Trying our hands at

As usual I have again succeeded in my pursuit of making people blog. My latest achievement is now available. Also, atleast there is one good aspect of watching cricket. That people start posting.

As I have mentioned in previous posts that I have given many interviews and so would like to share every one of them. I have been trying to endeavour on my quest to join a reputed B-school. I was in for a surprise when a B-school from Europe, namely ESCP-EAP, came looking for possible candidates in our institute. The sudden discovery of the B-school took everyone by surprise for I am quite sure that nobody had heard of it before. Not that people here are ignorant but at this stage of the career, of apparently no work experience, rarely does anyone find a foreign B-school wanting to take students of our level of experience.

The school had organized a seminar and had its posters all around the campus. I along with my friends planned to attend given that we were making efforts to join a B-school. Some would argue that it was because of the refreshments promised but I would not like to comment. The seminar was conducted by two students from ESCP-EAP, one of them being from IIT Delhi (i.e my institute). They talked about everything from the institute, the selection process to the scholarships, the fees. I would say that the presentation was pretty impressive and the refreshments were not far behind. They gave us the link from where we could apply for the management program and bade good bye.

I along with my friends planned to apply as just the thought of going to Europe is enough for people here to get convinced to join any institute. Regarding the fess, we all fell into the category of 50% scholarship on account of the fact that our family incomes were within the stipulated threshold for the scholarship. However, as we went to the link for applying, we became a little concerned as the form to be filled was in Italian.

So we kept postponing. As we all had expected, one of us took the pain of translating the form into English and then we were all ready to fill the form. The form filling was followed by a small online test. The test was to be given individually (obviously), the probability of which was negligible (more than obvious). After giving 4 or 5 tests we had improved to the extent that we could give the exam twice in the maximum time allotted. Everyone cleared the test (surprised!) and were called for an interview in a 5 star hotel. Again, we were motivated to give the interview for 2 reasons – the opportunity to seek admission and the opportunity to relish the hotel food.

I would enlist only the questions of the interview as the answers are nothing worth mentioning.

1. Where are you from?

2. What is your CAT percentile?

3. Why do you want to join ESCP-EAP?

4. Which campus would you want to join? (ESCP-EAP has five campuses across Europe)

5. Where would you go if you get admission both in IIM and ESCP-EAP?

6. Where would you like to stay, India or abroad?

7. Did you try for an internship abroad?

The rest of the time we were discussing about the scholarships and the management programme being offered. Lastly they asked me if I wanted to ask them anything. When I answered in the negative they were surprised. So, I had to console them by saying that I wanted to ask about the scholarships but since we have already discussed that question has already been answered. Also, they told everybody (me and my friends) that a GRE score would be essential for admission and that too around 700. We did not say anything at that point of time but later were discussing that if we were to get a 700 in our GREs then we might as well apply to a Harvard or London Business School. And that what was the use of the interview when they wanted the GRE score.

After a few weeks, we got an email that wanted us to continue further with the selection process by mailing the certain documents. On the last count, none of us had obliged.