CAT 2005
It all started in August 2004, in my 3rd year of Engineering, when I enrolled with Career Forum for their 2 year CAT prep. programme. Gave an Hour's mock on the very first day and scored around 95%ile.
I was happy and decided to put efforts, but somehow I did not make any effort to study regularly, though I attended all the classes. I practiced a lot of Quant after my 3rd year exams, because, I did not like the other two sections, so, just did Quant. Time flew and in August 2005 gave my first National Mock with CF. Ended up with 99%ile. It was then that I started preparing seriously and studied hard. In the last few months, 2 other PGites from my college, 'Zanyzaphod' (now in IIM-A) and 'Sonalis75' (going to IIM-L this year) & me would sit and solve, analyse mocks.
CAT 2005, gave the exam and thought I had done decently, the results showed otherwise.
OA - 96.83
DI - 89.xx
VA - 87.xx
QA - 98.xx
No IIM calls, though I ended up with NITIE, XLRI (XAT=99.60) and IIT-Kgp (JMET rank 486).
Attended the interviews but did not convert any of the 3 calls.
CAT 2006
Joined TIME weekend classroom course (got a discount) and also joined the AIMCAT Series. Did well in the first few tests, but lagged behind badly in the later ones, mainly because I was not studying at all, and the competition was improving with every test.
Gave CAT2006, and again failed to do well.
OA - 96.27
DI - 89.xx
VA - 93.xx
QA - 96.xx
Had applied only to the IIMs and obviously no calls. XAT was 95.xx %ile and again, no XLRI call. It was an uneventful season in terms of calls.
CAT 2007
In May 2007, I decided I would not study for CAT. I was doing well at work and thought I would make a career out of it. Discussed the plan with my parents who thought I was making a mistake by not giving CAT another realistic shot.Went onsite from July to September and enjoyed a great European Summer Holiday. Roamed about Europe for every weekend in those 2 months without a care in the world. We were a group of six 20 somethings and had the time of our lives. (CAT? What is that?). Came back to India and enrolled for the TIME 8 AIMCAT series and decided to give it another serious shot. One AIMCAT was already over when I enrolled, so 7 to go. Mid September to Mid October was spent in serious CAT Prep. (I think the European Holiday refreshed my mind). There was work at office but somehow managed to pluck an hour or two for CAT everyday.
CAT 2007, My first thought on seeing the paper was "I can't do a single question in this Quant section" (and I am not making this up, it really was my first thought). Started with VA as usual, did 30 mins of it. Then moved to DI, did it for 50 mins, then QA for 50 min, and VA for the remaining 20 mins (this was predecided and this strategy was tried and tested in the mocks and I felt it worked for me). I knew it was a tough Quant section, so focused heavily on accuracy. As I left the hall, I knew I had played a risky accuracy game. I had only a few attempts in all 3 sections and was banking heavily on getting them right. Checked the solutions of QA & DI that night, and knew I was safe. It was only VA which was a mystery and my guess on the answers was as good as anyone else's.
Results showed I had done well.
OA - 99.68 (129 marks)
DI - 96.27 (47 marks)
QA - 96.76 (35 marks)
VA - 99.77 (47 marks)
IIMs LACKI called me for their next round (B call? My graduation marks played spoilsport)
My preparation for the GD/PI was significantly better than 2 years ago. Spoke to PGites, particularly 'Zanyzaphod' (Anand), 'Rosogulla' (Joydeep), 'Krishnan_Sekar' (Krishnan) and also the mentors assigned to me as part of the Mentorship Programme of the IIMs. All of them gave me valuable advice for the next round of the GDs and the PIs. A big thanks to all those guys who helped me at this stage.
I had in total 8 calls, IIMs LACKI, XLRI, MDI, NITIE and the interviews spanned over a period of 50 days, did decently in all of them (made some mistakes in some interviews, but kept leaning from each mistake).
As for the results I have converted all the IIM calls I had namely, IIM A,C,L,K,I, MDI and Waitlisted in NITIE (which will convert in all probability) and XLRI (which will not convert in all probability). No rejects and that feels good considering I had only rejects 2 years ago.
Going to IIM A
& hoping to have a fun filled 2 yrs in what is simply 'The Best' institute to be in.Finally, a little Gyaan on CAT
What I did differently in my year 2007 attempt at CAT.
1) Analysed mocks properly. Re-solved all the questions at home before the next mock the next week
2) Din't overdo the mocks. 1 mock a week was all I did.
3) QQAD (Quant Questions A Day) periodic tests were very helpful. The questions were good, came in bunches of 25-30 and were fun to do. I did those and analysed them properly.
4) I had begun to read a lot since the last 2-3 years and thus unintentionally my VA skills had improved.
5) I cared nothing about what %ile I got in me mocks. In fact I got something like 79%ile and 80%ile in the last 2 AIMCATs leading up to CAT. It din't bother me one bit. I used the mocks only to learn from previous mistakes and as a question bank.
6) Each mock exam (CAT included) is different and approach it that way. What you got in your previous exam(s) has no bearing on the next one (I may be wrong here, but that was my philosophy). Of course, that dosen't mean you don't learn from the mistakes you made in the previous mocks.
7) Accuracy helps in DI & QA. Avoid guessing in these 2 sections.
Some Gyaan on GD/PI
1) Be yourself. Be Confident. Don't get intimidated by others.
2) Prepare hard, very hard. Know enough about every detail you put in the IIM forms.
3) Talk to people who have converted IIM calls in the past. They will give you lots of useful pointers.
4) Be friendly & formal in the GD. Content is everything and whatever happens, don't get overly aggressive. (In my personal opinion, GD is a waste of time if it is shorta 1 hour GD makes more sense)
5) If you have the time, attend the GD/PI session at the Institiute itself (for eg. Give the IIM L GD/PI @ IIM L even if you live in say Chennai, provided you have the time for it). I had to do it with IIM A and the moment I experienced the place, I did not want to go anywhere else, so, extra motivation to get in.
On PagalGuy :
I would like to keep this short & sweet. The next time somebody asks me anything on MBA education in India, my answer is going to be, "have you heard of PagalGuy?"
Well my story has no CAT'0X to it, it began and ended this year. And I am writing here not for sympathy or for those thanks below the post :) (liar liar) but just hoping that this will inspire atleast someone out there and allow all those guys with not so brilliant profiles to rest their brains and stop worrying.
Its bin like a rollercoaster ride up and down, up and down, but its been fun too, a good learning experience with some etched memories.
It started somewhere around in 2002-03 when I started preparing for my JEE. I remember the slogging 12 hrs 14 hrs the sky was the limit!..there r people who call it drudgery but nah it's a sacrifice yea that's the word.but a pity that after all the hard work and 2 attempts didn't get thru both the times..cleared the Screening but not the Mains
Then I had to stick to VJTI coz that was where I was..lost all interest in studies and screwed up big time got a pathetic cgpa!!.was down in the dumps big time this was upto my 6th sem of course and the magnanimity of the situation just struck me!.....I knew it was gonna be a tough journey from here onand that just got confirmed in the placement season.I will never forget this incident all my life
There were a lot of companies who came to our campus to recruit and had to do a lot of requesting to let me sit for their companies..most of them "at least" had a criteria of 6cgpa and here I was with something worse! While most were polite in their refusals there was this one guy from a reputed company, don't want to take its name, who laboriously went through the task of explaining to me why it would be a waste of his resources to interview me! ....I remember telling him to change the aptitude test cut-off for me and raise the bar for me and I could still prove to himthe guy told me "I wont change the apti cut off but mebe u need to change ure attitude" I remember wanting to smack him right across the face but just resisted it coz I knew that it was his day that day and one day it would be mine...that was when I decided that I had to shut a lot of people's mouths and decided to take the CAT.
