How I Got Admission in MSQE Program at Indian Statistical Institute

It all began in the month of December, 2014. After researching about various courses and career paths since I got into IIT, it took me roughly 7.5 years to decide that I want to do a Masters in Quantitative Economics(MSQE) from the Indian Statistical Institute. My first pointers for MSQE preparation came from a friend who has worked for UBS both as an I-Banker and as well as a Quant.  

January 2015

After gaining the information about preparatory books & coaching institutes, I was all set to start my MSQE Entrance Journey. The first thing I did was to read Varian (Check in Amazon from here) & Mankiw (Check in Amazon from here) like story books in 20-25 days; This was a vital part of my preparation as I am engineer so it was necessary to understand the turf of economics. I also enrolled myself in a coaching institute. 

February 2015

A lot was going on in my life and to add more to it, I wasn't learning much in the coaching institute, perhaps it was structured for economics undergraduates. 

March 2015

As, I had to commute for 1.5 hours one side from my home to the institute, plus the suboptimal coaching experience, I stopped going to coaching and started practising Snyder along with solving previous year question papers. 

April 2015

In no time the exams season started; didn't apply to IGIDR as I wanted to be in Delhi. ISI Delhi, DSE, JNU were my only bets. Sigh! 

May 2015 - July 2015

Whether the exams went great or not never occurred to me and when the results were announced, I couldn't qualify any of the three exams. 

August 2015

Started working again after a break of around 1 years and thought of MSQE preparation along with it.

Sept 2015 - April 2016

A lot of good stuff started happening in my life. I started working for a startup as their Video Lecturer and helped them in animation & stuff too. Needless to say, I could only prepare for MSQE half-heartedly in these months. 

May 2016 - July 2016

Missed IGIDR cutoff by just 0.6 marks. Yes, that's 0 point 6, less than 1!!!

Decided to STOP preparing for MSQE/Economics entrances!

Aug 2016 - Dec 2016

Started a data science project in my company - related to performance assessment analytics in studies as I was working in a coaching institute cum Edtech startup ; Also did a small gig as a data science faculty in a small management institute. 

Jan 2017

Got married!

Feb 2017 - June 2017

Switched jobs, as my Data Science project was not getting support of founders. This was not good for intellectual satisfaction. Decided to prepare for MSQE again!!!

June 2018

And after 1 year, I was inside Indian Statistical Institute giving interview. I messed it up completely. More on that some other time

2 July 2018

After almost 3.5 years, good news greeted me on the screen. I got an All India Rank 7 in ISI Kolkata MSQE Merit List. Dream Fulfilled! 

Also, you can watch the video format of this journey in my YouTube Channel below. Don't Forget to Like, Subscribe & Share!

This is a personal journey and you could be more interested in how to prepare for MSQE. So, here is my blog post about the "Essence of MSQE(Indian Statistical Institute) Entrance Exam"