MICA Gyaan, Resources and FAQs

[chuck_gopal]

Hi everyone,

This is going to be a thread strictly related to MICA gyaan, MICA material, links, how I felt I cracked the MICAT, and some general advice to aspirants who ask the question "How do I get into MICA?"

At this point, some of you might be asking the following questions:

Why this thread?

Good question But why not? We already have posts, threads, forums, blogs, internet groups, Orkut communities, books, newspaper articles, magazine articles, entire magazines, and what nots on how to crack CAT With all due respect to TIME, IMS and their ilk, knowledge about MICA is limited. Not too many people know what it is about. My intentions of starting this thread are simple:

1. To let people know what MICA actually is, and what they offer.
2. How MICA differs from other BSchools.
3. What it takes to get into MICA - strictly from an asiprant's point of view.
4. A place to share MICA gyaan.

All this is for people who are aspiring for MICA but have questions. These questions are very often repeated in discussion threads that cut from the general flow. I want this to be a one-stop shop for MICA gyaan. Not discussions on MICAT / GE / PI, but just gyaan ABOUT the whole thing.

Basically I want to tell you how I prepared for MICA - by no means a hard and fast 'How To Get Into MICA' guide but this is the best I could do... People who have gyaan please join in and help us.
I've gained a lot from PG, and owe a big part of my final convert to this incredible forum. I want to give some of it back.

Okay, so what are your credentials in starting this thread?

In all humilty, I say that I know a bit about MICA. I've been dreaming of getting through to this place for 3 years - have gone through the process twice and converted on the second try. Not saying that there are not other people capable of this. I know people who can do a better job than me. It's just that I felt this was lacking on PG, and I, as someone who wants to give back to the community, sees this as a perfect chance to do so

Quick Guide around this thread:

MICA basics: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/743727-post2.html (MICA Gyaan, Resources and FAQs)
Gyaan about the 4 concentrations: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/743728-post3.html (MICA Gyaan, Resources and FAQs)
All you need to know about the MICAT: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/743730-post4.html (MICA Gyaan, Resources and FAQs)
GE gyaan: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/744761-post7.html (MICA Gyaan, Resources and FAQs)
PI gyaan: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/744762-post8.html (MICA Gyaan, Resources and FAQs)
More links: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/744764-post9.html (MICA Gyaan, Resources and FAQs)
Life at MICA and activities: http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/881591-post56.html

Enough chatter. Let's get started.

ChUcK

[chuck_gopal]

Some basic questions...

What is MICA?

An amorphous... Oops, wrong MICA
MICA is the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad. They offer a PGDM in Communications which is very different from the diplomas given by the IIMs. The common perception of MICA is that it is an advertising school. While not totally wrong, it is a misconception. In one line: MICA will help you get into the managerial side of advertising and branding.

After passing out of MICA, you have various career options, which you will see in the next question. But be warned: It's a specialized course. IIMs offer a more general MBA. MICA is extremely specific. Do NOT think seriously about MICA if you think it's just 'another BSchool'. After passing out, if you don't find yourself enjoying this line of work, things are gonna be difficult because it's not too easy to jump <citation needed! >

If you need more general gyaan on MICA, this should help.

So, MICA is better than the IIMs?

Depends. Both are excellent in what they do. MICA is the only insti that offers a course like this. While you could do an MBA from the IIMs and later jump to advertising, MICA will give you that headstart if you're sure you wanna be in this field. Pay and ROI is obviously better at the IIMs. MICA has a culture of it's own though... It's cult

And in any case, on this site, we do not tell people what to do. We offer our opionions, the facts, and leave you to take the decision on your own No spoon-feeding here

Should I choose MICA over ____ ?

As for choosing MICA over any other insti. Well, depends. Fact one, you're likely to get a better ROI somewhere else (Like FMS - unbeatable on this front!). Fact two: You WILL end up in the communications field, and if you have doubts about it, then you'll seriously need to think. I can't offer opinions here - it's your personal choice. I've heard of people ditching IIM calls for MICA.

People say you need to be extremely passionate about this field to be a part of it. More than that, I'd say confidence in your abilities, and an idea of what you want to do.

