IIMB transparent on admission criteria

IIMB has decided to make the criteria for admissions to Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) transparent to everyone. The details can be found on the website (pdf). The following structure was for admissions to PGP 2007-09, but it is expected that similar framework was in place before, and it will probably continue to be with some tweaks in the following years.

Some surprises (or spoilers you may say) -

• CAT score carried only 20% weight, the cutoffs are much lower than those thought of (85% sectional, 90% aggregate for general category)
• Previous academic record carried 40% weight.
• GD summary carried as much weight as the GD itself (7.5% each).
• Work-ex had an optimum value of 36 months (contrary to the more the better)

Now it will not be a surprise that IIMB gives single calls, or may not give calls to people who get most others. It may also explain why an IIMB-batch is perceived as diverse. It is also heartening to know that one of the most complex and subjective procedures is objectivized in a way similar to what I used once.

While others have blogged about this already (1,2), for me the conclusion is - my being in IIMB was not dependent only on 19th Nov 2006. There was a lot of 'karma' associated.

(More on experiences in IIMB some other day, have to study for a test with 10% overall weight, happening in about 5 hours.)

new keyboard layout

While reading an article on slashdot, this idea struck me. Now I have a business plan, surely this product is going to be a huge success among the users who will be watching movies on windows :D

A good option to have

Everytime some good news comes, there is one bad. Last year, some of my friends could make their way to IIMs, but i could not, this time it was the other way round.

With smaller system boundaries, the good news is that I got admits from IIMB and IIMC, and bad news is that I am unable to decide between the two. All the advice I have sought from friends in this regard has just added to my confusion.

Here is an exercise to put an end to it. The relative weights given are subject to my perception (and all you friends because you are the cause of bias), and may not represent the reality. The favourabilities are approximated on a scale of 100, 100 being the most favourable case. For example, I am expecting some rigour in both IIMB and IIMC, so peace factor has a less favourability value in both (yeah, blame relative grading!!).

Factor	Weight	IIMB	IIMC	B score	C score
reputation	6	99	95	594	570
maths	2	70	80	140	160
peace	4	15	25	60	100
climate	1	85	40	85	40
campus, mess	1	80	65	80	65
distance from pune	1.5	70	40	105	60
ease in moving	0.75	90	40	67.5	30
friends in/near city	0.5	80	50	40	25
proximity to city	0.5	65	45	32.5	22.5
traffic in city	0.5	0	0	0	0
diversity of students *	0.5	86	83	43	41.5
rock culture in pubs	0.5	50	85	25	42.5
rock shows	0.1	95	60	9.5	6
interview **	0.25	90	50	22.5	12.5
TOTAL				1304	1175

*Based upon statistics quoted by one of friends
** Based upon my own view that my PI was interesting

For one of my senior's advice ("You will like it here in C") I would add bonus 100 to IIMC's score.

We still have the winner - B by quite a small margin ~2.5% (and what else would one expect!).

Disclaimer: The outcome of this exercise does not assure that it will be same as the actual choice. I reserve all rights to discard this outcome and flip a coin instead.

(Congrats to all who made it - Sahan, Aravind, Lather, Churu, Majhi, Nishant, KC and others. Hard luck for who could not convert the calls they wanted, there is something else waiting for you this time.)

ततः किम्

Here is post on this blog after a long time, since most of my time is being spent in my job, music-practices and (maybe wasted in) preparing for IIM interviews. So the habit of blogging on every weekend has now taken a backseat, and doesn't seem like driving for some time to come.

Here are the reasons one should appear for IIM interviews -

1. Irreproducible percentile
2. IIMs calling (and a promise of bright future therefore made)
   

Reasons it might not make any difference

1. Same old story of "घर से ऑफ़िस, ऑफ़िस से घर, बॉस का डर, बीवी का डर"
2. It does not answer the question "ततः किम्"*
3. The world might not exist in a livable form after only a few years due to either/combination of

• US foreign policy and a feared chain reaction
  
• Chinese space policy and another chain reaction
• Standstills on Hosur Road in Bangalore and continuous addition of running vehicles
  
• Increasing global warming and increase in natural violent activities thereof
• Decreasing biodiversity - on land, in air and in water
  
• Aliens getting frustrated of increasing stupidity on earth

And here are the reasons I would think twice before going to an IIM

1. Need to get a haircut. And keep doing that till hair stops growing.
2. Need to revise dept fundae, HR questions, general awareness and what not
3. Need to learn to be a hypocrite, especially in the interviews
4. Need to move on - Hate trying to find amicable people every now and then, especially regarding one's musical activities.
5. Not earn financially for following two years and still face hardships.
6. Face a stiffer and faster job-life after that.
7. Foresee an early retirement out of exhaution, frustration and long suppression of one's non-professional penchants.
8. If you win a rat-race, you win, but you are still a rat.

Given a choice, I would go to IIMs if haircut was not a concern, but now I am confused.
So right now I am in a moral dilemma, similar to the person around whom a typical GD revolves - "What should s/he do now?"

* "ततः किम्" means "what after that?"

p.s. there has been an update on this post to add reasons for indifference, so don't get confused if you read the post differently now.

Why I stopped watching TV

Some reality-shows are so real and some are not. I used to like "The Apprentice" until it all became clear that Mr Trump was actually after hiring a really well-educated scholar rather than smart and good looking executives with experience. It was just a conspiracy to make me watch the season right till the end. All was becoming apparent, if not blatant, that the show was all predecided ('fixed' - if you like cricket too much).

