Answered: How to defend low acads in theinterview?

My background: GEM, 9/8/6 acads, converted XLRI Jamshedpur BM in 2021.

One obvious question that I was asked was about my graduation academic performance. Here's how I answered it.

Step 1: Own it. No excuses. I started off by saying that I agree that my acads in graduation were pretty bad and they do not represent my abilities. While there are explanations for it, there are no excuses.

Step 2: Explain what happened. I realised early on that a career in engineering was not for me and it was management that truly excited me. I got involved in college fests a lot and I truly learnt a lot. I also got to work in the core team of both my college fests. I wasn't able to manage my studies with it, which I should have.

Step 3: How will you improve it. I've definately learnt that I must balance various aspects of my profile and my efforts should not be lopsided. Also, now that I'll be doing an MBA, I'll actually be learning subjects of my interest in the classroom. So I will not feel the need to do a lot of extra curricular activities.

I think the three steps mentioned are the best way to answer this. Content wise - I had framed this answer based on what actually happened with me, so not saying you should copy. If something similar happened with you then you can work on similar lines.