MBA-Prep (Scholarship)

I'm back, after a long absence from this space. I'm now back in India enjoying the monsoon rain. Have a ton of things to do before I reach Cambridge in September. Have already started winding up things at work and my last date at work is the 17th of Aug.

Moving on to scholarships, JBS provides a lot of different scholarships and it is really cool. Most of the folks I know have got scholarships in one form or the other. I have till date got scholarships worth GBP 10,000. Hope I get a bit more in the coming days :)

Please check the link below for the details of the scholarship provided at JBS
http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/mba/finance/scholarships.html

From the finance perspective, I'm almost set. The HSBC Loan and the scholarships have helped in a big way to get things moving.

I now plan to apply for my VISA sometime early next month.

Life lessons by Narayan Murthy (Chief Mentor of Infosys)

Narayan Murthy is an icon in India's IT arena. He and his team created Infosys in 1981 with an investment of $ 250. Infosys is now a debt free company with revenue of over $ 3 billion, profit-after-tax of over $800 million and market capitalization of about $ 28 billion . Infosys has also created wealth for its shareholders, employees (70000+) and the community as a whole.

Narayan Murthy had recently delivered a pre-commencement lecture at the Stern Business School. I found this lecture a good read.

Please find below the link to the lecture. Hope you find this interesting as well

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/may/28bspec.htm

MBA-Prep (Loan Approved)

JBS has an arrangement with HSBC to help students finance their MBA. The current interest rate on this loan stands at 8.25%. Even international students can apply for this loan and there is no need of a co-signer. The other alternative I had was to borrow from a bank in India @ 13.75% (with a co-signer).

I received a postal mail today from HSBC stating that my loan application has been approved. The whole process of the loan application and approval was quite easy and simple. Let me outline the process I had gone through

1) I completed the Loan Application Form and submitted it to the Admissions office. Information required on the form include listing of Assets, Liablities, (monthly) Income and (monthly) Expenditure. It took me just over 10 minutes to complete the form. I also had to provide my latest bank statements.

2) The admission office, then forwarded my Loan Application to the bank (HSBC). Not sure if the admission office added any additional documents (e.g., covering letter, resume) before forwarding it to the bank.

3) The bank then got back to me stating that my Loan has been approved. I now need to go to the HSBC branch in Cambridge (in September), to complete the paper work.

There were no interviews or anything of that nature. The whole process (from application to approval), was completed in about a month's time.

I'm quite pleased with the school's admissions office for establishing a tie-up with the bank and HSBC for providing a wonderful (and affordable) service.