---continued---
I reached the centre and there was this maze of people swarming the centre like bees on a honeycomb :).and there was the media too focusing especially on the guys who were very nervous.Id be lying if I said that it did not unnerve me.but in I went leaving everything to God having told my parents that dont expect too much, u know the odds 2,40,000 v/s ME!......sat on my desk and that half an hour wait before receiving the paper was the worst wait of my life.tried lukin at the birds and the non existent scenery outsidebut somehow cudnt chill it just wudnt happen.As it is was jittery before the start and the Quant section made matters worse took over an hour for it, 50 minutes for DI and the rest few minutes for Verbal.
Came out braced myself for the next years CATThere was no way I could clear it after givin like 40 minutes for Verbal that too when I always believed in maximizing my attempts in that sectionBut surprise of surprises!! I checked the answer keys of various classes and found a decent though fluctuating performances from each key
On the results day just prayed that the best coaching class Key was the IIMs key lolstood before God with my cell and smsed for the results
And there it was QA-96.01 Verbal- 94.7 DI- 98.75 O.A-99.17
Calls from IIM C, K, MDI
I was shouting for a long time poor grandma she had no choice but to bear up lol.then of course with the results came the burden of havin to prepare for the interview.burden because I had to read the Economic Times which I had neva done all my life.but anyways I did what I had to.got done with my interviews, they were good and of course the low gpa was a thorn they neva missed lol.they questioned probed tried to corner me..but what is, is.and thats that.I just spoke of all the recent positive happenings and how I was optimistic of good change to come.and stuff like that my extra currics arent too fancy either..just a lot of reading, a bit of TT, debates nothing fabulous trust me.Dunno how convinced they were but finally ended up converting IIM Calcutta and MDI..IIM K did not take me inspite of a fabulous interview, I guess the thorn was too poky to swallow :)..
And still I got thru which is where the moral of the story begins. I wrote all this to just tell all u low academics guy or this problem guy and that problem guy to just believe. Belief can move mountains. I got in for what I was becoz I was different..there were 8 pointers and 9 pointers who had 6 calls but cudnt convert ABC this is not to demean them or boast about my achievements But to tell u this that yes ure past matters but not to the extent as ure present! The present u is what they are lukin forif ure the guy they are lukin for with a lot of potential (trust me they kno!) then those thorns on ure CV just fade away..and just ensure that ure smiling ure best and most confident smile out there! Remember one thing an interview is only as good as ure capability to steer it the way u want..There are people who go with this mentality that yea Ive read up so many GK buks now u can fire at me all the questions u want.Trust me Ive never had an interview where they ever went to current affairs or GK neva it was always about me, me and methere was neva a dearth of stuff I cud tell them abt myself and I wud go on and on and they wud lissn.Im sure ull have a lot to say too, its after all like story telling if u spoke and they heard u out throughout the interview then rest assured u must have had them enchanted (or terribly bored lol)
Anywayz all the best guys! Hope u cud relate to something from my journey and it brings about some change in ure thinking.
Rock on! And keep faith in that journey of ures, keep groping in the dark someday ull reach the light at the end of the tunnel
My first post on pg:
The first shot (CAT 2005): Before giving a shot I had the feeling that I would never make it to a top B-School, so I did not prepare at all and did not apply to any other B-Schools, nevertheless I gave a shot at CAT.
But when the results came out I was shocked to see that I had got 98.3 percentile. The initial elation gave way to disappointment when I realized that the application deadlines for almost all of the top b schools had passed. But the best part about the results was that I got the confidence that was needed and it helped me take the decision to give another shot with a good deal of preparation.
The second shot (CAT 2006): Luckily for me, the company that I had got into decided to postpone my date of joining and I therefore got a lot of time to prepare well enough. I Answered both the Mock Cats at Time and the Sim Cats at IMS and was able to perform fairly well in most of them.
Then came D day. Saw the verbal section first and was shocked. Verbal was my strongest area and after going through few of the questions I was convinced that I had no hope of performing well. This was the biggest mistake I made. I ended up missing five questions at the end of the verbal section (Would u believe it - I did not see those five questions).I then moved on to QA, but I had still not got over the shock of verbal and commited some hopeless blunders in the first few questions. Immediately after coming out of the examaination hall I knew that I had no hope of performing even reasonably well.
Finally when the results came out, I had got 97.47 percentile and obviously no IIM calls. But this time I had applied to a good number of institutes. I also got 98.4 in XAT and got an XLRI call. I decided to take whatever I would get. But deep down I had the feeling that I should give another shot at the IIMs. This was when I met Gejo Srinivasan (then product head of IMS). He spoke to me for about one hour and convinced me that I should give another shot at the IIMs.
The third and final shot (CAT 2007): I joined Keane Inc as a software engineer and was bogged down by a huge amount of work. I initially went ahead with CAT preparation but slowly the workload kept increasing and I could find no time for preparation. I started losing all hope of ever getting into an IIM. Then D day came. I could not sleep properly the night before. I went into the examination hall with the feeling that this would probably be my worst shot at CAT. The verbal section was not too different from last time and I had the feeling that I was not alert enough during the exam. I came back home and did not have the guts to check the answer keys of the coaching institutes. But I could not keep my curiosity under control for too long. When I did check the keys I seemed to have done fairly well. Then finally the results - 99.46 percentile in CAT, calls from IIM C,I and K. Without dragging on for too long I will come to the day the IIM results were announced. I had got through NITIE and MDI and was not too confident of getting through the IIMs. IIM Calcutta was one of the first IIMs to come out with the results. The first word that I saw after submitting my roll number and dob was "Congratulations".
My advice to aspirants - Never ever give up (I was about to give up midway and if this were the case this post would not have been here)
Well, this is not my CAT story but a small CAT poem. I wrote this last year when i converted my first CAT call in my third attempt. I hope puys like it. Here it goes:
Meri MBA Yatra
Kabhi humne socha tha mann me,
Hum bhi bananege ek din Manager,
Isiliye Second year end me,
Join kiya humne PT Beginner
Jab hua Third year end,
Hum ho gaye Beginner se Regular,
Par i-flex ke Placement se,
Taiyariyo ne liya mod Right-Angular
Fir bhi ek kasak dabi thi,
MBA ki lalak lagi thi,
Jab tak na kiya i-flex join,
Tab tak kiya Wordlist ko Fine
Jab hum ban gaye iflexer,
Mila kaam, na mila Time
Socha tha maarenge Sixer,
Par ghar aate aate baj jate they Eight-Nine
Jaise taise de diya CAT,
Pran lagaye, jaan lagayi
Phone par GK padhi-padhai
De daale SNAP, JMET aur XAT
Ishwar ki kripa se,
Result mila Umeed se Dugna
Interview ke liye kiya Bharat-Darshan
Final Selection se hui Pau-Bara
Ab bas yahi hai koshish,
Badha saku sabki Garima,
Kyuki Uma, Jaya aur Sushma
Sabki Pasand NIRMA!!!
--rusty
Well, for me it began towards the end of semester one i.e. around Nov. 2002My parents had moved to Bhopal from Chandigarh and I had joined the hostel in SeptemberI would call this phase of my life - 'Getting Introspective'all along my schooling I had never bothered as to where am I headed or what kind of a man I'll be, but just a few months away from my parents and I was thinking a lot on these linesI was like a blank slate which was ready for its scriptand I didn't know what it would be! A week before my semester exams, I decided to go to Bhopal and come back a day before the exams were scheduled to startafter this small break, I had decided that I had to start with a few things and these efforts were focused mainly on my communication skills (public speaking, vocabulary et al)Now, a few incidents during my first semester had put this thought in my mind that electronics engineering was not my cup of tea and I'm proud to say that I concluded this after putting in a good effort (though not well-directed)
And next thing I remember was that acads weren't getting much of my time; all that I would think of, involved - words, editorials, music, fiction, extra-curricular eventsand that's the very same period when 'management' as a field appealed to me! My brother had sent me the 'B-School Survey' book (the one that comes yearly, it was worth 195 bucks then) with all the info on the Indian B-schools esp. the IIMsit was a great insight into what MBA is about and truly speaking that book inspires me till this dayMoreover, we were a bunch of friends and they shared my enthusiasm towards management as welland one fine Sunday morn four of us were sitting @ Ekadiken (a small coaching insti in Chandigarh) giving our first mock CAT!
