Booz Allen Hamilton Sponsorship Program for Women in Europe

What a fun it is to write on some topic other than “why the scholarship committee should consider you for ZZZ scholarship?”!

I decided to post eligibility criteria and documents required for the Sponsorship application for future applicants because the only other way you can get this is write to the organizer.


To be eligible you should be female, willing to work in a European office of Booz Allen and be admitted to one of the top MBA programs (Columbia, Harvard, IESE, IMD, INSEAD, Kellogg, LBS, MIT, Stern, Oxford, Stanford, Chicago, Wharton, Tuck).

Deadline is 3 months before the start of your program: 1 June for September intake, 1 October for January intake.

Required documents:

• Current CV (1 page);
• Copy of undergraduate university transcript;
• The original or a notarized copy of the letter of admission to business school;
• A letter of motivation explaining your interest in management consulting and Booz Allen Hamilton (1-2 pages);
• Two letters of reference (1-2 pages each).

I found out that reference is needed in the beginning of May, called one of my recommenders to discover that he was flying away for a three-week holiday. Surprise-surprise :)

Moscow: Women in Leadership forum

The month of May passed by under the title of “Scholarship deadline is coming”. Thus I was writing a lot, but not blogging. Meanwhile a couple of useful posts formed in my mind – so I decided to start with a useless one instead :)

Last Thursday (31st of May) I’ve been at the Women in Leadership forum. Of all the presentations I was able to visit, I liked two most: by BCG and by SAP.
BCG uses a zero-risk approach: the firm collects a bunch of consultants and lets them tell stories. Plus the presentation was focused on the older level of the auditory apart from all other firms that were telling about opportunities for undergraduate students.
SAP guy didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t knew before, but, again, he entertained us with a bunch of vivid stories. For example, this one:

A picture worth a thousand words

I’m not sure that every woman goes like that, but… great difference in the attitude, isn’t it? The man did as he was told, but the woman took creative approach and (there were no constraints, right?) spent as much money as she could :)
Once in my child days mom asked me whom I like to go shopping with more.
“Of course, with you”, I said.
“Why?”
“Because when we go with dad to buy bananas, we buy bananas. And when we go with you, we can buy strawberries, pears, apples, and not even buy bananas in the end. Shopping turns into an adventure and fun”.

I have a rule to take something useful from every book that I read and every event where I go. This time was not an exception. I got this:

Pen&torch from Cisco

Most interesting and innovative thoughts come to you at any place. For instance, in the evening when you’re lying half asleep. You have to get up, turn on the light and write it down. How many thoughts have you lost due to laziness or scribbling in the dark? What a great idea to make such a pen!

R3 Admission Statistics

It seems that R3 Admits have been added to the Portal (congratulation by the way to all newcomers!).
The number is now 349.
Female rate: down to 24%

Statistics for previous rounds are here: R1, R2

UPD: the number dropped to 338.
UPD2: The official admits number for this year will be 316 (information from program manager by Anonymous).

The world works funny

Lately I’ve been searching through the LBS booklets I have at home. In one of them I found a letter (“thank you for you interest in…”) which I received about two years ago. The “Ref. Number” on it seemed strangely familiar. I’ve checked it with my acceptance letter… and it turned out that that is my current student number! (Wow! Who could have imagined that all the history is stored?)

Another funny story is about my application for Chevening Scholarship. I applied for it in two subsequent years. First year I got my rejection straight in November, with original of my diploma. This year I didn’t have a straight feedback. As time went by and all deadlines passed, I understood that this year application was not successful either. So I wrote a number of e-mails to British Council officer asking to send me the rejection letter, which I will need as a proof for future scholarship applications.

In beginning of April I phoned the lady and begged her to send me the letter.

