Accepted to Boston College - Carroll School of Management

Just found out that I have been accepted to Carroll. Pretty sweet deal. Three out of three, at this point. Feels very rewarding. Will have more updates soon.

Update - 01/31/09: Just received the official letter from BC. I have been offered $10,000 in scholarship funds, which is pretty good (about 1/5th of the cost). I felt really bad turning down this school because I really wanted to attend, given that I did not get into UNC. BC has an outstanding program, great professors, and a strong reputation. They admitted very few students (I believe it's 27 to 30 percent of applicants, which is unusual for an MSA program), for a total of about 37 to 45 students in the entire class. I am proud to be one of those granted admission. Unfortunately, I can only attend one school. It certainly would have been very interesting to be a part of the Strasburg.

Accepted to Bentley - McCallum Graduate School of Business

Yesterday, I received a letter of admission from Bentley University. They also offered me $10,000 in scholarship funds. The folder that they sent me was filled with a lot of information about next steps, etc. However, the UNC process is much better and more comprehensive, as everything (forms, information, schedules, etc.) is online, on the admitted student website.

The deadline for letters to go out was January 15th, so I heard at the very end. The UNC deadline is actually February 1st. However, I was accepted to the program in December. Different schools have different procedures. I am yet to hear from Boston College. Their deadline to send out letters is February 15th. I think that they will also offer me some kind of scholarship money. However, it makes little difference, at this point.

M&A outlook from Deloitte

It goes without saying that the present financial debacle will make a huge impact on the market for deals. The following report states that no nation or industry will be spared. While this is certainly true, I believe that the micro-view will still expose a relatively large number of carefully thought-through deals. I believe that there are still some interesting acquisitions that can be made in the extraction, energy transmission, biotechnology, and semiconductor industries.

Also, a loosely related item.

IFRS effects on standards, litigation, curriculum, and employee training

The following article from Knowledge @ P.W. Carey covers some interesting developments in the transition that the US is making to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). While the transition is designed to be a force for good - transition to common standards that provide some leeway in prescriptions that are specific to a company's internal structure and external realities - I have noticed a couple of negatives; at least from the above article. The first is the potential increase in the number of lawsuits that are brought against auditors - a fact mentioned in the article.

However, there is a second aspect that troubles me. As the article states, "'What you will see is more footnote disclosures in financial statements.' That means investors will work harder to understand the financial health of companies they're researching." A more thorough and honest picture of a company is something that most stakeholders would applaud. However, how such honest information is presented makes a big difference. Copious footnotes might be a recipe for problematic outcomes on the investor side. Financial researchers are under tremendous pressure: they are supposed to invest in jewels and find such firms under short deadlines. I am afraid that "more footnotes" will result in increased complexity of the information reviewed by researchers. This could lead to a less thorough analysis. I believe that auditors will have to devise a better way to present vital information. Also, as the article states, in the future, auditors will have to communicate in even clearer terms than they do today. I hope that the accounting profession will successfully step up to the new challenges.

Selecting a notebook for B-School

I have eliminated HP and Mac, because, based on a number of reviews, these machines are not as resilient and mobile as machines such as the Lenovo (IBM), Vaio (Sony), and Dell. Toshiba is another very resilient machine, but is not friendly to customization (Toshiba Satellite U405 was a very attractive machine, but at what I found to be an unattractive price). Therefore, simply based on practicality, intended use, and price, I narrowed down my choices to Dell.

At Dell, I found three attractive models:

Dell Inspiron 1525

Dell Studio 15

Dell Inspiron 13 (the review is a bit dated, as Dell has now added the Core 2 Duo to this machine)

Based on these, and a few other reviews, I decided to go with the Dell Inspiron 13. While there are a few minor drawbacks (primarily the availability of just 2 USB ports, and a choice of just one color), the overall resiliency, compactness, surprising power (for a 13" notebook), and an extremely competitive price made this my absolute top choice.











By the way, here is a cool website that I found in the process of looking for reviews.

Accepted to UNC - Kenan-Flagler!!!

This is a dream come true for me...

Back from UNC interview

I am back from my interview at Kenan-Flagler. It took place on Monday, December 8th, at 10 AM. The woman I met with - assistant director of admissions - was very pleasant, and extremely easy-going. The interview lasted about 45 minutes. The questions she asked me were relatively standard. She surprised me with two questions, but I handled them by being honest in my answers. Overall, it felt that she was impressed with my knowledge of the program, the research that professors have conducted, and the research centers that I would like to participate in. She also told me that they always appreciate candidates with some work experience, and general overall maturity - since most of the students in the program go straight from the undergrad studies. She responded to my thank-you note and said that I should hear from her shortly. I would say that that's about two weeks.

I also had the pleasure of meeting with two current students. The two girls were from China and were very interested in everything that I have done professionally, academically, and really wanted to understand my reasons for wanting to attend UNC and accounting in particular. The three of us had lunch and we spent the rest of the time walking around the facilities and chatting. I also met a couple of other MAC students along the way, all of whom were very nice.

The facilities are quite impressive. There are many breakout rooms, study rooms, team rooms, interview rooms, and computer labs on the business school campus. Classrooms are quite large, and there is also a huge lecture hall. Graduate students also get their own lockers at the business school where they can store their books, among other things. Given that it is quite time-consuming to get to and from the campus - there is no housing ON campus, most of it is withing 1 to 4 miles from it - this is a very convenient feature. There is also a kitchen with a microwave oven and two refrigerators, among other things.

I also had a chance to visit a class - business law elective that covered derivatives and securities law. The class was pretty large, and some of the students did not exactly pay attention to what was going on. I actually found that many students are quite young and appeared to carry an air of immaturity. A smaller number of students, on the other hand, were a bit older - around my age. I later found out that this is because there are two tracks: 1) students who took part in a 5 year program that allows them to complete a BSBA and then get a masters and 2) students who have worked a bit and then returned to school, and who are also more mature and situated.

Overall, I had a good experience. I really liked the campus, enjoyed meeting with the assistant director of admissions and the students, and gathered a more intimate understanding of what I can expect from the program, should I be admitted.