And guess what, I got a mail (snail) from them offering a scholarship of 5kit was a colored paper in the format of a cheque, that had my name in bold, right on top of it and said this aloud to me - 'dude, you can do it!'
Next phase of my life had arrived, named - 'Getting active'and this went on till the end of 6th semesterafter all that introspection and efforts, I was out to get the taste of the real stuffgot into a lot of extra currics, was involved in the organization of a few intra-college and inter-school events and was elected the General Secy. of the placements committee in my college as wellI cherish this period coz of a high rate of growth in the graph of my learning curveall along the day I would be making plans, or structuring some ideagot infamous for reading 'The Hindu' on the last benches of lecture hallsmanaging above 70% was the target for second year but, as time passed by the target was revised to 65%
...this phase ended with me getting a campus placement in CSC on July 4, 2005It was all hunky dory till thenI thought I knew life and had experienced a lotBut alas! Life had more lessons to teach me a few days and incidents later, I had resigned from the placements committeegot bored with extra-curricslife around me was meaningless while people were seeming cynicalgot sick frequently tooI wished if I had passed out of the college at the end of my third year had got a scholarship at Bull's Eye Chandigarh for the one year prep course but, the zeal waned away after a few classes as I had never taken tuitions and more importantly, as I didn't agree with their methodology and ideology for preparationso no more classes or prep as well bought a laptop, got into stocks for a brief span but mostly just lazed around for days without even attending the college watching and analysing movies, their charactersso this phase of my life should be rightly called - 'Getting complacent & dormant'and in hindsight, I think that since I was way too involved with various activities earlier, I got into a mindset where I felt the need to rediscover myself!
Anyway, this was the time when CAT was approachingtest series had commenced and people were gearing upone of my friends showed me a pamphlet from PT offering a series of ten tests for some 1000 buckssounded like a good dealstarted with a 92 percentilethen worked on my quant a bit and things were improvingdecided to start the paper with quant as then I was able to handle it wellwas landing up mostly in the 97-98 percentile regionthough I worked a bit on my quant, I didn't solve a single DI question apart from the mocks, while verbal, I believed, didn't need any prep! I don't remember bothering about my sectional scores, I don't remember analysing a mock paper in depthand the biggest problem of allI didn't take a single two hour test at my place, so had a huge issue of concentrating for two hours at a stretchbut the good part was, I was gearing upand then on October 16, 2005 in PracCAT 6, I got AIR 65Unlike all the DT and toru people, who are consistently good, I have always believed in rising to the occasion and managing Just in Timeand this high rank was uncalled for as after that score, complacency set in and I didn't do much thereafter didn't take a test as I was afraid that I'll spoil that feel-good of top 100 rank, that I had got (though only once)
November 20 - CAT'05
Had no sort of predetermined mindset here that I guess comes only when you have a history of performing well in mocks nor was I in the 'main to aise hi dene aya hu' mode as I had a long association with CAT and knew that it's basically aptitude and attitudeall I told myself was - 'let's see'!
CAT'03 had 150 questions; CAT'04 had 123 and continuing with the trend of reduction in number of questions CAT'05 had only 90 questionswhile we had the papers in front of us waiting for the bell to ring, I calculated that it should be 10*1 and 20*2 for each sectionmade a rough strategy and started the paperfirst took up quant - 42 minutes - attempt: 21 marksthen analyzed the verbal section and did four two markers in 8 minutes and moved to DIstarted with that 'Olympics venue election' set- had read about it in news so thought I'll be able to do it10 minutes invested but, results - ZILCH! (Mistake 1)decided to move awayin next 30 minutes, made attempts worth 21 marksand then I was exhausted (Mistake 2)in next half hour, my skills in verbal ability were found wanting along with a lack in concentration and I ended up with a total of 21 attempts in VA as well
I came out of the hall, thinking that the paper was a bit tough than last time and since last year cut-off was 51 this time it should be around 45next, I met my friend, and he asked me about itI told him QA 21 - he said with your accuracy -it's superbthen I said DI 21 - he said Awesomeand then the moment I uttered VA 21 attempts- I could see it in his eyeshe himself had made attempts worth 48 marks in VA and was amazed that how could I do such a foolish thing
Well, same evening - solutions started to pour in from CL and othersfirst thing I heard was this - the VA Bond of my batch was getting 3 marksthen came my turn to face itand it totaled up to 5 marks! Called up the VA Bond and shared a good laugh about it we both knew that it was over for us this year but were sure that the realization of our dream had only been delayed, not finished by any meansnext, it was a relaxed December at home and then XAT was approaching!
January 8 - XAT'06
I was totally relaxed and didn't even care to know what kind of paper was XATanyway, the pattern was newmade close to 60 attempts with just 9 in quantthought that it would be enough for a 90 percentileand I was right I got 98.64 overall with 91.8 in quant but where I went wrong was that cut-offs in XAT weren't 90!
The results were out on Jan 30 and I thought I should get a callbut, Jan 31 confirmed that management education had to wait for two more years to embrace meQuant cut-off for BM was 92.3 percentile! (And this was the time when I viewed a few threads @ PagalGuy and got introduced to this forum thingdidn't make an ID though)
A very interesting realization, that I believe most aspirants of management education would have had, is the significant role of these experiences during preparation, mocks, exams, and results in shaping you up as a person! For me all this happened in my phase of personal struggle and thus, had a great import attached to it.
CAT'05 results: QA - 98.2, DI - 97.8, VA - 65 & OA - 96.38!
June 1, 2006 - My parents moved to Mumbai.
June 19, 2006 - I joined CSC @ Noida where I had a bond period of two years.
I knew that I hadn't done justice to my engineering studiesso through this job I sought to make amends and do something technicalbut alas! It was not to beafter getting inside the industry I got to know that there are product based companies and services based companiesCSC is an IT services oneanyway, got the hang of the support work and though it wasn't very technical, I started to look at the bright sideI wasn't a computer science engineer or a techie freak who wanted the best work for himselfthis profile helped me realize my strengths in communication skills and exercise my faith in team-work as wellgot the 'team-player of the quarter' award within six months of joining, won a logo competition for my project and was also referred by my manager for the interview with a team from BT for the 'BT-best places to work in India' survey (though I completely forgot about it and was chatting in caf while my manager's eyes were hunting for me
)This phase was great fun and had many firsts attached to it - the anxious first day at job, the exciting first salary that was supposed to make all our dreams come true, our first self-rented house et al heard about CAT'06 as wellread a lot about the luck factor in VA and far easier QA in it supposedly to take in more non-engineers! After reading that entire stuff one thing was sure - CAT was going GMAT way and that meant a very different type of verbal section than we had seen earlier esp. RCsanyway, Jan &Feb; registered the peak in my input towards my job and then in March I started to plan for higher studiesthat zeal to do something technical had revived within me and along with a friend of mine, my thoughts wandered in the direction of MS in USto give our plans some impetus, we took the exam dates for September...next, began all that scanning through the word lists of Baron'sand thus, excess beauty had become 'supererogatory pulchritude' for us...for the next few months at least!
