Recapitulation of my IIMA Interview

This weekend, I travelled to New Jersey to appear for an interview with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). The institution, which is a pillar of management education in India, has an exemplary reputation as one of the best management institutions in the world, and for sure THE MOST difficult in the world to get admission to. The acceptance ratio numbers are mind boggling with the best of the best vouching for one of the coveted seats, however, only a handful of selected few landing those seats.

The acceptance rate for their two year flagship PGP (Post Graduate Program) is about 0.16% (yes that's correct), with 150,000 applicants for only 250 seats. The acceptance rate for their newborn one year PGPX (Post Graduate Program for Executives) is a little more comprehendable standing at 7% (1350 applications for 85 seats).

As I checked into the hotel in NJ, I could see that the lobby was filled with PGPX aspirants. Some of them relieved that their interviews were done with, while some of them still biting their nails, awaiting to be dissected by the ever so intellectual interview panel. After all, the panel was composed of the faculty itself, the brain powers of the IIMA. After a cursory chat with a few of the fellow interviewees, It became apparent that the interview had no set pattern, with questions ranging from wide varities of topics such as current affairs, business affairs, why IIMA/PGPX, background and general knowledge, etc. The question I asked myself was, how is one to prepare for an interview with such a broad scope? I had planned to do some light interview preparations the night before. However, this plan was quickly put to rest once I realized that no preparation would be enough with questions coming at you from various different angles.

My interview started the next morning at approximately 9am. I walked in, greeted the panel, and started with my power point presentation. In the center of the panel, seated was the man himself. The man, the standing soul, of the PGPX program, Dr. Arvind Sahay, the chairperson of IIMA PGPX. Every word that comes out of this guy's mouth leaves you in an awe. The eloquency with which he speaks, the brilliance of his chosen words, are just too good to blurt out without a script in front. The flawlessness that he demonstrates in his communication ability is equally matched with his profile. A graduate of IIT Kanpur, he went on to get his Phd from University of Texas, Austin. He then taught at the London Business School for 8 years. After his stint at LBS, he came to IIMA as a faculty. It is often said that getting into IIMA as a faculty is ten times more difficult than getting in as a student. So, you do the math. The other two professors Dr. Manikutty and Dr. Shailesh Gandhi possesed equally impressive profiles with both of them Phd graduates from IIMA itself. The luminaries, the shining lights, without whom, the program would not be where it is today. Before I started my presentation, Dr. Sahay eased me in by verifying that I was born and raised in Nepal. "Very beautiful country, I was there for my honeymoon. We went to Pokhara, a lovely place", he said. What an ice breaker I thought. I couldn't have asked for anything better to ease into the moment.

As I finished my five minute presentation, the topic of which was managing the compliance of a European Union Environmental Regulation, Dr. Sahay threw a wrench at me, "Do you think it was ethical to solve the problem as you did?" to which I responded, "well most of the business laws are crafted with ethics in consideration." I further added, "The complaince to the EU regulation was an industry wide problem, and didn't affect just IBM. In addition, no other countries besides the EU members had such restrictions, so shipping to these countries those inventory that contained elements restricted by EU cannot be considered a violation of ethics. Dr. Sahay: "So you think the solution you found was just an abberation to the problem?" To which I answered, "Perhaps, if you would like to think so."

Dr. Sahay again, "So how would you define business ethics?" The room was getting warmer by the minute as we spoke. "Ethics is making a conscious effort to be inclusive of all factors in society while making a decision that impacts those factors", I responded. It appeared momentarily that he liked my response. "What about corruption, how would you define it?" he asked. "Corruption can be looked at as a person not finishing a job in the manner he is supposed to (aka without asking for illegal and unethical monetary compensation)" was my response.

"So why do you want to come to India? After all, India is a very corrupt country with dirty politicians leading the way. It appears you've done quite well in life. Your undegraduate GPA is quite high, you have a good career with IBM. Why not apply to Harvard or Stanford?", was Dr. Sahay's next bullet to be dodged. "First of all, I am not looking to limit myself to careers only in the US, and therefore, I am looking at schools outside of the US. Secondly, there are lots of other countries in the world that are corrupt besides India. Some disguise the corruptness well, while others don't. In fact, I remember looking at a corruption ranking index in which India was not one of the bottom countries. Thirdly, the full time nature of these programs will take away too much of the opportunity cost for me, and financially makes the decision unattractive.", I said. Dr. Sahay seemed to have liked my response. However, Dr. Manikutty chimes in by saying, "This is also a full time program, so what do you mean you cannot afford to go to a full time program?". "This is only a one year full-time program contrary to the two year programs in US", I mentioned. I noticed that Dr. Sahay was also trying to make this point to Dr. Manikutty while I defended my stance.

Then, Dr. Gandhi, "How do you think India's economy has progressed?" In any major economic literature circulations, the state of the Indian economy is bound to be discussed as part of the global economic reforms. As such, I've had a heavy dose of reading on the state of the Indian economy. Therefore, this question I would say really played to my strengths. "How would you compare India's economic rise vs. China's?", Dr. Gandhi again. This topic has been a subject of a frequent debate on Mckinsey Quarterly, a circulation which I have followed to a detailed degree. So this question again was aligned to my preconceived knowledge. Then came a dagger from Dr. Manikutty, "So you think dictatorial government does a better job in expanding a country's economy?" He countered my response that eluded to the fact that China's economic reform has had a heavy input from the government whereas India's reform on the contrary has had no government role to speak of. My response to Dr. Manikutty was that the reason Chinese government played a major role primarily was because there were no industry leaders in China available to take the lead in reforms. The Chinese gov't did not choose to be active because it thought it could do a better job than anyone else. "So what if you don't get into PGPX, what next, will you reapply next year?". "No I won't. This is THE year for me.", I responded.

The discussion ended with me asking a couple of questions about the program.

The school appears to be completely non-flashy as top b-schools often are. I found the faculty to be down to earth for the most part, however, arrogant occasionally. The arrogance comes from having repeatedly been the best in the business. Their is no other school of the IIMA caliber in India, and in most of Asia. IIMA grads are treated almost like god in India, and IIMA profs, well, the point should be understood. They are not hung up on advertising their program very extensively. The IIMA brand equity alone will demand high volume of applicants in their opinion, which is really true as have been indicated by the applications received in the last three years.