Admission Story: Sumit Kumar, MDI Gurgaon, 97.41, CAT

Sumit Kumar is a PGP-IB Student at MDI Gurgaon, he converted the college with a CAT score of 97.41 percentile. Sumit graduated from RUNGTA College of Engineering and Technology, Bhilai with 71.6% marks.

Sumit Kumar Profile

Current institute: MDI Gurgaon
Graduation College: RUNGTA College of Engineering and Technology, Bhilai
CAT score: 97.41
10th Percentage / GPA: 89
12th Percentage / GPA: 71.6
Graduation Percentage/GPA: 7.76
Work Experience: 32 months, 20 months - Accenture : Client service delivery, 12 months - Chanakya educational trust: Business development

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Admission Experience

Did you avail of the benefit of any reservation?

Sumit Kumar: “General (No reservation)”

Describe the general setting of WAT / GD (if any)?

Sumit Kumar: “I attended the WAT-GD and PI process of MDI on 8th March, 2019 in Kolkata in an offline mode. I was in the afternoon slot and when I reached the center, there were 50 candidates waiting with me. First step was document verification, after which the group was divided in 5 panels. I was put in the second panel. As I entered the room, there were two moderators. The format of process was simple. First, we were given a topic. we had to write an essay on it on a 2-sided blank sheet. Time limit was 15 minutes. It was followed by a GD on the same topic which was 30 minutes long. For WAT as well as GD I have a simple strategy of organizing my thoughts and writing a structured piece. WATs are not judged on the verbosity but on the quality and clarity of idea and that's what I tried to achieve. GD was not very aggressive as the panel had 10 members and we had 30 minutes, everyone got sufficient time to speak.”

What was the WAT / GD Topic?

Sumit Kumar: "

The topic for WAT and Group discussion was - ' Criticism and Dissent are vital for growth of a Democracy'”

What were your answer/points put forward for the WAT or GD respectively?

Sumit Kumar: “My Points for WAT and GD were same. I was in favor of the topic and I chose a similar stance in both the essay and while discussing. Some of the points I made were:

1.Democracy is a rule of people and not a rule of majority. Minority is equally important and if they dissent, there has to be some efforts made into finding out the root cause.

2.Heeding and answering to criticism requires transparency which is another extremely important thing for a democracy to thrive

3. The majority decide who would govern the country, and the status of minority after the tenure, who didn't vote to the winners, decide how well the government has fared.

4. In a multi-party system like in India, it is rare that a single party gets 51% of votes. So majority would be those who didn't vote to the winners. If the winners do not pay attention to their criticism, i.e, criticism of the majority, it would lead to government being run by a few people, for a few people. Country might experience instability and history is full of examples like that.

5. The ability to listen to criticism and act upon it shows strength in the character of an individual. Obviously, criticism should be constructive. Propagandist criticism never do any good, but at the same time labeling every dissent as propagandist is bad for a democracy as well.”

Describe the general setting of your personal Interview.

Sumit Kumar: “My interview panel had two members. It was an offline interview, in a hotel room in Kolkata. The interviewers were professors from MDI Gurgaon, whom I later met and had the opportunity to study in their classes well. One of the interviewees was an economics professor and other was a marketing professor. My interview went on for 25 minutes. It wasn't a stress interview but at the same time wasn't very friendly either. Interviewers were playing the good cop - bad cop roleplay with one of them being friendly while other one trying to stress me out.

Pro tips: Confidence is the key. Interviewers don't know our story; we know it better. As long as we are honest to ourselves it shouldn't be a problem. Additionally, one must be thorough with their work-ex industry, work profile, undergrad subjects (more important for freshers) and have a clear idea of why they want to do MBA and why they are going for a specific specialization (if already decided). Solving some situational questions, and guesstimates helps a lot. Lastly, a smile goes a long way. It confuses the interviewer regarding your mental state”

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Mention at least 5 interview questions that were asked to you and your responses to each of them.

Sumit Kumar: “Q1. Your Father's name has a different surname while yours is a different one. Can you explain that?

Ans: Surnames reveal caste and the part of India I come from, casteism is very dominant. Coming from a so called "High caste" Hindu family, I did not like being respected or treated differently because of my caste and hence decided to keep a caste neutral surname when I was in 9th class. My father supported my decision so I had no problems in this.

Q2. Your WAT and GD suggested you follow politics quite avidly. Can you make a prediction on who would win 2019 election and why?

Ans: BJP would win the 2019 elections without any doubt. There is no strong opposition, and whatever anti incumbency was being built up which seemingly would have benefitted INC has been done away because of recent attacks on the armed forces and government's response to that. Additionally, favorable media positioning has helped BJP too. Strength on social media cannot be negated either. And much more than that, BJP is organizationally very strong and has got its booth level management right in place. even the combined opposition doesn't have that kind of human as well as financial resources to mobilize that many people. So BJP would win easily.

Q3. Guesstimate the amount received by an MLA in MLA fund of your area in Bihar every year.

Ans: State has budget for every year where they declare their expenses. Some part of the expenses is done through DMs and other state machinery like police, healthcare etc while other is done through MLAs. Assuming that Bihar has a budget of 200000 crore and has 40 districts (it has 38 districts but assumed 40 for the ease of calculation) each state gets a fund of 5000 crores. MLA can expend the amount allocated to him on projects which can finish in one or two years like construction of school, toilet, link roads, parks etc. As majority of it are infrastructure projects, I would assume 80% of the fund goes in infrastructure projects. State government normally allocates 10% of budget to Infra projects so continuing with same assumption, a district would have a budget of 500 crore per year for infrastructure. I am not aware of exact spending division but I can go on to list numerous factors which will have to be divided between executives and legislators. Do you want me to go down to that depth?

Panelist: Give an estimated guess.

Answer: 5 crores

Q4. Assume that I sell toothpaste. You are hired as a consultant. We have our profits stagnated. There is no possibility of cutting cost or increasing sales. How would you increase profits?

Answer: In this question most of my answers were declined by saying that let's assume it is not possible. Finally I suggested that we can change packaging and give lesser quantity for same price, but I would still prefer to opt for investment in R&D to create a cheaper version or process which can help in cutting cost and can be patented. As the first option seems unethical to me.

Q5. Sell yourself!

Answer: I started with asking questions. Who are you? why are you here? why are you taking all these interviews? And based on his responses, I proposed a tailor made version of myself based on his demands and asked him if he is satisfied by this product? If yes you should give me admission offer. This was the last question”

Mention 3 reasons why you chose this college over other colleges which you converted .

Sumit Kumar: “1. Industry connect, Brand value, Placements and better peer than IIMs except (ABCL)

2. Alumni base, since the college is almost 40 years old

3. Opportunity to go and work in Europe and earning a European degree”

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What was the reason for you not converting to other colleges?

Sumit Kumar: “Of all the colleges I applied for, I couldn't convert XLRI Jamshedpur BM course where I was waitlisted, and IIFT Delhi. Main Reason behind not converting XLRI and IIFT can be my low 12th and undergrad scores. I guess my best GD and PI performances were in XLRI so I cannot think of any other reason. For IIFT, the GD turned into a fish market and I guess no one from the panel was selected.”