IIM Admission 2020: Lakshya Kumar shares his WAT-PI experience at IIM Calcutta

Lakshya Kumar, 99.99 percentiler in CAT 2019 shares his WAT-PI experience at IIM Calcutta. Read the article below to know his WAT-PI preparation strategy and more.

Lakshya Kumar, a Delhi University graduate, who scored 99.99 percentile in CAT 2019, was shortlisted for the WAT-GD-PI rounds of some of the top IIMs. Lakshya is an All-India Non-Engineering Topper of CAT 2019. He appeared for interviews in IIM A, IIM B, IIM C, IIM L, IIM I, IIM K and SPJIMR. He also received and converted calls from other small and new IIMs. Lakshya shared his IIM Calcutta PI experience with Shiksha. Read more in the article below.

Also Read: How Lakshya Kumar scored 99.99 percentile in CAT 2019?

Q. What was your WAT topic?

A. Environmental doomsday is a hoax and environmental scientists are exaggerating the problem.

Q. Please provide a summary of what you wrote.

A. I started with citing the incidents of environmental activism that had taken place in the past year, including Greta Thunberg, Jeff Bezos donating money towards the cause and the general attitude of common citizens. I further went on to elaborate on a report by multiple environmental scientists that calls for taking action towards global climate change. I added numbers from the report like two-degrees temperature rise which was earlier expected by the year 2100 will now take place by 2050. Post presenting all such arguments, I went on to highlight the need for a quick and long term action plan. The main argument behind the WAT was that action needs to be taken now or it might get too late to save the planet.

Q. Did you have any preparation strategies for WAT?

A. I gave the first five minutes of an AWT for ideation and then went on to write my points. It is also important that you highlight issues from both sides before taking a position and then go on to defend your stance. Your WAT should be structured and must contain rational arguments for your position. (Avoid extreme positions for topics).

Q. Did you have any strategies before appearing for the interview?

A: I divided my preparation into four segments namely:

• HR – Including Introduction, Strengths-Weaknesses, Why MBA
• Academics– College Subjects
• GK Questions – Ongoing topics with a specific focus on Business news
• Profile Questions - Revisiting past internships and researching more about it. I took Mock PIs from my coaching institute and took help from a couple of friends to frame the answer structure.

IIM Calcutta Personal Interview Experience

Three interview panelists (1 Female Professor (F), 1 Male Professor (M) and an alumnus (A))

First, in my panel, I was asked to sit as soon as I entered.

Me: Good Afternoon!

F: Good Afternoon! You are from SSCBS, doesn’t it take an entrance examination?

Me: Yes Ma’am. The entrance procedure includes an entrance exam DU JAT.

F: Alright. You have a nice college GPA, are you a rank holder?

Me: No ma’am but I would most likely come under the top 10 percentile in my college.

M: How did you ascertain that?

Me: Sir, generally students discuss GPA amongst one another so one can get a rough idea.

M: Do you think people should discuss their marks? Don’t certain people hide their marks?

Me: Certain people can but Delhi University website allows you to check the result of others by just changing the roll no.

F: Don’t you think that is a violation of privacy?

Me: Yes Ma’am, The website can certainly improve on this regard or DU could adopt the practice of mailing the results.

M: Right. (Seems satisfied) Did you intern during your college tenure?

Me: Yes sir, I interned at NITI Aayog, the former planning commission of India.

M: What is the full form of NITI?

Me: National Institute for Transforming India

M: What is the difference between the planning commission and NITI?

Me: I listed down 3-4 differences (Had prepared on this thoroughly, M seems happy with response)

M: What exactly was your work?

Me: I was there in the project appraisal department that was working on multiple projects. The one that I liked the most was on Eklavya Residential School for tribal areas and its operations. The main job was to go through the proposal and raise queries if I find anything is not in line with previous education proposals. The task culminates with certain sets of queries and a couple of recommendations from my side.

M: Do you think India can take lessons from other countries and improve its education system?

Me: Certainly sir, my father works in the Department of Education, Delhi government and I have had discussions with him regarding the same. Finland is a good example and has been leading the world in the schooling system. One constraint that we face is that we might not be able to replicate their example due to our unique socio-economic fabric.

M: Do you think there is any other nation that we can learn from especially for tribal region schools.

Me: From what I remember Sri Lanka ranks at 79^th position while India is about 129^th rank in the Human Development Index, the mean years of schooling are also higher for Sri Lanka. Considering that it is our neighbor and we share certain similarities we can look at their system to take certain best practices.

M: Right. That makes sense.

F: Lakshya, can you tell me the sources of revenue and points of expenses for say IIM Calcutta?

Me: May I take a minute to think about possible sources?

F: Sure

Me: (Post a min presented my answer) I went on to include the student fees, placement charges, sponsorships for research, alum funding, rent from shops inside as income sources for the institute. For the expenses part, I included the salary of teachers, administrative staff and helper. Apart from that, I included utility charges, capital expenditure and library maintenance fees.

F: Alright! (Points towards A)

A: Lakshya, why MBA?

Me: I talk about my long term goal and how MBA helps me in achieving that goal. (Prepared for this)

A: Why IIM Calcutta?

Me: Included Finance and how it aligns with my undergraduate degree and senior reviews.

A: That’s all from my side.

F and M: Alright Lakshya, we are done with the interview. Thank you!

Me: Have a good day and thank you for considering me.

Thoughts on Personal Interview at IIM Calcutta

The panel was friendly and made sure that I was comfortable during the 30 minutes long interview. The interview had unexpected questions like profit and loss of IIM C and hence a medium level interview. The Profit and Loss of IIM Calcutta was a fascinating question which you generally don’t expect in the interview. It required a lot of thinking to answer the same. It was similar to a guesstimate. My advice to the future CAT aspirants is that one must definitely work on their current profile and should be thorough about it. If one doesn’t know the answer they should acknowledge the lack of an answer and tell the panelists about the same. Having said that, it is always a nice idea to make an intelligent guess by saying “Though If I were to guess”. The interview panel checks your thought structure so make sure you don’t jump the gun and take time to think before answering.

Status: Converted

Read More:

• IIM Admission 2020: Devesh Bansal recalls PI experience at IIM Kozhikode
• Somansh Chordia shares his WAT-PI experience at IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta
• IIM Admission 2020: Kislay Jha recalls PI experience at IIM Ahmedabad
• IIM Admission 2020: Devesh Bansal recalls PI experience at IIM Kozhikode
• CAT 2020 Preparation and Topper Interviews
• 80 Group Discussion (GD) Topics 2020 (MBA): Current & Latest GD Topics with detailed analysis
• IIM Selection and admission criteria for 2020-2022 session
• IIM Shortlist 2020: Check Dates, Cut Offs, Shortlist and Admission Status of all IIMs
• Coronavirus outbreak: What is the status of IIM Admissions 2020?