1. Login to Beat The GMAT via Facebook. Be sure to click the “Login with Facebook” button on the login page
2. Click the “Pre-Register” button. When the window opens, make sure to click “Publish” to share with your friends

The Grand Prize is a 1 week, all expense-paid tour of 5 elite business schools – Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Stanford GSB, Haas and one US school of your choice.  Beat The GMAT will pay for everything, including flights from anywhere in the world.

For queries, comment on news announcement page of 100k challenge. Spread the word. & All the best for the contest.

Stay tuned for more reviews

This time we’ve doubled the cash price to $500 for each five winners. Manhattan GMAT awards full fledged GMAT course to all winners. (worth $1500 !!) But the prizes from consultation service varies with the rank of the winner. Stacy Blackman Co. is sponsoring consulting for MBA admission & b-school applications.

Rest of the things are the same as usual. Eligibility criteria, application details/format, the essay questions and even the due date! You can verify the details on the official page Beat The GMAT scholarship.

Five winners will be chosen by the panel of Beat The GMAT, Manhattan GMAT & Stacy Blackman Co.

For further information, hints and tips, you can bump this blog back & comment or if you’re member of the forum you can put your queries directly on the 2009 GMAT scholarship forum.

Now that you’re here anyways: let me give you the essay questions of this competition. All the best guys. :thumbsup:

Two/three essay questions:

1. (500 word limit): Why do you deserve this scholarship?

2. (300 word limit): Why do you want to go to business school?

3. (300 word limit) OPTIONAL: Are there any special circumstances you want us to mention? Examples: financial need, major life event etc.

Wanna know, What’s it like at a top-20 International B-school? -

Presenting you Vault/Pagalguy business school buzz book!!

It’s a shareware ebook so if you’re not a member of pagalguy, forums don’t worry much! I’ll soon make it available to members of Beat The GMAT forums, which I think has pretty strong base of its prospective readers.
The e-book is an exclusive survey conducted by Vault in association with pagalguy.com.

Tthe survey covers
Admission
Academics
Employment perspective
Quality of life
Social life (beyond b-school)
& answers of the representatives from respective schools.

I think I couldn’t have grabbed so much visiting the schools personally. I don’t discourage visiting the campus but sure this “book” comes handy before you take your final decision about b-schools.

Schools include;

1. Columbia
2. Harvard
3. Stern
4. Kellogg
5. Thunderbird
6. Berkely Haas
7. UCLA Anderson
8. Chicago
9. Wharton
10. USC Marshall
11. Darden
12. Toronto
13. Ivey (Ontario)
14. HEC France
15. INSEAD
16. Cranfield
17. LBS
18. Manchester
19. Oxford (Said)
These are undoubtedly the top b-schools of North America & Europe region.

But recent news made me think about my decision again. I know again this time I may not be one the firsts who knew about this scholarships’ (/ fellowship ) announcement. So I ask, & who doesn’t want a full-ride for Stanford anyways.
Reliance Industries has announced and The Reliance Dhirubhai Fellowship. It’s a FULL RIDE scholarship, meaning your tuition fees will be waived INCLUDING all your other expenses such as living at Stanford university, schooling, boarding, books etc; virtually all expenses associated to applying and attending stanford MBA (so, does that include GMAT fees as well??).

The scholarship is need-based & academics of the applicant will be considered in scrutinizing candidates. But the most emphasis will be given to the applicant’s interest in India and her willingness to work in India post-MBA. The conditions for Reliance Stanford scholarship are: Applicants if given the scholarship have to come to India in 2/3 year post-MBA for at least 2/3 years.

