I had my personal interview at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay on 6th March 2021. About two weeks before the interview, the Admissions Team intimated the candidates regarding the interview process. I was surprised and excited to see that the Admissions Teams was going for a unique interview process. It was on the Gather Platform. There the candidates could interact with each other as if they were in SJMSOM albeit in virtual mode. The Admission Team members prepared a YouTube tutorial video explaining all the features of Gather as well as the interview process. I must admit that this video was very helpful and informative. During the PI process, I interacted with my group members as well as our assigned group mentor and the experience was very much like the real one when a person interacts with a group of people.
Apart from this, there was also the Buddy Program at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay. Through this program, each candidate was assigned a mentor who was a current student at SJMSOM. The candidate could contact his mentor for any doubts regarding the interview process, admission process, and other general queries.
The interview process was very different from what I had experienced in the other interview processes at other B-schools. Till the time a candidate waited for his interview turn, he could talk with other fellow candidates as well as the Admission Team members to gain some insight about SJMSOM making the overall interview experience very similar to the real one. Other than this, there were also games one could play on the Gather platform in order to relax oneself.
All in all, I would say that the PI process at SJMSOM was out of the box and it was also a refreshing experience for me. I really appreciate the effort put in by the Admissions Team to make the interview process less stressful for the candidates.