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Interview Calls: IIM-A, B, C, L, K, I, FMSProfile: X:10.0, XII:95%, Undergrad:8.8, CAT 99.88, 6 months work-experienceIIM AhmedabadWAT - A passage about how a decline in open spaces and playgrounds can lead to sociopathic tendencies in children. Passage is followed by 4 questions which ask us to examine the underlying assumptions and implications of the passage.PI - 2 panelists (P)P - Let’s talk about your work.Me - I mention that I work in a marketing consultancyP - That’s fine but what exactly do you do?I explain how we use SAS/Excel/SQL to manipulate data and proceed onto explaining a project I worked on.P - Do you know about the bell curve?Yes sir.P - Do you know about six-sigma process?Drew three sigma both sides about the mean and botched up here. (Three sigma is 99.74% error free while six-sigma is 3.4 defects per million). Things got mixed up at this point and tried to explain using fundamental formulae of the bell curve.Part-2P - Ok so you have done chemical engineering. Did you study Process Control?Yes sir.P - Tell us about the Bernoulli equation.Wrote the equation. P doesn’t ask me to derive it.P - No, what is it actually about?Energy conservation.P - Ok. Can you tell us where it is used in this room?Couldn’t figure out, so told about another example- how aeroplane wings generate lift using this principleP - So you have this research paper. How many authors were there with you?Sir I am the second author. Told about the premise of the paper (biodiesels).P - What is the state of biodiesel usage in the world?Discussed about biodiesel usage in vehicles and country-specific regulations.Part-3P - Okay so you studied in Banaras. When was BHU founded?1917P - Who founded it?Pt. Madan Mohan MalviyaP - How was it founded?Narrated an anecdote about Pt. Malviya asking for funds from the Nizam of Hyderabad.P - Which other institute got converted to IIT apart from IIT BHU?Missed ISM Dhanbad (recent news). Told them that after IIT-Roorkee in 2001 and IIT BHU in 2012, there were probably no conversions that I remembered.P - Why do you think they convert institutes to IIT?Funds. Explained that IITs get xxx crores every year, they didn't agree with the figure.P - Who is the MP from Varanasi?NaMoP - Where else did he contest from?VadodaraP - Who else contested in Varanasi?AK49 and a Congress candidate…P - How has the development been in Varanasi?I tried to explain in a balanced way. A senior told me that IIMA panels love balanced opinions,P - Would you vote for Modi? What is your personal opinion of Modi?At this point I threw caution to the wind and started honestly delineating my personal opinion. Even such an approach could work provided that it is supported with strong lines of argument, not so in this case.P - What do you think have been his achievements?Told about Jan Dhan Yojana and national morale albeit in not the most convincing manner.P - Okay thanks. Take something.Took a mint and proceeded.IIM CalcuttaWAT - Vertical vs horizontal expansion of cities - which is better?PI - 4 panelists (P)P - Tell us about your work?Told along with some specific examples. Didn’t get probed more.P - So you did this course in your last semester. Can you differentiate between Simulation and Optimisation.Tried to explain.P - Is simulation deterministic or probabilistic?Answered using example of multiple reactors in series.P - Have you travelled outside of India? How many Emirates are there in UAE?Seven, but caveated that I wasn’t sure. They asked me to name 3 emirates to which I replied Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi.P - How many states does US have?50.P - What is the capital of New Jersey?Edison (Answer is Trenton). They didn’t know the answer. To call out the bluff, they asked about the capital of California. I answered that I wasn’t sure if it was LA or San Francisco. Neither turned out to be correct- it is Sacramento.P - What is the population of France?Guestimated that France must be around 5–10 crore. (Answer is 6.7 crore)P - What are your hobbies?Reading and others.P - Have you read Surely you’re joking, Mr. ____? Asked me to complete the title - ‘Mr. Feynman’. Asked me who he was - a Nobel laureate who taught Physics at Caltech. Asked me about the sequel to the book to which I answered that I had forgotten the name (What do you care what other people think)P - Let’s ask something about Maths. What are the values of pi, iota, and e?Told.P - Do you know any equation which links the three?Euler’s equation, told.P - Can you express e as a limit?