Deciding whether or not to pursue an MBA should involve conscious self-evaluation

A first year student from IIM-I, Rajesh Kumar Acha has worked as a CAT faculty at Career Forum and as a programme analyst at Cognizant. He has also worked part-time as quant/DI faculty at IMS Hyderabad. His hobbies include listening to Indian music, watching entertainment and news channels and social networking. Besides, he invests in stock market and likes playing simulation stock market games.

Can you tell us something about your educational background?
I am a B.E in Electrical Engineering (EEE) from Vasavi College of Engineering Hyderabad. I was a regular student who was good in math.

Why did you choose to do an MBA?
Being from a family dealing in financial services and hotels/bakeries business, I was inclined towards business management from quite an early age. Successful leadership roles in school and college also helped me in making the choice.

What were your weakest areas when you first started preparing for the CAT and how did you work on those?
Verbal was my weak area; in CAT 2009 my overall score was low because of verbal (OA 98.5, VA 83.3, QA 99.6, DI 96). However, I worked on it a lot when I started my CAT preparation. I referred to GMAT and LSAT materials for Critical Reasoning and Sentence Correction, which greatly improved my verbal ability skills within 3 months.

Tell us about your experience with the selection process at IIM-I? Tell us about the GD/PI process at IIM-I?
There is no GD. There was an essay-writing task, which had to be completed in 15 or 20 minutes. The topic given to us was “Should taxpayers money be used to alleviate poverty"
The interview topics included International Economics, Finance, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Current Affairs. At the end of every interview the panelist asked names about current central cabinet ministers or state/country capitals. The interview was very much under my control. I answered well in all topics (I had some finance certifications). Interview at IIM-C also went in a similar way, but I could not convert the call. I would like to say here that ‘it is not the number of rights or wrongs in an interview that matter, it is all about making the right impression while answering that matters.’
They also asked me if I came for the Indore interview only because I was rejected at IIM-C. I answered truthfully that I would have attended the Indore interview for sure but was not certain if I would eventually join Indore over Calcutta. It is best to be sincere, as they know that people will prefer Calcutta to Indore. (They probably knew I had the Calcutta call. And Calcutta results came before the Indore interview and they generally pose this question to test your honesty).

Do you believe that there is any one strategy that is bound to work for all aspirants?
Strategies depend on individual’s strengths and weaknesses. However, being resistant to peer pressure and fear of failure during preparation and being confident on the exam day helps everyone.

What would be your advice to students who plan to get into the IIMs?