akssgx

There's an update on TGC about Management (Organizational Behavior), PhD (F11) for UMCP. Any one else has information about the admit? Thanks

Discipline: Management Type of Undergrad: Science/Engineering Undergrad GPA: 4.0 Type of Grad: Management Grad GPA: 4.0 GMAT / GRE: 1460 (800Q, 660V 5 AWA) Courses: Cal I, II, III, Economics 6 courses , Higher order specialization in statistics Letters of Recommendation: Two from professors I worked as research assistant (willing to write stellar LORs), One from current supervisor Research Experience: Research works under professors, Master Thesis under a Harvard Professor, 5 years work ex with a research agency Teaching Experience: Taught two courses as guest faculty to a premier business school Research Interests: Network structure Applying to: Ross, HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, Kellogg, Olin, Smith, UCLA, Carlson

Dear rsaylors, I have been following your posts and comments to the other posters. How did this "all of a sudden" enlightenment happened. If it is not worth it, why are you pursuing PhD? Why are you here in this forum? SGAK

Dear rsaylors, Thanks for your feedback. My particular interests are in strategy formulation for emerging industries and given my past work experience, it gels well with my aspiration to focus on strategy doctoral program. Money is secondary I believe and I have strong research background in strategy. For most of the schools I am applying I have spoken to the Professors who are experts in emerging market strategy formulation and are willing to have me as their student. The Harvard Prof in question is busy with his research work in some third world country with minimal access to internet and is not in a position to devote time writing my LoR. @phdhope: I do understand that 660 Verbal is a weakness in itself. Thanks SGX

Dear All, I would request a profile evaluation to assess fit for PhD in strategy in top 20-40 B-Schools. Undergraduation: Bachelor of Technology, good Indian school (first ranker) UGGPA: 4.0/4.0 Graduation: Master of Business Administration, top 25 Indian B-School (graduated with distinction and director's special mention) GGPA: 4.0/4.0 Professional experience: 5 Years with Tier 2 strategy consulting firm GRE: 800 Q, 660 V, 5 AWA TOEFL IBT: 114/120 Courses of relevance: Calculus, Econometrics, 6 courses on Economics, Higher order specialisation in statistics Research: Undergraduation: Technical research works under professors (willing to write stellar LORs) , Master Thesis: Under a Harvard Professor (not available for LOR) Interests: Ross HBS Wharton INSEAD Kellogg Safety: Olin, Smith, UCLA, Carlson Thank you so much for your help. SGX