I got it yesterday (exactly when I no longer needed it), but the letter itself was quite interesting. It contained my diploma and some other docs from my application which meant that they haven’t sent me this letter earlier and it hasn’t been lost in the depth of Russian post office which I always blame (ah, this reminds me of an anecdote I will post as a footnote). But the letter – the letter said: “Thank you for your interview for Chevening scholarship. However, we are sorry to inform you…”

I haven’t received an interview invitation, neither attended one. And it makes me wonder – who were they interviewing and why this person did so badly and haven’t won me a scholarship? :)

--- anecdote ---

A week before Christmas a post office received a letter addressed to “Santa Claus”. Since there was no address, the officers opened it and read:

‘Dear Santa Claus,

I leeve in orphanage and now winter came and I have no worm clothz. It is very, very cold now and I can not play with my frends outsaid. Pleaze, can you brin me a Christmas prezent a coat, a hat, glovz and boots? Thank you, thank you, thank you…’

The officers were so touched that they chipped in for the present from their low wages and were able to buy a coat, a hat and boots for the boy. They send that as a present from Santa Claus and a week later another letter came from that very boy. They all gathered to read it out loud:

‘Dear Santa Claus,

Thank you very mush for you prezent. I am warm now I got yor coat and boots and hat. I have not got glovz, but this is sure becoz bad guyz at the post ofis stole them…’

Made it to the Top10 Best of Blogging Applicants!

My blog is named 6th in the Best of Blogging competition! Many-many thanks for everyone who voted for me and to ClearAdmit for organizing the competition!
It was a great opportunity to vote for the blogs I love, and I am glad that my voice counted.
Congratulations to Angel Angie and Rungee!!! You both got the well deserved awards for great blogs and effort you put in them!
Angie, thanks a lot for offering the Room Of Inspiration! I appreciate that ;)

Loan, accommodation and other things

Instead of having a week holiday during which I planned to complete my loan application, I spent two weeks in bed with quinsy. Speaking of the bright side – this reminded me that most of the pills and medicine in London can only be bought with a doctor prescription. Thus I compiled a list of my favorite medicines to take with me. Mental note: I will also need to think of a list of all other things I will bring to UK and squeeze it to the minimum (postpone until July).

I haven’t submitted the loan application yet, but I hope to send it next week. It turned out that the account statement couldn’t be notarized if the officer who signed it didn’t write her post. So I had to take the already translated document back to the bank (in another city), find the lady who signed it and ask her to put a stamp with her post on the paper. And then take it back to the notary and wait for another couple of days…

I have also thought about accommodation.

As one of the first year students pointed out, LBS offers 33 places in London University accommodation. The biggest minus is lack of cooking facilities in most of the rooms (I prefer not to eat in a dining room – been there, tasted that, didn’t like it).

Since I have no more than 10% chances of getting the university accommodation, a backup is needed. Flathunter’s Pub Crawl will help – and I have joined the group of volunteers who will organize it!

There are a lot of things going on the LBS Portal. The most interesting one is the topic called “Getting to know you!” where my fellow classmates give a short presentation about themselves. Judging from it I will study with a group of very interesting and diverse people!

Looking ahead there are three things I have to start thinking about: short term accommodation, flight and visa.

I can book accommodation right now. London University International Hall offers rooms for 18 pounds a day. But if I postpone this until later, I can only count on other universities and the price will be 30 pounds a day. Or maybe I will be able to have a sublet room from one of the fellow students? (Any offers for 13-26 of August? ;))

I can fly with Aeroflot or British Airways. Aeroflot flies at a convenient time (arrival on 1 p.m.), but only allows 20kg of free baggage. BA flies at inconvenient time (arrival on 6 a.m. or 11 p.m.), but allows 32kg of free baggage. As far as I understand I won’t have student discounts yet since ISIC will be valid from September 2007.

I will apply for the visa as soon as my passport is ready. I have confirmed with fellow students that I do not need to show the consulate the money for the whole course (fee + living expenses). This means I do not need the outcome of the loan and scholarship applications.

Speaking of scholarships I really need to start writing the essays. There’s only one month before deadline left (OMG!). But I use every opportunity to procrastinate (like writing this post!)

New Order Business School (by Seth Godin)

Check out the following article NoBS, the end of the MBA by Seth Godin. It is Seth's thought exercise that might be useful to:

• MBA-haters ("aha, Seth too says that MBA is dead!")
• MBA-aspirers ("if I get an MBA from *** it will be my silver bullet")
• MBA-about-thinkers ("what other options have I got? What will I get from the degree?")
• MBA-admits ("find out what it all about")

And it is also an interesting read!