Though the prep was getting along nicely, I hadn't zeroed in on any particular course...I was inclined towards graphics but thought that I should get into it only if I were to get a good exposure of what it was all about...so the approach was to explore the fundaas behind this field and then try to do something in practice which would help me in not only understanding and applying the subject but also in making a strong case for me later in my application for the relevant course...but, as you can see, everything doesn't go according to your plan! I could not extract enough zeal from within to go all out for MS in graphics...engineering was surely not for me! so what was?
I would put number of hours searching for courses in US that accepted GRE score...I loved the prep and was doing well in the practice exams (1400-1550)...and so I thought, 'can this score be used for a course in any other field?'...nd then my mind wandered to what I had always thought as an interesting and possible career option for me - Marketing Research...and to my surprise I was able to find four MS courses in top 100 US universities for Market Research & other related fields...and suddenly I smelled an opportunity...queried, googled, read a lot about these courses...the rankings of the universities and then the inevitable question - MS vs MBA!!!
The four universities where this MS course was offered, were not in top 20...and MS was not meant to prepare you for a job as MBA is..and thus, it was simple for me now -- If all I wanted was to get into management education then MBA should be it -- and then the next part was easy too...I wanted to get into an Indian B-school--GMAT was not an options coz of the financial factors and a few other reservations...I took a leave from office and was off to mumbai for around ten days...got back on June 19, the day I completed one year as an IT engineer
I had made up my mind and on the blessed day of June 26, had made a PG ID too!...was reading 'The World is Flat' those days and got introduced to a new term 'IAYF' coined by Bill Gates...decided to use it as my name here! my initiail month was mostly spent in verbal prep section...Para jumbles, RCs, SCs and the best - the vocab thread...found people like Vyomb who were updating the threads very sincerely with questions and answers as well! posted on the CAT prep for working junta about my profile and approach and got my first reply from none other than - 'Greenspan'...he had very encouraging words for me and told me to hop in to the CAT journey! and I followed!
and then the best thing happened to me - minkuvg (VG from UDT) , 2months (Jayant - not very active on PG) and me joined hands! VG was taking the TIME series from the beginning and was doing good while me n Jayant decided to stay away from the mocks for at least a few weeks more, to work on our skill-set first...and then if this wasn't enough, in the beginning of september I was blessed with BBLT!
this was a great experience - Tanveer, Deep, Hameed,mohit1984, ankit_insane, fringant, obsessed_bout_mba, buck_was, jimmygoogle, chakde, Pawanpadekal, Vineet.nitd, made_for_iims - can't thank these guys enough...we poured our hearts out @ the thread...pushed each other to do well despite all those disasters mock after mock...even the non-members had found a new home - marijuana_user, ameya_ahr - with wonderful words flowing out in the thread...and for this very reason, I think it was the best thread of last year!
:clap:apart from this online life, minkuvg, me and Jayant were zeroing in on our weaknesses as well...we talked a lot about the exam, the thinking that went into making it, what would click for each of us and what would fail us...while my dread for quant and comfort in VA was shared equally by Jayant which showed in our TIME mocks, minkuvg was giving rocking 99+ performances...and then we took two good decisions: one to take mocks form CL, IMS et al and second, to work on our concentration levels which we were sure was going to be a huge factor in a 150 minutes long exam...it was October the thirteenth and we decided to take two mocks back to back on our own...even though, one can be confident of his/her ability, that satisfaction of giving good results adds zing to your prep...and that's what these two mocks did to me...we sat there for continuous five hours and when I got the cut-offs from the PG threads, I had scored 99+ in both of them with quant being the weaker section...the very next day, in mock all India SNAP I got AIR 55 which sparked further my journey for continuous improvement...I experimented a lot to know what clicked for me...two mocks on saturday - TIME mocks on sunday - then one CL/IMS one on thursday and things were looking good...I was getting 99+ regularly at my place but in the TIME sunday mocks, things were stuck between 92-96 with an occasional 82 as well...so I knew I had to take that comfort of sitting at my place to TIME's test centre now...
As I had managed quant two years back, this time too I had left it late to tackle this section...decided to try two-round strategy with first period of 30 minutes to tap in on 6-7 sitters to make sure I was close to cut-off and also to mark 3-5 doable questions for the second round of 15-20 minutes...after a few mocks, this was fine-tuned and was working out great for me! one more lesson was not to leave DI for last as it had been disastrous for me...so, through those 15 odd mocks, I had attained a good understanding of my strengths and weaknesses...now was the time for the final lap with less than 50 days to go for the exam...Greenspan wrote a superb post on how to utilise the month of october in our prep and we had quite a few yahoo confs as well...took 3 mocks towards the end of October and DI was bothering me...worked on the problems and finalised two-three strategies to take into the last 15 days...left for Mumbai on 7th November and decided to take 5 mocks in the next 5 days...this ensured that the change of environment didn't spoil my groove that I had got into after months of prep...things were looking good...be it PT, CL, IMS, TIME and whatever pattern , I had achieved consistency in my results which were around 98 prcntl at worst and 99.3 at best...so, I should get MDI on my worst day and IIM L on my best - this is what I would tell myself...then in the final 4 days, just picked up the 25 odd mocks that I had taken...analysed them while scanning the earlier CAT papers as well...and next up was November 18...the C-day as we used to call it!
was sent to bed by mum-dad @ 2200 and you know, you can not sleep that early when it's C-1 day!
was thinking all sort of things and amidst all that - I had the urge to tell myself - "let's start with DI tomorrow"...with the sane part of my mind, intact of all these anxieties, telling me to take it as it comes I was reminded of one of my posts @ BBLT where I had mentioned that the ones who had made it through in the previous years were the ones who had applied themselves well during the exam, who had kept the presence of mind to use their instincts in order to maximise the results! As we saw last night in the Champions League final, even the top scorer in English football choked while taking the penalty against Cech and froze in front of the goal...November 18 - CAT'07
the pattern hadn't changed, so I assumed that the content of the exam had the so-called surprise that we expected from CAT year after year...one scan, and I was proved right...verbal had short RC's with three questions each along with seemingly vocab based questions and DI had no signs of reasoning in it! followed my gut-feel...started with DI and after 30 minutes had done 9 questions,slow and steady, making sure the calculations were exact...thought about shifting but decided to carry on in order to continue with the momentum as this seemed a good opportunity to bag a good score in DI...50 minutes and I had attempted 14 questions...was satsisfied so far...next up, first round of QA...30 minutes and did 7 questions...used short-cuts nd jugaads here a lot...so wasn't sure if I had done well...then, made foray into VA and 25 minutes in, I had done 3 Vocab, 4 PJ and 3 Para Completion questions...RC's seemed confusing to look at and Sentence Correction had me in awe...and panic button was about to be pressed...but, decided to take a break here and fill up the ovals to relax a bit...then, with renewed confidence just stared those Sentence Correction questions in the eyes and cracked them in a few minutes...then did the RC's and made an attempt of 21 in VA with only ten minutes left...approached QA again for the second round after holding myself from attempting the third question of an RC after doing the first two as it would have affected my balance in score...96+ in both QA and VA is much better than 99+ in VA but 90 in QA! did two more questions with double and cross checking my answer and was on my way to the third one when the bell rang! I had to calculate X-Y...had calculated Y but no X yet...made a guess and submitted the answer sheet...and came back to find the X in fifteen seconds and also that I had marked a wrong answer! so 10 attempts in QA and 1 was surely wrong!
my first thoughts - I had the feeling that the last guess in QA was the only wrong that I had done in the stipulated time and would manage a good DI and VA score...but QA? this had me worried...maximum I could get was 35...I had the practice of guessing the over all cut-offs after the mocks and since I always scored around it, my guesses were close more often than not and CAT'07 seemed to me a paper with possible cut-offs in the region of 115...
later in the evening was surprised to see Directors from the coaching instis coming out with expected cut-offs of around 95-100...nd then, the soultions poured in!
