Road to ISB

On 9th November, I was interviewed by the Indian School of Business for the Class of 2009-2010. I had applied in the first round (deadline 15th September, 2008) and was invited for an interview at 1230 hours on 9 Nov., 2008 at the ISB Campus in Hyderabad. Those interested in the questions may directly skip the next three paragraphs.

First, I'll let you know my profile: I work as a software development engineer for a dream software company and located in Hyderabad. I have been working here since May 2007 (first and only job and 18 months experience as of writing this post.) My GMAT score is 760 and my extra-curricular activities amount to what I'd call ordinary (experience as Class Representative, Placement Coordinator, worked with a couple of NGO's in different manners and a Consultant to an Educational Academy for a few months). My academic achievements are good - topper throughout including special recognition at the workplace during the job.

Before the interview, I was given the word "Apply" to write a 100-word essay on. I could go on to speculate about the intent behind this but it would suffice to say that I wrote what I'd write any day. I presented my opinion that the human race can attribute all its achievements to the "application" of new ideas, thoughts, discoveries and experiments and that we are where we are due to the application of all the knowledge we have gained.

Soon after, I was invited inside the interview room. The interview panel was composed of three people. The Senior Director of Admissions at ISB immediately started off with these words:

Q: "Siddhartha, we'll put you into a spot right away: You have an experience of only 1.5 years so far. The average number of years of industry experience for ISB students is 4 to 5 years. We think that you should wait for 3 years before applying again at ISB. How do you justify your applying here right now?"

A: Answered with a quality vs. quantity approach. I let them know the non-academic work I have done during college and some of the exceptional work I have done at my workplace when I went beyond the call of duty. To me, I said, its important to make a move for what I want rather than wait for something to happen.

Q: Reworded: Tell us about your academics, GMAT, workplace achievements.

A: Answered with data about my IIT JEE rank, admission offer from IIT, refusal of the offer to take up course of interest at IIITM Gwalior, top grades throughout college, internship selection through a national level contest, pre-placement offer, achievements at workplace, recognition received etc. And oh yeah, the GMAT score too (though it was present in the application.)

Q: Reworded: Tell us about your interests and what you like to do in your spare time.

A: Told about my interest in reading books, especially Indian non-fiction, some blogging and poetry, cars (driving and reading about cars).

Q: Why Indian non-fiction? Are you not restricting yourself from reading English author's works?

A: I am always open to reading those works; in fact, I have read several works like the ones you mention. But I am eager to know more about my own country because even though I have lived here all my life and stayed in 7 different cities, I always am amazed by the amount of diversity I see. I surely want to know more about the country I belong to. At the same time, I am interested in knowing other cultures as well. So if you give me the choice of taking up one of two books, one each by an Indian author and a non-Indian author, I will first select the work of the Indian author.

With this, the interview came to an end. I asked them two questions: In the list of schools engaged for student-exchange programs, there are some colleges I am interested in but are which not present - is there a way to start an exchange-program with these schools? Got a negative response owing to resource constraint at the school (there are already 30+ schools in their list). Another question was about doing coursework out of that prescribed in the syllabus. Got a positive response that faculty availability was the only constraint for doing any credit-worthy studies a student might want to pursue.

All in all, I left with a positive feeling at having expressed all my thoughts just the way I felt them myself. Whether I am indeed a fit or not for the ISB class of 2009-2010 is something that is best left for the ISB AdCom to judge.

UPDATE:

Received an acceptance call on 20th November. :)