MIND SPOTS SUNSHINE

Prologue:

Normally I finish the article first and then think of giving it a title…no guesses that this is the most logical way to do it but today somehow I liked these set of words mentioned as the title above, which I accidentally came up with and, conversely, I wanted to create an article in order to justify my title. May sound strange, but wish me best luck.

February 17th 2008 Hyderabad
Conference Room
Hotel Ohris (Basheerbagh)

I was speechless at that point and felt like a dead duck with no answer at all to the bunch of questions they posed, all of them (questions) testing my very purpose of why I need an MBA?
I took a 10 second pause and we all know what a 10 second pause literally means in a B-school interview. But the 10 second break worked. Just before the interviewers thought I had no answer at all and were proceeding to the next one I uttered the following words
“When I come to the Great lakes, a place where each student comes from a diverse background and has a lot of work experience to share with, which forms the very crux of your learning curriculum and to add to it the thoroughly designed PGPM which gives me an understanding of various business aspects like Finance, Marketing, HR & Operations which are like pillars of a business and give me a thorough understanding of how a business works from end to end. After undergoing this kind of learning, tomorrow, I have a complete understanding of what is happening around me in an organization and when I have such understanding it gives me confidence. And it is this confidence which finally powers me towards putting in those extra efforts and achieving sizeable successes.”

I couldn’t believe I said all this. It was an answer which I did not completely prepare for. To add to it was my tone which was simply perfect. And the interviewers too were all smiles and they stopped asking me Why MBA after this reply. After that what followed was a confident interview for another 10 minutes with firm handshakes in the end.

I climbed down the steps and started walking towards the parking lot with extreme confidence. With 30 months of work ex across the business development departments of an Automobile Giant and a minnow IT startup, I felt like it was my day and I have made it. Though I had given the GD-PI for IMT Ghaziabad I was pretty sure of being rejected owing to tougher competition, so GreatLakes was my best chance and something today just kept telling me that I was in and I have crossed the final frontier. With one deep breath I gained control over my overjoyed emotions and started driving to proceed for lunch.

March 5th 2008

As time passes you slowly start losing the confidence on great efforts too. On February 17th I was beaming with confidence as soon as I came out of the Interview Hall but today I am as scared as the worst performer would have been. The admissions department of Great Lakes told that the results were due yesterday viz on March 4th but somehow they did not appear. I checked the site repeatedly in the night till 2 and participated in those ever active cribbing Pagalguy.com before I fell asleep.

Last year I scored 98 percentile and felt equally confident about my NITIE interview but I had only disappointment to face. And the delay in announcing the results is making it scarier for me. Its already 1 in the noon and there is no response on the phone from the admissions department. I proceeded to lunch as I could not afford more delay.

Already I have been left behind in the race to B-schools amongst my Engineering classmates. The guys with whom I used to benchmark have made it to FMS, IIM, MDI, NITIE etc and here I am praying to get into GreatLakes, I thought while standing in the queue for the lunch buffet.
I can’t imagine the disappointment of my parents, who got involved too in my quest for MBA degree, if I don’t make it. I was filled with anxiety and nervousness that I was hardly able to eat my lunch when my phone buzzed and it was a call from a companion who too attended GreatLakes GD-PI. I knew that it was coming and with no further delay I answered it.

“Did you see the list?” he asked...
“No..are the results out” I asked
“Yeah I got waitlisted” he said
“Ohh…is my name there “ I continued “Hall ticket no. XXXXXXXXXX” I asked
30 seconds later
“Sorry dude I cannot find your name” he said.
My heart sank…I could no more eat my lunch...I went to the computer and checked the waiting bad news…I also checked the Pagalguy forums where hopeful & disappointed candidates like me were posting funny messages but I smiled with pain. Just then my boss called me for a meeting and trust me I could barely move my feet or lips in the meeting.

March 12th, 2008

Morning

Today the waitlist of Great lakes came up and to my dismay I don’t find my name yet again. The pain continues to haunt me. Six days ago the results were announced in which I could not find my name. This takes me back to the scenario I was facing last year where I had calls but ended up with no conversions. It looks as if last year’s pain had taken a temporary break and is back haunting me.

Evening

I check up with Great Lakes Admissions office and the news is that there will be no more wait lists as most of the candidates in the first list have taken up candidature. By now I was actually expecting it and I began thinking of the worst situation. Either I should enter KJ Somaiya or I should take up a job with Infosys that was offering me around 7 lacs.
I spoke to my closest pals phani and pavan, both empathized with me while trying their best to instill strength in me. When I spoke about KJ Somaiya they probably hid their disagreement because they didn’t want to suggest me another crack at CAT. Phani went a step ahead and told me that if I am good I will sell from anywhere and I better not drop my MBA plans if I make it to KJ Somaiya. I spoke to many people around me who didn’t find the same impressive enough. But I just didn’t want to end my MBA dreams this way and in order to stay positive I visited the website of KJ Somaiya and clicked their placements link.

March 20th,2008 Bangalore

I have just finished my GD-PI of KJ Somaiya and have felt very good about it. One reason possibly is because of the low percentiles of the candidates around me and secondly because I was very confident and sensible through out the process. I was really feeling confident that I will be at least in the first two waitlists and since KJ Som would be rejected by many candidates I could stand a better chance.
It was during lunch when I felt bad for myself…after 4 years of dedication to CAT here I am consoling myself to be in the waitlist of a college that I earlier didn’t plan for. But destiny decides right, if my efforts were lacking then I deserve this!

March 29th, 2008 Hyderabad
11:00 PM

After long while I had some good time with Shashank and Gowtham. I am done with my MBA campaign for the year 2008, whether I make it or not or if I need to take another crack at it doesn’t matter as of now as it’s too early to decide on anything. Thus, we had a nice get together and for some time I forgot all the pain. I enjoyed the dinner and had a quick ride home.
Once home I sat on my computer to check mails and as a usual practice I opened pagalguy.com. Something caught my attention then…there were too many IMT’s in the left panel clearly reflecting that for some reason IMT is all across the news today…and its very obvious for what reason it was. There was no need to guess as I typed

www.imt.edu and clicked on the admissions

It asked me to enter my CAT TR No and date of birth. I prayed god and with a deep breath I clicked submit and it returned

“Congratulations! You have been selected for PGDM-FT program. Fee details will follow”

April 15th, 2010 Hyderabad

I had been selected to KJ Somaiya’s flagship program too.


Epilogue: It’s been around 6 months since I passed out from that great institute. I had a great time during my MBA and it was the place where I met many firsts in my life.

IMT was sunshine for me.

JPRS