As far as higher education is concernced, the educational scenario has changed dramatically in India in the last decade. In the debate of an MBA in India versus abroad, as a student currently pursuing my MBA in India, I believe that an Indian MBA scores over an international MBA on several counts.
The main advantage is the cost. An MBA from any good B-school in the US or UK costs anywhere between Rs 25 to 50 lakhs, whereas Indian MBA schools charge ten per cent of the same amount. Secondly, when living abroad, you spend far more than you would in India, and as a result need to work there for at least a few years to recover the amount. This severely hampers your prospect of returning to India after the completion of the degree.
On the other hand, a student from a reputed Indian B-school always has the option to work at either place, since all premier B-schools have a significant amount of foreign placements taking place each year. Also, India is a vibrant economy today and corporates the world over value the pool of talent that exists here. In fact, people opt for positions in India to be a part of the growing economy. Lately there has been an increase in the number of NRIs coming back to India. In this thriving scenario, it makes sense to get your degree from an Indian B-school.
There has also been a steady increase in the number of tie-ups between Indian and foreign universities. Some of them include the SP Jain Institute of Management and Research with Virginia Tech, the Indian School of Business with the Wharton School-Kellogg School of Management, the Management Development Institute with Cambridge College, Great Lake & Yale, Welingkar College with Temple University, the Institute of Management and Technology with Fairleigh Dickinson University, Great Lakes and Yale University. Thus, with more and more premier international education its way to Indian shores, one can experience the benefits a international education and a lesser cost.
Also, Indian MBA courses have been expanding and growing significantly in recent years. MBA graduates from Indian B-schools have proved their mettle in the global working environment and are offered top positions in several organisations. Considering the purchasing power parity, initial expenditure (cost of the programme), initial placements, and growth in salary as inputs in decision, MNCs do not have to think twice before coming to India in search of middle and senior management talent.
In every Indian B-school, participants with two to five years of IT industry experience always fill a certain percentage of the batch. These students often have international exposure. Their multicultural experience adds value to the entire batch and programme as a whole. And to a certain extent, it compensates for the rich diverse cultural experience that is associated with a US or UK MBA. Finally, Indian B-Schools are more open to non-experienced candidates than international B-Schools, and thus prove to be advantageous to most people. Hence, keeping in mind today’s scenario, I believe that an Indian MBA is the way to go.
Showing posts with label important tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label important tips. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Next Generation GMAT Exam
The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) will add an innovative new section designed to measure people’s ability to evaluate information from multiple sources.
The new integrated reasoning section, scheduled to be introduced in June 2012, will provide business schools with a window into how prospective students respond to the kinds of complex challenges they will encounter as managers in today’s information-rich business environment.The coming enhancements to the GMAT exam stem from multiple surveys of business school faculty conducted during the past four years by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), owners of the exam. GMAC solicits input from faculty as a regular part of its commitment to continuously improving the GMAT exam.
The integrated reasoning portion of the GMAT will capitalize on innovations in technology and assessments and feature questions that further enhance the validity of the test. These questions include information from multiple sources, such as charts, graphs, and spreadsheets. Examinees will be asked to analyze information, draw conclusions and discern relationships between data points, just as they must do in business school.
“The new integrated reasoning section of the GMAT will be a microcosm of today’s b-school classroom,” said Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC. “These questions will provide critical intelligence to schools about the ability of prospective students to make sound decisions by evaluating, assimilating or extrapolating data.”
The overall length of the GMAT exam (three and a half hours) will not change. The new integrated reasoning section will be 30 minutes long and replace one of two essays that are part of the GMAT’s analytical writing section. Admissions officers have stated and GMAC research has shown that performance on the essays is closely aligned, making a single essay acceptable for predicting performance.
The GMAT exam’s verbal and quantitative sections will not change. As a result, when the new section is introduced in June 2012, tests will be scored on the same 200–800 scale used today. Test takers will receive a separate score for the essay—as they do now—and another distinct score on the new integrated reasoning section.
The Graduate Management Admission Council (http://www.gmac.com) is a nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools worldwide dedicated to creating access to and disseminating information about graduate management education. The GMAT® exam was created in 1954 and is used by nearly 5,000 graduate management programs at approximately 1,900 business schools around the world to assess applicants.
