1. General Questions
2. Questions related to Pre-MBA Preparation
3. Questions related to Group Discussion / Group Exercise
4. Interview-related Questions
5. 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. I met few of my seniors who were doing MBA and also some who were preparing for MBA to share their experience. They told me about where to start, how to study effectively, and what all to do apart from studying the materials provided. They encouraged forming groups for studying, reading magazines, and newspapers. And their guidance greatly helped me all through the process of getting into BIM.

Q. When did you start your preparation?
A. I started my preparation from July 2006, which is slightly more than a year before CAT 2007.

Q. How many months and how many hours daily did you devote for preparation to entrance procedures?
A. Initially, I used to spend 4-5 hours per week, but later, from March 2007, I used to study 1-2 hours daily and 4-5 hours on the week-ends. Apart from this, I used to read newspapers and magazines for at least an hour before going to sleep.

Q. Did you take up some coaching institute or you believed in self-study?
A. I joined the T.I.M.E. Institute in Madurai.

Q. What was your experience with coaching?
A. The materials provided by T.I.M.E. were of high standard, and apart from that, the manager of the coaching institute, Mr. Promod, helped me whenever I approached him to identify my weaknesses and to improve on them.

Q. What are the others books and tests that you used for your MBA preparation, besides the study material provided by you coaching institute?
A. Apart from the books that I received from my coaching institute, I studied an MBA Entrance Guide, a comprehensive book from Career Launcher, which also had a CD with some sample question papers. And I also read magazines like Business Week, The Week, Business Today and some newspapers to keep me updated.

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 preparation, I read all the books given by my coaching institute, and as mentioned above, the MBA Entrance Guide, a comprehensive book from Career Launcher. For self-development and to keep me updated, I used to read magazines and newspapers. For relaxation, I read novels, one of my favorite novel being 'Five Point Someone' by Chetan Bhagat.

Q. What was your strongest and weakest area while preparing for MBA coaching?
A. Strongest: Quantitative Aptitude, and Weakest: Verbal Reasoning.

Q. Some tips which you used for mastering Quantitative Aptitude, Reading Comprehension, etc.
A. Quantitative Aptitude: Keep practicing problems and make sure that you get cleared all your doubts. Forums are best place to post your doubts.
Reading Comprehension: Read as many passages as possible and always keep track of the time. Try to improve your speed. Reading the editorials in 'The Hindu' will help a lot.

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 used to study regularly, at least an hour daily, and 4-5 hours on the week-ends, no matter what work I had in my college. I was not working.

Q. Which all Entrance Exams & B-schools you applied to?
A. The entrance exams I appeared for are JMET and CAT. And the institutes which I applied to are BIM-Trichy, KJ Somaiya-Mumbai, TAPMI-Manipal and IFMR-Chennai.

Q. Your present B-school and programme. What made you opt or this particular institute and programme?
A. The various reasons due to which I opted for BIM, Trichy are - firstly, BIM is a 25-year-old institution which has created many managers, and most of them are in the higher rung in the hierarchy of the organization. Secondly, the institution is located inside BHEL campus and provides good interaction with industry people. And thirdly, the institute is consistently ranked among top-25. And it is also the best institute for MBA in Tamil Nadu.

Q. What procedure your school has for admission to its MBA program?
A. Students will be first short-listed based on their CAT Score. And the parameter for short-listing is different for freshers and for people with experience. And then Group Discussion, for which topic was given, and at the end of the Group Discussion, we were asked to submit a Written Report on the Group Discussion, and finally, Interview.

Q. What is the range of score for students who are admitted?
A. Most of the students in our institute are of CAT score above 90 percentile. There are also few students of score slightly less than 90 percentile but they were admitted because of their excellent academic record and exceptional profiles.

Q. What was your score?
A. 93.04 percentile.

Q. Give some handy tips regarding the MBA written tests that would be of great help to MBA aspirants.
A. Reading magazines and newspapers will greatly help to improve writing skills. Apart from that, blog writing habit will also help a lot.

Contd.   3. Questions related to Group Discussion / Group Exercise