Then I started watching MTV Roadies. They say a gem will shine eventually. So true about this show. If something is a gem of stupidity and gullibility, it has to have high TRP ratings. Gone are the days when all the saans-bahu serials on k-channels used to rule, welcome to the new age of soap operas. (You might ask why i didn't switch channel - simply because there was nothing saner and more elegant than this.)

So here goes today's episode: some excerpts -

The bad man took audience by surprise in the previous episode - but you've got to agree, the one whom the worst person opts to vote out, must really be worse and should be thrown out instead. (This is so nonsensical, they could have gone one step further also - choice of that person could have been thrown out of the show and so on until it loops forever)

I observed something funny though, the screen behind the bad man is very different than the scene behind the participants - of course, that is because they are facing each other. Also, all the participants are looking at different places when the he speaks. My guess is that they are all bewildered by the facts just been told by him. [I-blink-innocently]

Some task is given to these participants throughout which, they keep making fools out of themselves, keep thinking how 'cool' they are, keep voicing why they would be a better roadie than others and keep changing their plans to vote someone out. It's amusing when a person assumes s/he can be cool, if s/he can throw some english words which have to blanked out ("dont *beep* *beep* talk like that....")

Then I come to know that two persons will be voted out in this episode.
A quick look on bad man - he chuckles.
A quick look on the participants - lightening has struck them.
A quick look on myself - I'm so thrilled !

Now there is a dramatic 3-way tie between three participants A, B and C, after (anti-)voting.
The anchor pops out a stunner - "What's in your minds right now?" (Like they want to go off-screen, and blog their thoughts at that instant.)
participant X - "mai kisi ko trust nahi kar sakta ab, do do minutes me change ho jate hain log." [sic] (As if he didn't know that before joining the show)
Suddenly the producer remembers his financial commitments and says "dekhiye break ke baad.... kya C fir vote out se bach jayegi?" My curiosity almost kills me.

Two of them(A and B) finally get voted out.
Anchor - "aisa kyo hua" (Why does he have to ask such questions all the time?)
participant A - "sab ne ditch maar diya" (That was a matter-of-fact answer. And just two minutes before, all were in her favour - those two minutes of break made all the difference...)
Anchor - "Do you want to say something?" [sic] (Was he expecting "Yeah, I feel like elaborating on how I feel right now"?)
participant B - "All the best, do well" [sic] (This is sportsmanship, after all that bickering for becoming a bi(c)ker....)
B sobs-all-over-with-background-song (and I was about to cry for her)
C still blabbers about how A and B were worthless [sic]. Same song is being played in higher tempo and higher volume.
And then finally the voted-outs bitch about others conspiring against them and how they were victimized [sic].

I am looking forward to next episodes of roadies, and then next season right from the auditions. Then there is also [V]-fresher-vjs. It's simply amazing that so many stupid people are ready to be 'bakra's. Otherwise I have stopped watching TV because the shows are becoming more and more inane and melodramatic.

I wish I had not bought my brand new TVS Apache, you know.... it just killed my chance of being a roadie. If I had not got a bike, I would not have to go through the pain to push it half a kilometer just because a salesman in the showroom didn't tell me that it did not have enough petrol to run for 5 more km.

p.s. call me a geek, but the instant this happened and the instant roadies episode finished, urge of blogging hit me.

Update -
Stupidity never stops to popup and amaze me. There are dedicated forums to discuss MTV Roadies. People have gone forward and identified some participants on Orkut here.

कुठेस तू

तू आता कशी असशील, थोडा घाबरलोय
तू अजून तशीच असशील? थोडा बावरलोय...
आज तू पुन्हा मला जवळ करशील? कारण,
इतक्या दिवसात मी पण थोडा बदललोय...

हल्ली रोज रात्री झोप सुद्धा थकून म्हणते -
प्रेमात "पडलेला" तुला असे कधीच पाहिले नव्हते.

गळ्यातली गाणी, खिशातली नाणी
पण डोळ्यातले पाणी आणि मन सुन्न;
वाटले मी चंचल असेन, अजून कोणी पुसेल,
मन पुन्हा फसेल, पण जगच किती भिन्न !

माझी कथा माझी व्यथा कशी मी आज सांगू तुला
न कळे कधी माझ्यातला एक हिस्सा हरवला.

तोपर्यंत माझीच समजूत कशी घालत राहू ?
कधी पर्यंत बोलणे असेच टाळत राहू ?

नकार जरी असला तरी तो आज मला कळू दे
अजून थोडी समजूतदार झालीस तू आज.... आज तरी तुला भेटू दे.

- कार्तिक
१० डिसेंबर २००६

misc/diary

after some persuation from a friend, i tried pandora. it is too nice to have music played according to your taste, but with an uncertainity as there is in a radio.

this is first time i will go to a live concert (Sonu Nigam) after coming to bangalore, just some time later to publishing this post.

after some delay, i met this alumnus of iitkgp. i had met him before, but did not have time and peace to talk at length. liked his views about everything. definitely look forward to play bass along with his synth - should be fun.

some time back, i talked about moving on and how i would stop looking forward to some ambitions(!) in life. not right now, but definitely sooner than i would have expected, this time will come - one of the major reasons i don't particularly look forward to do MBA, at least not right now.

looking back, this november seems to have far too many posts than before. (not that i am slowing down.)

Everything has a time scheduled for. or so it seems. :)


p.s.
René Descartes - "I think, therefore I am." (translated from Latin (or French))
Aristotle's ghost to Descartes' - "If I was not, I would not have thought." (translated from Greek)
don't tell me this sounds latin and greek to you ;)