B School Application

Well now that I am done with step 1 i.e. GMAT, I am proceeding to the next step B School Application. From my experience till now, its extremely complex and does take a lot of time. After a certain point personal Choices do weigh more than rankings. However, Business week's b school rankings were helpful coz of the amount of info it contained. Business week does a wonderful survey and populates data starting from no. of applicants, success rate, how many are interviewed, scholarship amounts, avg gmat, avg gpa, work exp to mention a few. It as really useful in shortlisting the univs in a short time with a busy work schedule. After pondering over all the options wrt US, UK, Australia, Europe, Canada and Singapore, I have zeroed in on a few univs from the US. As of now, I plan to apply to the following univs

1 Harvard,
2 Chicago Booth
3. Duke Fuqua
4. Cornell Johnson
5. Yale SOM
6. ISB

Attending information sessions from Chicago, Columbia and Duke did help me to a good extent in finalizing the univs. My selection was limited because of my criterion of a graduate loan without a collateral and without a cosigner. After the global meltdown, many of the univs have taken off the International no-cosigner graduate loan, and hence I was stuck up with limited options. And considering that Indian Male IT is a dominant group in the application pool, I stand at a huge disadvantage as far as getting into my dream univ is considered.

Wish me luck. Deadlines for all the 6 univs are nearing in and so is my nervousness and anxiety.