More information about the GMAT exam is available at www.mba.com.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Of anchor questions, leaks and Prometric’s plan for a glitch-free CAT 2010
There will be little change in the base process used behind the creation and evaluation of the Common Admissions Test (CAT) 2010 compared to CAT 2009. Prometric, the testing vendor commissioned by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) for conducting the test will continue to use the “psychometric process to ensure that the CAT is valid, reliable and fair.”
Prometric India’s Managing Director Soumitra Roy was quick to clarify that Mr Williams was speaking only about the academic content and evaluation aspect of CAT 2009 (and not the hardware failures and virus attacks).
Much of what Mr Williams told journalists about the processes and standards used in creation and evaluation of the CAT question papers has been shared in the public domain before. I will summarize the highlights and some points of interest captured during the interaction.
In summary, during the test development phase, “Prometric works closely with IIM professors along with specially trained subject matter experts from other well-regarded Indian universities. Each exam question is written, edited and reviewed in an iterative process. All modifications and approvals are tracked electronically in an audit trail.”
“After the tests are administered, the raw scores are calculated on the basis of a +3 for a correct answer, a -1 for a wrong answer while un-attempted questions are ignored. After equating the scores (read below), they are linearly scaled to a 0-450 range before being presented to the candidates as test results.”
Anchor questions, Cloned questions and question leakages
“Each question paper has four ‘anchor questions’, which are used to adjust differences in difficulty between different question papers. Two of these questions would have appeared in the question paper of a previous slot, and the other two would appear in a consequent slot. All question papers are thus linked together in a sequential chain, the two anchor questions forming the links.” (Mr Williams refused to divulge whether the anchor questions were shared between question papers of consecutive slots.)
The performance of test-takers in these anchor questions is measured to establish a common metric of difficulty between two question papers and then adjust the raw scores accordingly.
So in CAT 2009, which was held over 30 slots (3 slots per day for 10 days), there would have been 60 anchor questions in total.
Mr Williams said that a few more questions similar in nature but different in form – called ‘cloned questions’ – were repeated across slots. A simplistic example is an algebraic problem in multiple versions, each version having a different set of substitution values. In reality, the differences between the versions would be a lot less apparent, said Mr Williams.
Anchor questions and cloned questions have a lot to do with the controversy over the ‘leakage’ of CAT 2009 questions on anonymous blogs, Orkut communities and coaching institute channels. For any candidate to gain an advantage in a future test slot, it is important that the leaked questions fall in the anchor or cloned categories.
Mr Williams played down the leakages. According to him, people tend to have nervous mindsets during a test and their ability to remember questions and reproduce them accurately a few hours later is overrated. “We went through the blogs and Orkut communities that were accused of sharing questions and found that very few of them had gotten it right. There was only a perception that the questions on the blogs were the same as those in the test, but they were not,” he said.
Not all candidates are exactly ‘nervous’, though. Test-preparation institutes, for example, were regularly sending ‘proxy candidates’ (teachers, content developers) to CAT 2009 slots with the intentional purpose of memorizing questions and sharing them with their students. These questions were being shared clandestinely in classrooms and secret email lists with test-takers in later slots.
Mr Williams’ defended this with the explanation that such concerted activity had not worked because “if that were to happen, then statistically we would have noticed strange patterns with the answering of cloned questions which we didn’t.”
Mathematically, the extent of the advantage gained by being privy to an anchor question is an interesting probability problem (anyone?).
CAT 2010 will be held in 32 cities and over fewer centers
The IIMs will release the CAT 2010 advertisement in the end of August, said Mr Roy. Prometric plans to use fewer testing centers this year after its disastrous tryst with India’s hardware infrastructure during CAT 2009.
“We will only choose test centers that adhere to the norms created by us for ensuring infrastructure quality,” he said.
As the testing window will also be longer (more like a month), there will clearly be more number of slots, more number of distinct question papers and therefore a larger pool of questions.
Speaking to mediapersons in New Delhi last week, Prometric’s Vice President of Test Development Services Stephen Williams said that he was happy with the content creation and evaluation of CAT 2009. “It went exactly as we would have liked it to be,” he said.
