Open letter to MDI professors on their admission policy

To: apanjwani@mdi.ac.in, skumar@mdi.ac.in

Respected,

Firstly, I am honoured to write to you as you have quite uprightly mentioned your contact information. Not many do in our country. Small things like these prompted me to apply to the institute with which you are currently associated – MDI, Gurgaon.

I must recall you about myself. Infact this was the first question you asked me during the interview.
MBA aspirant’s name – ANKIT GUPTA
Just to give you a brief idea of my profile – X (80.6), XII (81.4), B.Tech (CS, Jamia) (8.05/10), 1 International research paper (LA, USA), 2 international tech journal articles, 3 yr work ex (CSC) – work on legacy transformation + consultant to 10 Indian life insurance companies, Blogger (feat in HT), Cartoonist (publication @ IIT Kanpur), Movie Jockey (Desimartini.com), winners at many nationwide contests organized by the likes of United Nation Volunteers India, NDTV 24*7, Mouthshut.com, winner at multiple events in college fests, scholarship holder at university…

And most importantly, highlighting my real credentials – 95.6 in CAT 2011

I must also recall you the day I was fortunate to meet you. I appeared before the MDI panel (you as one of the members) on 7 April 2011 (2 PM slot, panel 1) and even though I had a major doubt on my chances, I wanted to give a full best try because this was my last GDPI (may be of my life). Hope you can recollect the day. Nevertheless! Since there were a lot of candidates, it’s my duty to remind my episode with you.

GD topic – Greatest threat to India. I won’t comment on my performance as it involves many variables of perception and evaluation. Let us assume to be default and move on to PI which was of 30-35 mins. How am I so sure about the time period? My real brother accompanied me to get some MDI specific motivation and was waiting outside.
PI [Prof. Ashok Panjwani sitting on left (w.r.t me) & Prof. Sunil Kumar on his left]. Some of the sample questions asked by the panel of which you were a part –
* About me (answered to satisfaction)
* Asked to draw a cartoon (I made a cartoon sketching both of you! I believe you can recall me now)
* How come an international research paper
* How do you manage your time
* How will you stop corruption in India in 3 steps
* Why e-governance not much successful
* Passport service has not change even after IT coming into it
* Is ITC successful with its e-chauppal thing
* What calls do you have (IMT, IMI, TAPMI)
* Any iims (no sir)
* Will you join them (yes sir)
* Is it a wise to join them after 3 years of work-ex
* Why not MBA last yr itself
* Interested in which specialization
* What kind of profile are you targeting after MBA…
…etcetera…All answered in above-avg/excellent replies (strictly my view)
Sir, I would also remind you of the fact that I too asked a question. Ques was “what was the CAT score weightage in final selections for MDI”. I also explained you the logic and the difference it would make incase of 70% weightage is given to CAT score (absolute marks); consequently I would need 11 more than an aspirant who secured 99 out of rest 30%. Response was –
Prof. Sunil Kumar - wait till the results are out and so will be the criteria
Prof. Ashok Panjwani – we don’t take absolute scores and take only percentiles. There are only marginal differences…you too have a chance

…obviously I didn’t. I ended up being at 2015/2177…this sums up for me…I doubt anybody in 95 range got through

So, as a part of consequence management I would like you to address these-
1. Why did MDI even called us (unfortunate ones with 95 percentiles)? To laugh upon us!
2. Why a 30 min interview? False hopes! why can’t just discard in first 5 minutes!
3. Why a false show-off that ‘you too can get in at 95?
4. Why doesn’t MDI puts a separate page on its site elaborating expectations from its future students?

One obvious learning – everything is worthless except scores. This is how it works in India. You have made me realize my rock bottom moment of my academic career. You have made me realize that even learned people like you (being passouts of premier colleges like IIT Kanpur, IIM Ahmedabad), value only and I repeat, only scores.
Why will somebody study to research & innovate and not for scores! Why will (sorry! Why should) somebody do something new in his last year projects and not aim for 100%tile. After all we all want that in India (don’t we)?
Quoting Infosys chief mentor N R Narayan Murty from his book -
“India filed 363 patents compared to 84271 filed by USA, 35350 by Japan and 5938 by Taiwan”

Hoping in the subsequent years, MDI creates a more practical approach to accept its students otherwise going by the admission policy of our premier institutes (including MDI), we shall never go ahead in the above quote of Narayan Murty…firm believe I have (unfortunate but true just like my rejection).

I sincerely hope this request is not unheard and brings some ignition.

With warm regards,
Ankit Gupta

ps: I should not mention this sadist post here but don’t know why I am doing this. Incase anybody finds the content of this post objectionable; accept my unconditional apologies in advance. No intend to defame anybody (person/institute). Free to discuss anything in comments/anywhere