Interview Experience At SJMSOM, IIT-B | Making It To SJMSOM, IIT-B

It’s MBA interview season again and one year into my own B-school journey the memories are still fresh. The last-minute prep, the anxiety, the hope… even the google search “Should I accept the toffee after IIM interview?”, it’s all coming back to me now. Yet, after all this time, one admission process stands out in my memory – that of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay.

By the time I came for the WAT-PI process at SJMSOM in 2019, I felt like a veteran. I had three IIM processes under my belt, and I anticipated the usual drill: a tense hush-hush environment, staff members conducting the WAT and verifying documents, the nail-biting wait outside the interview room, and after it’s all over, heading for the exit while mentally replaying my performance. Instead, SJMSOM was a breath of fresh air.

The process began with an introductory presentation by one of the students. The images of IIT Bombay’s world class sports facilities (a swimming pool in campus!), the logos of the various clubs at SOM, the statistics showing how almost every student had a stamp on their passport thanks to the international programs – with every slide I felt my desire to be part of this B-school rise.

After the WAT process and refreshments, the interviews and document verification began in parallel. By this point, I noticed that unlike the other admissions processes I had completed, the entire process at SJMSOM was being conducted by students. And it turned out to be by far the most applicant-friendly process I have experienced.

There were around 14 applicants assigned to each interview panel. While interviews started sequentially, documents were verified in reverse order. Being the last in my panel, I prepared myself for a long wait. Here too, the SOM students showed their thoughtfulness by playing movies and videos on the projector screen in the waiting room - on silent mode so as not to disturb those who preferred to study.

The document verification was handled by SOM students. As is usual, there were a few applicants who fell short on photocopies of their documents. What was unusual was the helpfulness of the student coordinators who collected the originals and went personally to get the required photocopies for those applicants while they waited.

When my turn for the interview finally drew close, I was escorted from the waiting room to the interview room by a student buddy. Instead of the tense moments that I had experienced elsewhere, my student buddy used our brief stint in the elevator to share words of encouragement – Don’t be tense! Don’t worry, it’ll go well! You’ve got this!

Outside the interview room, while waiting for my turn, another student buddy was there to be a friend in need. She shared information about the panellists and some of the interview questions faced by the other applicants. We chatted for a while and I entered the interview hall in a much calmer frame of mind than if I had been alone with my thoughts.

The interview went smoothly aside from an initial hiccup. The first question the panellists asked was which engineering stream I had studied. While most applicants at SOM are indeed engineers, there are also those like me who come from other educational backgrounds. The rest of the interview focused on the subjects I had studied (distant memories!) and my work experience.

While exiting from the impressive IIT Bombay campus, I glanced at my watch and realized that the process had ended on time, within the scheduled slot. The students had efficiently managed the entire experience, while giving it an applicant-friendly feel that made it stand out from other B-school processes.

I was fortunate to get an offer from SJMSOM, and after some deliberation and comparison with other options, I made the choice that this was the B-school for me. I’m now gearing up to volunteer with this year’s admissions team and looking forward to continuing the legacy of a positive admissions experience for the applicants of batch 2020-22.