Jaipal
Singh
Institute for Technology & Management, Navi Mumbai.
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General
Questions
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Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation
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Questions related to Group Discussion / Group Exercise
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Interview-related Questions
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After
Joining MBA
2.
Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation
Q. How many months and
how many hours daily did you devote for preparation to entrance procedures?
A. All three - my graduation, CAT preparation and my job - went on
simultaneously. I did devote the month before CAT exclusively for preparation. I
joined IMS, New Delhi, for their Mock CATs. I usually devoted 3-4 hours daily on
the preparation. Last month was basically meant to attune myself to the pattern
of the exam.
Q. Did you take up some
coaching institute or you believed in self-study?
A. I enrolled with IMS for their Mock CATs. Self-study usually forms the
biggest part of the preparation, coaching institutions show us the way - the
real job always rests on us. I believe that taking up the correspondence course
from some good coaching institute is better than classroom coaching, as we get
to modify our study schedule according to our comfort level with the subject.
Q. Can you tell us
which were your favorite books, books that you used for preparing for entrance,
books for self-development and books for pure relaxation?
A. I prepared from the study material of various MBA coaching institutes.
'How to prepare for Quantitative Ability for CAT' - by Arun Sharma was referred
to for Quant and DI section. Reading books is most important to increase reading
comprehension capabilities. I started reading books as a necessity, in due
course of time, I got hooked up on books. Some books I read were: -
'The Goal', 'My Experiments With Truth', 'Wings of Fire', 'What they Don't Teach
You at Harvard Business School', 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari', 'Babudom and
Netaland, 'India Unbound', 'Five Point Someone', 'One Night at the Call Centre',
'Losing My Virginity', 'Mmein Kampf', 'Crossing the Chasm'.
'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari' is my favorite book, it tells you about your
inner self through a fable. I had never gone into so much depth of thinking
about life before. A must-read for relaxation and getting a better perspective
of yourself.
Q. When did you start
your preparation?
A. I started my preparation eight months before CAT, but the real mindset
started to develop in the first year of graduation itself, when I started to
delve into business newspapers and magazines.
Q. What was your
experience with coaching? Some feedback about faculty, coaching material and
your overall experience with particular center.
A. I was enrolled in IMS, North Campus, Delhi (for Mock CATs only). My
experience was very good. The Mock CATs were conducted realy well with time
precision seriousness and in the same way as real one. The material they
provided us for analysis was sufficient to make me understand the logic and
method to be adopted for the specific problems. Overall, it can be termed as
good value for money.
Q. What are the others
books and tests which you used for your MBA preparation?
A. I mainly used study material provided by various coaching centres.
Course material on language abilities by Career Launcher and course material on
Quantitative Abilities & DI by IMS were particularly helpful.
Q. What was your
strongest and weakest area while preparing for MBA coaching?
A. Quantitative ability section was my weakness.
I was particularly good in Reading Comprehension and Grammar.
Q. Some tips which you
used for mastering Quant, RC, etc.
A. I used to solve SUDOKU everyday from four newspapers. It helped me by
making me comfortable with numbers. I also used to solve puzzles by Shakuntala
Devi. For Reading Comprehension, I read a lot of books including biographies,
fiction, non-fiction, motivational and technical books. They helped me increase
my speed of reading. I learned to skim and scan the text material by this
exercise. Moreover, one gets a lot of insight into diverse issues by reading
books.
Q. How much time did
you put for MBA preparation everyday? How did you manage this while working
full-time?
A. I was working in a government organization. Therefore, managing time
was not a big issue. I used to study 3-4 hours daily.
Q. Which all Exams and
B-schools you applied to?
A. I appeared for CAT, SNAP and NMAT. I applied to ITM-Mumbai, NMIMS-Mumbai,
IMT-Ghaziabad, Welingkar's-Mumbai, SIIB-Pune, SIBM-Pune, MDI-Gurgaon, MICA-Ahmedabad
and IMI-Delhi.
Q. Your present
B-school and course.
A. Institute for Technology & Management (ITM), Navi Mumbai.
Q. What procedures your
school has for admission to its MBA program?
A. The students first need to send the filled-up form to the institute.
After CAT result, they are short-listed on the basis of their scores,
professional qualifications, graduation scores, write-up on their future goals
and their achievememts. After that, Group Discussion and Interview (for students
selected after Group Discussion) take place. Then, there is Final Interview by
the Director of the Institute who decides on your candidature. The results are
declared on the same day at the venue.
Q. What is the range of
score for students who are admitted?
A. My B-school does not give weightage to CAT scores only. It is one of
the criteria from many expected to be met by the candidate. Work experience,
exceptional talent or quality, good academics, etc., might make a candidate to
be looked upon favorably by the selection team. Therefore, the CAT scores vary
across a wide range from 70 percentile to 96 percentile in CAT. ITM does not
consider any other entrance exam (Mh-CET, MAT, etc.).