Reflections on LBS R2 admission statistics

As a follow up to my post about R1 admission figures I decided to post some R2 admission figures and to think about how many places are left for R3 & R4 (please keep in mind that I am not a member of adcom so my suppositions may be completely wrong).
As one of my future classmates pointed out, admits are not be allowed to disclose the actual figures and other information from the portal (I've skipped the agreement first time I logged in, because I wanted to see the portal itself), so I put up some diagrams without any figures.

In R1 and R2 nearly an equal number of people were admitted:If we compare the actual number of people who confirmed their R1 admission (including those from waitlist) with the number of R2 admits, the diagram will change:
So... let's suppose that the yield of R2 will be, say, 60%... and no one from R1 & R2 defers their admission... and the class size will be 320... then the number of places for R3 & R4 applicants will be as following:


By the way, current female rate is 26%.

UPD: Last year figures in Angie's post.

Congratulations to R2 LBS admits!

London Business School issued decisions on the R2 admits yesterday and I would like to say "welcome!" to everyone who is in. Special greatings to Mitokondrion :)
And I hope more LBS blogs & bloggers will appear soon ;)

Congratulations to Natasha who has been admitted to Darden - you've earned that admission, girl! Well done :)

I have a mentor now

London Business School has a practice of assigning mentors to the freshly admitted students.
I've got a letter today (been wondering about who my mentor would be from the mid-January)... and... guess, who is it?

Hints:
1. She is from the same country (this is a good common practice)
2. She is a blogger
OK-OK you've probably already guessed: this is Genie!
:)

Report about the last two months

The winter is nearly over, though the weather here has no clue (as you can see from the picture on the left). Apart from winter sports (and work, of course) there’s not much to report, since I always try to write something MBA-related.

So recently:

• I’ve met a number of LBS students, including Genie, and (hopefully) future classmates (“hopefully” because all of them have more than one offer). The most interesting discovery for me is that all those people have different backgrounds, so one cannot say that LBS only takes Russians from McKinsey or Morgan Stanley.
• I’ve got lots of e-mails from rejected applicants, applying applicants and classmates. 95% of all letters in my rusgirl gmailbox came in the last 2 months!
• I’ve been a bit overwhelmed by amount of paperwork for an HSBC loan. Like a self-respecting iceberg, the checklist of documents for this loan is rather small, but… the application itself requires a lot of supporting documentation, which is not listed, but better be provided. Well, I have been told it is gonna be like this, so don’t take my words as a complaint. I have already passed the stage of “OMG, I’ve got so much to do! I cannot think of it now I will think of it later” and arrived straight to “The later is now”.
• I’ve discovered that I can tell what stage of application process is solely looking at my blog statistics: in February - GMAT posts go down and interview posts go up. And – strangely to me – more people click on INSEAD label on the right-hand bar than on LBS one! Are they trying to tell me something? :)))

Reapplication: How I did it

A number of people asked me to share my magic recipes and though there is no magic and there are no recipes I have decided to share some thoughts on reapplication process. Every little helps :)

So...
First step you have to do is think whether you really need an MBA. You now have a list of goals (5 and 20 years plan). Why not begin fulfilling them now? (Just think what would you do if all the business schools in the world suddenly vanished?)
If you fail without an MBA - you'll have more convincing future story for adcoms. But if you succeed, you might not need to write a story at all. Your biographer will do it for you.

OK, you're definite to try again (next round or next year).
Second step - get feedback from adcoms.
There are three possible replies:

1. Change yourself (strengthen part of your application, align your goals, etc)
   
2. Change the essays (adcoms haven't fully understood something in your essays)
   
3. Change nothing (you were unlucky and someone got there earlier than you)

You'd better ask and know for sure, before addressing what-you-think-your-weaknesses-are.

Next steps - work on the feedback. Get a new job, launch a new club, travel or learn a new language. Visit the schools. Talk to students and alumni. Go to conferences and tours. Learn about the opportunities various schools can offer, try to find the best fit. Based on that re-evaluate your first choice school. To my mind when you know the school and like it, all the process is much easier.
And don't forget to save a lot of courage and energy before the next try.

