IIM Kozhikode

After having attended the 4 must-attend weddings and a must-attend house-warming ceremony [That was the reason i had given my manager to take PTOs for IIFT, SPJIMR nd the 3 IIMs] in a span of 3 weeks, I relaxed a long break between the A and K interviews.

The interview forms of all the IIMs more or less have the same questions. The only quirk about K being they wanted all their answers in bullet-points. An extreme case of 'dare-to-be-different' or 'move-away-from-the-herd' attitude. Did not change the answers much though. 4 sentences of a paragraph became 4 paragraphs or rather bullet-points.

One more in the afternoon, the sleepiest part of my day. I usually used to carry my tie to the venue and put it on there. So i went inside the Men's rest room and found another guy adjusting his tie. I tried my best but could not put the button. I asked him to help and he started. He looked a little mid aged and i got scared if this guy was one of the faculty. I and K have very young faculty. Shit!. But he turned out to be another guy for the interview. Phew!.

We were led into a room with a huge( it was very very huge ) oval table. 10 of the 12 people had turned out and there was 1 girl amongst the 10. The table was so big that it was really impossible to listen for one guy on one end to the person at the other end.


There was a very old professor(OP), the head of admissions at IIMK and another very young professor(YP) who we heard was tormenting the previous batches with his quant arrows.

OP:"We will first have a group discussion on a case for 15 minutes. When i say stop at the end of 15 minutes, please stop immediately. Then we will have interviews in the same order."

He then handed us a copy of the case each .

It was about the literacy problems in India. Lack of resources, teaching personnel etc.

After we were told to start, there was a surprise lull for sometime. I finally jumped in and started the discussion. It was an interesting and peaceful discussion. Use of IT infrastructure to give distance learning avoiding the faculty to go there. Making a 3 month teaching program compulsory for all people before graduating. Mid-day meals schemes. And a lot of other interesting solutions were discussed.

I was 6th in the order and so it was going to be a long wait. The first girl's interview went for almost 40 minutes. The rest four had not less than 30 minutes of interviews. Everybody had the same sullen face when they returned.

"Too many quant questions..."

After the third guy had returned we figured that a certain question was asked to all of them . The rest of the people tried solving it outside and we gave up. The guys who were waiting were all chatting very freely. I was sitting on a chair and the rest were huddled around me. OP had noticed it everytime he had come out to call out someone to come over for interview.

I finally went in. OP was going through my interview form and YP my file. There was deafening silence for the first minutes with both of them going through. It had never been this way before.

Actually after the 5th guy had done his interview, a peon had sneaked in and kept refreshments for the professors.

I was looking this side and that side while the professors were reading the respective things. YP looked at me thorugh this thick-framed glasses and slid the plate of refreshments towards me

"Go ahead.. have it!"

VC:"No sir!.. Thats fine!"

YP:"No no!.. its vegetarian.. please eat!"

I was very surprised at the vegetarian comment. I went ahead and took one. It looked very yummy and how many get to eat in an IIM interview anyways!?.

I bit half of it and the bliss was interrupted by thoughts that took me back some days to the 2 day GD/PI workshop conducted by TIME. The director of TIME Mumbai franchise was addressing us about potential traps in interviews.

"They offer you something to eat and then while you are eating they ask you a question. You will not be able to answer while you are chewing the food and you get stressed"

Shit!. Why why why. why did i have to take it?.I just gobbled the rest of it and downed it through my throat without chewing.

YP kept the file on the table and

"So what does it mean when they say you have 99 percentile?"

VC:"Sir , it means 1% of the students who took the exam are ahead of me"

YP:"Not really, it means 99% of student who took the exam are behind you"

VC:"[pause].. ok sir!"

YP:"F(X) = |X+5| + |X+8| + |X+11| X varies from minus-infinity to infinity.. tell me the maximum and minimum values of the function"

VC(instantly):"Maximum value is infinity!"

YP:"Ok... and minimum?"

VC:"sir, can i use this paper[in front of him] and my pen?"

YP:"Sure"

I drew a graph and found out the value.

VC:"Sir, minimum value is 6"

YP:"Ok one last question... you have a 3 by 3 grid and numbers 1,2,3. All 3 numbers have to be there once in every row and column. How many ways there are to fill the grid?"

I used the same paper to draw the grid and..

VC:"Sir, its 12"

YP:"12 is right. Now explain to me how did you arrive at it."

I explained to him and then he gave a nod of approval to OP.

OP:"So why MBA?"

VC:Tape recorder on.

OP:"Those guys outside you were chatting with.. are they from your college?" [with a very serious look]

VC:"No sir!.. I have not even met them before and i don't know them also"

OP:"Ok... tell me about inflation"

I explained to him about it connecting one thing to another logically.

He used the same variables and proved the exact opposite logically. That was simply brilliant. I just stared at the paper dumbfounded.

Both the professors laughed and then..

OP:No No!.. you are right. There are some more variables that we both ignored. Its ok!"

OP:"So you are a University ranker.."

VC:"Yes sir!"

OP:"Why didn't you play basketball professionally?.Why did not you pursue it?"

VC:"Sir balancing both academics and basketball became quite strenuous. Eventually one had to be sidelined and basketball it was."

They had some kind of sheet which had all the interviewee details.He looks at it.

OP:"Oh!.. you have all calls!!??"

VC:"Yes sir!"

OP:"Ok.. " and nods the head which signals the end of the interview.

I come out. 10 minutes it had been since i had gone in and the 4 guys are in a state of shock to see me out so early.


Back in house, i opened my mail to find an admit from State University of New York, Stony Brook.