Group Interview Experience- Vivaswan Pathak

Name: Vivaswan Pathak              

Entrance Exam Percentile: 99.02

Programme and Batch: PGDM 2014

Qualification: B.E.

Work experience: Approx 22 months      

 

For WAT:

1.       How was your performance in the MBA entrance exam? Also share your overall WAT experience?

Overall I achieved 99.02 % in XAT with maximum score in Decision Making followed by LR and followed by Quant Section. The WAT experience  was decent with adequate time allotted to pen down the thoughts.

2.       What was your topic for WAT and what was your Time limit?

The time limit allotted for the WAT was 30 minutes , with the topic being  “How do you justify doing a PGDM from SPJIMR)

3.       What was your approach towards WAT and how would you rate your writing?

I initially took time to collect my thoughts for initial 5 minutes and decided on a rough structure of the write-up. I fumbled a bit at the end due to the time constraint but was able to pull together and finish within the stipulated time.

4.       How did you prepare for WAT, your Time Management strategy?

I went through the WAT experiences of other contestants from the previous years and did go through the current affairs which had high probability of coming as either a topic for writing or a point for discussion

5.       How did you Structured your essay writing along with the time constraint?

For the first 5 minutes I just made mental notes regarding the structure and important points. I spent around 5-10% of the time writing introduction, around remaining 80% of the time writing the body of the essay and remaining in conclusion.           

6.       Was the topic tough for you to write? Please share the difficulty while outlining the structure for the essay and how you tackled the problem?

The topic wasn’t a difficult as every aspirant had the answer to the question posed in the WAT before applying to SPJIMR. The  only difficulty was the collection of thoughts and choosing relevant points amongst a lot of interconnected thoughts and reasons

7.       Is there any advice for the aspirants who’d be appearing in the WAT test soon?

A regular reading of newspapers/magazines/ news websites etc. is essential to stay updated regarding the current affairs and a certain practice of for essay-writing is essential.

For GI: 

1.       How many members were there in your interview board?

For GI 1 there were 5 ( 2 resident faculty and 3 alumni) & for GI 2 there were 2 ( resident faculty including the director)

2.       How was your interview structured?

In the first interview  I was initially asked about my decision of applying for Finance (1^st preference) and Information Management(2^nd preference) and about my hobbies along with my work experience.

3.       Was there any tough question for you to answer?

There were certain questions which dealt with my failures and risks involved with failure.  The analysis of the risk led to decent discussions at length during the interview

4.       What were the key factors which you think influenced your selection at PI stage?

According to me the panel wasn’t looking for absolutely accurate answers but was rather looking at how well does a candidate is able to structure his thoughts and his ability to clearly express them.

5.       How did you prepare for your PI?

I went to the online forums which detail the GD/PI experiences of candidates and I contacted few of my friends who were already a part of the programs offered by SPJIMR.

6.       Did you appear for any other PI exercise at other top B-schools? Please share a few experiences (where you went wrong).

Yes I did appear for certain other top B schools , I think each institution had a different methodology for selection of candidates but I think  I faltered at the places where a more structured by-the-book approach held more importance during answering the questions.

7.       Any interesting moment from your PI which you would like to share with MBA aspirants

If the questions seem funny for example “ Do you drink cow’s milk?” , one should be ready to think a polite and a funny answer quickly.

8.      What is your advice to aspirants for Personal Interview?

Be truthful, the interview panelists are far more experienced than the candidates hence the efforts to fool them can be seen through easily.  Even if the true answers might not seem perfect but they have a far better chance of making you succeed than the wrong answers.