Offlate was too busy with my job...for the GRE had missed many deadlines and thus had to cover up for it. Well, after 1190 in PP1 I was distressed and was thinking that probably GRE is not my cup of tea. However, motivated by some of my friends I decided to give it a try. So this is how I started to prepare: I bought books from Kaplan as I didnt had other options available for the country I am in presently and met the councillor of local Kaplan centre. She was very friendly and told me a lot about the GRE. I bought all the latest material but did not actually enrolled for classes as it was way too time consuming and not customised per individual needs I started with Kaplan's maths workbook...took three days to finish it and then downloaded Nova's Maths Bible. It is sufficient to score 800 as almost all possible questions are available in Nova's. I took three weeks to complete the book end to end. I then attempted Barron's, Powerprep, Kaplan's and Princeton reviews Maths sections and scored 790 or 800 for all. Next was the turn of Verbal for which I started with Barron's word-list. Remember that 17-19 questions of GRE involve knowledge of word in context. I created a master list on excel of all the words and then started to refine based on my knowledge of the word, its other meanings and usage. After around 17 iterations in 4 weeks I almost had a list of 570 words that were not in my active vocabulary. I focussed on learning them by using a cue card method. I wrote the word and instead of direct meaning wrote synonyms and tried to commit to my memory. To check the contextual usage, I made a point to read New York times especially the reviews section and it helped me a lot. By the end of 5th week I had memorised complete Barron's and had known usage and context by heart. After doing this I started to work on RC section. This can be the game changer cause there are implied meaning questions which check your knowledge of english as well as judges you on the logical abilities. I downloaded 544 RC passages from the net and determined to complete atleast 35 of them each day. With each passing RC, not only I added knowledge of esoteric passages but also added efficiency in solving. I did this till a day before actual GRE. For the dicey bridging questions, practice is the key...and a good sense of basic grammar helps. Cause if the original bridge is noun:noun, you would rarely find a noun:verb or otherwise bridge. Symmetry helps in assessing these bridges. For sentence correction, I worked on the Big Book 27 tests as it helps in familiarising with odd concepts of usage. Especially for non-natives only Big Book is near to actual tests. Other materials from Kaplan, Barrons etc is crap. One week before actual GRE, I began to work on AWA and I feel that a basic format or template should be designed and that should help in keeping the essay in check for conciseness as well as content. I worked on 15 topics for argument and essay and that gave me an idea of using my template effectively. I like the way Kaplan's Verbal workbook suggests....it outlines the template and gives you plenty of examples to use it effectively. You can modify it based on your choices. On the day of GRE, I reviewed my master list of 570 words, committed to memory the template and finally did some SC questions from Big Book. I reached an hour and half before the test and thought to spend some time meditating rather than memorising so did not take anything with me to the centre. In front of the centre was a Starbucks and they fueled me with Cafe latte to help me meditate. 45 minutes before the actual test, I was impatient and breathing excercise was aggravating my situation so I decided to go ahead. Had a very good coordinator who actually guided me with the process for 15 minutes and also told me to start early if i want to. Just what I wanted to hear. They asked me to fill a basic information sheet, asked for my passport and told that it will be retained with them during the test. Then they gave me a locker and asked me to keep every thing including pen, pencils in it. After this they asked me to get myself checked for any material with me such as paper chits etc. As they ensured that things are in order, she gave me a 2 pager integrated scratch, two pencils, a sharperner and an eraser. I was instructed that at my seat, I am not allowed to look left or right and even if the door opens. I was asked for raising my hand if i needed extra scratch. But the scracth is available on returning the first sheets. After 25 minutes of demo. The actual test began. The screen was just like the PP screen, however a bit magnified. The time for AWA actually seemed lesser cause the keyboard I was using for my practice was that of my laptop and for actual test they provide the age old, noisy and clunky PC keyboards. My suggestion is that you buy a PC keyboard and practice for a while as for actual test writing section can become tedious if not practiced. This costs under $10 and is worth investing for being on time in the AWA sections. The other suggestion is to forget that there are 10 others in the same room and use the keyboard as impolitely as possible cause thinking of others distracts and can take you off-focus while writing AWAs. After the AWA, I chose to continue on the test without breaks and the first section that I encountered was Verbal. First few questions were very easy and as I progressed to 11th question, it just seemed too difficult bridging question. Moving ahead I got an RC passage of 85 lines for two questions and after 2 antonym questions again an RC of 70+ lins for questions. For the 25th question I did not recieve any more RCs but I anticipated for them as I only answered 4 questions on RC section and I knew another 4 would be coming later. I had wasted a lot of time reading long RC passages and by the 25th question I had 7 minutes and a few seconds. I encountered an RC passage of 105 lines by the 26th question and I lost my confidence looking at the size....however the passage was very simple and the questions indeed were too easy. After my verbal I continued with the quant sections and I managed to finish first 6 questions in 3 minutes. Going further I kept on getting problems and was easily working them around. By the 25th question I had very hard question like minimum value of a quadratic eqauation, hyperbolic equation and variance comparison of two data sets. Being an engineer, I was able to crack all of them and still had 15 more minutes to go. Going further I expected another section but surprisingly they gave me a research section on Verbal and announced that this is not going to be evaluated. It had new set of questions that would be applied for tests after August 2011. I completed that in less than 10 minutes and with a bated breath pressed the see your unofficial score. Lo and behold...it was a damn 1460 and I was just so happy. The key to good score in GRE is a. to devise a study plan b.to stick to it - come what may - beat yourself to the plan and see scores soaring. AKSSGX

Hi Friends, I decided to take GRE 3 months ago and I tested on powerprep then. My score was a pathetic 1190. I tested GRE today and got 1460 and for the school and course I have aimed this seems to be a good score. I think consistency is the key. Will post later more. AKSSGX