Snapshots

Name: Viral Shah
Graduation College: Dwarkadas J Sanghvi College of Engineering (DJSCoE), Mumbai University
Course: BE in Electronics and Telecom (EXTC)
Graduation Aggregate: 76%
Pursuing/Pursued MBA from: Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS)
Corresponding entrance test & score:
Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (CET) - 99.96 percentile

GD/PI calls from: XLRI, SP JAIN, JBIMS, IIM-K, NMIMS

GD/PI calls converted:

• Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS)
• Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS)

Entrance Exams appeared: CAT, XAT, NMAT, CET

Preparation:

Before you start preparing for either MBA/MS, you got to be sure of what you want to do. There's no point in trying multiple things and not succeeding in anything. I had joined a coaching institute for MBA almost 15 months prior to CAT. I have extensively used all their material to excel. Regular chapter notes and chapter tests are very effective in building concepts in the initial days. For verbal, reading of newspapers everyday and at least 1 good book every fortnight/month should be done. Verbal was a bit gray area for me, so had to work really hard there.

Regular studies and assignments helped me keep pace with the portions taught in the lectures and that built my concepts excellently. A series of Mocks taken seriously helped me build speed and strategy for the Big days of CAT & XAT. I did well in both of them. Maharashtra CET was a natural extension to my preparation.

It does not matter if you study 1 hour every day or 10, what matters is how well do you study in them. You should be happy with your efforts and benchmark your results with the others around you. When you find both the things falling in place simultaneously, that would be the number of hours you need to study. And about managing different activities, I feel everyone has the same 24 hours. Its all about our priorities at the moment. Get the priorities right and you will find time for all your activities.

Finally I converted JBIMS and NMIMS. I chose JBIMS over NMIMS as it was an obvious choice between the two.

Advice to juniors:

Many people get through without coaching but it was helpful for me. About study methodology, I would say there is nothing fixed. You know best what way you can learn the best, so follow it. Do things in a way that you would enjoy.

When you give your mock and section tests, you will realize what type of questions you are not comfortable with. Practice more small tests for those type of questions. Off the record, analysis of your solved tests is very important and I consider my strong tests' analysis as my very critical strength. It really helped me identify my white and gray areas and helped me consolidate my strengths and slowly improve the weaknesses.

Experience in MBA Institute:

JBIMS is one of the best experiences of my life till date. A very strong alumni base and an excellent industry interface really influence the functioning of JBIMS! Except for 4 professors, all the remaining are visiting faculties- who are industry professionals themselves. So getting to learn almost everything from the industry directly- nothing can be better than this.

JBIMS is a 1-building campus, so nothing much to boast of here. You cannot boast about the infrastructure but you would be proud of the intellectual infrastructure all around you. You have to be there to believe it. And you can easily mix with the crowd along with identifying your uniqueness.