You need a mind blowing profile,

Perfect set of extra-curriculars building up a bulky file,

You may wonder how managing supply chain is connected to Mount Everest,

But this is how ad-com puts your valor to test,

You need to volunteer for Africa,

If possible carry out expedition to Antartica,

At the same time find out when exactly did Newton wrote Principa Mathematica,

Only then they will bother to bear with your interview,

Below is a brief of the way they will interrogate you,

OO!! your mother tongue is Urdu, you know Iqbal don’t you?

I mutter a few words about him, how is he related to MBA I have no clue,

With that interview gone i brace myself for next,

This time no page of Iqbal’s life will be left,

I reach the venue with elan,

He asks me tell me about Omar Khayyam,

Then comes the question of why MBA?

Trust me I will ban this question if I have my way!!!

98….that’s my percentile,

Ahmedabad,Banglore,Calcutta!!! Consider my case for a while!!!

They say there are 3000 others like you, and seats so few,

Its demand & supply you know don’t you?

Yes being an MBA aspirant I should understand this demand and supply dynamics. In spite of getting 98.11 percentile in CAT and a decent job experience, I could not make it even to the interview venue of old IIMs. There are many others like me out there.

And not all of us have succumbed to the peer pressure of the symbolic ” Kapoor Uncle” whose first name was unknown to Farhan Qurieshi of 3 idiots. We are genuinely interested in graduating from a B-school. We are seriously interested in participating in the stimulating discussions that are part of MBA life. But the admission criteria says, ” If you are genuinely interested in admission then you should have started thinking about it ten years back.”

Allow me a liberty of bringing a personal anecdote here. I have not scored 90% in my tenth or 12th. Now cannot do anything about it. Now I am whining about it. This whining is alarming my ten year old cousins!!! Their moms are telling them that if they want to be in good b-schools then better start preparing from now on..(not this explicitly..rather by shouting “Study hard…study hard.”).

This exactly is my point. The admission criteria is not just defining the careers of the two lakh students who are taking CAT. It is defining our whole education system in a considerable way. And considering only the percentages as the criteria for admission seems to be a bit flawed.

Numbers are not always a reflection of reality. Making our admission criteria more “international” may prolong the admission cycles. It may make admissions more subjective. But these are the risks worth taking. After all a big chunk of Indian education system is at stake here.!!!!

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