I've tried all this on myself. I've changed a job (to the one that gave me new skills and international exposure). I've worked on my weaknesses (working experience and career goals). I've found more powerful recommenders (general manager at the previous workplace and current supervisor). I've read a lot. I've met with people. As a result I wrote stronger essays (and expressed more commitment to the School).

If you really want to know the way... here it is: passion, hard work and a bit of luck.

Good luck to you too!

UPD: There's a very good article by Paul Graham: 'Two Kinds of Judgement'. I suppose it will give you courage for the next attempt :)

R1 admission statistics

Search on the LBS Portal gives 179 R1 admits (including people who deferred from the last year). In 2006 according to Angie's post there were 140 admits at the time. Rumor says that applications were up 50% in R1, so adcoms probably had hard time crossing out the applicants. Female rate is 28%.

Anyway I know that some people are waiting for acceptance letters from other schools, so there is hope for waitlisted candidates. And good luck to all R2 applicants!

UPD: The number of R1 admits has dropped to 129, so the yield this year is 72% in first round.
UPD2: As Marcelo pointed out, the number of MBA admits has risen to 150 - probably those are the people from the wait list - welcome on board! :)

LBS - I am in!

Yes, I have an offer :)))

So... what's next?

First, I will wait for my "offer pack" to arrive and see if there's something interesting in there.
Angie said in the BusinessWeek forums that last year LBS had notified annual fund scholarship recipients by phone on the day the offers were issued (and I've never heard anyone from Russia receive this scholarship), but still...
Then I will celebrate :). Anyone in Moscow who wants to get in touch - drop me an e-mail!
And then I will pay my commitment fee. Dollar is falling - damn! so it is better to pay sooner than later.

Congratulations to fellow admits! Hope to see you soon on the Portal :)
I wish patience to the 'waitlist' candidates. If you really want to go to LBS, I think, you'll be able to. I know a couple of candidates who were admitted, but are waiting for other offers ;)
All of those, who didn't get in this year - don't be upset and keep struggling. If you really want it - you will make it, I know.

Let’s talk about ethical issues, shall we?

Fourth essay topic at Harvard is stated as following:

In you career, you will have to deal with many ethical issues. What are likely to be the most challenging and what is your plan for developing the competencies you will need to handle those issues effectively?

Before I came to this essay “ethical issue” was unknown beast to me, but I have done a good research on the subject since.
First, ethical issues should be distinguished from their false brothers. For example, when you receive change in the supermarket and the lady in charge gives you 20 instead of 10 by mistake – it is not an ethical issue. You should return the money.
Second, recently I came across a very interesting ethical issue which in the end resulted in this post.

Imagine, that you are a manager of the team. Your boss comes to you one day, closes the door and says: “Tell anyone and you’ll be fired. We gonna outsource your whole department to a cheap faraway country. We need half a year to do that and full support from the current team. After that we gonna fire them all, apart from you, of course. You will be promoted. But we need to do this transition quickly and effectively. This will save us a billion zillion dollars”.
What are you gonna do?

I do not know the right way to respond. Maybe you should be loyal to The Company. After all, they pay for your heart, soul and mortgage. And your team members are big boys and they should already know that there is no such word as “fair”. As a second thought maybe your boss is just testing how loyal you are?
To hell with the loyalty then.
I will go to my team the same very day and tell them everything. Something like:
“Guys, this company neither loves us, nor respects us. We have to pass our duties to guys in cheap faraway country and then say goodbye. This is bad, bad, really bad news and I understand your shock. But let’s look at it another way. It won’t come to you as a surprise-surprise two week’s notice. We have half a year to polish our CVs, and I will give you all good references, and we will probably receive a nice paycheck in the end”.
OK, let’s make the problem a little bit difficult.

The situation is the same. But you do not like the team you lead. They are arrogant, lazy and overpaid. And the people from the cheap faraway country are good workers and will benefit very much from your firm’s investment into their economy.
Will your decision change?