The selection process involves two phases. At first phase 50 candidates will be shortlisted & will be allowed to apply to Stanford University for traditional two year MBA program. Stanford will select at the most five candidates from fifty by their .
There has never been such a huge scholarship for any international applicants earlier. It is obvious to think that it would lead to more applications from Indian origin and hence selection process at Stanford would be tough still. But I think it would not be the case. First of all, Reliance candidates are entirely different pool and Stanford made it sure that they will not allocate more than five seats for fifty selected applicants. And even for Reliance Stanford scholarship applicants’ gang, I think it’s difficult to get through in first fifty. As mentioned in official website the candidates will be short-listed on need-base. It is the kind of bread which is difficult to get in India these days. With all India-shining and raining jobs, the average income of person from 20/30 age group has raised tremendously in a decade. Incidentally these very people want career upgradation, want to excel and hence want to join MBA programs of international stature. And the pool of youth who’s actually financially poor is not even aware of such MBA programs.
Still I hope Reliance will be successful in finding the best candidates in all the terms they demand. The last question stuck in my mind is whether this scholarship is genuine? I mean why should I be happy & so all prospective India MBA aspirants if the scholarship is not for those who genuinely qualify for it? I hope and pray it should all be white and transparent. But wouldn’t it be the scheme of Reliance with hidden interest? …the scheme: to make Indian ministers and bureaucrats happy by offering their sons/daughters an MBA degree from Stanford?
I hope & pray my speculation is absolutely wrong.

To apply for Reliance Dhirubhai fellowship for stanford MBA click here : http://app.applyyourself.com/?id=SU-REL

Be it Fellowship, grant or scholarships or just financial aid by means of loans.

I just changed the title of this blog. (I merged all my blogs now)
Do you Aim-WSC?

It’s the name I chose for myself in some GMAT and MBA related forums couple of years ago and now it’s almost became a synonym for me… though I go by Johny Cage, my identity as aim-wsc is more popular than my name. They’ve nicknamed me as “aim” and now I really check the sentence twice whenever I see that word…Many of my phone calls I answer these days had to attend by aim-wsc and not by Pranav Amrute.
Heck! People actually discussed about my username on “forum trivia” thread!
Aim-wsc has a great potential to grow further in future! (but now I dont endorse that brand)

Watch this space as I’ll be writing more here from now. And make a brand as aim-wsc

I have been doing research on b-schools since ages; and when I joined these online forums, I had shortlisted MBA programs from three top b-schools: Wharton, Stanford, Columbia. Today, though I have chucked the thought of applying to Stanford, ( as I realised that it’s not my kind of school and I dont fit in that MBA program.) , it is still there in my name.
I am loser yet I am aiming high. Do you too aim higher?

Do you Aim-WSC?
If you do, join the squad!

Check out the Google friends connect in the sidebar, & sign up.

So I am adding one more article here. You might find this bit rude but that’s the way it is.

The atmosphere in fair hall was supportive. I mean, you feel nervous before entering into the fair but once you have entered you are relieved.

You should avoid being idiot and ask stupid questions to the college representatives. Since the real turn off to the people standing on other side of stall is lack of preparation of visitors. You can learn a lot by simply overhearing the conversation.

Another turn off is when a visitor says that she hasn’t taken the GMAT yet. The representatives then fail to gauge your level and hence fail to give good advice. It also shows that you are not that serious candidate among all others.

Now on personal experience:

I was at Columbia desk for most of the time. No person from NewYork City had come to represent Columbia there. All people were Alumni settled in Mumbai. Couple of them were not present in the hall virtually. They were much bsuy attending their phone calls than attending visitors at their desk.

The Alumni were trying to comment to visitors query as neutral as they could and ending up in no real, significant and informative reply. No inside info. The guy was even hesitant to reply-straight a question as simple as whether living in NYC is more expensive than other college campus.

But still it was an experience talking to real Alum of such a big shot school.

Some visitors were not aware how big the name Columbia is and thus asking questions like whether she would get a good placement after MBA from CBS. I moved to next desk
lol.

Some of the school representatives were so desparate to talk with visitors that they were literally calling each person and telling them about their university, giving them brouchers. And all. Yes I became a victum ot such college too. Now I have this broucher in my hand which I am not at all interested reading it. I have something better to do with this pamphlates. Yeah! I am in train right now. I am writing this (rough) article on this broucher. I don’t have a notebook to write.
Lol