The countdown has begun for the interviews at India’s top B- schools with the first calls expected to be scheduled as early as the 1st week of February. We already told you that the interview duration has come down by up to 20% but the weightage has gone up! So rather than be plagued by nervous excitement, here’s what you can do in the next few days to make your journey to a top B- School stress-free and smooth. This article is based on a recent live session taken by Arks Srinivas, ex-National Head - MBA at Career Launcher. Read on!
Shortlisting Overview
While no one can give you 100% assurance on whether or not you will be shortlisted for your dream institute, here are some indicators to help you get some understanding.
-> For general category engineering grads, to get calls from BLACKI and every other college, irrespective of gender, you will need:
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- 95 percentile+ in CAT
- strong scores in 10+2
- graduation from a top-tier college
- For non-engineers, graduation from a top-tier college will be decisive for IIMs A, B
- work experience
->For OBC / EWS: A percentile ranging from 90- 96%ile is likely to get you calls from ALL the IIMs for men, For women, the percentile is 85%ile.
->For SC: The cut-off is 85% for all the IIMs
-> For ST: A percentile of 80 will get you calls from BLACKI while only 75 is required for getting shortlisted for the new/ baby IIMs
-> General category aspirants looking to get into IITs, here are the percentile you will need to steer ahead of:
- IIT Bombay & Delhi: upward of – 97%ile along with 90%+ scores in both class 10th and 12th
- Kharagpur & Madras: upward of -93%ile
- For non-general categories, a percentile above 88% should find you getting calls from these institutes.
85%+ of students enrolled for InsideIIM's MBA Admissions Bootcamp converted their best b-school calls from institutes like IIM BLACKI, FMS Delhi, XLRI Jamshedpur, SPJIMR Mumbai, MDI Gurgaon, IIFT Delhi, NMIMS Mumbai, SIBM Pune, and more! Check the details here!
The Interview Prep & Checklist
Irrespective of which institute you get shortlisted for, know that this year, the weightage for the personal interview round expected to be much higher than ever before. The key components of an interview are:
- About yourself: your strengths & weakness
- Why MBA
- Why you have done what you have done till now
- Your preferred subjects studied in under graduation
- Work experience
- Current affairs
- Any anomaly in the form of a gap year/ academic drop
- Co-curricular activities
Also check out our earlier video that details on how successful candidates answered these questions, so you get an in depth idea of how you should prepare your answer.)
Here’s a list of questions to prepare for those who have 12 months or more of work experience. Do note that these are applicable only if you have been working full time as part time employment does not receive any merit during the admission process.
- What are/ were your KPIs and KPA of your role
- What has been your contribution to the organization
- What has been your major learning
- About the company- their market capitalization, revenue, profit, what are they good at, industry competitors, size of the market
- Future of the organization you work(ed) for and your role in it
The longer you have worked, the more the focus on questions from your career.
Questions On ‘Gap Year’
Now you may have a gap after your graduation for many reasons and you may be wondering how should you answer questions on that. Here’s what industry experts suggest:
- Be genuine about it. Maybe you didn’t get a job offer during campus placement or you were preparing for other government exams. Whatever be the reason, state it honestly.
- Show them how the particular circumstance motivated you to choose CAT and MBA
Good news- this doesn’t put you at a disadvantage!
If you're gearing up for your WAT-PI round, then you can join InsideIIM's MBA Admissions Bootcamp - WAT-PI Edge S03! Where, 85%+ students, who enrolled in Season 1 and Season 2 converted one of their top 3 calls! Join us here!
So now, the final question: how can you prepare for your WAT PI? Here are 4 steps:
- Read ALL newspapers focusing on the most important national and international events
- climate change
- terrorism
- business
- politics
- COVID
- Read on your intended specialization and be up to date on your area of graduation
- Practice essay writing- 20 mins every day and do a self and peer evaluation
- Appear for mock interviews as this is the closest simulation of reality!
We hope this speeds up your preparation and puts you on the right track to reaching your dream B-School.
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