My MBA Journey - Part 9 (Which coaching for GD-PI preparation of CAT)

While I was preparing the international b-schools’ applications, result of CAT was announced on 9th January 2009.And this was the biggest day of my life (till then).

To my surprise, I had managed to get shortlisted by few IIMs for their next admission stage :Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI) .But as was expected, English section proved to be my roadblock (or saviour in another sense)in that I could not get GD-PI calls from IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta (for people unfamiliar with CAT there are 7 IIMs : 3 mentioned above plus IIM Lucknow, Indore, Khozikhode and Shillong (IIM Shillong being the newest is not worthy of being applied (as I understood from my interaction with several CAT aspirants) and indeed many aspirants do not apply here)).

Now I was in real dilemma. I had my IIMs interview scheduled in February and March for which I had to prepare from scratch. I had 5 foreign b-school applications still remaining to complete in the same timeframe. I had to prepare for the interview(s) of foreign b-schools (I had applied/will apply to) as I was sure of fetching interview calls from at least 2-3 colleges. Lastly, I had to give sufficient time (or at least pretend of doing so :)) to my office tasks (if you forgot, let me re-iterate I was working in Adobe Systems).

This was a real challenging situation and an acid test for my time-management skills (thought of doing some self-promotion :) ).Getting into IIM was my dream .This fact combined with the situation that I was just one stage away from bagging the coveted admission offer made me decide in favour of putting my maximum energy for GD-PI preparation of IIMs.

But this does not mean that I put the b-schools’ application on the back burner. Because I had prepared the first 2 application pretty well, I could enjoy the leeway of not toiling as hard in other applications. As mentioned in my previous post, some essays are omnipresent irrespective of the b-school and I already had the answers to such questions ready (as part of my first 2 applications’ essays). I just had to put in the delta effort to write answers to the different questions and this was no big task especially after having survived the last few weeks.

And so I started on this multitasking phase.

Before I go ahead and share my GD-PI preparation, I would like to spend few lines on which coaching to go after for GD-PI preparation.

For GD Preparation:
If you are studying/working in NCR region: For GD preparation, go for TIME coaching as they undoubtedly are the best. I did join both Career Launcher and TIME but was dismayed with the immature, useless, time-wasting and below average way of conducting GDs and associated feedback at the end of the GD given by young and often inexperienced moderators at Career Launcher. At TIME, more often than not one is handled by experienced faculty whose feedback is exactly what is required to improve oneself (this is my opinion but please do check for yourself and do not take my word as carved in stone)

If you are outside NCR region: Best would be to shift to Delhi for 2 months (take leave from office if you are working )as getting an IIM call is no mean achievement and you would not like to give a half-hearted effort towards realizing your dream. Also at Delhi/NCR centres, the quality (and quantity) of IIM call getters is very high and so the level of competition and hence the improvement in your preparation would be exponentially fast. However if you are studying in final year of graduation or cannot shift to NCR for any other reason, do research considerably as to which coaching prepares you the best for GD in your local region.

For Interview preparation
Both Career Launcher and TIME are equally good. They conduct the mock-interviews professionally and feedback is also valid. However as a candidate you need to stretch yourself and your interviewers into giving you as candid and detailed feedback as possible. Tip: Take as many mock-interviews as possible before the actual interview(s) .This will only serve to better your interview skills.

Must attend coaching for all NCR candidates
NCR candidates have an upper edge over other candidates in that they have a fantastic teacher in the form of MALAY RAY ,guiding budding CEOs to crack the IIMs interviews and GDs. Malay Ray is a pass-out of IIM Ahmedabad (I guess his batch was somewhere in middle 1990s). He takes classes in Delhi region (about 15 mins drive from Noida) and I have only one thing to say for him: Absolutely brilliant way of teaching and must attend coaching for every IIM call getter. He teaches you everything from politics to India to World affairs to Philosophy to Economics to History to General Awareness .In short he prepares the candidate not only for GD-PI of IIMs but for his life ahead.

Students wishing to contact him can leave their email Ids in the comments section of this post (along with a small introduction) and I will email you his cell number (obviously with Malay’s prior permission).

I will end this post here (followed by Advice as always) and will cover tips and techniques for GD-PI in my next post.

Advice for students contemplating to start preparation for GD-PI:

• Do understand that your GD-PI preparation starts from the day you think about CAT. Do not wait for CAT results to be out to incite you to prepare .After CAT result, you will only have 2 months (maximum) before the d-day and you can simply improve/refine what you already possess. No coaching institute can give you a magical pill. Coaching institutes can only guide you but the actual work is to be done by you only. So start now if CAT is on your radar
• Working aspirants can consider their group meetings in office as a form of GD and act accordingly .Though the actual GD scenario at IIM would be drastically different (will cover in next post) but this is a way to start
• Read non-fiction stuff as much as possible. It could be Sports or Business or xyz topic but do read. This not only helps in GD while making your points but also in Interview (and also in RC section of English in CAT written test)