DI - 14/14 = 56 marks
VA - from various keys it was between 34-54
and QA - 9/1 = 35 with sectional cut-off expected to be around 25...
and I punched the air with joy!!!
January 8, 2008
CAT results were out!
DI - 56 - 98.97 percentile
QA - 35 - 96.76 percentile
and VA - 54 - 99.93 percentile
OA - 99.90 with all six calls!
---------------------------------------------------
I won't delve much into the GD -PI phase but would give you the option of going through my experiences...here are the links
IIM L: Feb 1---
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/28339-2008-iim-l-gd-pi-2.html#post975310
IIM K: Feb 20---
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/28500-2008-iimk-gd-pi-experiences-7.html#post1003175
IIM I: March 3---
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/28534-2008-iim-indore-gd-pi-13.html#post1019349
IIM A: March 8---
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/28912-2008-iima-pi-experiences-10.html#post1025378
IIM C: March 13---
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/29557-2008-iim-calcutta-gd-pi-3.html#post1031586
IIM B: March 20---
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/29828-2008-iim-bangalore-gd-pi.html#post1040741
---------------------------------------------------------------
May 1, 2008
Converts - CLIK
Waitlist - B (#35)
Reject- A
-------------------------
Today, on May 22, @ 1610 hour Mr. Bhaskar Rao from IIMB admission office called up at my place and informed that my waitlist had cleared! :cheerio:
And so with that, finally my season came to an end with me landing up in my dream business school! :hurray::hurray::hurray:
Thank you Pagalguy and thank you all for reading through my dastaan-e-CAT...
The world is ours...now and forever!
P.S. - minkuvg with 98.39 percentile in CAT has made it to IMT and is currently waitlisted at MDI (PGPM & PGPIM) and 2months (Jayant) is joining IIM Calcutta after he got 99.60 and four calls CLIK...
Not so much as success but my story will be a saga of missed opportunities and wrong decisions.
CAT 2003:
Was in final year of engineering college at one of NITs. Full of confidence and pretty fearless, as in of situations. Never used to think much about future as i knew i had the capability to do the best. Computer Science & Engg. branch but had no interest in coding/programming so much so that i didnt even learn C language. Due to this reason didnt use to sit in campus placement of all the IT biggies which used to come to campus. Alongside started preparing for CAT and used to score pretty well in Mock Tests. Filled all sorta forms from CAT to MDI, SPJ to IMT. Got 98.18% in cat but calls from all other good institutes like MDI, XLRI, IITs, etc. Appeared in just XLRI and converted it. As the luck would have it towards the end of that year got a "supposedly" (at that time) great placement with a PSU and was pretty happy about that for the fact that i didnt want to work in an IT environment. Rejected XLRI offer - (Mistake no. 1)
CAT 2004:
Joined my organization in the year 2004. The initial screensaver was infront of eyes where things looked all goody-goody with nice posh office, salary and perks and the initial "unreal" treatment by the HR department. Had filled the CAT form but didn't appear in the exam though heard in news next day that CAT paper was leaked hence it's been cancelled and will be held again. Few days later after the initial training got my final posting. As the lady-luck would have it, I had been posted to IT (systems) dept of that organization for being an computer science grad. I was crestfallen, landed at the place from which I was running away all along. I used to despise IT-related work for lack of aptitude and attitude (no offence meant to anyone, just a personal dislike). Thought of appearing in to-be-held CAT. Registered with TIME in January and appeared in 4-5 Mock Tests and in none of them got more than 85%. Went with a very cool mind for the CAT which was held on 14th Feb. Got 99.73%ile and 5 calls (BCLIK) and told about them at office openly since had to take leaves etc. (Mistake no. 2). When results were out, I had converted IIM L.
And then insanity struck. Got confused as to join IIM L or not. (Factors for confusion: Parents prodding to continue with well-settled PSU job though they left decision to me, thought that i can work for a year and then will get again with a work ex to boot and yes no story is complete without a GAL factor
). So in a state of indecision for quite some time and finally on friday decided to send the DD (Monday was last date to accept the offer). The DD reached late and when i spoke to IIM L they said they received it a day late so wouldn't accept it and my offer stands cancelled. I accepted the verdict and continued my life. Then after a month got a call from IIM L that they are offering me admission and i need to send a fresh DD but till that time i had acccepted the fact that i have left IIM so rejected it again (Mistake no. 3)CAT 2005:
In the meantime due to the fact that i had already got into IIM once the view developed in office that this guy wont stick to company so there is no need to groom him. So no trainings were imparted to me and mostly bull-shit work for me. Anyway i wasnt interested in IT and this created a vicious cycle with my disinclination towards IT increasing more. Had a horrible time and used to cry at times as to why i left IIM. Though in the end it was my decision so had to face it.
The night before CAT 05 got fever and somehow went to exam centre. Once it was done it was clear that it had gone down the drain and there won't be any miracle. Went to the seashore and threw away pencils and erasers in the sea. Results proved it with a mere 96.8%ile. Though got a 99.91%ile in XAT and got into XLRI. But again the insanity strikes. Again i get into confused state as to join XLRI or not. The hesitation being for the reason that once having been admitted to an IIM wasn't feeling like going to XLRI (Not to belittle XLRI, its a great institute). Was so confused and indecisive that went to station 3 times to book the tickets for Home and each time came back when my turn had come to book the ticket. In the end didn't join (Mistake no. 4)
CAT 2006:
Life at workplace went from bad to worse. Got a boss who was one of the most horrible person in this world. Everbody will say that their boss is worst but believe me he can be accorded the Oscar for that. Extremely rude, unhelpful and sarcastic person. Finding fault in everything i did made me lose my confidence a lot. Somehow prepared for CAT. Used to score pretty good in MOCKs with >95%ile always but as luck wud have it in final CAT got under undue pressure of "non-performance" and again failed with 98.2%ile. Obviously with no calls and this time XAT also ditched me with pathetic 89%ile. Again was down for few days and moved on.
CAT 2007:
Office continued as horrible as it cud be with me now being made a pawn in inter-department politics. No need to elaborate it further. Once again got onto CAT bandwagon as cudnt tolerate office life and this way or that way had to go out. More than getting in IIMs, the desire was to get-away from this workplace. Started appearing in mocks and the performance was great. D-day arrived and managed to do pretty well. Checked with all the institutes analysis and was getting pretty good score on the verge of 99.9%ile by their forecasts. CAT result and the key came out and all the institutes were proved horribly-horrible wrong due to English section. Had got not-so-good percentile in English and that was my strongest section. Wasnt sure if i wud get calls. Had became a bundle of cracked nerves and had to resort to online-professional counselling thru emails (more to share with someone what I was going thru). Finally the calls came out and managed to bag few calls. GD PIs were great and managed to convert few calls. And landed at one of the IIMs.
At times it comes to my mind:
- If i had joined XLRI straight out of college i wud hv been an MBA for over 4 years and might have been at a good position
- if i had joined IIM L it wud hv been 3 years since i wud hv completed my MBA. I would have been senior to a few of guys who are working here at place of my summer internship
- if even i had joined XLRI next time 2 years wud have made a big difference in my career
But unfortunately this "what-if" scenario works only on Excel sheet and never in life.
Mistakes and learnings:
Mistake 1: When u get an opportunity take an informed decision and take it. Instead of waiting for the golden opportunity, take the best one and u can make best out of it. In long term the "tag" doesn't matter much and its your performance matters more than that.
Mistake 2: Its good to be frank and honest but with judgement. Its always good to confide in few people to help u in troubled times but dont openly declare such stuff in office, moreso in a PSU environment. I always believe that people are inherently good but u will always meet people who are just there to screw u out of jealousy factor or whatever.
