I came to know about CAT in my 3rd year of engineering when my friends started preparing for it. I too wanted to sit for CAT but then I came to know about the eligibility criteria of different premier B-schools that they look at your complete profile and not just the CAT percentile. Having weak academics I decided to work for few years and then give it a shot. My first attempt was in 2012 when I had around a year of work-ex and scored 81 percentile. Then I gave a serious thought to the preparation and joined an institute called Conduira 4 months before CAT 2013. This time I scored 99.2 percentile.
I got calls from the colleges I had applied to. When you go through the interviews of various colleges and travel to different cities you get to meet and hear the opinions and perceptions of other MBA aspirants and graduates. This helps a lot in taking an informed decision. I have my friends who have graduated from the premier B-schools of the country and some who are batch toppers in their college right now. Discussing with them and my mentors about my converted calls helped me a lot in understanding what each B-school has to offer.
My interview at DMS,IIT Delhi was one of the best interviews, among the handful that I gave, not in terms of my performance but in terms of the questions that were put to me. I firmly believe that interviews should not be a GK quiz show. It should rather be a forum where one should evaluate the thought process and the ability to assimilate information and come up with sound analysis of his/her own. The interview panel tested me on exactly that. I got only one opportunity to put my point during the GD but I made up for it during the PI round.
The interview for my college was among the last ones from the list of college interviews I had. Hence, I could fine tune my previous interview performances and was very relaxed this time. I took my time in answering the questions and was very straight forward in my approach. I made sure I didn’t talk much while replying lest the panel lost interest in me. To the questions and terms that I had never heard of I honestly replied that it was new to me.
I chose DMS, IIT Delhi over others due to many reasons some of them being - excellent faculty, the brand name, the strategic location advantage, RoI, placements and personally most important to me - recommendations from school/engineering friends who studied/are studying in different B-schools.
I congratulate the aspirants on their success in CAT 2014 and wish them all the best for the next stage. Looking forward to see you in DMS, IIT Delhi !!
Vishal Shaw
DMS, IIT Delhi
