Aaah, it's been almost a year for me at TISS now, and it's been a good one!
I didin't even know about TISS when I half-decided to do an MBA...and most B-school aspirants don't. TISS is a niche insti, - only HR, more like a univ. with HR being just another course, M.A. degree - But more or less everyone who gets into the HRM & LR program comes looking for an MBA degree.
The industry treats us like standard B-schoolers for placements and work; even I thought we were a B-school in a Social science insti's disguise.
But my summer internship at Wipro & stay at IIM B more or less proved me wrong. why? :
1. We are a LOT more chilled out than any B-school of our stature - while people at IIMs, XL, FMS, etc. slog it out, most of us while away time walking on marine drive or partying in Bandra.
2. We DO NOT have Relative Grading - our curriculum focuses more on reflection and learning, rather than cut throat competition, some profs do GRILL n STRETCH us - but compared to the crazy rat race at other B-school's we are way better off.
3. We ARE NOT an Engineer's Haven (most B-schools have over 90% of the batch as enggs) - only a minority %age of our batch is made up of enggs. - we have a diverse background with tons people gradding in from DU, JNU in physics, chem, Japanese, Chinese, Bcom, BA, Psycho.......
4. We are FEMALE FRIENDLY - not just the 60 string HR batch,but pretty much all courses at TISS have a 60:40 ratio, in favor of the ladies. Unlike the 10:90 at most other B-schools.
5. We are not GLOBING MBA's - the HR course being just one course at TISS, not even it's flagship course, we get to study in a University like environment, along with student's from a wide array of backgrounds and fields of study.

And now, the best part:
In spite of our dissimilarity to other B-school's, we get paid as much :D. We had an avg. of 13.4l, for arnd 48 students, ranging between abt 10l to 22l. The best IIMs have say 16, for 400 wid sm ppl bagging a few crores and others abt 8-9l; if u take out the outliers - the median salary comes out to be pretty much the same.
And did I mention that we pay less than 2l as fees?!

Well I have been wanting to do this for a long time, so here goes :D

The moment i entered the tiss campus for the gd pi, i knew this was my dream b school. after clearing tiss, mica and ximb and getting a job at google , i made the rather simple choice of joining tiss. here are my impressions gathered over the past 6-7 months.

tiss is unlike any other B - school because:
1. it has tons of girls.
2. it is more like a university - with many courses ranging from social work to health admin - its like a small DU, with people from all backgrounds thrown in, sadly HR is the most hectic, envied and perhaps hated course here.
3. but that means u end up having more fun than u could in any other b school, make tons of friends, have a lot of vella moments.
4. the curriculum is less hectic, allowing you explore mumbai, chill at campus with other course people.
5. we have something called fieldwork - spend 2 days in office - quite fun actually - u get to travel,eat and observe.


the bunch of people who are my classmates here are some of the best ive known, it is the nicest bunch of smart people.

to be continued later...(im sleepy)

Name : Amit Patnaik
B-School : Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Course & Specialization : Human Resource Management & Labour Relations

