168 days - things I've learnt so far

Doing vs. Saying, Be Consistent, Responsibility, Maturity, Privacy, Friends & Friendship, Kidding...

1st package 小试牛刀 & 双键合璧

Finally sent out my first package to Said, a lot of help from a friend of mine. Thanks & I will continue to work on the 2 essays:-P

Stanford GSB - Die Luft der Freiheit weht

General Management, Personalized Curriculum, Stategic Size & Collabrative Culture - 3 main features of Stanford GSB's MBA program with one of the lowest acceptance rate in the world. 4 energetic alumni showed up, ranging from a 96 graduate who's now in Citi, a 94 graduate Joe (ABC) who was also alumnus of West Point Military but now has his own investment firm in Singapore? a 05 graduate John local scholar or double scholar (Cornell's bachelor - MAS & Stanford's MBA - PM's office), a mainland Chinese 06 graduate forrest who just married his classmate who's a Temasek scholar last Sunday. Forrest Li is now working with MTV Networks Asia:-P Thanks to Joe's referral?

370 per year, now 24,000 alumni, 100+ chapters worldwide. It's obvious that Stanford is quite different from the rest besides its extreme comptetiveness in terms of admission. It's always on the innovative edge with one of the highest faculty / student ratio 1:6. But I guess what I appreciate most about it is the "soul-searching" essay question which is really inspiring: "What do you value most in life & Why?"

I'm not sure whether I'll apply this school, but it'll definitely be a very worthy try.

Die Luft der Freiheit weht (German for "The wind of freedom blows")!

P.S. just read an inspirational bio of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice @ Wikimedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice

a fair MBA fair

I took a half-day off & had the chance to meet up with Smith, BU, Owen & IE for either evaluative or informative interview. One is really disappointing but all have been benificial to my future application.

Also heard the beautiful Cindy from Hass shared her insights on essays writing & interive (be it blind or alumni, etc.). "Be Genuine, Be Specific & Be Outstanding"!

It's intereting to see how each school / program promote themselves. The most creative & comprehensive brochures come from inSeaD in a very handy size. PSU's brochure also look quite impressive though it's basically a regional school. But at least we can see they're serious about it & deeply driven to improve.

I spotted HEC-Paris' 16-month program which seems to be quite unique & solid. Coincidentally, their marketing or BDM is also an American who works for a European biz-school, same as inSeaD Singapore's Gopika who happened to be an alumna from close rival IMD. What a small & smash world!

What else? Thanks to CBS' reception @ the American Club & I attended the firt half and later joined St. Gallen HSG-MBA's 1st ever cocktail reception in a very cosy ballroom at the nearby Orchard Hotel. Extremely friendly staff & alumni, passionate staff Marie who's a master from LSE & migrated to Switzerland from her hometown Germany. That's just a glimpse of how international a European MBA can be, from its faculty, staff all the way to alumni:-)

Good luck to all, especially those who're on their ways to home after a long long Asia tour!

iMD & SAiD

Wow, finally received two posted brochures from the above mentioned instituions. 1 disappointing, 1 inspiring! I really love the butterfly covered SAiD brochure with its bold yet beautiful colours used through the latest brochure. However, IMD doesn't seem to be very interested to attract potential students through this way. Anyway, students there are supposed to be more matured:-P

Just enjoyed the video production of Oxford MBA sent together with the brochure. Well done! Daytime - modern business school setting & facility for team work. Nighttime, historical colledge environment for solititude & soul resting. Plus a strong focus on entrepreneurship & finance, it looks very promising! Though I know brochure is just part of the MBA campaign, if this young schoool can do it so well, they might perform even better to improve their always fast-climbing ranking.

AS iT'S SAiD, it's a good choice!
BTW, tonight CBS & HSG info session @ Orchard*-*