Choosing MICA over some other insti, most likely an IMI, IMT, NMIMS level college (no offence - these are amazing instis in their own right) is a very personal choice and can't be generalized.

But answer this quiz and give yourself 1 point for every 'yes':

1. Money is fine - but show me someplace where I can work with passion!
2. I want to work with crazy Creatives and the types and not be bothered about office attire
3. I know who Piyush Pandey is.
4. I have a favourite ad, and it's not because it's *funny* :razz:
5. I don't wanna be a part of the general flow!
6. I'm willing to take the risk and do something very specialized, confident knowing it will offer me returns other than monetary.

If you score more than 3, seriously consider MICA.

What can I be after passing out of MICA?

When I say 'narrow', I don't mean that there are only a couple of options for you after MICA. You can be involved in a lot of things.
Brand Management, Client servicing, Media research, Brand Consultancy, Event and media management, etc. Later on you could even shift off to other aspects of advertising - Creative, start your own creative boutique or planning arm... MICA can help you with all this.

Now, as for the profiles offered, there are essentially four things you can be when you pass out of MICA... I'll use the example I used in all my interviews

You could be the brand manager at a company. Say, Nike. You will be in charge of maintaining the brand image, using the advertising budget the company gives you to build the brand, spread visibility, etc.

Now the brand manager decides to make a campaign for Nike. So he announces so and various ad agencies do a pitch - and the winner is the agency which will handle Nike's account. (JWT is the agency in this case ) The person in charge of this will be the account manager (junior levels include account executive).

This person will be in constant touch with the BM of Nike asking him what he wants, etc. The AM will then talk to his market researcher who gets data based on surveys etc, quantifies the data and brings out demographic data, etc... Companies like AC Neilsen specialize in these.

After the who-to-target and all is done, a creative brief is given to the Creative team who actually make the ad with the help of copywriters, creative heads and the art directors.

And after the campaign and all is ready, the media planner would then see the amount of money the company has at it's disposal, and put it to best use - like how much to spend on TVCs, how much to spend on print, how much to spend on hoardings, cricket grounds , any damn place where people can see the ads...

There may be more profiles, of course - I'm not aware of them. Seniors, fellow puys, please pour in

Okay, okay, all that is fine. What about the money?

It's a pretty expensive course in comparision to the more monetarily lucrative general MBA courses. But then MICA was never about the money
As far as average pay packets go, this link should help. One figure not mentioned there is, average salary offered to the 2007 batch is 7.25 LPA.

That's it? No MICA for me, thank you!

You're welcome. The IIM discussion threads are in the CAT section.

This sounds interesting! Tell me more!

Read on, my friend!

ChUcK

[chuck_gopal]

Concentration Gyaan:

MEDIA

MICA is the best destination in India if you want to learn about media marketing. We have a lot of tools out here that you won't find any place else. Like the TAM ratings, dedicated media faculty and all.
Plus, many of our recruiters are from TV (SET), Radio (BBC, Radio Mirchi, BigFM), Newspapers (DNA, HT), websites (too many!).

Basically, a media house is divided into content (making the actual programmes - acting, directing, producting, etc) and marketing (what we do!)

There are subjects like Broadcast media, Branded Entertainment, New media, Media Management, etc.
You get to know about the industry, and MICA's courses for media management are unparallelled. The resources that the digital library has for MM is very VERY vast.

You may also end up in an advertising agency as a media buyer. I've told you before what a media buyer or planner does - buying of media space. How much of the ad do you show on print, radio, Out-of-home, TV, or other spaces? And how much will you pay? This is quite essentially, what a media planner and buyer does.

You may also tell a company where to put their advertising spends. Consulting, basically ;D
Lots od research happens at MICA too. Check this for details (Centres of Excellence - Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad).

So that's it about media, really. Just a gist.

MARKETING RESEARCH

Think of MR this way. Before a major marketing decision, you'd want to find out whether the consumers will want the change. For example, before launching a mint-flavoured drink (sorry for using the Corporate example ) you'd first identify a potential target audience and then do a research among them. If the results are positive, then yes, you'd go in for the product. MR plays an incredibly important role in marketing.