(1+x) raised to 1/x where x tends to zero. Told.P - Where else did you get calls from?Told.P - Okay we are done.Thank you sir.P - Please don’t discuss the questions outside.Sure.IIM BangaloreWAT - Don’t remember the topic.PI - 4 panellists (P)P - Tell us about your work.Told. P proceeded to ask me very simple counter-questions to better his understanding of what I do.P - I have noticed that I encounter a lot of interviewees who work at your firm. Why is it so?Told that line of work is more apt to serve as foundation for MBA.P - Which are the major pharma firms in India?Ranbaxy and Sun Pharma.P - Which is the biggest one?Told that I wasn’t sure between the two but I’d go with Sun Pharma (It’s owner is also one of India’s richest men)P - What are the policy implications of putting price caps on medicines?Told about effect on quality, availability and R&D spending.P - Why do you want to do MBA?Told that master’s degree is important. Was asked why not PhD? `Replied that I could decide only after completing masters.P - What do you do in spare time?Read.P - What do you read?Fiction and non-fiction - biographies. Cut me here about biographies I had read. Didn’t probe into biographies. Asked me about other books I had read to which I answered with a recent book ‘Age of Ambition’ I read about China.P - What did you learn from that book?Told that social conditions in China were alarming. Panellists wanted to know more about this observation of mine. Proceeded with examples of how a high-speed train crash was hushed up in Chinese media to not show the Communist Party in bad light and other such examples.P - Do you know about the recent happenings in China?Told about removal of presidential term limits.P - What do you think about it?Told that strong leadership may be a short-term requirement but shouldn’t mess up a country’s fundamentals.P - What are the potential downsides?Told that there was no age-appropriate successor in Politburo Standing Committee (7 people from which the next leader is chosen) so Xi Jinping had set stage for a power struggle in case he had a cardiac arrest or had to step down.IIM LucknowWAT - Does compulsory military service make sense in India?PI - 2 panellists (P).P - Tell us about your work.Told.P - So you took this course ‘Organisational Psychology’. Tell us about it.Told about culture of organisation, span of control and other things we studied. Asked me to define culture and to compare culture of 2 cities I had been in - Delhi and Varanasi.P - What are the major industries in Varanasi?Told about Saris, Coca-Cola plant and tourism industry. Was quizzed about what kind of tourists come to Varanasi. Told that spiritual seekers come to Varanasi. She commented that I missed out Buddhist tourists who visit Sarnath which comes under Varanasi district.P - Tell us about the math/stat techniques you use at work.Told about simple techniques but also mentioned about clustering, trees and random forest which are used within my team. He proceeded to quiz me on Random forests. I told that I could only offer a high-level view since I had not done it personally. Asked me about ‘random’ and ‘forest’ in the name. Didn’t remember about ‘random’ but told about the forest part.P - What calls do you have.Told. Asked me to choose between FMS and Lucknow. I answered that I could choose after talking to recent graduates.P - Asked me about criteria to make this choice.Mentioned faculty, placements and alumni advice.Panellists seemed satisfied with the answer and concluded the interview.Verdict: Joining IIM-A

There are many such terrific questions, but I cannot remember and write down all of those at this point of time. However I remember one particularly interesting one.Q : Print ad for which brand?A : Levis low rise jeans.This is a very clever ad. Every single finalist thought this to be a Jockey Undergarment ad, and we were all stumped the moment the answer came out. I remember laughing frantically after that. :-)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Another personal favorite.Q : Connect these Absolut ads.A : The Seven Deadly Sins. From top left : Sloth, Pride, Wrath, Gluttony, Lust, Envy and Greed.The Question is fun and workable! Gave me whole lot of satisfaction as cracking this!

