H K U S T submitted

It’s such a relief. I submitted my HKUST application today (my second app). In the beginning, I didn’t expect my essays to go really well considering the word limit of 200words/1200chars for each of 6 essays. But I am pretty satisfied with 5 of them.
It was the last day of first deadline. There are still 5 hours to go before midnight but due to time difference, it is safe to submit it early. The deadline is specified as 17-Dec and no time is given, i.e. HK time or GMT. When I submitted my application fee on the night of 11th Dec, I got a message on screen – “your payment has been received on 12-Dec, 1:43am”. So it must be HK time only.
I slept at 4 in the morning. Very tired.
Thanks to my B-San and my friends who reviewed my essays and provided valuable inputs.
Thanks

GMAT – Step 1 & 2 - Registration & Collecting Stuff

This post is for my friends who have started thinking about an MBA in US.
If you are targeting fall 09, then you must have taken your GMAT by now. If you are targeting fall 10, then it’s a good time to start thinking about GMAT.

Go to MBA.com and take the date if you are serious about it. $250 is what makes you have thoughts like “Am I ready to take the test?” Take the date and you ll be ready in no time. Take the date now for Feb, March end or April first week so that you have good enough time for introspection and research about colleges after the GMAT.

3 months is a good enough time for preparing. I didn’t score the dream score of 770, just managed to score 7xx in 3 months. Someone can do it in 2 months and someone like me may not be able to do it in 6 months even. So it all depends on you.

So start collecting the stuff..
 GMAT 11th edition
 One more book you need - princeton/kaplan/etc ( I went for Kaplan and found it worth)
 Power prep tests (the very first thing you need to do is take these tests)
 Online tests for practice( I went for manhattan tests)
 Spidey’s notes
 Manhattan Sentence Correction (it’s a real good one)
 GMATprep tests (these you ll get from MBA.com once you have registered for the test). Save them for the end. They are really precious.
 And lot more..

Let me know if you I can help you with anything.. I have lots of lots of..... stuff

Make a folder in one of the drives of your laptop.
Put the stuff there ..
And get going..

More on how to go about it.. later
Ciao

P.S.
Feb, March dates are easily available. Just checked it on MBA.com. I guess there is fight for dates from May onwards.

Tough Times..

Just getting the taste of tough times. I always thought I will sail through easily.
Application process, work (a lot of), professional issues, personal issues seem to take a toll on me. And the financial turmoil had its first direct impact on me when I reached office yesterday morning. No no.. I didn’t get a pink slip. Each and every employee of the company is affected and is sad.It is something that can have impact on my full one year plans. Yes, I can feel the impact of financial crisis. Yes, I am hit too, Directly.
One major problem I am having these days is that sometimes in my dreams, I am writing essays and filling forms with million of other things. I watch/see hundreds of dreams every night. Its because I have been thinking about lot of things, and all seem to be important. I think I need to relax a bit. But after taking some time off every time, I think the same.

I am done with 3 essays of HKUST and there are 3 more to go. Then I have to get them reviewed and have to get my recos ready too.
Reco questions are a bit different from Emory so I have to ask my recommenders to think something different and nice again.
The good thing is that I do not need to send my transcripts to HKUST by post. They asked for only scanned copies and will be asking for transcripts at the time of admit. I will be more than happy to submit the original transcripts.
Need to get ready with essays before Sunday as I have to go to a marriage on Sunday and I cannot afford to delay it further. 17-Dec is the day.