At MICA, if you take up MR, you'll be doing Quantitative as well as Qualitative research. You get hands-on experience with some of the most contemporary MR software. The profs here are MR experts.
After doing MR, chances are you will join an agency like AC Neilsen or ORG-MARG (yes, the same fellers who come out with all those surveys!)

A few companies like HUL, P&G have a Consumer insight mining division which is apparently filled with MICAns
But we warned, these compaies recruit frm the MR agencies, and not directly from the institute... Atleast not for this profile.

Also, MR is an conc that gives u experience in various fields. It's a very flexible vocation in the sense that its possible to shift to consultancy or BM from MR.

And also, what I've noticed is, no matter what your inclination when you go for summer internships, most people end up doing some sort of research or the other - the projects are such.

ACCOUNT PLANNING

This is the 'advertising' role. Basically, an Account Planner is the interface between the agency and the client. APers will get the brief from the client (this is what our product is, and this is what we want to tell our customers) and the AP would use this, along with several other data (from market research and insights) to create a creative brief (to be given to the copywriters, telling them, 'this is the insight, make sure your ad communicates this message').

I'll give you an example. We know SBI wanted to change it's image of being old and stoic. So SBI went to O&M, where an account planner who was handling this account was told, we need to change our image, etc. The AP chose to portray the fact that SBI has the largest number of ATMs etc, and told the creative team to make an ad that portrayed this, and at the same time, the ad should show that SBI is not boring. The result was the Surprisingly SBI campaign.

Account Planning is a rather challenging job. You end up working on multiple brands... Whereas a brand manager is consigned to just one brand at a time. An AP can learn cross-category planning... By this I mean, he could be working on Lux, HDFC, Sony and Durex at the same time - all of which are different and demand different things!

Since it's an ad job, the usual ups and flips apply. The pluses are, it's fun, informal, crazy, very free, unstructured.
Minuses, long hours, not as much pay as say BM, and the usual stereotypes held against advertising.

BRAND MANAGEMENT
And now the big daddy. A brand manager is in charge of the brand. Simply put. Anything and everything associated with the brand is his to worry about. From whom to target, to new store openings, etc. Involves a lot of travelling and the first few years is usually associated with * drumroll * sales. Yes, dirty, tie-wearing going-to-kirana-on-cycle-type sales
Okay, not that bad, really... But yes, it involves a bit of work. After that, when you're actually higher up, you take care of brand imagery, which agency to hire to work on it, you'll approve or reject the creative work done by the agency, basically take all decisions related to the brand. Everything. And communications, of course, plays an incredibly huge part of this.

It pays the most among all concentrations, even when you cycle
Reason is simple. Agencies can't pay all that much, so AP gets less. Firms that sell products have nice huge marketing budgets and can hence pay its' BMs.

MICA is gaining reputation in the sphere of Brand Management. There are quite a few courses here aimed at communicating the brand, etc. Many of these courses are taken by AP students too.

So basically... That's it. MP&B, MR, AP, BM.

FINAL WORD

This is probably premature, but you should know that it's not like once you take up say BM you'll be doing that all your life. MICAns are known for shifting jobs faster than political affiliations in New Delhi are changed But of course, each job mandates a whole new skillset... Like BM is a more structured job, while AP is a more 'free' job, if you know what I mean.

People who are able to adapt to this change, shift seamlessly. Of course, there are people who want to stick to the same concentration out of choice.

All this is more than enough gyaan, I assume, to help you to decide whether you'd like to come to MICA, and enough technical stuff to help you get through your interviews. If there's anything else you find missing, tell moi!

ChUcK

[chuck_gopal]

Okay, so you've got the call from MICA. Great! Now what?

First, be prepared. Getting a call from MICA is no big deal. Converting it is.

For the numbers, in 2007:
IIMA called 990+ people for 250 / 280 seats.
MICA called around the same number for 120.

So converting MICA is statistically more difficult than converting IIM Ahmedabad, supposedly the toughest BSchool in the world to get into

On that happy, optimistic note..!!!

