Don't let the shortlists make you think your management dreams are dead. With 2 years of work experience already under your belt, if you work for one more year, you become eligible for the 1-year Executive MBA programs (like IIM Ahmedabad PGPX or IIM Bangalore EPGP). These programs place an immense premium on your professional achievements and GMAT/CAT scores, almost entirely ignoring high school academic metrics

To be brutally honest about campus life: yes, your 12th score will impact you during the first month of your MBA during Summer Placements. Top-tier Management Consulting firms (like McKinsey, BCG, Bain) and front-end Investment Banks look for an '8/8/8' or '9/9/9' profile and will filter you out immediately. However, many IT consulting, product management, and operations firms care far more about your 2 years of B.E. work experience than what you did in high school

If you want to completely bypass the academic penalization, focus heavily on FMS Delhi, XLRI, or even JBIMS. FMS Delhi is famous for focusing almost entirely on your CAT score and giving zero weightage to your high school or intermediate percentages during the initial shortlisting stage. A killer CAT percentile can completely wipe out your past academic errors at these premier non-IIM institutions

campuses like IIM Calcutta or IIM Ahmedabad give a rating score of 2 points rather than 0 for your range, meaning a raw 99.8+ percentile paired with your solid 2 years of work experience can still keep you in the running for specific calls.