Prometric India’s Managing Director Soumitra Roy was quick to clarify that Mr Williams was speaking only about the academic content and evaluation aspect of CAT 2009 (and not the hardware failures and virus attacks).
Much of what Mr Williams told journalists about the processes and standards used in creation and evaluation of the CAT question papers has been shared in the public domain before. I will summarize the highlights and some points of interest captured during the interaction.
In summary, during the test development phase, “Prometric works closely with IIM professors along with specially trained subject matter experts from other well-regarded Indian universities. Each exam question is written, edited and reviewed in an iterative process. All modifications and approvals are tracked electronically in an audit trail.”
“After the tests are administered, the raw scores are calculated on the basis of a +3 for a correct answer, a -1 for a wrong answer while un-attempted questions are ignored. After equating the scores (read below), they are linearly scaled to a 0-450 range before being presented to the candidates as test results.”
Anchor questions, Cloned questions and question leakages
“Each question paper has four ‘anchor questions’, which are used to adjust differences in difficulty between different question papers. Two of these questions would have appeared in the question paper of a previous slot, and the other two would appear in a consequent slot. All question papers are thus linked together in a sequential chain, the two anchor questions forming the links.” (Mr Williams refused to divulge whether the anchor questions were shared between question papers of consecutive slots.)
The performance of test-takers in these anchor questions is measured to establish a common metric of difficulty between two question papers and then adjust the raw scores accordingly.
So in CAT 2009, which was held over 30 slots (3 slots per day for 10 days), there would have been 60 anchor questions in total.
Mr Williams said that a few more questions similar in nature but different in form – called ‘cloned questions’ – were repeated across slots. A simplistic example is an algebraic problem in multiple versions, each version having a different set of substitution values. In reality, the differences between the versions would be a lot less apparent, said Mr Williams.
Anchor questions and cloned questions have a lot to do with the controversy over the ‘leakage’ of CAT 2009 questions on anonymous blogs, Orkut communities and coaching institute channels. For any candidate to gain an advantage in a future test slot, it is important that the leaked questions fall in the anchor or cloned categories.
Mr Williams played down the leakages. According to him, people tend to have nervous mindsets during a test and their ability to remember questions and reproduce them accurately a few hours later is overrated. “We went through the blogs and Orkut communities that were accused of sharing questions and found that very few of them had gotten it right. There was only a perception that the questions on the blogs were the same as those in the test, but they were not,” he said.
Not all candidates are exactly ‘nervous’, though. Test-preparation institutes, for example, were regularly sending ‘proxy candidates’ (teachers, content developers) to CAT 2009 slots with the intentional purpose of memorizing questions and sharing them with their students. These questions were being shared clandestinely in classrooms and secret email lists with test-takers in later slots.
Mr Williams’ defended this with the explanation that such concerted activity had not worked because “if that were to happen, then statistically we would have noticed strange patterns with the answering of cloned questions which we didn’t.”
Mathematically, the extent of the advantage gained by being privy to an anchor question is an interesting probability problem (anyone?).
CAT 2010 will be held in 32 cities and over fewer centers
The IIMs will release the CAT 2010 advertisement in the end of August, said Mr Roy. Prometric plans to use fewer testing centers this year after its disastrous tryst with India’s hardware infrastructure during CAT 2009.
“We will only choose test centers that adhere to the norms created by us for ensuring infrastructure quality,” he said.
As the testing window will also be longer (more like a month), there will clearly be more number of slots, more number of distinct question papers and therefore a larger pool of questions.
Friday, July 2, 2010
The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), used for MBA admissions by a vast majority of business schools across the world will add a new section that will test advanced reasoning skills, starting June 2012.
The new section, known as ‘Integrated Reasoning’, will feature questions that will test skills of data analysis and interpretation, the ability to form relationships between information from multiple sources and form judgments.
Even though the ‘next generation’ GMAT will add another section, the total duration of the exam will remain the same at 3.5 hours (excluding the breaks). However, the Analytical Writing section will have only one essay instead of the two in the present avatar of the exam.