Assumptions based on discussion (may or may not be true!) :

1. Once you get a MICA call, you're on equal footing. So whether you get 85.00 or 99.99 makes no difference.

2. There are no sectional cutoffs. But it's still better to be prepared. A safe bet would be 75 in VA, and 50 in the other two. But always aim for higher!!

3. The only thing that matters while getting a call is the CAT percentile.

Again, all these are assumptions. I'm sure there will be a few cases, particularly point # 2 to counter this (I'd like it if such people PM me their percentiles.)

Onto the real stuff, now.

The second stage of selection to MICA includes the MICAT, GE and PI. In this post I shall deal with each, in general. I will provide the links to prior experiences in a later post.

>> >> MICA Test aka MICAT << <<

Here is where you will start noting MICA's penchant for suffixing itself with anything starting with CA. MICAnvas, MICAmpus, MICAmpaign, MICAreers, and now I call Roxy the MICAnine

The MICAT is one of the most fun tests to take. A few years ago it used to be quite different and used to be called a relatively boring-sounding MET (links in a coming post). Anyways, I will deal with what happened this year (2007). The sections in the MICAT (1.5 hours) were:

A word association test. There are 8 words, 4 in 2 rows. There is one word in column A that can be associated with every word in Column B. For example :

Apple .............. Orange
Mango ............. Eye
Banana ............ iPod
Watermelon ...... Orchard

Answer is Apple because:
1. Apple and orange are both fruits.
2. 'Apple of my eye' is a proverb. Banana and eye? Naaah!
3. Apple iPod!
4. Apple orchard.

It's a really fun exercise. There are 20 of these, I believe.

How to prepare:
1. It would be good to know a lot of proverbs.
2. General awareness - not the capital of Uzbekistan and pi upto 17 decimal places types - but normal stuff. And good English helps here, obviously.
3. May sound silly, but try studying up phrases like a PRIDE of LIONS, a PACK of wolves, etc. You know what I mean...!

Psychometric Test

There are about 30 questions here. Basically, situations are given to you and objectively, you have to state your reaction.
This year (2007), we had two options ... A question, followed by 'Agree / Disagree'.

Last year (2006), we had 5 options.

Q: When a task is given to me, I prefer to start immediately not bothering to waste too much time mulling over the problems that may arise.
A: Strongly agree
B: Agree
C: Neutral
D: Disagree
E: Strongly disagree

The clever part is, some questions are fiendishly rephrased so that both sound like a positive attitude. Example, for the above question, strongly agree shows you are not much of a time waster. But then, take this:

Q: When a task is given to me, I invest time thinking of possible obstacles and how to tackle them before starting.

So you see? A 'strongly agree' here would be considered positive too - a thinker, a planner. But a person temted to mark A for both will obviously show a mismatch. While we do not know if a psychometric mismatch will actually lead to lessening your chances at MICA (unlikely, really!), why take risks?

How to prepare:

1. You have a year. Get to know yourself. Be honest to yourself. You'll find this is an enriching exercise. Accept yourself. It may be hard for you to believe some things. Like I didn't want to accept I was an atheist, but accepting it made me know myself better and all that. Similarly, be honest to yourself - find who you really are, how you tackle situations and all.
2. Search for online psychometric tests. There are tons. You'll get a feel of the thing, and also, you'll have a few questions to ask yourself (Ref # 1)
3. Remember, you cannot afford to miss one question (miss even one in this section, and your MICAT will not be evaluated) so learn to be quick.

Quant and DI

Easy to medium. Why they were introduced in a paper like MICAT seems asurd to me. MICA is an insti that prides itself on not being another engineer preserve, and somehow this exercise dilutes that image. Anyways, it's not all that difficult, and you should be able to do atleast half of it comfortably.

How to prepare:

1. This is one area where TIME and IMS can help you.

Essays

This year we had two, serious topics (forgot what they were ). Obviously good English helps. Search for the topics in the experience threads (will be posted soon!).