I don’t write in “self improvement” topic, but there is a first for everything. Two of my favorite books that I read together are: “How to get whatever you want” and “Think and Grow Rich”. I read these as a 17 year old and they were phenomenal. I tried to apply a lot of it during that time and had quite a bit of fortune implementing them. How to Get Whatever You Want and Think and Grow Rich.The key concepts like “just show up” and “just ask” —are so simple and yet so powerful.I will give you examples of how I used it.I was in my second year of college when we had the annual programming contest to select the top team to go to the prestigious ACM ICPC. I was preparing for the contest since the time I joined college. I led a team that was short of 1 person [he had to leave another contest in the last minute] and we tied up for the top slot. The other team were one year senior to us and the college gave them the slot to go to the Asia regionals in IIT Kanpur. I didn’t like the idea of seniority just used to break the tie.I would have given up if not for that crazy book above. I just explored for sometime the other alternatives in the days before social media and found an Asia regionals happened in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I just found out the organiser’s number and called him out of the blue [when it cost over $1/min for the international call from a public booth and I had very little money]. I convinced him to take our team from India. I went through all the rules and he could not find any hole in my argument. He was more amused by the strange request from a teenager from abroad and okayed my proposal.And then came the task of convincing my teammates that Bangladesh was a safe country to go to. We had a trip of our lifetimes taking a 3.5 day travel one way from the southern part of India to Bangladesh over 2 trains and a bus. It was an amazing experience interacting with everyone there and although we could not make it to the world finals we got home with a honorable mention for being in the top 10%. I should have tried the following 2 years too, but somehow never participated [and of course I regret that now for not showing up].From sitting in a small town in the middle of nowhere in a day without all the information revolution to getting there was a big win for me.Two months later I did an even crazier thing. I was in New Delhi attending a college competition. I got a strange idea to walk up to the Rashtrapati Bhavan [President’s palace] to get a meeting with the President of the largest democracy. In an another time I would not have done that, but I was crazy in the power of asking. It could not harm, right?I just showed up and asked. The secretary thought it was funny that a teenager was walking up to get an appointment with the President of India. She still passed up my request to President’s PA. A day later my relative got the call that the President wanted to talk to me. He was genuinely curious about a teenager who came all the way from the southern part of India and had gumption to write to him.That led to the greatest day in my life: Why is Abdul Kalam widely loved and respected by everyone? — where I got a 40 minute one-on-one with the President and got another such meeting just 6 months later.A year later I was applying for grad school. I got an admission, but without a scholarship. I called up a professor and explained the situation. He not only gave the scholarship that enabled me to go to gradschool, but someone who is still in touch with me after so many year.I applied the same principles to a lot of smaller successes too — from getting airline seats upgraded to getting into contests. Once I was in Linuxcon where there was a Linux quiz & raffle. I answered the quiz and they asked us to come for a raffle in the afternoon. I usually don’t go for this and thought there will be a big crowd. When I showed up there was just 1 other guy and I had a 50% chance of winning. And winning I did of a good laptop that I immediately sold on eBay. All I had to do was just show up. Another time I saw a startup competition going on. I was in for an another event and asked if I could pitch. The qualifiers were already over a long time ago, but they still let me pitch in the finals. I strangely won the pitch prize for someone who knew about the contest only 30 min before.After I graduated from college, I failed to use many of the principles as I grew to think that “self improvement” stuff is just icky. That means that I also went back to my old ways of being too shy to ask for stuff and thus went on a period of plateau with no major success in life. Now putting those principles back to motion. If you aim for the right thing, be reasonable, persistent and show up everytime you could very likely get that thing.We often think of success as a cut throat race where you race against thousands. Often what I found was success was a race where only a handful even show up — others are either lazy, unaware or too shy to even ask to get in. Winning often happen in contests that most don’t even know exists.