Applying for the exchange program

Hi,
As a little kid I had a dream. That little kid within me continues to have that dream. I wanted to and still want to see the world. There are a list of cities in my head which I want to see before the curtain closes. I believe that the exchange program within NUS offers the perfect oppurtunity to do so. I remember that on a December day in 2006 I had to decide which college to apply: NUS or NTU. I had time only to apply to one of them. I decided NUS because of the strength of its exchange program.

We had our initial exchange briefing a few weeks into the MBA program. The news was disappointing. The names "Columbia and Cornell" had attracted me to NUS. But these colleges were not on the list of colleges that I could apply to for next term. The exchange program works on a mutual understanding between the two colleges. If 2 students from Cornell are interested in coming to NUS, then Cornell reserves 2 seats for NUS students. Roughly it works like that. The bottomline is that there is a limit in the intake of exchange students at any exchange university. And this year our limit with Cornell had been reached. There had already been one student from the senior batch during the previous term. As for Columbia, our existing contract with them had ended. So, no more exchange students going to Columbia.

This was the pattern across European Universities as well. HEC, Paris was not on the list. ESADE, Spain was not on the list. These universities would be available only during the third term. This was the first time NUS was offering exchange during the second term. And the signs were not very good. I was disappointed at the stripped down list of universities. I was hurt that our web-site was not updated with this fact (Amazingly, it is still not updated. Click http://www.bschool.nus.edu/Programs/MBA/xchange.htm for details on our exchange program).

Despite these setbacks, I was determined on going on exchange. I was interested in only three colleges - Duke (Fuqua school of business), Melbourne Biz School, IE in Spain. This was my order of preference. I filled in the exchange form and wrote an essay on why I wanted to go for the exchange program. The selection criteria was based primarily on the GMAT with the essay playing a minor role. I had a GMAT of 750. So, I knew I had a shot.

I was selected to interview for Duke. The interview process was only for Duke. For the other universities, it was a straight-forward selection process.

The interview was on expected lines.

Why exchange?
How does exchange benefit you?
Why should we send you on exchange?
What will you do for NUS when on exchange?
Previous work experience?

In all, 5 of us interviewed for Duke. To my disappointment, I did not make it. I think my lack of work experience (2 years) hurt me. In hind-sight, this failure was the best thing to happen to me. I saved a ton of money by not going to the US. And I was later presented with the oppurtunity to go to the US (my second study trip). So, not being selected gave me the oppurtunity to see two countries.

Instead of Duke, I got selected for MBS. This was no easy task because I heard that the competition for MBS was also strong. After all we faced a short supply of good colleges. I was in a dilemma between MBS and IE, Spain. IE had excellent FT rankings but very little Brand recall (atleast in India). I had not heard of its name before coming to NUS. The deciding factor was language. I had struggled with Hindi during my time at NUS. And this was in a batch which spoke and understood English. I was scared by the thought of struggling with Spanish. So, I chose MBS.

And I was fortunate to have made the right choice. Because, as I shall explain in a later post, Melbourne became my favourite city.

Cheers,
Suraj