1. General Questions
2. Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation
3. Interview-related Questions
4. After Joining MBA

2. Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation

Q. What was your first step to start preparation for getting into the B-school of your choice?
A. The first step was to prepare for GMAT because it is the most important requirement.

Q. When did you start your preparation?
A. I started preparing 5-6 months ahead of the deadline. Had to put in 4-5 hours daily for the GMAT.

Q. Did you take up some coaching institute or you believed in self-study?
A. No. There are plenty of resources available on website. I practiced using some mock tests, sample papers, etc.

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. I took help of popular test series that was available online. They helped me in mastering the tricks for the Quant Section. Books from Pearson & ARCO and 800Score GMAT Tests (software, I purchased on Internet) helped me a lot. I used to read short stories from Ruskin Bond and view cartoon strips (especially Tom & Jerry) for relaxation.

Q. What was your strongest and weakest area while preparing for MBA coaching?
A. I was more comfortable with the Quant Section as compared to the Verbal Section of GMAT. However, the sentence correction part of Verbal Section was my strongest area.

Q. Some tips which you used for mastering Quantitative Aptitude, Reading Comprehension, etc.
A. I developed the habit of reading the newspapers - The Hindu, Economic Times, which helped me a lot to get my fundamentals in verbal ability strong. For Quant, I referred to the GMAT guides available in market - Pearson & ARCO.

Q. How much time did you put for MBA preparation everyday? In case you were working, how did you manage this preparation while working full time?
A. I was indeed working, so I used the morning hours to prepare. I found it refreshing, and it gave me relatively uninterrupted free time.

Q. Your present B-school and programme. What made you opt for this particular institute and programme?
A. IIM Lucknow has a very high brand value. The international focus of the programme - especially the one-month programme at McGill University, Montreal, Canada - on International Finance & Managing Innovation is something which is very unique to this programme. Moreover, the project focus and the range of electives suited well with my career needs.

Q. What procedures your school has for admission to its MBA programme?
A. The primary requirements for applying to the programme are - Minimum of 6 years of work experience, GMAT Score and Essay, which have to be mentioned / submitted at the time of submission of Application Form. After short-listing, there is an Interview for final selection.

Q. What is the average score for students who are admitted in your B-school?
A. The average GMAT Score of the batch is 701.

Q. Give some handy tips regarding the MBA written tests that would be of great help to MBA aspirants.
A. I think GMAT is the most standardized test and has been well-accepted by B-schools all over the world. I found it very useful to go through the GMAT preparation software and I used to download a lot from the Internet on critical reasoning, sentence correction, data analysis sections, which were very useful especially to learn how well to time my tests.

Contd.   3. Interview-related Questions