requirement for stronger QA mechanisms - whether rankings, ratings, classifications or accreditations - for Indian Higher Education as a whole.