How MBA ?

I decided to pursue MBA program while I was in my final year of engineering. But, it was not until three years of work-experience that I decided to take the first shot at MBA in Indian B-Schools. I wrote CAT, XAT and FMS and did not get through any of these colleges. Anyway, life moved on and I changed jobs and industries and moved into business consulting from software, and this certainly helped me change my outlook. Now, I started looking for an MBA in schools outside India, particularly US, like most Indians do. The reason I did not give MBA in Indian B-schools a second try was based on a principle that I had written for myself long back during school days, "never give an exam twice", until mandated. Second, I felt there is no use sweating the small stuffs like Algebra and all those calculations, when I had bigger goals in mind. To me the selection process of foreign B-schools appeared better for me and I realized that I had more chances to get through these schools than Indian. Also I feel I can better express myself in words than percentiles.

Now the second big question comes, which US b-schools ? Most people i interacted with said GMAT score was the main factor while selecting schools, but once I had seen the application form of one of top US B-schools, I refused to believe in this line of thought. I knew GMAT score could be "a" factor but certainly not "the" factor selection. So I focused myself on writing essays and preparing application rather than devoting my entire time on GMAT preparation. Believe you me, I spend more time writing essays than GMAT preparation in the last one month to GMAT.

Initially my GMAT preparation was intermittent and lacked dedication, primarily because of my work-schedule. A week before GMAT, I took leave for the entire week and all I did was SC/RC/CR/PS/ DI etc... Trust me this was an effective way of preparing for GMAT, one week preparation to a score of 690/ 5.0 .. not a slam dunk score, but certainly enough for me to target the schools that I was preparing for ....