XLRI Meri Jaan

The admission process was very smooth. One has to apply online, at the XAT online portal. The eligibility criteria were to be either in the final year of your graduation or a graduate candidate. The application form was Rs. 2000. The process involved a XAT test followed by a GD/PI round for the qualified students. The XAT exam was on the first weekend of January followed by GD/PI in slots from last Feb to early April. There was no reservation of any type to any students.

Having work experience in the marketing domain for the last 2 years, I chose the Business Management course, as it gave me the flexibility to change the domain which I wanted to. The course curriculum is designed to cover all-around business development in the first year and provides the freedom to choose your specialization in the second. The faculty: student ratio is around 1:25, with most of the profs having qualifications of the old IIMs. The term exams are scheduled every 3 months and have moderate to hard level of difficulty.

The Summer Internship is a part of the XLRI curriculum, where one has to go for an internship after the first year. In this year's summer, the average stipend offered to the students was Rs. 1.54 Lakhs per month. Most of the roles offered were in the domain of Consulting & FMCG with top recruiters such as Bain, BCG, Amazon, HUL, and BajajAuto. The roles offered were from diverse domains, such as Consulting, Finance, Marketing, ProdMan, GenMan, HR, and Operations.

The students get eligible for placements in the 2nd year of their course. Usually, the final placements start in the last semester at XLRI. During last year's placements, 99 companies visited the campus & offered 437 offers to students. All 100% of the students were placed, within 2 days with the average package standing at 30.7 LPA. After completing my MBA, I am hoping to work at a top consulting firm.

The fee for the PGDBM batch of XLRI is around 23.5 Lakhs, which has to be paid in 4 instalments. 2 instalments in the first year totalling 13 Lakhs, and 2 instalments in the 2nd year totalling 10.5 Lakhs. The fee has been increasing every year by a significant margin. There is numerous scholarship opportunity based on merit to be availed provided by alumni, admins, and corporates. Along with that, there is a summer internship process at the end of the first year which has a good stipend along with various small internship opportunities across the year. Apart from that, it is very easy to avail of a loan for the course from reputed banks

The social life at XlRI is the best one can ask for. There are over 30 student-run committees to be a part of, such that there is always some event happening across the campus. There is a flagship event of all the co-circular committees like the Maxi Fair by the marketing committee. Then, there is the annual fest Ensemble Valhalla happening every year, for 3 days full of business, and cultural competitions & sports tournaments. There are all the amenities for playing different kinds of sports on campus. Apart from that, there is always some sports competition lined up for the team to practice, as XL really give focuses on having a competitive mentality among its students. The infra is well built, along with one of the best libraries you can find, with a great number of online resources to support it.

The hostel facility is really good, with all the students getting a single occupancy room for themselves. The rooms are quite spacious, and bright, and a cleaning facility is provided every day. It is necessary for an XLRI student to reside inside the hostel. The hostel fee is almost 85k for a year, which makes the hostel very affordable. The quality of the amenities makes it all worth it. There are common washrooms with a ratio of 6:1, or 4:1, depending on different hostels. The mess charge is 6000 per month, in which meal is provided 3 times, along with the evening snacks. The food is catered to veg, non-veg, and Jain as per the need of the student. The quality of the food is really good, as a student-based committee designs the menu, keeping in mind the requirement of the taste preferences of students across the country. For the non-veg people, it is served to about 4-5 times a week.

There was no Written test or GD during my process as it happened during times. Usually, they both are taken into account in the admission process. I had to go through only the interview process, where most of the discussion was about my work experience, my role at the company, and why I want to pursue the MBA now. I had prepared for these questions already before by taking Mock PIs of the Time institute. The preparation was certainly very helpful as all the questions I had already answered in the mocks.