How to prepare:

1. Read a lot. Editorials, magazines, blogs, novels, autobiographies, porn, whatever. Anything that exposes you to writing. Recommended for CAT aspirants too.
2. Try to write, or type. Bloggers usually do very well in the MICAT essay. Develop a style. Make sure grammatical errors are weeded out.
3. As trivial as it may seem, good handwriting is a plus.
4. This may sound crazy, but practice writing for a week before MICAT. Software engineers, tell me, when was the last time after Exam # 6 of S8 that you wrote something at length with a pen on paper? And doesn't your hand hurt when you try to write a formal letter? I knew this would be a problem - and just wrote - arbit crap, yes, but it was good practice. Otherwise you'll find that your hand really hurts in the exam and you can't afford to waste time. This exam requires more than shading a few ovals, mind..!

and an important one:

4 hvns sake lrn 2 wryt propr Englsh n not shyt lyk dis whch no kmputr in d wrld cn decifr. use prpr grmmr n nt sms lingo n shrt frms n slang.
Take the pains to type out your IMs, your emails, your scraps, your PG posts in proper English. Even your SMSes, if it doesn't cost you. It may seem a fuddy-duddy idea at first, but it helps. Believe me, it helps.

Fill-in-the-blanks.

24 H in a D (hours in a day)
365 D in a Y (days in a year)
11 P in a FT (players, football team)

These are the easy ones. Among the tougher ones were:

DS of the M (Dark Side of the Moon. I got this, thank you Mr. Waters!!! )
12 GB, S on the W (12 Great Bumblebees, Sitting on the Wall)

How to Prep:

1. Well, nursery rhymes will help
2. I'll give you the link to a post that has a lot of these puzzles - someone took the pain to search for them online!
3. Proverbs and anything related to such numbers. But such prep is limited and this section is likely to change next year.

Archie comic

No, really They gave us a three-panel Archie comic, with the bubbles erased - we had to fill 'er up.

How to prepare:

1. Close that Engineering college textbook / Quant by Agarwal and get yourself a stack of Archie Double Digests
2. Don't fill the damn thing in haste: Space is limited in those bubbles.
3. Be funny, goddamnit! MICA is one insti where humour is appreciated!!!

ChUcK

[Mahip]

Awesome job Chuck!

Keep this thread's link in your Signature!

[grondmaster]

Good one Chuck...

Nice to see such enthu

PS: crackednut is my colleague here @ SET Summers

Better give the links of our threads here... that'll give the aspirants a total of 100+ pages to mull upon prior to digesting whatever gyaan pelted out in this thread

Regards,
Grondmaster

[chuck_gopal]

Now the Group Exercise.

What is it?

The fancy name apart, it is essentially a GD. What happens is:
1. A topic / case study is given to you.
2. Ten (usually) options / solutions are given to you.
3. You have to individually rank them from 1 to 10 - 5 minutes given for this.
4. You have to discuss for 20 minutes and get the group's top 3 out and write them down.

What are the topics?

I don't remember too many topics, but the two I have been involved in are:
1. Global Peace : We were all dignitaries of 8 nations and had to finalize what to do to increase global peace. Options were restructure UNO, increase bilateral trade, blahblah.
2. What should be done to motivate young managers in a company? Options included allowing employee to make his own career path, allowing him to choose projects, etc.

There are lots more, which you will find in the GE/PI links in my other post.
The topics are usually very general, nothing like Economic fundae that give engineers shivers... But remember, a good amount of general gyaan is always preferred. And contrary to what people percieve, the GE does not have advertising / branding related topics. Though things could change

How do I prepare?

Remember - the basics in a GD and a GE remain the same. That is, how you communicate with your GEmates, and how you get your ideas accross. To this end, you could prepare thusly...

1. Join a coaching class' GD classes. They won't have MICA-specific GDs, but the competition you will ge twill be good. You're rubbing shoulders with people who have BLACKI calls. You'll get a great mix of people. People who are passionate about one particular insti, people who remain humble despite making 14 calls, people who are snooty, people who have nothing but facts, people who coordinate a GD beautifully... It's an experience. Observe the other groups, and see what the most impressive person is doing right.

2. If possible, get together a bunch of friends - CAT aspirants - and form a GD group, and start off on weekends. I say this because T