Nope. I will do the same thing not because I love my team and view them as “my guys”, but because I feel it is the right thing to do. I am not in place to judge if the guys are overpaid: we have a market, aren’t we? They can be a bad team, but they are my team. And maybe I am a bad leader if I have (or agreed to have) such a team. And my people will still face problems with paying loans on time, searching for a job, dealing with their undermined egos, etc. My people are more important than my company.
Good. You treat a team as if they were your family. So let’s make your choice tougher.

You’re not a boss. You are a consultant. Your firm has signed a contract and you have signed non-disclosure agreement. You will help us make the transition and promise to keep our purposes secret.

Yes, this is tough. I cannot say “I won’t work on this project” - someone has to do the job. I cannot tell the people, because it is not really my business. I cannot make their life better in any way. And I cannot be sure that they won’t go straight to their boss – and then my firm gonna lose a billion zillion dollars they obviously promised seducing it to carry out this contract. The only way I see is guerilla warfare. I might begin asking question like: “What do you think your company gonna do after this transition?”, “What have they done previously in such situations?”, and even “Have you looked at the job market recently?” If they are smart they will understand. If not, well, at least I tried.
There is no easy answer to an ethical question. (If your answer was “Just get up and get out of their”, imagine that your mom needs an expensive operation and you need the money badly. Who would you choose: your team or your mom?) Your answer might be completely different from mine.
I will just do what I feel is right. Right to how I feel, how I was brought up, in what I believe… but, please, tell me what on earth does Harvard mean by “developing competencies that will help me to handle those issues”?

LBS interview experience

I had my interview yesterday and I enjoyed it immensely.
It was a kind of unexpected, so I didn’t have time to become scared (that’s a plus).
We had previously agreed to meet during the weekend, but my interviewer phoned me yesterday morning and asked whether I could come the same very day (he sent me an e-mail on Tuesday night that his plans had changed, but I received it only after his call). I said: “Yes, of course, if you don’t mind seeing me in jeans”. He didn’t mind (and thus missed the opportunity to see me in blue-suit-white-chemise-and-tie :)).
Such “unexpectedness” meant that I didn’t rehearse my answers and didn’t prepare for all of the tough questions. But there were not as many tough questions as I expected (no “ethical” ones, no “tell me how your team failed”). Nearly the first thing the interviewer told me was “Forget about the structure you have probably prepared. It will be more like a normal conversation”.
We planned to talk for about an hour, but ended up with more than 2 hours. I only wish I could steal a little more of his time, because the last part (my questions about his experience) was rather short. Well, it was late, middle of the week, he still had work to do, and his family was waiting for him.

So let’s get to the practical part now.
Interview was conducted in English. He received my current application, essays and CV. No recommendation letters or even the recommenders’ titles, no last year application.
He was curious “what were those huge improvements and changes that made adcoms consider you this year” so we talked about my last year aspirations as well.
I wasn’t asked about Life and Universe and Everything (I mean why MBA, why NOW, why LBS), but this question loomed in the air.
What I was asked:

• Your short-term and long-term goals. How LBS curriculum will help you fulfilling them? What skills do you think you need?
• How did you like your visit to school and what was your take-away from the lectures you visited?
• What project would you choose with your study group at LBS if you were at the point of choosing? What role in the group would you play?
• How would you choose between different schools if you were in such situation? (what would be the base for your decision?)
• What it the difference between firms at which you are targeting?
• Tell me about your current industry, its main players. How do you see the perspectives of this industry?
• What would you do if not admitted?
• How you plan to finance your studies if admitted?
• How do you lead? Describe a recent experience. Any lessons learned from it?
• Your three good traits from your colleagues’ point of view? Three bad traits? (that was a tough one)

We got into the details of some of my essays. Talked about my work, current project and international experience.
At the end the interviewer gave me a presentation topic. It was close to my heart so I hope I was able to handle it well. In the meantime I ruined a whiteboard in the conference room, because the highlighter turned out to be non-erasable (The interviewer promised to send me a bill for the board to clear my conscience, so that’s OK ;))

In the end I don’t know what impression I’ve made. On my way home I thought of thousands of better and well-structured answers. But I enjoyed every minute of the interview, I believe this is what really matters.
Let’s wait for the 19th of December and see what the school will say.

