The initial thought process behind short listing a B-School is pretty straightforward. Beautiful Campus, Great Faculty and Excellent Placements are the three most important parameters which an applicant looks out for while applying to an MBA college. One of the few such colleges is Mysore Royal Academy School of Business (MYRA) in Mysore. After I had appeared for my Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) exam in April 2012, I received a call from one of the executive assistants from MYRA. I went through the college brochure and came to know that it is a new B-school started in 2012, but due to its excellent faculty line-up, the college seemed to have an outstanding potential to grow in the coming years. This kept me interested to contact MYRA once again regarding my application process. To my surprise, I received a call from Mr.Vinoo Urs, who was Director-Admissions at MYRA. He was quite eager to understand my profile and my goals. I was really impressed by his inquisitiveness realizing that the faculty members at MYRA was also going to respond the same way, with their constant support and guidance. But due to an urgent operation scheduled later that year, I was not able to apply to MYRA. It was a difficult moment as I had just missed out on the opportunity of becoming a proud member of the founding PGDM batch in a premier B-school.

Two years later, with almost three and a half years of banking experience, I found it only apt to apply to the MYRA PGDM program once again. The whole application process during the 1st cycle of admissions was very smooth. I had to submit an online application form, which initially required filling my personal details, and my professional work experience data along with an application fee of INR 1000. The application essay (not more than 1500 words) and the scholarship essay (not more than 500 words) were the most important aspects of the application process. I mentioned my work profile, career aspirations, future goals, and my expectations from the MYRA MBA program in my application essay. In the scholarship essay, I presented all my strong points which would make me a deserving candidate for this scholarship opportunity at MYRA.

My first Skype interview with a senior faculty member, Dr.Sudhender Rao, and the second (unexpected) interview with the chairperson, Dr.Shalini Urs was simply amazing. Some of the questions asked during the first interview were “Why an MBA?”, “Why chose MYRA to do your MBA?”, “What are your career goals?”, and I was completely prepared with my answers to all these questions. Since I had been working in the banking industry, I was asked the following questions:-“What is the difference between Corporate Banking and Consumer Banking?”, and “What is Corporate Banking, how different is it from Investment Banking?” So, all in all, a perfect interview on your profile, your work experience and your career goals. There was a break of 10 minutes after the first Skype interview. When I received the video call request for the second interview, I was shocked to see the chairperson, Dr. Shalini Urs on the screen. She was happy to see that my first interview went really well; hence she only wanted to know more about my goals after the MBA program. As I had already mentioned in my application essay that I want to become an investment banker, she helped me understand the importance of such a unique job profile by indicating that the job market for such a profile is not so lucrative, hence I would have to pull up my socks in order to stand out in talented pool of investment bankers in the industry. Towards the end of the interview, Dr. Shalini Urs told me to appear for the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program [Level-1], which would give me an edge over other MBA graduates and would also go a long way in becoming a successful investment banker in the industry. So the entire interview experience was overwhelming and the insights shared during the interview were really helpful.

After I finally received my admission confirmation mail the following day, I was quite elated.

I was also happy to see that I have earned a scholarship due to my good performance in the overall interview process and that the scholarship amounted to a partial fee waiver.

I am glad that I even got a lucky chance of having a campus tour before the start of college, so that I could really experience what I have actually heard about MYRA. It was exciting to meet the Dean, Chairperson, faculty members and current students, and understand their experiences which helped me get acquainted with the MYRA culture beforehand.

Thanking you for giving me an opportunity to become a part of the MYRA family.

Looking forward to joining the PGDM 2015-17 program with bated breath.

Best Regards,

Rohit Rajkumar