I am tired of answering the same question that I get from a number of my juniors and my friends alike – How the hell did I cracked IIM calcutta – that too without going for CAT preparation coaching. Well find it out for yourself.

My quest for MBA ( or say IIM) started the day my friend Jaykrishnan(JK) called me in 6th february, 2009 telling me that I got a GD-PI call letter from IIM calcutta. I was in the train coming from Banglore after partying with my friends there. I told JK, “Don’t you think that it is too early to crack a joke now as April Fool is still 2 months away?” Well, JK had to read me out  the whole call letter to convince me and I had to phone Waikhom to convince myself. The whole night in the train, I was not able to sleep well but smiling all the way till I reached Bhopal.

On reaching Bhopal, I approached to two coaching institutes for GD PI preparation (one of them was the institute where I went for a 1-month-campus-interview(GD-PI)-preparation 8 months back. And I am still thankful to it for helping me to get placed in Samsung. AND the other was the institute my friends advised me to go as ). On that day, I also approached a well known coaching institue in India but they showed no concern and told me that since I am 1 month late, they would not be able to help me in any case.  (But the earlier 2 coaching institutes were very happy to help me and I stayed with them for the 1 month I got) All the institutes asked me this same question, “How come I know my result so late in February when the online result was declared in January 9?”.  The reason is this:

I had never planned to go for MBA this year. I thought I would go for MBA after having work-ex of at least 2 years (coz I wanted to experience the life of a tech. engg.) . So I had never gone for any MBA coaching.  I had filled up the form just to get myself acquainted with the CAT exam. Two of my friends(Kanti and Subbu)  were mainly responsible for that. It was them who convinced me that the Rs 1,300 for the application form was not a waste at all as I would be gaining the experience of giving CAT exam and it may help me in the future when I seriously pursue for it. I agreed (I was always ready to say “yes” at that time because I was quite contented with myself after having been  placed recently in Samsung). In order to make up the loss for my Rs 1300, I made Kanti and Subbu agree to the deal that “Whoever gets the highest mark among 3 of us have to give a full day treat to any restaurant of the other 2 friends’ choice”. They agreed. I thought that at least I can get a full day treat from either of the two as I haven’t prepared anything for the exam. Kanti’s application form was somehow rejected for some unknown reason and he was not unhappy at all and he had already started rubbing his belly waiting for the treat. I had never seen or solved a CAT question paper or mock paper before. The night before the exam, I took a mock sample paper from Sam(sanjay) to see the number of questions asked in each section and to estimate the time I should allow in each section. During the exam, I didn’t have any 2nd thought in choosing any answer. I marked those options whichever I felt was the correct one.  I didn’t care anything about the negative marking at all.  I realised that the two questions which I thought was so easy to be asked in such an exam was actually a tricky one and I had jumped into the wrong answers. After that I didn’t discuss the rest of the question with anyone or check the answers in internet.  I was looking forward for a good full day treat from my friend subbu since then.

When the result was out, I didn’t check the result at all because I wasn’t expecting anything. Subbu came and asked me how much I got. I lied to him (even without checking the results) that I got 1 less mark than his marks and after that kanti and I were bugging him to give the treat on that day itself. Much much later I found that I am a GD-PI call getter from IIMC and had got just the magic combination of cutoff marks in almost all the three sections of the paper to get a call from IIMc. (I missed one or the other cut-off marks for getting calls from other IIMs) And I knew of this GD-PI call only when the actual call-letter reached our hostel and that is almost 1 month after the results were out.  I got GD-PI call only from IIMC and I had neither submitted any other forms nor gave any other MBA exams other than CAT.

Already, all IIM call getters from my college had been preparing for GD-PI for the past 1 month, and I was starting afresh. After preparing for the remaining 20 days I got, I went to Bangalore to give interview (I don’t remember how and why I chose Bangalore as my interview center  as any sane person staying in Bhopal would have given Delhi as the center). The first thing I did in Bangalore was to meet my college senior Rishikanta and go for movie in Inox (probably this must be the reason why I chose Bangalore).

On the interview day, I think that I was the only one who was completely free of any tension and  in fact I was enjoying myself talking with all those call-getters who looked pretty serious. GD was good. And the interview was really interesting. I was really casual in the interview. I was asked a lot of situation type questions. My answers were all straight undiplomatic but honest answers that many would have avoided in an interview.  I knew that the interviewers were also happy with me and my answers. Besides that we also talked about my place, past achievements, experiences, other extra-curricular activities like football(I am a football player for my college team), chess, parasailling and gliding, blogging and interest in internet affiliate marketing etc etc. The interview ran for around 20 mins. I would say that the interview went really smooth.

I didn’t anticipate for the results. I was just happy at whatever I had done. It was on 10th April that I found  that I converted the only call I received. I am really happy in having achieved this feat. As far as I am concern, I believe that besides academics,  great variety of extracurricular activities can take you in a good direction in interview – the reason being that the interviewer has a good time to discuss with your profile and so it can end really comfortably. In my case, I was not asked even a single technical question.

PS:      Even though I haven’t prepared anything for the CAT exam, I had solved a lot of many similar   questions(analytics, mental ability test, logic reasoning etc) in cracking NTSE scholarship in class 10.

And yes, I agree with my friends that I was damn lucky.

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