Next up in our series of featured MBA applicant bloggers is Pardeep, author of the blog, “Rolipolli… a walk through life and path to B-school.” Please enjoy Pardeep’s thoughtful answers and use them to help you make your way through the MBA admissions process.
Accepted: First, can you tell us a little about yourself – where are you from, where did you go to school and when did you graduate; and what prior degrees do you hold?
Pardeep: My name is Pardeep, I’m 26 years old, and I’m from India. I graduated from NIT Jalandhar (India) with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2007 and I have 4 years of full time work experience from one of the largest independent power producer company in Asia.
Accepted: Why do you want to go to business school? What are some of the factors motivating you?
Pardeep: To change my career path from engineering to social engineering. I want reforms in the education system and education industry of India! Another major reason to go to business school is that I want to start my own business.
What motivates me is the will-to-see-equality in society. I’ve been to Budapest (Hungary) to volunteer for one Roma organization and I do write for various local magazines on issues pertaining to society such as women’s empowerment, discrimination and child labor.
Accepted: How many times did you take the GMAT? Are you happy with your score? Are you planning on retaking the exam? Are you preparing differently the second time around?
Pardeep: I’ve taken the GMAT once and I wasn’t happy with the score so I’m planning to take the GMAT again for the last time. On the first attempt, I had no strategy to handle Reading Comprehension passages; I would say this was the biggest mistake I ever made! GMAT knows well how and where to exploit test takers, so one needs to have strong strategies to handle all the sections. I’m taking Veritas GMAT classes and GMATPrepNow classes this time and I hope these classes will save me with guidance and strategies.
Accepted: When do you plan on applying to business school? Which schools will you apply to? Do you think you’ll apply to a “safety school”?
Pardeep: I will apply next year; then I will have about 5 years of experience and nothing much new left at my present job to learn. I’ve decided to apply to Babson College because it’s been ranked no. 1 in entrepreneurship for the last 18 years or so, also keeping my interest of social entrepreneurship in mind. Other colleges of my choice are Carnegie Mellon (Tepper), HKUST, Michigan State University and a few others.
About “safety schools”, I’ve not still decided whether I should apply to these but I will think about these depending on my GMAT score.
Accepted: Have your parents’ success (or lack of success) influenced your desire to go into business? Please explain.
Pardeep: My parents are teachers (the first educated people in my family), who always inspired me to go for my dreams and do something for the betterment of the society. Yes, my parents’ struggle for life inspires me to do better than their expectations. Both my parents once upon a time used to work in fields and used to sell ‘grass’ but they never let anything come between their aim and studied. After that they gave me and my two brothers the best education they could provide despite facing many problems and I became a mechanical engineer and my two brothers became medical surgeons!
Now, when I see kids working as child labor in farms, tea stalls, railway stations and almost everywhere I feel like crying, and all this inspires me to be fruitful for these kids. As my parents say,” Every child is special and deserves better education. Free education now or fill prisons later.”
Accepted: Do you follow current MBA admissions news? If so, which news sources do you read?
Pardeep: I follow MBA admissions news mostly on Twitter, GMATCLUB, Accepted.com, ClearAdmit.com and StacyBlackman.com.
Accepted: Why did you choose to blog about the MBA application experience?
Pardeep: I decided to blog about the MBA application experience because I wanted to document my journey so that I could look back at my posts while writing my essays and also get some help from fellow applicants. I wanted to keep things organized.
I also wanted to interact with other incredible applicants and wanted to help make sure that future applicants don’t make the same mistakes I made.
There is another personal reason behind blogging — I also want to be a writer one day! 🙂
Do you want to be featured in Accepted.com’s blog, Accepted Admissions Almanac? If you want to share your MBA admissions journey with the world (or at least with our readers), email us at mbabloggers@accepted.com.
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