Admission Experience at IIM Indore | Gear up your Tech-skills to ace the interview process

Promoted and nurtured by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, IIM Indore has always been committed to making an impact in management, education, research, and training. This reflects fairly in the standard of faculty and the intake of the students to contribute to the socially conscious executives, leaders, and entrepreneurs in the business world. For the PGP batch of 2020-22, it has made some amendments to its admission criteria. Here is an account of an MBA aspirant (fresher and Economic Hons.) who was recently interviewed, to give you a glimpse of admission experience at IIM Indore.

The admission process consists of two rounds for the shortlisted candidates:

1. Writing Ability Test
2. Personal Interview

Writing Ability Test

After clearing the CAT 2019 cut-off and the sectional scores, one has to appear for WAT as a part of the final selection round. It is a pen-paper based test of 20-30 minutes in duration. It primarily focuses on your ability to present your ideas and ability to think critically.

My topic was “One nation one election”. I performed quite well as I had been practicing random topics after appearing for all competitive exams.

Tip: Read as much as you can to broaden the horizon of your knowledge. Develop your own ideas and philosophy instead of blindly following what others have to offer on anything in particular. 

Personal Interview

The admission interviews are conducted in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Indore, Kolkata and Mumbai. This round expects a consistent and minimum performance in different parameters which is decided by the Admissions Committee. The eligible candidates have to meet the minimum performance of PI parameters to be considered for the third stage of the selection process. As per my admission experience at IIM Indore, the questions were majorly technical. Here are some of the questions posed to me:

1. Introduce yourself. Keep it brief.
2. Questions on my family business of film distribution (I explained the supply chain model)
3. Do you think with the advent of streaming platforms, the time of cinema is gone?
4. Tell about the Hindu rate of growth 
5. What is GDP deflator?
6. What is Interest rate parity (a lot of questions were focused on this and on arbitrage)
7. Define the exchange rate mechanism
8. What parameters affect exchange rates?
9. Tell something about Forex reserves - a bit about SDRs
10. How do you check the continuity of a function?
11. How to check Inflection points?
12. Why do we equate the first derivative to zero?
13. Plot (x+y)^2
    
    Tip: Mugging up the fundamentals will not work, study the logic behind them as well.

Key Highlights of the Admission Process: 

• A bachelor’s degree with at least 50 per cent marks or equivalent CGPA is required

• CAT score percentile for GEN and EWS is 90, VC-OBC is 80, SC is 60, and for ST and PwD is 50

• Weightage to academics in shortlisting for PI-WAT round: 74 per cent

• Weightage to gender diversity in shortlisting for PI-WAT round: 6 per cent

• Weightage to CAT Score in PI-WAT round and in final: 20 per cent

• Weightage to PI-WAT in the final composite score: 60 per cent

• Weightage to academics in the final composite score: 20 per cent

• PGP Office of IIM Indore shall provide details on scholarships to all candidates who are finally admitted in the batch of 2020-22

Bonus Tip: Surround yourself with positive people and consume nutritious food to ace the whole hustle of getting into your dream B-school.

Good Luck!