The GMAT exam’s verbal and quantitative sections however, will not change. As a result, when the new section is introduced in June 2012, tests will be scored on the same 200–800 scale used today. Test takers will receive a separate score for the essay — as they do now — and another distinct score on the new integrated reasoning section. The new score would thus look like something on the lines of 800/6/X, where X would be the score of the new Integrated Reasoning section.
“The new test will be launched on June 4, 2012 at all locations worldwide and registrations will begin six months prior, as they do at present,” Ashok Sarathy , Vice President of the GMAT Program told PaGaLGuY over telephone from the US. He added that there will be no change in the price of appearing for the GMAT as a result of the test revamp.
Those joining the classes of 2013-15 at b-schools worldwide would thus be the first batch to receive admits based on the new GMAT.
The Integrated Reasoning section
According to Mr Sarathy, the new section was added after a survey of business school faculty across the world including India about the additional skills they would like tested in the GMAT.
The section will feature questions that would require test-takers to use information from multiple sources, such as charts, graphs and spreadsheets to analyze information, draw conclusions and discern relationships between data points, just as they must do in business school, he added.
A sample Integrated Reasoning question released by GMAC consists of an interactive spreadsheet listing traffic data at 21 airports across the world. Test-takers can sort columns of the spreadsheet to interpret the data from different viewpoints. Questions that follow ask the test-taker to examine a few statements based on the data and determine which ones are true. Questions may also have more than one true statements. Other types of questions would test the ability to assess the reason for, or the likelihood of certain outcomes. Watch the video below or here for a demo released by GMAC
According to Dave Wilson, president and CEO of GMAC, “The new integrated reasoning section of the GMAT will be a microcosm of today’s b-school classroom. These questions will provide critical intelligence to schools about the ability of prospective students to make sound decisions by evaluating, assimilating or extrapolating data.”
Score scale, number of questions
GMAC has as yet not decided the number of questions in or the scale it will use to score the Integrated Reasoning section. “We are currently in pilot mode and will test the questions with 3,000 more students to determine how many to include in the section and how much of a question bank to create,” Mr Sarathy told PaGaLGuY.
On the score scale for the new section he said, “Once we finalize the questions, we will go to admission directors and ask them to define the scale. Since they have to use the scores, they will know best what scale to use for differentiating the candidates.”
Effect on the Analytical Writing section
In the present format, the Analytical Writing section requires the test-taker to write two essays, one on the analysis of an issue and the other on the analysis of an argument. Post-revamped launch, the section would shrink to just one essay, which could either be on the analysis of an issue or of an argument.
“We have been researching on the scores of these essays and admissions directors have said that performance in the two essays is correlated,” said Mr Sarathy, “so we decided to do away with one.”
Managing the launch
In the 2012 admission season, b-schools would thus receive two types of scores — from the tests taken before the new GMAT launch and those from the new format. “The verbal, quantitative and analytical writing scores would be common to both the old and new GMAT scores. After June 2012, schools will have one additional score component. It is upto them to decide how they will compare the two types of scores,” said Mr Sarathy.
In all likelihood, there would be a rush to take the GMAT in its old format in the months preceding June 2012. GMAC on its part will make the new GMAT sample test material available on its website. “We will also be working closely with test preparation companies around the world to make sure that students are as prepared as possible to take the new format,” said Mr Sarathy.
GMAT vs GRE
In recent years, the GMAT exam has had a growing rival in the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), traditionally used for applying to programs in arts and sciences in the US. The upgrade received by GMAT will help it in strengthening its competitive edge against the GRE.
GRE, though is giving a good fight. It has in the past couple of years convinced some big name b-schools such as Tuck-Dartmouth, Stanford, Wharton and others to accept the GRE score for their MBA admissions. With a revised b-school-focused version of GRE set to launch in August 2011, coupled with their ‘Personal Potential Index’ offering, GRE is aggressively pursuing GMAT’s traditional stronghold.
