My Journey to XL!

For XLRI, you need to take the XAT. The cut off is usually 95+ for the BM course. XLRI Is one of the institutes that change its admission process every year. In my year post, the cut-offs we had an asynchronous video interview round. Here we had to answer some basic behavioural questions in under a minute. Post this we were given a set of questions which we had to fill and answer, once again the questions were interview generic. After this is when the GDPI & WAT happened. For me, XLRI was a dream come true. It had everything that an MBA aspirant wants from a B school. Strong alumni connect, a great placement history, a well known student culture, etc.

XLRI offers 2 courses: BM & HR. I did not clear the HR interview, so didn't really get to choose. Having a finance background I was always inclined towards Business Management as a course. At XLRI, the BM course has 6 Terms. The first 3 trimesters have basic subjects such as organizational behaviour, quantitative techniques, principles of marketing, strategic management, operations management, business research, etc. The faculty is really good. The faculty team here is really old and have been around for decades. All the subject profs have industry experience and use case studies as their teaching method. They give live examples from their past and leverage their industry connect to hold guest lectures for students. All the courses are assignment and quiz heavy. This ensures maximum absorption of knowledge by regular studying.

Finance: Axis Cap, Citi Bank, ICICI Bank, Statestreet. Sales & Marketing: ITC, HUL, Marico, Mondelez, Astrazeneca, Sanofi. GenMan: Bajaj Finserv, TAS, ABG. Amazon, Udaan, Cipla, Bajaj Auto, EY, PWC are other companies that visit the campus. There are also multiple live project opportunities offered to students to improve their CVs.

The placements are undergone through the placement committee, which is run by the students themselves. The process is such to ensure that it is fair and unbiased. The summer internship takes place in term 1 itself. There are some great companies for all profiles. Bain and Mckinsey for consulting. Axis cap for finance. ITC & HUL for marketing. Media.net, Walmart, Microsoft for ProdMan. XLRI has a history of 100% placements and this was held for my batch too. The average placements come up to Rs.2500000

The complete cost to study at XLRI is about 2500000. This includes the tuition fee and all other expenses one incurs on campus ( hostel fee, mess fee, etc). XLRI increases its fee by 10% every year. XLRI being one of the top colleges, most banking institutions readily provide a loan. However, once you get admission the senior students help give you contact details of banks that provide good interest rates. XLRI offers multiple scholarships to students based on academics and some other criteria.

Campus life and culture are extremely amazing. It is a complete student-run campus. There are committees for almost everything. From infrastructure, sports, alumni, consulting, finance, marketing, operations, adventure, dance, drama, quiz etc. Students have enough opportunities to explore their interest or develop new ones. We also have an annual fest Ensemble Valhalla. Sports facilities include badminton, basketball, table tennis, volleyball, cricket, football, carrom, pool. The library is well equipped for extensive research with a lot of international journals available.

The hostels are clean and big. The rooms are not very big but have an attached balcony. They are single sharing and the payment is on a term basis. The mess is really good and the quality of food is way above normal mess standards. The hostels are situated inside the campus itself. But there are cycles to commute.

The GD topics are usually very Generic. For my GD the topic was " People who usually prefer working in teams are bad at their work". We were given a topic and allowed 2 mins to think. Post that 20 minutes to discuss. The group size was about 7-8 students and hence the discussion was very smooth. There was ample time for everyone to make at least 3 entries and put forth their point. Post this we were immediately asked to write about the topic from our own perspective in 5-10 minutes. The process was very smooth. It was as expected. I got my call in January, so that's when I started preparing for the GD/PI. My interview was in March so that was 2 months of preparation. I read extensively and prepared on general topics, the points of which can be used in multiple discussions. I also gave multiple mock PI's with family and friends to help boost confidence.