Madness followed by 'May'hem

24 hours to the judgment day. In an act of brilliant timing, the accuracy of which could even put the NIST-F1 Cesium Fountain Atomic Clock at Colorado to shame, The supreme court delivers a landmark judgment that basically called for all central government aided institutes to implement 27% OBC quota.

Almost the next instant, all IIMs put a note on their webpages delaying the release of results indefinitely. The results of IIMs hold so much importance that the second tier colleges usually put the last date of payment of fees after the results are announced so that people can make decisions. The third tier B-schools are dependent on the deadlines of the 2 tier ones. Continue the previous statement in a for-loop for as long as you like with values for 'n' and 'n-1'. So it was like toppling the top card of a tower of cards and watch the rest collapse.

SP Jain announced its results and i had made it to the finance stream.3 on 3

There was a general feeling that the results would get announced the coming week. What we came to know the coming week was that all the directors of IIMs had decided to meet the next week and then decide over the course of action. I am pretty sure a 1000 keyboards were shattered that day in frustration.

MDI announces its results that week and i had made it. 4 on 4. 300 confirmed calls and 1100 waitlist for 240 seats!.Barring 50 odd people anyone who attended MDI interview had atleast a waitlist.

The next few days threw a lot of questions. First being the creamy layer rider that the SC had put. Barring A and C, nobody had information on parents's income.Even A and C could not take that information as basis for awarding a seat.

So many theories were being thrown around. People could not fathom the fact that IIMs did not even make any protest against the dilution of entry standards into these elite institutes. Rumors of they having exchanged a deal for buying government's silence over fee hikes at these institutes also came. The government's desperation at implementing this year was to get mileage in the elections to which i somehow have a feeling SC succumbed to.You cant explain such brilliant timings in a country where the backlog of court cases goes back to decades.

I finally decided to secure the backup options. So mailed Cornell about my affirmation to their admit. It was MDI vs SPJain over here. Decided to go with SPJain after consultations with people in the field.

The situation over the next few days was a 'cricket world cup final - champions league final F1 race roger vs rafa tennis match ' nervousness all packed in one. Almost every student waiting for the results became a investigative journalist himself. The aajtak 'Breaking-news" types. Even if somebody sneezed at the IIMs it was being reported. More than a 1000 fone calls a day to each of the IIMs

Finally the news sites flashed quotations from central government officials that they have sent the directives to the institutes. But the same was not acknowledged by IIMs. In this day of electronic-speeds our government used the postal service to convey their directive. The 5 rupee stamp one.

Finally phone calls to IIMs started giving some positive hopes. There was a change in the tone. They didn't bang the phone down after the call finished.Even they were as frustrated as us over this issue.

The madness finally ended. May 1. 'May'hem.

The order in which the institutes released their results was exactly reverse of the order i had my interviews.

At sharp 12 o clock in the night B put up a pdf on its website of the people who had made it to the hallowed institute. Unfortunately i was waitlisted. The number of people who had multiple converts also was given and there was high probability of me converting it, but still i was distraught. I didn't sleep the whole night.

At around 8 in the morning C released its list

"Your name does not appear in the selected and waitlisted lists" was all it had to say when i typed in the registration number and date of birth.

At around 10, K put a link on their webpage. It asked for your registration number, date of birth and asked to type the sequence of characters that appeared in a box below [usually done to prevent spam attacks]

"Sorry, You have been rejected"

I could not believe my eyes!. I came and lay down on my bed. I was just dumbfounded at what was happening. Slowly , the uselessness of it all started dawning on me. I recalled the TIME director's words

"I have seen cases where people with six calls could not convert one"

A friend of mine called. I didn't want to take the call but i still took. He had encouraging words to say.

Another friend who had made it to B called. I apprised him of the situation. He was just not ready to accept that i got rejected by K. He told me to wait and that he would call me back.

It so happened that the K guys had still not uploaded their results and it was showing a reject for everyone. Our own over-enthusiasm gave us the medicine.

A little while , around 12 pm, i checked again and i had made it. Ufffff!. what a relief. Finally i will be studying in an IIM.

I had not eaten anything since morning. I changed and went to have my lunch with my roomie.

Came back and logged again. 'A' had announced their list.

I just entered by registration number, date of birth in the boxes and waited. So many things crossed my mind. Will it be the closest ever i will come to the most revered institute of India or will it be further. My roomie was watching TV.

I decided to go for it and pressed enter. A white screen and then

"Congratulations!!.You have been selected for admission into XXXXXXX"

I could not believe my eyes!.I rechecked it 20 times [i am not exaggerating] and in different browsers[sometimes even they fool around.Well most of the times actually].I closed the door. It was a very emotional moment and i was in tears. I just stood and kept looking at the ceiling and crying.

At around 4 pm L released their list and i had made it. No nasty surprises.

The fun part was that of I. From 4 to 6 pm. I saw their web page change everytime i refreshed their page. Some part of the page would disappear and then reappear and then change their places. Sometimes the 'result' link would be visible but you cant click it. If clickable it gave some error. PHP errors. Connection timeouts. MySql maximum connections done. I learnt of more Database errors in those 2 hours then i had learnt in my entire engineering.

Finally it was up and i had made it!. surprise surprise!.


Days later the B waitlist also got converted.9 on 10.University of Minnesotta, Twin city also felt i deserved to study there.