about my career , i am in graduation now (BBA) 2nd year , after this i want to do MBA, but now i thinking about future how admission in good college , how i prepare for entrance exams , which colleges are suitable for me , please help me .

Hi Sahil,

Studying for any exam requires a lot of thought process and planning. Be it MBA exam or any other exam an aspirant is giving. One’s ultimate objective is to reach the particular University or college that he dreams to be a student of. MBA entrance exams provide us a pathway to reach our objectives. As it is rightly said, “More important than the goal, the journey to reach towards the goal matters the most” . Yes, the journey, the preparation for MBA entrance exam matters a lot. It is therefore one of the crucial moments for any aspirant’s life.

Taking forward the preparation, the first step is to be very clear about the MBA program that the college is offering. How that program is relevant to shaping your big picture, and then decide whether to go forward or not.

One of the main reasons why B-Schools test language skills in their entrance exams is because one has to be very clear in their written, speaking skills in B-Schools as well as in the corporates. One must know how to articulate properly one’s thoughts so that there is no ambiguous communication flowing around. One can improve this ability by reading newspapers, magazines and even get into a habit of writing his own thoughts for that matter.

A dictionary is an aspirant’s best friend when it comes to improving in vocabulary and grammatical usage. One can also watch how TV anchors perform on the television to get the blood flow right for their body language. This also will improve one’s listening ability.

Undoubtedly one of the favourite subjects of engineering students is mathematics. Though Engineers have an advantage in this section, other stream students are not far behind in this nowadays. Also, the pattern and differential weightage of sections has reduced this advantage considerably in certain entrance exams. However, one must have a strong math background to gain some good marks in this section. Others who lack or haven’t been in touch with such mathematics background, have to prepare hard and close in their gaps if any. The following points can help them do so,

• Take part in solving puzzles, riddles and quiz competitions
• Solve enough number of problems from standard entrance exam books. Take good amount of online quizzes and make them as a habit
• Give good number of mocks and review your results
• Find out your weak areas and dedicate efforts to improve upon them
• Get enough guidance from your friends who have been preparing for these entrance exams or those who have already been under such a hammer and have joined B-Schools
• One can also join a coaching institute to help oneself better with understanding, and know where he stands in the competition

Now, these were the generics that one must be clear with before writing any entrance exam. There are many exams for which you have to change your strategy from other entrance exams. For example, CAT is a highly unprintable exam and one must be clear in his mind what strategy works for him to get a good score. It is not necessary that two persons strategy has to be the same. One must work on his or her strategy to excel in the exam. This he can build by giving different mock exams and analysing their results. I suggest if a mock exam is for a 3 hour duration, one must dedicate double efforts to understand where he went wrong or which area is his strongpoint. Personally, I feel that for any exam, it’s the planning that matters the most and ideally 60% of the time should be spent on that. Keep this mantra in your mind, “Plan your work and work your plan” and you shall sail through.

All the Very Best!!!

Dear Sahil,

It's amazing to know that you have already started to think about doing an MBA as this is a crucial time for you there are few pointers that you should keep in mind while deciding whether you need to do MBA and what should be the follow through process to achieve your goal. For your ease I have decided the answer into 3 phase.

Phase 1 - Pre-MBA decision

In this phase which you are luckily currently in, need to ask yourself the most dreaded question which never leaves you even after you join a prestigious B-school "Why MBA?". You can have many reasons as to why you want to do it but make sure those reasons are strong enough for you to motivate you and help you sail through the turbulent times when you might find it tough and believe me preparing for CAT and other exams need a good motivation.

Ask yourself "What are you going to achieve by doing MBA?", here you need to identify whats your vision, long term goals and whether you have any special love for any specialization like Finance, Marketing, Human Resource, or Operations etc. To know that you need to understand your own strength and where are your challenging areas which you need to overcome.

While contemplating on these, though it's good to get advise from others but while taking decision it must be completely yours.

Now, if you feel you are ready for the ride let's start the Phase 2.

Phase 2 - Pot-MBA decision checklist

The questioning part doesn't ends here, here are the checklists of questions that you should answer:

• "Whether you have any dream college?" open your eyes wider and apart from old IIMs you might find many amazing institutes both at public and private level. If you have a dream college, look at it's CAT cut-off requirement and past records of alumns (which you can easily find in LinkedIn).Even if you don't have any dream college it's ok just identify the best college so as o keep yourself motivated and to understand the  Kindly do not restrict yourself by keeping the judging criteria of the colleges based on  the placements only
• Now that you identified your dream college, check which type of aptitude tests are accepted. Most colleges accept CAT percentiles while applying but there are other few colleges which may also conduct their own aptitude test like IIFT, SNAP, XAT, NMAT etc.
• Now having identified the aptitude eg: CAT, start preparing for  which you will receive n number of materials to study and can join courses whether offline or online for the preparation based on your requirement as every test contains quant, logical reasoning & data interpretation and reading comprehension barring few tests like IIFT and SNAP which also tests you  on GK. You can go through the link where Career360 has given some amazing pointers  if you are planning do without any coaching
• It is advisable you not only prepare for CAT but for other aptitude tests too as mentioned above and also not forget to apply for colleges of your choice before deadline. This, you would need to do by checking their website and most colleges will open their application once the CAT is opened for registration
• For books I personally preferred Arun Sharma but I didn't restrict myself there, I used previous years question papers and mock test once I was strong in my basics and you should too use mock test to understand where you stand. You can find Handa Ka Funda for online class, you can use CL's or Time's mock tests to get the feel

Once you have done the above just give your best.

Wait!!

It's not done, there is Phase 3 too and that's..

Phase 3 - Post CAT and other Aptitude test

Prepare for the interview and especially for the below questions once you are selected based on your percentile by the B-schools:

1. Tell me/us about yourself or Tell me/us something which is not mentioned in your CV (Yes you should have a CV!!)
2. Why MBA?(prepare further if you have applied for any specialization)
3. Technical questions ( based on your profile most probably related to you BBA or any other achievements)
4. Current Affairs

Note: These questions are not exhaustive and may depend on the interviewers interest, area of knowledge and mood, so relax and give your best. :)

• XAT
• MAT
• CMAT
• ATMA etc,