First up, I didn't crack CAT, and to be honest, I am glad i didn't....
First a little bit about me, I am currently in my final year at Hansraj College, DU, studying Physics Hons, I had been a decent student in school, a 60%er till class 10, because i hated maths and hindi, i just didn't like numbers and was always poor wid hindi grammer...but i put in a lotta hardwork to get 93% in 10th, and 84% in 12th.....So, i knew i could begood with numbers, when i put in hard work, but never loved them as much as i loved words....
i loved physics though, so chose that as my graduation subject, turned out to be a huge mistake - physics in DU or for that matter anywhere in india, is the same-ratta-shit-to-get marks-in-exam thing, no scope for free thinking and asking questions, which was exactly what I came for, also picking a strenous course like physics hons meant I hardly had time for extra currics, but I managed to get some by joining clubs, nss, etc in 3rd year, as i result i expect to get 55% in my 3rd year exams, i had 72% agg in 1st two years, but i have no regrest as long as i pass....i have also worked as a freelance writer for the ic chip magazine and techtree.com......am an avid reader,gamer,movie critic,foodie and adventurer....
I decided to do an mba by the end of second year, so got a book on quant by arun sharma, an old CL package from daryaganj and made my mind to finish them...but that never happened, I ended up having too fun much in college, and could only do 10% of both the book and the study material.....It's a decision i do not regret, for I can do an MBA ant any point in my life, but these moments of college masti will not come back.
Also i didnt enroll for any coaching, as i've always held coaching centres in contempt, i've never liked the work they do, create an illusion of the exam being so hard that you can't do without them and then milking you for money.....But I joined up TIME aimcat series, so that i would have some practice.....it didnt help me much, i never scored about 85%ile overall, and 80% in qa, i generally scored arnd 60% in quant, over 90% in eng and 85% in di....i did make an effort to review the test and attempt the unattempted questions, id put in 2-3 hours a week.....soon the b school forms came out, and i quicky filled up CAT,IIFT,TISS,XAT,SNAP,FMS,MICA n MH-CET n NMAT........
first up was IIFT, quant went really bad in this 1, and I knew I'd never make it, and was later proven true. Now I felt an urge to work on my math, but everytime i tried, it felt like a chore.....CAT went okay, i thouught i had done okay, but i was mistaken, a 38%ile in QA sealed the fate for me quant, same story for XAT, but i still got a 90%ile XAT, which in addition to my orissa domicile, got me a call. I forgot to mark the OMR sheets in SNAP, so that was a waste....TISS was nice, cuz there were no sectional limits, and i knew Eng and DI might take me through....
FMS was the one i really wanted badly, probably because of my DU background, and also it had twice as many questions in eng as in maths, and there was a concept of having the sectional cutoff at 33%ile in each section....but unfortunately the invigalator gave the test paper early and some people started the test early, that really put me off, and i started with QA, a big mistake, i messed up QA and then messed up the entire paper....so my beloved FMS was out......MICA again was nice due to lack of sectional cut offs, NMAT was d usual QA-messes-me-up story, and i was bored by the time CET came along....
I got calls from TISS n MICA in addition to XIMB....
this is when it struck me, i was never ever gonna love numbers, so if i was stuck with finance in IIM A, and passed out with a huge salary, I'd still hate my job, so it was a good thing i didnt make it through all those exams, infact i see them as sorting through clothes, the ones i cleared were the ones which would fit me, the ones i didnt weren't my match.....A helluva lot of people, think not making it to a top b school as failure and spend a lotta time trying to beef up on stuff they're not naturally good at. be it QA,VA or DI.....they never think that you're life's pretty short and the world is too big to waste energy on trying to modify yourself so that you can become a manager, i wish they did something they were naturally good and loved, the money would come anyway.......
anyway, now i was really pumped up about TISS n MICA, not so much about XIMB, coz i got there not becoz of my merit, but becoz of the domicile quota...
my ximb interview was the worst, the profs asked my ques on my acads, i didnt remmeber a thing, but the GD was good.....when profs end up asking questions on physics in a B school interview, it shows how "smart" they really are!
TISS interview was great, it was my first time in Mumbai, i had a great time roaming around, the interview was more like a friendly discussion, they asked me a couple of HR related ques and I gave them as much as a logical answer I could think of....my GD was bad, no one had met each other before, so everyone was trying to hog the limelight, it was a bit of a fish market...
MICA again was good, a good GE and a PI on the lines of TISS
I cleared both MICA and TISS and am currently WL 9 (domicile) on XIMB, I am joining TISS and couldn't be happier the way things have worked out.
You can read my TISS n XIMB GDPI posts below, I'll post my MICA one too later on....
Oh and I got 65/70 in PI n 14/30 in GD n 44.6/70 in TISS.

TISS:
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/other-exams-xat-fms-jmet/49464-2010-12-discussion-thread-tiss-93.html#post1986398


XIMB:
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/other-exams-xat-fms-jmet/50566-2010-ximb-gd-pi-experiences-12.html#post1933216

hey, I from Delhi too!, we can have a dilliwalah tissian meetup, what say?

i m gettng d message dat i am provisionaly selected, does it mean i am thru?

Dear Ma'm, My GDPI at MICA is scheduled on 7th April, but I have my university annual examination on the same day, please tell me procedure to get the date postponed. Regards, Amit

Seniors, could you hazard guesses for the Orissa and Non - Orissa waitlist movements, taking into account your prev. experience, CAT debacle, etc.?, It would be great if someone could get an opinion from the office or faculty...
Im WL 23 (Orissa)

hey dharam,
ill be honest, i think you did the right thing i the gd....it was getting out of hand, some people were saying we should determine if the employees were stressed, some were jumping to the conclusion that they were, and in no ordered manner either, your effort was much needed man

Dharma above has pretty much summed up my GD too, i chipped in with the point of conducting an employment survey.
The PI went okay, mostly on my home state and the place i'd be staying in fr the past 10 years, informal queries about physics and why hr stuff.....they semmed fairly satisfied with my replies...
hope i get in.