IPM, IIM Indore is an unconventional programme. In a country like India when most high school students think of engineering or medicine as the only possible career option, clearly an eclectic course like IPM will attract attention -- and rightly so. However, being relatively new programme (less than ten years old), little reliable information is available.

Many aspirants of the programme have previously contacted me for "tips" to the entrance. Here's an anthology of preparation that I usually suggest.

Note: Before you go further, I'd suggest you to take a look at the official website: https://www.iimidr.ac.in/academic-programmes/five-year-integrated-programme-in-management-ipm/ipm-admissions-details/.

Entrance Exam

It is called IPM-AT. Questions are of two kind: verbal and quants. IIM Indore also releases sample questions every year (here's 2019 paper). The sample questions will give you a clear idea of what is expected. If someone around you has a CAT preparation book, grab it now. The question pattern is largely the same.

Books and Resources to Practice

Online Resources (free)

• 2IIM: https://online.2iim.com/Indore-IPM-Rohtak-IPM-sample-paper/

• 2IIM CAT: https://iim-cat-questions-answers.2iim.com

• Hitbullseye: https://grad.hitbullseye.com/IPM-Previous-Year-Question-Paper.php

These are just few question banks I could find using simple Google search. If you need more, search.

Books

• dueNorth: https://www.amazon.in/dp/935306970X/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Yo4tFb4BT7VCT

• Disha: https://www.amazon.in/dp/9389418976/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Rq4tFbZRK5SYD

The content of the books is largely the same. Note that, I've not read either of the book; they are the popular choices that my friends suggest as good.

Interview

Interview questions revolve around three things: culture fit (i.e. do you really want to pursue management?), learning ability (do you "get" what you do?) and general awareness. A majority of questions would be around your past academics; brush up your class 11th and 12th subjects. You can read my interview experience on Quora.

Essentially, you can do three things to prepare for your IPM interview:

1. Catch up with news: read newspapers -- online or offline. Know about regional developments and national economic policies. More importantly, have opinions about them (but don't be arrogant about them).

2. Get the dust off your class 11 and 12 books. Revise most conceptual things; theorems in Physics, basic algorithms in Computer Science, etc.

3. Recollect your past achievements and prepare stories around each of them. You may have heard of Situation, Task, Action and Result (STAR) framework. Try to have most, if not all of STAR, in your responses. Don't tell them A is the situation, B is Task and so on. Imbibe them in your story.

WAT

Now WAT is a relatively new addition to entrance tests - it wasn't there in my time. However, from what I've heard the topics are fairly generic and aim to gauge your language abilities. They are not a test of your general awareness directly. If you do tumefied claims however, they'll certainly raise an eye.

Here are a few online resources that might help:

• https://www.mbauniverse.com/wat-for-iims/topic.php

• https://www.mbarendezvous.com/wat-topics/1.html

• https://gdpi.hitbullseye.com/MBA/GD-and-Essay-Topics.php

• https://www.xamnation.com/wat-topics-for-iim-and-mba-admissions/

• For more topics, just Google.

IIM Ranchi WAT–PI Compendium

This resource by IIM Ranchi should help you immensely in preparing for interviews and WAT.

Finally!

If you do need additional help -- anything that's beyond the content of this page -- feel free to contact me or any IPMer. If you don't know them yet, LinkedIn is your friend.

Good luck!