Mistake 3: Had left CAT but fortuantely it was cancelled. Had rejected IIML offer but they again gave me chance to join. I was one lucky B****** and i sud hv grabbed the opportunities. By this i dont mean to say that dont have confidence on u. DO have it but make realistic assumtions and go along. Things change in seconds.
Mistake 4: Don't b too indecisive. I still think that i went to station, filled form, stood in queue and came back - that's height of stupidity. I give one advice to CAT aspirants, when u are not sure of any answer and want to choose one; choose one which comes first to ur mind coz even after thinking for 2 mins u will still mark the same answer. Check for urself this fact! Again i missed a chance to reverse my fortunes but i didnt.
Advice:
I dont think i m an xpert to offer any kind of advice to any aspirant but can just share my experience and learnings thereof:
1. Many ppl ask me which coaching institutes to join, X, Y or Z! Choose the one which is close to ur home and has suitable timings and don't gv it that much importance. They r just stairs and not the floor where u wanu reach. Ultimately its U who has to perform. In last two CAT they have given horrible keys. Ppl who themselves arent sure of answers, what will they teach u. They are good for practice by way of providing mocks and exam environment but certainly not the "gods" so don't treat them like that.
2. Yes the brand name might matter but not in the long term. Essentially u will find ur workplace to be a mix of all sorts of ppl frm everywhere. And the thnig wch has taken thm there is performance. Statistically higher echelons are filled up with ppl frm top B schools coz thts (generally) where the good stuff goes. So this is no way implies that only brand name can take u there.
3. Don't trust too much ur supposedly "strong section" and dont shy away from "weak " section. There can be reversal of fortunes many times as CAT is pretty unpredictable.
4. Most important CAT is mainly a mind-game. If u can keep cool, u are half-way through cracking it. U panic and u r half-way down. Though with recent decrease in number of Qs and less emphasis on speed this might not be that important but things change every year
Important lesson: May b after 5-10 years, i will reach the same place i wud hv reachd had i joined IIM L or XLRI so u never know wats in store for us. I don't believe in god but i do believe that life comes full circle. U screw someone and someone else screws u up (and by this i dont mean to sound goody and say screwing someone is bad, its necessary part and parcel of life). Do each and everythng in life. And one major thng m learning to come to terms is not giving too much importance to one's feelings. They change too frequently. U feel good for no reason and same way u feel bad for no reason at times. So just let them be.
Guess too much gyaan.
REQUEST: To those people who know me are requested not to disclose my identity. Unlike bollywood potboilers, here story and message is more important than the cast.
Disclaimers: All standard disclaimers apply. Personal views blah blah and I am not against any institute (except that eye eye pee m )
Ever heard of someone who bunked an IIM class to attend another IIM interview..Well, read on .
A bit on profile
-----------------
10 - 93 %
12 - 91.7 %
Grad NIT Calicut CSE - 2004 - 74 %
Working in Oracle Since then.. 47 Months WorkExp. Oracle Financials development team
Other Extra/co-curriculars - An interview of Kapil Dev for college magazine ..
Physics & Chemistry Olympiads- National level ( Which I dont think is anything significant )
Some quizzing prices upto University Level..
A Web Venture ==> BlogPane Welcome to BlogPane ( This helped me a bit, I should admit )
Quite diverse reading habits from technology to history to fiction
-----------------
CAT History
1) CAT - 2003 ( The leaked CAT ) - 87.xx
2) CAT - 2004 -- Dont Ask percentiles
--- The above two were non-serious CATs..But I scored less mainly in Verbal .. Realized that I need to pickup my reading habits..And prepare well
Took IMS correspondence course, plus mock tests.
3) CAT- 2005 - 97.11 ( Breakup QA - 98 , DI - 89 , VA - 88 )
-- An out of the blue IIMB interview call...The soul searching began at this point..Prepared very very hard reading up quite a few things..statistics,economics,ERP... all the stuff that I could.. But I kind of realized another thing at this point..You can't create a good personality overnight..It has to be built up.. So, Ideally an MBA aspirant should start his profile development early itself..Its something that should happen along with CAT preps.
March 23, 2006 - IIMB PGP interview.. A misfortune stuck..Developed a swelling in my cheek due to a wasp bite..The swelling was so bad that I had to undergo a surgery the day after interview.. Attended the GD & interview under painkillers.. GD was good..Interview was decent..though nothing exceptional..
Results on April - 11 .. I'm put in Waiting list - 47 .. CAT- 2004 & CAT-2003 IIMB waiting list stats indicated that I'll get through...But ultimately got kicked out of waiting list.. I was OK with that ..Becoz, getting a call itself at 97.11 was something unimaginable.. But I happened to get into quite a few troubles in job at this point.
Took a move to a team in Oracle B'lore from Hyd'bad ..Better team, great work..I should say I fell in love with the work that I got .
4) CAT - 2006 ..
This time I prepared with all the mock tests..TIME,IMS & CL .
CAT came & went..Checked the keys.. TIME , CL , IMS - all predict six calls with amazing scores in Verbal 
.
Results - Better than last year.. 98.08 overall
( QA - 90.28 ==> This was the culprit
DI - 98.25 , VA - 96.8 )
-- No calls from IIMs/SPJ .. Didnt apply to MDI.. Misfortune continued to trouble me on the day of XAT ( Venue confusion, non-familiarity with B'lore roads etc etc )
-- Extremely disappointing times..Lost interest in CAT..But, took a backup option at this point..Joined PGSEM @ IIM Bangalore after eking out a nomination from Oracle .. Reasons- I kind of felt a helplessness over CAT..GMAT wasnt in my radar due to quite a few financial & personal reasons.. So, felt it'd be better to join PGSEM.
CAT - 2007
-------------
A last chance to redeem a bruised ego .. Took the test just like that..
Scores - QA - 97.6, DI - 93.17 , VA - 96.4 , Overall - 98.62
Calls - L & K .
L - Good GD, But pathetic interview.. They quizzed me on Economics..And its rare that two economists would agree ..Needless to say, a reject.
K - Fishmarket GD ..I chipped in with just two sound points..Rest were submerged in cacophony.. But great interview..They tried to stress me out with questions from 12th Std Physics & Chemistry..But I could answer almost all .. Converted this. ( Attended this interview bunking a PGSEM class ) .
After quite a few deliberations, dropped PGSEM and joining IIMK PGP 08-10 .. I can't elaborate all the reasons..The reasons for this switch vary from professional to personal reasons..Infact I would have taken K even if L had worked out.. Kozhikode is my hometown .
================
Few suggestions to the aspirants
1. Your PROFILE is extremely important.Its not that you cannot crack IIM if you have an average profile..But, if you have an average GDPI, you can still get in if you have good profile... I'd say, things in my profile - PGSEM, blogpane.com etc would have weighed in a little bit towards the final selection.. Another friend of mine who too was doing PGSEM gave the test just like that , got LACKI calls & LACKI converts..And after hearing his interview experiences, I'd say the difference in his profile - PGSEM after nomination from his company -- weighed in a great deal in his final conversions...So,its important to have some kind of profile building activities- be it NGO work / writing in magazines / organizing events / entrepreneurship / sports / music -- all adds value to your profile..And this would ultimately help you in IIMs too .
2. CAT is an extremely unpredictable test..So, have backup options of some sort ..
3. Mock tests is perhaps the only good thing that coaching institutes would give to you..There is not much need to read through all that complicated formulas that TIME/IMS gives..Just practice the tests..The composure on the CAT-Day is perhaps the most important thing.
4. Verbal you can't prepare by mugging up word lists..Only way to pick up on that front is to develop good reading habits..Read a variety of subjects..Fiction/ economics / current affairs... If you do that for quite sometime, verbal won't be a big problem for you.
