Road to PGPX-III at IIMA

It's past midnight on Saturday Jan 5th 2008, and I'm sitting in the middle of all my stuff in half-filled boxes, preparing for the shipping company to come pick it all up Tuesday morning. It's still sinking in - I'm moving back to India, after 8 years.

While I'll talk about my thoughts and reasons for going back to India separately, I thought I should capture the useful information in a blog first - how I got into the PGPX program at IIMA.

1. GMAT
I decided I had to get started on this in March 2007, a couple of days after my 29th birthday. I acquired a bunch of GMAT books (the whole set: Barrons, Aarco, Petersons, Kaplan, etc.) from someone on craigslist for $70 that weekend. I started preparing for my GMAT. For the next 3 months, I spent about 30-60 minutes in the morning before going to work, and may be 1-2 hrs in the evenings taking short practice tests. I did this perhaps 3-4 days a week. I had about 4-5 computerized tests available at my disposal - including those from Kaplan and Pearson, the company conducting GMAT itself. I took the full-length tests in the last 3 weeks before the exam. I found the Kaplan tests to be too difficult, and scored around 680 in both my tests. The Pearson tests were easier, and I scored around 730 in both those practice tests. The actual GMAT interface is exactly the same as the Pearson one. I also spent the last 2 weeks preparing for the analytical writing section - and was glad I did. It helped me get into the habit of organizing my thoughts and putting them in writing within the 30 minute time limit. I took the GMAT on June 29, and scored 770 (I was quite happy).

Summary: My total effort was 4-6 hrs a week for 2 months, 4 practice tests in the 3rd month, 2 weeks of analytical writing practice.


2. Application to IIMA PGPX
The application deadline for PGPX-III Round-1 was Aug 10th. I had to fill in a summary of my work experience including job responsibilities and accomplishments in each of my jobs so far, extra-curricular activities, awards, hobbies, and of course, educational background. On Sep 10th, as promised, the interview shortlist was released and I was able to log on to my application portal website to find that I had been selected to attend an interview in Newark, NJ on Oct 8th. I had to submit my 4 essays by Sep 18th. The essay topics were provided even during the 1st round application, and I should really have not waited until the shortlist was released to start working on those. Nevertheless, I spent 7-8 sleepless nights and crunched through 500-word summaries of my strengths/weaknesses, ambitions in applying to IIMA, proudest achievements, and the like. We did end up getting a couple of extra days on the essays, and finally had to turn them in by the 20th of September, 2007.

3. Interview
The interview was held in the Newark Airport Ramada hotel. My interview was on the afternoon of Oct 8th, which was the 3rd day of PGPX interviews in Newark. There were 2 interview panels of 3 professors each, and each panel took 6-7 candidates in each half-day period. When I got there a list was put up, and I was with "Panel 2", in one of the upstairs rooms, and I was the 3rd among 8 candidates that panel was going to interview that afternoon, starting at about 2pm. It was a generally low-key affair, in that the candidates were waiting in chairs placed in a lobby, and that the interviews didn't actually start on time (perhaps they ran over in the morning). The panel was also very accomodating when it came to a couple of candidates who needed to catch evening flights - they switched the interview sequence around.
When I was finally called up, the panel got settled, pulled up my records on their laptops, and took my certificates. They then had me start my short presentation, which they listened to as they also perused my documents and application. After my pitch, they launched into questioning. I had worked at GE for 4 years, and that is where the interview started
Q. If you were the CEO of a large company like GE - what would be your biggest problems?
A. ... How to increase profits and shareholder value
Q. But - the CEO of GE is not really involved in profits, that's why he has heads for each division...?
A. Actually he has to figure out what other divisions/businesses to get into, and what businesses to get out of. He also needs to figure out who the right persons are to lead these businesses. CEO also needs to be involved in integrity, policy, culture matters, as well as dealing with Governments... blah blah.

Q. Do you think Jack Welch was a good CEO? Yes/No, and why
A. ... yes, I think because...
... long discussion about Jack's performance relative to previous and next CEO. Panel clearly very knowledgable about GE and Jack. Of course, after the interview I had 5x more to say about Jack Welch's legacy which didn't come to my mind in the interview.

Q. You seem like a total techie - pure engineer, then R&D scientist etc. Why business?
A. blah blah... I have found too much of my R&D/technical work go to waste because engineers don't know what the market wants and the business guy doesn't know what engineers can do for him... I want to bridge the gap...
... continued discussion about bringing new technologies to market
... continued discussion about disruptive technologies, Clayton Christensen, etc.

Q. You say one of your weaknesses is that you are impatient - how will you deal with it.
A.... blah blah.

Q. Have you had to deal with legal issues
A. yeah, mostly IP, patents, non-disclosures, technical collaborations, government research contracts, confidentiality etc. General employee-manager stuff.

That's the high-level summary of my interview. After coming out I naturally thought of 10 other things I could have said, and 20 other places where I should have not rambled as much. But that's life.

4. Selection
Oct 31st - I happened to be in India actually. Promptly after 5pm the logon page on the IIMA PGPX website changed from "applications are closed" to "please login to view your results". I found out I was selected. That was it - elation, happiness - I'm going to move to India, study in IIMA, and (hopefully) find a job in India.

So there - a brief summary of my 9 month journey from concept to completion (of the application phase). I'll be out of California in a week, and out of the US by February 2008.