Aditya Birla scholarship interview

First year students ranking in the top 20 in CAT from each of the IIMs are eligible to apply to this scholarship. It pays for the tuition fee for the two years at IIM-B, and hence is worth about Rs. 2 lakhs.

The resume is the key to shortlisting. The Aditya Birla group assigned a weightage to each achievement (depending on whether it was at the national level, state level, college level, etc.) and added up the points. The top point scorers were chosen. Some points are awarded to the write-up also. From IIM-B, Vijayalakshmi and myself were shortlisted in 1999. 8 were shortlisted from IIM-A and IIM-C respectively, while 2 more were from IIM-L. The scholarship was awarded to 10 people finally. The distribution was 4-1-4-1 across A, B, C and L. Viji won it from IIM-B.

In 2000, 13 were shortlisted from IIM-B, and the following 8 were in the 10 that won the scholarship. Vikas Purohit, Karan Bajaj, Prahlad Rao, Yashodhara Lal, Pratyush Tiwari, Lavanya Chari, Prashant Koorse, Saurabh Jhalaria

In 1999, Viji & I were put up at the Grand Hotel. They briefed us the earlier night about allowances (Rs. 1,000 + 50% of the travel fare). Since I’d flown, I ended up making a loss on the trip — but spending an hour at the Taj Hotel was worth it. The interview was spread across the next day from 9AM to 6PM, and the results were announced over dinner at 8PM. We flew back the next morning, just in time for Prof. Ramesh Kumar’s first lecture on marketing.

The interview panel was ‘star-studded’. I didn’t know anyone except Dr. Alagh of the planning commission. The others were from NGOs and big companies.

Interview questions

  1. Which is more important: character, competence or charisma?
  2. What do you think India needs to do to improve?
  3. How do you plan to contribute socially after you graduate?
  4. How can an educational institution like IIM-B take steps to improve its effectiveness?
  5. Tell us about some challenges that you faced when at work.

It was an ad-hoc interview, only partly based on the resume. The only question based on the resume was “How will you apply Chaos Theory to management?” Mine was the first interview, and I thought I had done well.

Learnings

  1. The writeup is critical. They hired an external agency to do the evaluation, and study it very carefully.
  2. The competition is the toughest I have faced. Guys from the other IIMs (they were all GUYS, except Viji) are extremely smart.
  3. I think the interview counted for more than the writeup, at least after the shortlist. I had done fairly well in the writeup, and the interview was the unknown factor.

7 thoughts on “Aditya Birla scholarship interview”

  1. Anand,
    I, a 3rd year student of BITS-Pilani, am a Aditya Birla Scholar of 2006 Batch. Had gone to attend the 10th anniversary of ABS, held in The Taj, Mumbai. A scholar from your batch Prashant Sarin had also come to attend this ceremony. Do you know him ???

  2. I am gurdeep singh from bangalore . am 1st year MBA student.. i want to know that can i apply for schlorship? please help me regarding this.

  3. @Gurdeep: If you’re in your first year at IIM, the scholarship details will
    be announced to you. To my knowledge, the scholarship isn’t available
    outside of the IITs and IIMs.

  4. uhmm…actually m a 1st yr undergraduate student iit kharagpur and had secured an AIR 431 which lies int he top 15 ranks of my college.
    i was never told of this scholarship nor any announcements ver made in dis regard.
    i seriously regret not having applied for this scholarship..it was today i learnt that i cud hv been eligible..
    is der nething i can do now? i kw its kinda late…

  5. I want to ask why is this scholorship is not given for other eligible students of other colleges many hundreds of colleges are there and this is not necessary that entire talent of country is in iit’s or iim’s these insitutions are not running up the whole country so what about the other non priviledged deserving students???? further these iims and iits have so much variatiion in admissions due to quota etc? so what about other thousands of youngsters they are also indians and they also have right on resources and wealth of country if they are eligible so i think “ADITYA BIRLA SCOLORSHIPS SHOULD BE OPEN FOR ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS OF INDIA”

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