5. LUCK matters..No substitute for that . Had I been a little bit less unlucky so as not to be sick on that IIMB interview day 2yrs ago, maybe I would have passed out of an IIM now..But those 'ifs' and 'buts' have no relevance in life..I failed to make it then. I have to accept it whether I like it or not. Thats the fact.
Ajith
It all started with the results of CAT 07 and then there was no looking back. The ride had just begun and it had all its share of ups and downs.
After scoring 99.43%ile (A high)
I received calls from only 2 IIM's (A low)
Had a decent outing as far as IIM I interview was concerned (A high)
And a very bad day as far as IIM K interview was concerned (A low)
Results were out and was rejected by IIM K (A low)
But the was still some hope as i was in the waitlist of IIM I (A high)
All hopes got shattered as i got a waitlist no. of 272 (The lowest point)
But then, i have now gathered myself and am preparing in full swing for CAT '08.
Hope i will make it this time around.
http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/all-i-wanted-to-speak-about-cat-25002933
The first hurdle had been cleared, but not time to rejoice yet. A few days of Fun, then back to work. And it was Hard Work for the GD/PIs. I knew I had nothing great in my profile, and if I had to get through, I had no other choice but to work hard. The focus was mainly on- Current affairs, India (Economic, Political & Historical angles), Work Exp related areas and Acads. I prepared some 15 papers from my B.Tech for the PIs, inspite of the 2.5 yrs work exp. There were wild mood swings throughout, as the GD/PIs of different institutes came and went. I would find fault with every answer of mine after each PI ;). Each Night, we (me & Nitin) would try to find out what is the meaning of a Good GD/PI ;). Time flew by, and finally it was all over with the big one, IIMA on 18th March. There was a gap of around 3 weeks till the scheduled date of results (Well, scheduled only) and it was time to relax. First thing I did was to resign from my job
. Not that I was super-confident about getting into an IIM, but I couldn't continue with the burden of continuous lying any more. Having an alternate offer in hand only helped me in taking the decision. So, here I was now, waiting for results and jobless. Gave me ample time for introspection. And here I realized that the entire GD/PI process had made me a more mature person. The effort that went in, the friends I made during the GD/PI process, the decisions I took trying to manage time between office and my Dream, all contributed to this. The Biggest thing I learnt from this whole thing - Nothing is in my Hand. My job is to go on doing what I am supposed to do, nothing more, nothing less. In spite of all the learning and maturity etc, the wait was killing. To describe the feeling in one sentence - I don't want it to happen even to my Worst Enemy.
Finally, 1st May. B came out 1st, but I had nothing at stake there. Couldn't sleep till 4 am. Got up again at 8 am and went back to the task of keeping tab on latest news. Around 9.30 am, Parul pinged - IIMC results out. A Final round of prayer, and then the Keying in of CAT TR No & DoB. Was courageous enough to keep my eyes open while the screen was being refreshed. After what seemed like an eternity (not more than 15 seconds actually), saw that Word - Congratulations. There it was, 4 years of struggle, pain, everything was worth it now. Success tastes best when it is comes after a lot of hard work, and it couldn't have been sweeter for me. As the day progressed, it kept getting better - with the pinnacle being IIMA Convert.
That was the End of my journey, I had reached my destination. I have tried to tell the story in detail (I hope it's not boring
), but still so many things remain untold. I will finish it with some quotes (Not from Great Men, but my friends - the Would be Great Men ) -From my Friend in IIMI
"Whoever has sacrificed a lot for CAT, has always ended up as a success"
"Your CAT journey is not destined to stop with a 97.16 %ile"
From Macora
"Only Failure is possible multiple Times, Success comes only once" (Just before CAT, this helped me a lot in removing self doubts originating from previous failures)
Anirban
Hi guys
i m visiting this thread for past few weeks and noticed that this is the best place on pagalguy.........
I used to wake u early in the morning and after having a cup of tea i used to visit this thread and read some or one story daily....
The posts in this thread inspired me a lot for the whole day and keep me energized for the whole day for my cat preparation ....
I m pretty new to pagalguy but i wanted to gave some suggestion regarding this thread .....
Kindly start a new thread as story of the day as it will inspire many other puys and other to keep them energized for there preparation
As there r many stories in this thread and already a new threat is started as inspiring stories of cat but the new thread as "story of the day" will contain a single story for the day taken from old or recent posts and will be more useful for those who can't gave much time to this thread and visiting all the pages here
If i have posted something wrong here kindly forgive me
But can't stop myself to post this .... after reading some great stories
Thanks
who wanted to pursue management as a post-graduate course.I can still vividly recollect life after my second year in engineering. Unusal jargon/language began to flow around in my friends circle. "GRE" screamed one of them, "MS" the other.., some of them said "M.Tech" and the newspapers said "MBA". "What the hell is going on..!" I wondered.. :confused: From then on trickled down the notions of a post-graduate course. Some of my friends were already on the hunt for M.Tech in IIT's and NIT's by joining the usual coaching centers. I used to tell them or shall I say soothe them by asking whether such hardwork was required. "I need to try" said one and "My goal is that" said the other. I thought that a technical-knowledge oriented course was not my cup of tea..!
I passed some days in the summer doing nothing great and due to some unusual circumstances landed myself at a coaching center out of nowhere. "What am I doing here..?" I wondered. During the one month GRE coaching I got to know about the basics of Quant and Verbal sections. I was pretty good at Quant but complex english words were something I was never used to in my previous life. I completed reading the famous 'Norman Lewis' book which has all the fundamental words of complex english usage. Slowly I became obsessed with these words and an uncanny feeling for devouring more words took center stage for me. I completed all words given in the institute material. So now was the time to test what I had learnt. Time to book a slot on the internet for GRE..!
College reopened after summer and I was into my usual preparation of exams. I got diverted so much that I never found time to write GRE..ya..you read it right..! 
Somehow the auspicious day never arrived for me to book a slot and write GRE..!Fast forward six months and once again I find myself at the cross-roads of my career. It was december '06 and I was running out of time. I had to take a decision fast and this time I again find myself at a coaching center.., albiet a different one, for CAT.
So began my chase for a B-School convert.Fast forward another 5 months and mock and AIMCAT's started and from then on almost every sunday I ended up writing a Mock or an AIMCAT. I considered an AIMCAT to be a platform for testing what I had learnt in that week. I knew that AIMCAT performances mattered because they reflect your All India standings every week. Starting with AIMCAT 0820 I tried to improve my performance with each AIMCAT. For the first three AIMCAT's my percentile was hovering around 85-90 percentile range. When I first crossed the 90 percentile range I felt that I had the ability in myself to do more. I was able to score consistently well in Quant and Verbal. From AIMCAT's 0820 to 0814 I scored the highest of 96.xx percentile. Then one sunday followed an AIMCAT performance that was a quintessence of time mismanagement. I spent unusually high time on verbal section and spent very less time on DI, the section I feared the most. When I checked the AIMCAT scores I was shocked to say the least, I got a 99.xx percentile in VA which took me to heaven and when I saw my DI score I was back on earth, I scored a 1 out of 100. Yes..one single mark out of a hundred marks.
