Simanti Talukdar
Symbiosis Centre for Management & Human Resource Development (SCMHRD), Pune
-
General
Questions
-
Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation
-
Questions related to Group Discussion / Group Exercise
-
Interview-related Questions
-
After
Joining MBA
2.
Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation
Q. When did you start
your preparation?
A. I started my preparation in January 2006, around 10 months before I
took my first entrance exam.
Q. How many months and
how many hours daily did you devote for preparation to entrance procedures?
A. I devoted around 2 hours per day on an average for about 10 months.
Q. Did you take up some
coaching institute or you believed in self-study?
A. I joined a coaching class and it helped me to become more disciplined
and bring about a more systematic approach to my studies, as also the regular
mock cats were really helpful, not only to identify my strengths and weaknesses,
but also to assess my relative performance. However, I think self-study is
equally important, and coaching classes are just a facilitator rather than a
substitute.
Q. Can you tell us
which are your favorite books, books that you used for preparing for entrance,
books for self-development and books for pure relaxation?
A. For my entrance exams, I concentrated on the course material provided
by my coaching institute which was quite exhaustive. Apart from that, being a
voracious reader, I read magazines, newspapers, online blogs, novels - basically
anything I found appealing.
Q. What was your
experience with coaching? Some feedback about faculty, coaching material and
your overall experience with particular center.
A. I had joined TIME, Mumbai and I had a really great experience. I was
offered a discount of almost Rs. 5000/- based on my performance in the written
exam, and I found good value for money for all the services provided by them -
coaching material, mock tests, seminars, workshops, GD/PI sessions. The faculty
were mostly experienced alumni from reputed B-schools, and they were easily
accessible, and very supportive.
Q. What are the others
books & tests which you used for your MBA preparation?
A. For Maths and DI, I only used the course material and hand-outs given
by my coaching institute. For English, I used to read newspapers like The Hindu,
TOI, Economic Times, apart from the course material. For GK, I used to refer to
Manorama Guide.
Q. What was your
strongest and weakest area while preparing for MBA coaching?
A. My strongest area (or so I believe) was English, while my weakest area
was Data Interpretation and the same was evident during most of the mock tests
that I took. However, I ended up scoring the least marks in English. So I think
it�s best not to have any preconceived notions and put in a balanced effort in
all sections. At the same time, your scores need not necessarily reflect who you
are!
Q. Some tips which you
used for mastering Quant, RC, etc.
A. Invest more time on basics of mathematics and more and more practices,
as I believe that practice and more practice and nothing else makes you perfect
in Quant and RC.
Q. How much time did
you put for MBA preparation everyday? How did you manage this while working full
time?
A. I put in 2 hours of self-study per day on an average, apart from the
time I spent at coaching classes. As I was working almost ten hours per day, I
made sure that I studied for two hours in the morning before I left for work. At
night, I used to do some general reading or work on my GK.
Q. Which all Exams and
B-schools you applied to?
A. I appeared for CAT, XAT, SNAP, NMAT, IIFT, FMS, ATMA.
As for B-schools, I had applied to the IIMs, SP Jain, TAPMI, XLRI, XIMB, SIBM,
SCMHRD, IIFT, NMIMS, FMS.
Q. Your present
B-school and course.
A. I am presently studying in SCMHRD, Pune, doing 2-years full-time MBA.
Q. What procedures your
school has for admission to its MBA program?
A. SCMHRD has a rigorous process: SNAP Test, Group Discussion
(Elimination Process), Personal Interview, Essay Writing, overall Profile
(Academic Record, Work Experience, Extra Curriculars).
Q. What is the range of
score for students who are admitted?
A. SCMHRD accepted only SNAP scores. As they look at many parameters
before giving out calls for GD/PI, there was no fixed cut-off as such. There
were people with 80+ scores (out of 200) who didn�t get a call, while a few with
70 did receive a call. However, the lowest score accepted was 69.
Q. What was your score?
A. My SNAP Score was 85, CAT Score 93 percentile, XAT Score 97
percentile.
