-- Quoting myself from a post on a forum
elsewhere --
I had my ISB interview in Bangalore on 6th Jan at 12 noon. Arrived a few hours early (!) and was asked to write 50 words on "Forests". Did that in about 3 minutes and spent the rest of the time chatting with other applicants / ad comm members, all were extremely friendly so it helped calm my nerves down a bit. There was a computer with net connection in the waiting area so even checked my mail :) Finally was called in at 12:05.
The panel consisted of three people, Mr Ranga Rao and two other guys and the interview was totally professional. Nothing stressful or uncomfortable. I entered, shook hands all around and took my seat.
The guy on my left started with "So you read philosophy books (I had written that in my essays), not many young people like to do that! What books have you read?" I mentioned the interpretation of Bhagwad Gita by Mahatma Gandhi and the conversation pleasantly revolved around that subject for 5-10 minutes.
Next question was on my programming skills. I had mentioned I know around 20+ programming languages in my essays and they asked me to name all of them which I more than gladly did, along with a short description of the major programming language groups and how each different programming paradigm has taught me something new. Told them about my open source involvement and my various projects some of which are online. They seemed pretty satisfied with it.
Then they asked me to estimate the number of Ganesha statues that will be sold this year around the festival time. I was very unsure of how the festival is celebrated and stumbled my way through some rough calculations to arrive at a final figure of 2 million. Here is my logic for the curious -
1 billion population of India,
70% hindus = 700 million,
taking a statue per household of 4 people on an average = 700/4 = 175 million,
half of these actually celebrate the festival (I told them that the festival is not much celebrated in the North) ~ 90 million
A third of these would actually be in a position to buy statues during
festivals every year = 30 million
Then told them that the figure seemed too high and probably I should have taken "localities" instead of "households" as people from a locality go en masse for statue immersion (again reiterating that I have only a vague idea how the festival is actually celebrated).
Taking 15 households per locality on an average we get 30/15 = 2 million statues.
No questions. Whew!
Then the conversation (that's what it really felt like!) veered towards my Social Entrepreneurship plans (I already have a ready made idea for the same which I concentrated heavily on in my essays) and I handed them a 3 page printout (a portion of a ppt I had made some time back). They seemed concerned on how I was going to fund my MBA education ("You will have EMI's to pay after you graduate but no steady stream of income") and I tried my best to assure them that I will be able to but I'm not sure if they were convinced. Then the guy on my left asks me that if they offer me an admit on the condition that I will not sit for the placement process, will I take it? I told them quite confidently that I will and that that's my plan anyways. I explained a bit on how I am an entrepreneur at heart and have many plans and ideas in place which I plan to go through and make lots of money too. Don't know how convincing I was but I had no more questions.
I was asked if I had any questions for them and I asked them two -
one on social entrepreneurship and other on free software.
Handed over my essay to them, shook hands once more and the interview was over!
There weren't any of the usual questions like "Why MBA" etc. and I am glad! I had not prepared any canned answers before the interview at all (I am buried upto my neck in work already!) and it worked out A.O.K. in the end :) The interview lasted around 35 minutes overall.
So basically I can't say what'll happen from the interview alone.. I'm keeping my fingers firmly crossed! My advice to fellow candidates - Read your essays well before you go!
-- End quote --
Now Que Sera Sera!
