How I Converted The IIM Nagpur Interview - IIM Interview Experience

P1: So Vaibhava, what does your name mean?

I told him it means prosperity. Follow-up question was whether I considered myself happy or not and how much prosperous I was. I explained to him that for me, being happy did not rely on how much prosperous I was. Rather, it depended on being content with my life.

P1: Who all are there in your family and what are they doing?

I answered and in my opinion, an impression of being ‘youngest son, hence pampered’ was projected. I sensed it from their reactions and immediate expressions, that included a faint glaring at me.

P1: What were your job responsibilities?

I explained to him about the front-end side of the web development and how a website goes from identifying business requirements and development to production and release. Very basic questions were asked by them to get a basic knowledge of the field and they seemed satisfied with the answers that I gave.

P1: What do you think a person should have but cannot have in his life?

This question perplexed me for a while; I tried to answer a few attributes but he rejected each one of them telling me how can I have them. At last, he said it was luck. :) I agreed.

P3: How good are you in Mathematics?

I said that I remember the concepts that I studied till intermediate but not from my B.Tech's Engineering Mathematics. The follow-up questions were easy and I was able to answer them very conveniently. He asked me to write a cubic equation and  I did, a quadratic equation’s roots and graph, I wrote it down explaining the steps.  Then he asked me what does a (dy/dx) represent. I replied that it represents slope. He didn’t seem to be okay with it. So, he asked me again.

P3: What is the slope of a car?

Whaaa…aaattt. I asked him to repeat the question. P1 told me that panellist P3's question meant slope of a curve :)  I replied, 'It's doing the differentiation at various points that gives us the slope of the curve at that point. He asked me to put it on a graph. I drew the tangent to represent the slope that he wanted to see. He looked fine with the answer.

P2 (this panellist carried a serious look right from the beginning): What are the differences between a solar and an electric car (I was a part of the solar car team during my graduation)?

I explained to him the basics. He asked me about the competitions that we participated in and some related questions. I answered those as well.

P2: What do you think are the three biggest problems in India?

I stated the problems point-by-point starting with poverty and unemployment. As I was going on, a different question was asked by P2 about sketching (mentioned as my hobby). I told him that I sketched from my childhood days and continued till high school and how do I plan to pursue it alongside my studies.

P3: Tell me an event with zero probability?

I said, “an asteroid hitting us in this room exactly this second”. P1 said it would not be zero, rather very infinitesimal. I answered 54 Sundays in a year. He said, 'Arey baba, let it be'. They said they were done and smiled.

It was a very nice and smooth interview which went on for around 20-25 minutes. I felt happy with my performance. On May 25th, 2019, the first admissions list was released and I got a congratulatory mail that I have been selected for the PGP program at IIM Nagpur. And eventually, it also rained that day. :)

About the Author

Kumar Vaibhava hails from Ranchi and is a PGP 1 candidate at IIM Nagpur. He completed his engineering from NIT Jamshedpur and worked for Sapient Ltd. During his leisure hours, he either sketches or goes for swimming.