IIMA to set up additional campus in Hyderabad
The Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad is looking at setting up a campus at Hyderabad to offer executive education. In a press notification dated June 29, the institute spokesperson said, “At the instance of the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad is engaged in discussions with the Government of Andhra Pradesh for setting up an IIMA campus in Hyderabad.”The school has recommended the AP government to allocate 150 acres of land and Rs 100 crores in funds for establishing the campus. The recommended area is even larger than the IIM’s original campus at Ahmedabad, which is spread over a total of 116 acres.
“The Institute plans to begin operations by offering Executive Education Programs and subsequently it may explore the possibility of starting academic programs on the campus. The Institute would attempt to link the campus at Ahmedabad with the Hyderabad campus through use of technology, for seamless operations between the two campuses,” added the press statement.
IIMA will be the second IIM to set up an additional campus, the first being IIM Lucknow which set up a satellite campus in Noida in 2005 to offer part-time and executive programs.
The Hyderabad campus materializes as part of Andhra Pradesh’s Late Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s agenda to make Hyderabad an education hub. During his regime, he had aggressively wooed institutions such as IIM Bangalore, Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Ghaziabad, NMIMS Mumbai and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore to set up campuses in the state. Of these, IMT and NMIMS had accepted the invitations and received land allocations, while IIM Bangalore had declined the offer citing faculty constraints. While IIMA had received the offer more than a year ago, the institute had held back on a commitment due to the political turmoil in Andhra after YS Rajasekhara Reddy’s death followed by the Telengana protests.
Talk with a Cat Cracker
Be sure in yourself that you want to do MBA. It is not the end of the world if you don’t want it.".
1. Tell us something about yourself.
I am a Delhi guy since the start. I have done my engineering from IIT Delhi. Worked in a MNC for two years and then went for higher studies at IIM Lucknow. At present I am working in another MNC.
2. Why did you choose IIM mba Lucknow?
The reason for choosing IIM mba Lucknow was it being one of the premiere institute for pursuing MBA in India. The broader perspective to business world and the chance to pursue studies according to your choices and interests were some of the factors which supported the fact.
4. What made you leave your well-settled job and go for a full time MBA?
5. How did you study for mba entrance exam?
6. What was your strategy for GD/PI?
7. According to you, what is the right time to go for an MBA. Should economic scenarios drive an individual MBA plans?
Vipul Goel, IIM Lucknow (2009), IITD (2005), discusses with a leading website about his mba preparation journey and making it to best mba college in India.
1. Tell us something about yourself.I am a Delhi guy since the start. I have done my engineering from IIT Delhi. Worked in a MNC for two years and then went for higher studies at IIM Lucknow. At present I am working in another MNC.
2. Why did you choose IIM mba Lucknow?
The reason for choosing IIM mba Lucknow was it being one of the premiere institute for pursuing MBA in India. The broader perspective to business world and the chance to pursue studies according to your choices and interests were some of the factors which supported the fact.
3. Tell us something about the life in IIML?
IIM Lucknow is a place where you get a chance to meet people coming from all walks of life. A fresher coming out of a small college in India as well as people who ended up as as COO of some top firms (after graduation), people who have written books, people who have worked in army. Ofcourse, geographical diversity of the place can never be missed. All this can provide a different aspect to one’s outlook in the life.
Other than that almost all batchmates were super enthusiastic people who take interest and pride in their work. The quality of the teams in which I have worked throughout the period was amazing. Before MBA I was a person who wasn’t confident in interacting people with various walks of life which I felt is a hindrance in reaching the top. Presently I enjoy interacting with all which I believe. This is the biggest change in myself.
The life of MBA isn’t over without mentioning the number of clubs, committees and competitions which help one in fulfilling their interests in academic interests as well as in fine arts.
4. What made you leave your well-settled job and go for a full time MBA?
Leaving a well-settled job and high paying job is never an easy decision. One needs to be absolutely sure that they want to go for it. Difference it might make to one’s career is reaching your career advance in a Ferrari then by a Honda
5. How did you study for mba entrance exam?
I never studied for CAT. That was the only exam I appeared for. I simply kept my cool on the day and cracked the same.
6. What was your strategy for GD/PI?
For GD, I only spoke my points which I felt relevant. I always avoided entering a fish market. Idea is to make your points early to give structure to a presentation or give new direction if no new points are coming up. Please don’t try to be a leader of the group as usually most of the contemporaries are aggressive enough themselves and this strategy can backfire.