Good luck to those of you who are preparing for their interviews.
For those in Moscow don’t forget that LBS is giving an information session this Saturday – hope to meet you all there!

LBS interview invite!

Yes, I have one!

I am delighted to inform you that based on the strength of your initial application you have been selected for interview by the MBA Admissions Committee.

WooHoo!

UPD: The interview must be scheduled until 8th December and the admission decision will be on the 19th of December.

Book about IB, trading and consulting - "Fast track"

Couple of days ago I came across one interesting book and immediately thought of first year MBAs who are now torn between banking and consulting.

2Facts:
1. The "Fast Track" is written by Mariam Naficy who worked at Goldman Sachs (IB) and Gemini (MC), and then got her MBA from Stanford.
2. The book holds lots of interviews with insiders and a very good list of additional literature.

If you're interested look at Amazon reviews here.
Tip: don't check the book's website - it is useless.

Terrible guide on writing a great essay

The first advice which famous writers give to youths dreaming about Pulitzer prize is simple – read. But beware. Reading is the only activity on which one can spend a lot of time and produce nothing (we are not considering computer games, are we?). So read actively. Keep an eye on things that will look good on your application.
I read lots of students’ blogs, professors’ diaries, articles, guides, and books. And write down excerpts and thoughts they evoke in a little green notebook. Many pages are already filled. The book is there every time I’m stuck with my essays.
Funny that it always opens on a certain page with just one word: PASSION!
The word tells me: don’t write what they will like, write what you like. You need to make a strong impression - that’s the only way.
Will you read the book if you don’t like it? Hmm, maybe. If it is classic. And this means you have to. And you can proudly say ‘I did it!’ afterwards. But in any other case you won’t.
They say, anyone can write at least one book. Memoirs. That’s it. And you have two thousand words or so to describe your whole life.
So you’re there with bright thoughts and passion, eager to nail it down and they ask you: “OK, what is most people do not know about you?”. Well… that’s a difficult question for one who lives with a heart upon one’s sleeve. It is even a harder one for those who do not open much. If nearly no one knows what I did last summer, do you really think I will tell you? Another good one is “what role do you think you will play in your study group?”. Of course, I want to be a fairy. No, thank you, I don’t want to play lobster. What? Um, sorry… what roles can I choose from in the first place?
But if you struggle and struggle with words and stories and don’t like what you produce in the end, maybe it is a point to think twice. They ask for a thriller, but you can only write a romance.

--- anecdote ---
Soviet times. Deficit. A wife is going to have a baby and convinces her husband who works at a plant that produces baby carriages to steal some parts and make a carriage for their kid. Husband finally gives up. He tries to make a carriage, but regardless of all his effort, the only thing he can assemble from the stolen parts is a machine-gun.
--- smile here ---

And if they still want a baby carriage, I mean, “what you thought, felt and did”, then, perhaps, this is that notorious “fit”. Or rather “not fit”.
Or maybe they will like your romance anyway and take you for you diversity. And 800+ GMAT. And don’t forget to mention how you saved the world. Twice.
The secret is simple: you need a hook. Make you essays promising. An introduction, like your CV. You won’t wait long for an interview.

A couple of links that would be useful:
Better beginning (short)
Tighten the language (short)
Writing style guide
Crash course on essays

LBS application submitted!

I am done with application and essays for London Business School. Feeling I have written much stronger application this year:

• Recommenders are the most V.I.P. guys from those who know me – check.
• Essays have just the right proportion of everything – check.
• Definitely much more commitment – check :)
• I even included a couple of jokes!

If I myself were on admission’s committee this year I would consider me worth a try.
Thank you everyone, whom I have talked to and whose blogs influenced my writing. Special thanks to Angie and Divine Miss N!

No other Round One schools for me. What a relief! I will have a decent weekend! How I love this application process for the overwhelming joy of life after “submit”!
I have missed lots of b-school events because of writing during the last two weeks. And though they are gone and I cannot have World MBA tour or Chicago Women Meeting back… I won’t regret. Next week is all planned for going out with friends!

The interview decision (or ding) will be available on the 17th of November.