MBA HELPLINE

Your preparation should be designed around: Skill Development Conceptual knowledge Application of concepts   Development of habits Increasing the range of your reading habits Improving upon your skills of spoken English   Consistent and focused practice On a regular basis At different difficulty levels With a comprehensive range of probable new formats of questions   Continuous feedback On the improvements in your performance On areas needing special attention A strategy for taking the entrance tests Note that no candidate can be strong in all areas. The focus of preparation should be to prepare yourself thoroughly in your strong areas so that you do not lose a single mark there. In your weak areas you have to work the hardest to garner as many marks as you can. Further the entrance tests are basically negative, in the sense that they are designed to eliminate all but the fittest. And as the general standard of students improves, the hurdles at the entrance tests get increasingly steep. How much advantage does a person with a job experience have over others? It is clear that work experience has some weight age, though it is not clear exactly how much work experience is good. In standard terms, a work-ex of at least one and a half to two years stands one in good stead, while six months is not really known to make a difference to one's credentials. Since during placements, a lot of companies prefer students with some work experience, the IIMs take a larger share of students who have had some work experience before applying. Besides a number of experienced personnel, worthy fresher do get admissions into various B-schools. Should my graduation background affect the choice of B-school? To some extent, yes. For ex. Arts graduates may like to go for colleges having an HRD orientation (like TISS, XLRI, Symbiosis etc.). Law graduates may prefer PM & IR course at XLRI. Engineers have been seen opting for a broad range of choices & colleges. What is more important, speed or accuracy? Both are important. Try and aim for a strike of around 85-90%. Though speed and accuracy are different ideas, vis-à-vis CAT, they are mutually enhancing skills. One without the other is a good way to mess up a potentially good performance. Speed deals with the progress you make in reading, understanding, and answering a particular question or section. For example, in a typical Reading Comprehension section, you could finish reading an entire passage in half a minute flat. Or you could finish reading a math problem in half a second. Yahoo! You have cut down drastically on the time taken, but wait a minute. If I am an average student, will I be able to clear these tests? The whole point is: How do you define "average?" The examination systems in Indian schools and colleges hardly check the students' aptitude and logical or commonsense skills, the two most desired things in an MBA aspirant. You may be having a very strong potential as far as MBA is concerned which has been sadly left untouched so far. What about Communication Skills? It is very crucial for you to develop these skills as at the last moment, very little can be done. Regular practice is the key. It has been seen that students getting several calls, at times, are unable to clear the GD & PI stage. Hence keep preparing. What specialization should I take up? This should be decided on the basis of your interests and capabilities, as well as the institutes resources. There is no hard and fast rule that engineers should take up a particular specialization.   Students can specialize in any of the following streams: Marketing Finance Human Resources Systems Operations   How to select an institute? The problem of selection is not for the top institutes; the choice becomes more difficult if you finally get a call from two institutes, which have equal standing in the industry. In that case you could choose the college based on the following parameters: Placements Recognition Reputation Faculty Specialization Infrastructure