In PI, be yourself. Don’t try to fake your reasons for doing MBA or your achievements. Confidence is a must as you never know, what question can come up next. I have seen interviews going in very different direction then expected. Also, don’t indulge in asking those who had given interview first as to what their experience was or what questions were asked as it only hampers your open mindedness.
Just a fact that my IIM mba Lucknow interview has lasted less than 8 minutes, ended on a seemingly bad note as per others. I ended up among top 20 entrants there.
7. According to you, what is the right time to go for an MBA. Should economic scenarios drive an individual MBA plans?
In short term yes economic scenario can drive an individual’s MBA plans. On a longer term however, it doesn’t matter. You get to learn much more during adverse times which can guide you better when times change.
8. Any advice for future mba aspirants?
Be sure in yourself that you want to do MBA. It is not the end of the world if you don’t want it. Hundreds of career waiting which can make you earn much more if you are a top performer in them.
Some essentials to do during the last 90 days to CAT
Hi
With just about 90 days left for CAT here are some things any serious cat aspirant should follow religiously.
First things first. You have less than 15 days to send your completed CAT application forms to the IIMs. So do it as soon as possible. Do not wait for the eleventh hour to send your application and pray that the courier delivers it on time. If you still have not got your application, you have about four days left to get it from one of the IIMs. So do it now!
Here are some of the things that worked for me as I prepared for CAT and things have worked for many others to whom I have had the opportunity to assist in their CAT preparation.
1. Have a clear strategy before your Mock CATs - fine tune it - and use it on November 21st.
Most wars are won not on the power of the ammunition and armor a country possesses but on the power of its think tank. The same is true when it comes to CAT. Before you take any CAT comprehensive test put down on paper the strategy that you want to adopt for that test.
Though the last few CATs did not have any section wise time limit, it would be to your advantage to set those limits yourself.
Typically, students spend about 30 minutes in the verbal section, 40 minutes in the DI section and 50 minutes in the Quant section. This split could vary from individual to individual.
Having set this limit, shave off 5 minutes from each of the sections and keep those 5 minute blocks as reserve. After the first 105 minutes of the test, take a quick call on your performance. If you realize that you have done equally well in all three sections, spend the last 15 minutes in the section that is likely to give you the maximum returns. On the contrary, if you realize that you have not done particularly well in a section, spend the last 15 minutes in this section.
This way you never run short of time for any section. Also this strategy helps you to maximize your returns within the given time frame.
Essentially, do not ever start the test without assigning time limits for the different sections of the test.
With just about 90 days left for CAT here are some things any serious cat aspirant should follow religiously.
First things first. You have less than 15 days to send your completed CAT application forms to the IIMs. So do it as soon as possible. Do not wait for the eleventh hour to send your application and pray that the courier delivers it on time. If you still have not got your application, you have about four days left to get it from one of the IIMs. So do it now!
Here are some of the things that worked for me as I prepared for CAT and things have worked for many others to whom I have had the opportunity to assist in their CAT preparation.
1. Have a clear strategy before your Mock CATs - fine tune it - and use it on November 21st.
Most wars are won not on the power of the ammunition and armor a country possesses but on the power of its think tank. The same is true when it comes to CAT. Before you take any CAT comprehensive test put down on paper the strategy that you want to adopt for that test.
Though the last few CATs did not have any section wise time limit, it would be to your advantage to set those limits yourself.
Typically, students spend about 30 minutes in the verbal section, 40 minutes in the DI section and 50 minutes in the Quant section. This split could vary from individual to individual.
Having set this limit, shave off 5 minutes from each of the sections and keep those 5 minute blocks as reserve. After the first 105 minutes of the test, take a quick call on your performance. If you realize that you have done equally well in all three sections, spend the last 15 minutes in the section that is likely to give you the maximum returns. On the contrary, if you realize that you have not done particularly well in a section, spend the last 15 minutes in this section.
This way you never run short of time for any section. Also this strategy helps you to maximize your returns within the given time frame.
Essentially, do not ever start the test without assigning time limits for the different sections of the test.
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