Thinking Aloud

Common Admission Test is the premiere management entrance test in India to secure admission to top B-Schools in the country. How should a candidate go about preparing for CAT? At the outset, I'll make one thing clear! preparation should be candidate-specific. There are probably people out there who might have scored more than 99.90 percentile without preparation and others who might have had to prepare very hard to reach 95. You know yourself best, so you should personalise your preparation-just like what finance folk say about personalising personal finance.  Now, How can you personalise your preparation? You have to start with gauging where you stand vis~a~vis CAT. You have to determine your strengths and weaknesses. Mock Tests can help you here. Maybe you might like to get a lay of the land before financially investing in anything. A lot of coaching institutions provide solved and unsolved past papers of CAT. 2IIM has a treasure trove of questions while Career Launcher (and othe...

This post is a continuation post on what after getting a shortlist. I'll try to list the different areas to prepare for the MBA admission Interviews. A candidate would have to prepare for the following areas: Candidate Profile: Interview panels would be interested in knowing your motivations for pursuing an MBA and how an MBA would align with your overall academic and work profile. You can also expect questions that interviewers might ask about your academic history, if your grades are not very good, for example or any other academic trends. You should also prepare an introduction for yourself (TMAY)*.  Career Goals and Aspirations:  You might be asked questions about how you wish your career to shape up and what your career aspirations are and "where you see yourself in n years." Academic Questions  (from your graduation subject): A lot of B Schools ask candidates academic questions. They might be doing this as a way to evaluate academic dedication or because they belie...