Dad's doing his(my) homework

Found out while chatting home last night that my dad had been to a Princeton Review (PR) centre in Chennai to find out all about this 'MBA admissions process'. He is now asking me why I'm not applying to Stanford or Harvard! Apparently some guy at PR told my dad that with my GMAT and work ex. I should have a good shot at these places. And, to make it worse, none of the schools I'm applying to, except Chicago, came up in their chat on good schools. He now maintains that I should apply to at least one of H/S/W/K - the four best schools - and that I'm aiming too low.

Reminds of the time when my dad bought sweets on IIT-JEE results' eve to celebrate after the results the next day. I kinda knew my fate and was prepared for it but I was almost in tears when I found out that my dad was so confident that I'll pass.

I guess only parents are capable of having such infinite faith in us. Perhaps I should ask the admissions committee to have a little chat with my dad first :)

Chicago - Bumped to R2

Pretty pissed at myself. I clearly underestimated the time essays take. I had been mulling over idea after idea for each essay in my head without ever writing a single word. A week and a half ago, when I decided it was time to put the thoughts into words, my inadequacy in the english language was glaring! Essays were far from anything worth submitting. Only the "Why MBA" essay, which I had worked on for 3 weeks, was to my satisfaction. I stayed up until 3 a.m. Monday night to see how far I was able to go with the Chicago essays. Couldn't even finish essay 2 to my satisfaction.

While, I've heard and read the "R1/R2 doesn't make much difference" sermons a thousand times, I'm currently overcome by a bad feeling that I may just have screwed up my already slim chances further more.

Proud Indian ?!

Lately, a curious forward has been making rounds in the Indian circle. I myself have received it from two different sources so far. I've reproduced it below

Check this out~

Interesting :
An Indian discovered that nobody can create a folder or file anywhere named as "con" This is something pretty cool and unbelievable. At Microsoft the whole Team, including Bill Gates, couldn't answer why this happened!

Try it out yourself !

I tried it. Fair enough, the filename wouldn't be accepted. But it certainly seemed atrocious to claim that it was an "accidental discovery by an Indian". Thirty seconds with google was all it took.

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/409278.html

"con" is the reserved DOS device name for keyboard and screen. Here are a few more such reserved names that can't be used


AUX - First connected serial port
PRN - First connected parallel port
COM1 thru COM4 - Serial ports (modem, mouse, etc.)
LPT1 thru LPT3 - Parallel ports (printer)
CON - Keyboard and screen

Now, how ingenuous a claim that an Indian 'discovered' something. And the Indian cleverness was sought to be rubbed in with a further claim that Bill Gates himself sat down to check it out - unsuccessfully, at that.

Indians have so many genuine things to brag about, yet we feel the need to 'gild the lily' as the saying goes. Sad..

This and that

Portfolio

I finally have a portfolio of schools I'll be applying to. See side bar to the right for the list. And with that, I'm officially an "MBA applicant blogger". It is going to MBA related posts all the way from here on until one of these fellas on my list admit me!

LBS Info Session

Happened last week. I wasn't particularly keen on going as it meant having to miss my stats class. But the LBS application specifically asks of the steps you've taken to learn more about the school, events attended, names of the people you spoke to, alumni/current students you discussed the school with, etc.

I managed to talk to a pretty admissions officer long enough to get her visiting card. Have sent her an email asking to be put in touch with a current student.

U.S Co-Signor

My dad gave me a contact in the U.S who is willing to act as co-signor should I need to take out loans in the U.S. Spoke with this contact over the phone this weekend - nice enough guy. So, one less thing to worry about now.

More importantly, this opens up a few more schools that I was initially interested in but had later discounted on the basis of non-availability of a "U.S co-signor free loan".

Essays

I'm still hoping to submit my Chicago application for R1. But the essays might just spoil the party. Whatever I think of in my head comes out sounding so differently when I write it down. Damn my writing skills..

Quirky Nobel

Didn't know that the Nobel prize when shared could actually be shared unevenly. Was looking at this year's Nobel prize winners for physics.

http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/2005/index.html

The man from the bluest of the educational blue chips, Harvard, has been awarded 1/2 of the prize while the other 2 laureates have been awarded 1/4 prize each!!

I then decided to check out a few other shared winners to see if they got the lion's share.

1965 - Physics, Feynman won (shared by 3, equally),

1983 - Physics, Chandrashekar won (shared by 2, equally again).

1994 - Economics, Nash won (again, shared equally by 3)

Ok, finally, got another unequal sharing. 1903, Physics. Henri Becquerel was awarded 1/2 of the prize. The other 2 were awarded 1/4 each. But, in this case, unlike 2005, the other 2 were awarded for delta (additional) contribution on the same phenomenon that Henri Bequerel discovered. So it's a bit more understandable.

I wonder if the other 2 laureates this year actually feel bad about this.. :-)

Arun is blogging!

Arun a.k.a Sundi, easily the most funniest guy in our batch at NTU has entered the blogging world. After starting out with few strong anti-SG posts he has now mellowed down a bit and has recently posted on South Indian food outlets in Singapore.

Here's what he has to say of Annalakshmi outlet at Lau Pa Sat and its “Eat-As-You-Wish-Pay-As-You-Wish” concept

Coupla guys are employed to serve you and the way you are treated is commensurate with the money that you pay. For a standard meal of Half Fried Rice + Half curd rice with a chapathi and 2 veggies, you pay $3.50 at other places. Since you cant ‘wish’ to pay in multiples of 0.5$, its either $3 or $4. If you have given $4, the chapathi is placed gently on the side, right next to the veggies and you are good to go. If its $3, the same chapathi is carelessly thrown ON the curd rice, soaking it all the way. If you would nt mind receiving a few ugly stares as bonus, go ahead and just pay $2…Trust me u ll get used to the it after a while.

Do go over to http://jijika.blogspot.com and check it out!