We have completed the first cycle admissions and the admitletters for the same have been sent out. My first impressions has been that theapplicant pool is getting better each year and this year has been no exception.Having personally interviewed a large number of candidates and also reviewedmost of the applications it may be appropriate to put down some of myobservations here.
Practically every applicant had put down some form ofsocial service activity in one of the essays. For a very large number theactivity started around June this year. Fact is if everyone is talking about itthen social service ceases to be a differentiator. It is very obvious that someapplicants have put social service down because some application helpwebsites said we look at such activity favourably and improves the chances of ashort list. When I did probe some of the applicants during the interview itbecame obvious that they had nothing what so ever to do with social service –you can guess what happened to the applicant. We certainly do appreciate socialservice but let it be serious work in that area. There a lots of ways toproject your uniqueness and in my opinion the best thing to project youruniqueness is to talk about some thing you have done professionally. That issome thing that can be easily defended in an interview and results in a farbetter interview performance.
The other common feature this year has been the longterm goal of entrepreneurship. For a large number the long term was really longterm and one in fact said he would start some ting in 20 years time. Noproblems if that is indeed your goal but then you also need to have a goodshort and medium term goal. While one does not expect candidates to havea detailed business plan in place the least one can expect is some ideas onwhat kind of enterprise it is going to be. A response like “ I don’t have anidea at the moment but hope to get one once I am in ISB” I don’t thing willwash.
The second deadline is round the corner (Dec 1st2009) and we do hope to get the quality of applications we got in the firstcycle.
All the best!
