IIM Calcutta: Has its pros and cons but you will have the 2 most amazing years of your life!

Coming from an engineering background during my job felt I did not have the knowledge base to deal with business problems - basic things such as reading financial statements and applying different models to understand the market environment and companies. So I decided to do an MBA which covers different disciplines such as strategy, finance, and marketing which help in understanding and running businesses better. IIM Calcutta's course curriculum was developed with the help of MIT Sloan which is why it is quant-heavy in the 1st year - IIM C is known as the finance campus but you can find some of the most renowned professors and great electives in the field of operations, organisational behavior as well. Overall there are three terms and the number of exams differs depending on the course - there are no surprise quizzes as is done in IIM Ahmedabad, however, courses can have many evaluation components - including class participation, projects, quizzes, midterms and end terms.

Summer internships take place in the 2nd trimester and the final placements take place between the 5th and 6th trimester. The college has 100% placements - all students get placed through the official placements. Around 30-40% get a PPO in the summer and the remaining get placed during the final placements. Companies come in all sectors including finance, consulting, marketing, general management and operations. Around 25% of the batch gets placed in consulting companies - top tier firms including consulting: Mckinsey, Bain, BCG; Finance: BoFA, HSBC, Barclays; Marketing: P&G, HUL, Gen Management: TAS, ABG come to campus. The highest package is around 1 crore and the average package is around 28-30 Lakhs Apart from IIM A we are the only college to provide a dream policy - under which people can sit for companies even after receiving a PPO because of which there were around 500+ offers were made for a batch of 480 students

The fee hike is reducing the affordability of an MBA to a larger section of the population and currently, there is no merit-based scholarship available - however since you will be graduating from one of the top institutes of India and will most likely end up with a high paying job, you can get loans at affordable rates - loans not just cover your MBA fees but loans can be extended for the exchange term that happens in the 2nd year. There are external scholarships that are provided by the government, that can be availed by the students. The placement committee which helps students during the internship and placement cycle also bring live project opportunities where students act as interns and can earn money too while studying, Alongside there are scholarships offered by companies and case competitions organised by companies and other schools which come with a sizeable prize amounts

IIM Calcutta treats all of its students like adults, people have the liberty to take their own decisions and the college does not enforce unnecessary rules. There are multiple events that keep happening throughout the year - it is a student-run campus, during the last 3 years a lot of events happened online however that is changing and we saw a lot of events happening offline. We have an annual cultural fest, a marketing fest and a sports fest (IIM A, B, C, L) which was organised by IIM C. People really try to give time to their passion and hobbies outside of academics, there is a strong sports culture (we have all amenities available including a swimming pool and a squash court). There are extracurricular clubs for dance, theatre, singing, art enthusiasts, another club that is unique to IIM C is the pet pals club which is one of the most active clubs wherein students take care of cats, and dogs inside the campus

Everyone gets a single room along with shared washrooms (the room has a bed, mattress, cupboard, table and bookcase provided for all students)- you get to choose your own wingmates during the 2nd year. The hostel fee is 54K per year and along with that you pay mess fee between 4-5K per month. Given the humid weather of Kolkata, it is hard to stay in rooms that aren't air-conditioned, most students get table fans for the summer season. In the mess, there are veg and non-veg options available and there are extras that can be bought, the mess food quality isn't great but it isn't too bad either - some messes have better food than other messes. All hostels have night mess that sell food till 4-5 am

The process starts by taking CAT, after the percentile comes a cumulative score is calculated depending on your CAT percentile, category, previous work experience, your degree and your academic scores. If you are in the top 1000-1500 students you are called for personal interviews and questions are based on general aptitude & knowledge, interests mentioned during the introduction in the interview, previous work experience and educational background. CAT-related information can be found out on the official website and websites of coaching institites and post that all information is communicated via email. A few things that can be improved: instead of a singular test, something like GMAT can be conducted so that the result is not dependent on the student's performance on that particular day. Also, scores of the same field from different colleges are considered similar which is not fair since the scoring scheme varies from college to college - instead dependent on the college scores should be standardised

The written test was CAT which has three sections - Verbal which has 80% reading comprehension wherein students are supposed to answer questions based on paragraphs given in the exam and 20% sentence correction. The second section is LR-DI which is based on logical reasoning and data interpretation and lastly, a quantitative section which has questions from algebra, trigonometry, geometry etc. Once the CAT percentile is out - students are shortlisted and they are supposed to appear for a personal interview. The panel usually has 2-3 professors each of them is an expert in different areas of management. In IIM Calcutta PI's you can expect questions related to your undergraduate degree, there are usually 2-3 math questions to check your aptitude, in case you have work experience questions can be asked about your field/current innovations in that industry. You are usually quizzed about your hobbies - which you tell during your introduction and finally expect 1-2 GK & current affairs questions