I don't lucidly remember the AIMCAT but it was for 300 marks. I got a 42 out of 100 in verbal which fetched me 99.xx percentile and a 1 out of 100 in DI fetched me some horrible percentile in DI. I knew that DI was the section in which I needed to perform well if I had to do well in CAT. My scores were dipping from AIMCAT 0811 to 0807 and I got a very low percentile of 68.xx in one AIMCAT. "Where am I heading..?" I wondered. But I kept myself egging on. AIMCAT 0804 was conducted and I felt that I had done reasonably well after writing the paper. When I checked the key after coming out from the center I was getting 102 out of 300. When I checked the results later that week I got 108 out of 300 and a percentile of 98.xx. During the whole CAT preparation this was the highest score I got in any AIMCAT. But I could not keep up the same performance for the next three AIMCAT's. When I completed all my AIMCAT's I checked my AIMCAT scores again. I got a percentile of above 90 only for only 10 times out of 20.All the while I was doing this I needed to concentrate on my semester exams so that my percentage wouldn't dip. I also prepared for campus placements and my CAT preparation slightly worked to my advantage here and I ended up with two job offers in my lap. November 18th was the D-day and from the start of Nov. I could not concentrate on CAT because of practical and theory exams etc. which hampered my performance. The D-day finally arrived and I completed my paper and handed it over to the invigilator. I couldn't make out anything of what I had written. I started with my strongest section, Quant, but it was supposedly the toughest section of CAT-07 paper. Then I shifted to Verbal and then to DI randomly. I wasn't able to answer a particular question when I picked it up which made me threw my strategy (that I built up during the AIMCAT's) to the winds.
I knew that accuracy was more important than attempts during the exam. Half an hour was still remaining when I browsed through the entire paper again to see if I could answer any more questions. This half an hour was the crucial time because I was able to answer 4-5 questions correctly and these were from different sections. My attempts were like this.. Quant-10 DI-11 Verbal-12. So in a paper of 75 questions I just attempted 33 questions. "Very Low" I thought. But I knew that good accuracy could surely push me up the ladder.One of the better things that happened to me during the last few days of CAT preparation was PagalGuy. When I joined PG I was literally shocked to see so many aspirants discussing each and every mock extensively. After extensive discussion of CAT-07 paper and all permutations and combinations of scores and institute cut-off's I was reasonably satisfied with QA but a bit apprehensive with my DI,VA scores. I thought I would end up with a score of 92. December '07 was one hectic month coz on almost all Sundays I wrote an exam.
Cometh second week of Jan and CAT results were announced. I didn't dare to see my scores through any other means except internet. But one of my friends called up and said that SMS was working fine. So I typed my TR no. and sent an SMS. Result came the next instant and voila..!
QA-96.76 VA-97.67 DI-77.23
OA-97.24I was nothing short of a mixed bag of emotions. IIM key yet again proved leading coaching center key's wrong and I ended up with a score of 98.21. I scored my highest in VA and that made me happy. The smiley after my DI score above summed up my emotions then. DI yet again proved to be my nemesis.
Meanwhile a disaster performance in XAT showed up. got an SCMHRD call through SNAP and an NMIMS call through NMAT. Got kicked out from both the institutes at final stages and that is a different story all together..!
My DI score had not crossed the 80 percentile benchmark due to which I was out of reckoning for MDI and IIM-Shillong. NITIE's cut-off was 98.22 and so my hopes went for a toss. So it was either IMT-G for me or nothing..After my GD-PI for IMT-G I started to come more frequently on SB where I made some of my best friends on PG. "All is Well" I thought. Controversy strikes and I receive a jolt. I do not want to raise the issue again and tell you puys as to what actually happened and who was responsible. But I would like to say Thank You to all the puys who stood by me when I wasn't there on PG.
Fast Forward 2 weeks and I am back on PG. Meanwhile IMT results are announced and I find myself waitlisted..
"This is the last thing I wanted" I thought. Problems compounded and the situation exacerbated when our apex court delivered its judgement on the OBC issue. So it took 3 waiting lists during a period of 2 months to see a convert for myself. So I finally saw light at the end of a tunnel.! Some of the key features of my preparation were..
- Summarising the editorials of THE HINDU.
- Mugging up the words given on cards given by the coaching center.
- Practising extensively problems of Quant although I left topics like P & C which always appear Greek and Latin to me..(They still do..
)- Thoroughly practising VA section.
- Catching up on Current Affairs and writing an author's views on some particular article in my own words.
- Solving 70% Institute material. (70% constituted Key Areas)
_ Practising Mock papers and reviewing my performance.
Some things that I have observed...
- Try to work double hard in your weaker sections
(Easier said than done, this is crucial if you want to make it to top-10 B-Schools..!)
- Be clear as to why do you want to do an MBA.
(Although for most of us, the primary motive is better career prospects, be prepared with an interesting answer and allot the lowest priority for placements in YOUR answer to the panel in PI.)
- Some of the toppers say that they just did smart work and some of them say that they toiled for this many hours a day.., YOU are the best judge of your capabilities and you need to work accordingly.
- Don't think that CAT is the end of the road. Other exams like NMAT, IIFT, SNAP, FMS, XAT can be cracked as well. Even if you haven't cracked these you can try again next year.
- Don't get bogged down by some bad performances in AIMCAT's.
(AIMCAT's are a reflection of the areas in which you need to concentrate)
- Don't go into the test room with a mindset that you are going to stick to a particular strategy no matter what happens. It might not work.
- Last but not the least BELIEVE IN YOURSLEVES that you will do well in CAT. ;-)
Let the MBA-PAGALPAN prevail..!
Hi puys, this is one thread in which, for a long period of time(to be precise ..from 1st march'07 to 5th june'07), i really wanted to write something...
but i was really pissed at my performance..and was just reading the other posts...
well, today i have the cause to write..today i can say that hardwork do pay..and iim is a dream that ANY SOUL(really any 1)..with the courage and determination ..can achieve..
well here is my story:-
I am a graduate in Chinese language from J.N.U..after doing my graduation ..rather say from my 4RTH SEM...i started earning money through freelance interpretations....but then after seeing the business world..i thought that i can achieve something big in this life..and then i seriously gave a thought to CAT...i just wanted to use my Chinese skills so that i can use the sino-india business boom...but that thought couldn't be transformed into reality and i fell into the thought that ...iim walas are really bond..and i they are nxt to god whose intellect level is hard to match..sorry can't be matched..so i set my target low..and started thinking of imt.imi. league of colleges...mind you all that these are also one of the premier league colleges in India...for the realization of my dream i joined a coaching institute so that there could be a "danda" on my head constantly..and i could study..but i couldn't carry on the classes and keep bunking classes on a regular basis so that i can earn money through interpretations and other works...this was the situation until 1st week of september'07.
i had given all the mocks and had never performed well..on a serious note i ahd never cleared the cut-off of all the three segments ..and never cleared the va cut-off...my percentile varied in the range of 67-90..this was a real issue..and my performance was also not consistent..
came sep'15..and i realized that i am not at all in the race..ans was scolded very badly by someone very near to me..that time i realized that i had done a blunder and i really need to rectify it...so i started doing a strange thing...for the first 15 days ..i made it a point that i will be in my room ..come what may..and in the mean process i watched about 20 movies...and studied for 2-3 hours daily...1 hr. each..
then from 1st oct. i arranged the mock papers of the other reputed institute and of previous year..and directly started doing that...daily 1 set..and then revise it for 4 hrs..really 4 long hours ..revising a paper..that what mistakes i have done..and what was going in my mind while solving the question...
then came nov'18..that day i woke up early..reached the center early..and was just watching ppl...they were really into a "action mode"..most of the ppl had some notes or books and they were reading that...as if the exam is going to be of subjective type..i really took a long breath and went inside..I JUST WANT TO GIVE THE BEST OF ME...COME WHAT MAY...so i started the paper and solved only 10 ques of qa...11 of v.a ..and 20 of v.a...
i came out satisfied,coz the nxt best thing which i could have done is to give 40 min to d.s(i gave 30)..and less time to v.a....but as for that time my v.a was the worst and needed enough time...
after my paper..everybody said that 10 in q.a 11 in di is not sufficient...
i too realized that 11 in d.a could be increased ..coz i could have solved more ..but i never bothered and overlooked the paper(although it was the easiest a/c to me)..and gave full time to v.a.
well...the result came in jan..and i came to know that i had got 45+ in d.a(all 11 right+ extra marks for the wrong ques.)...36 in q.a (all 10 right but i guess i double marked the 10th one so that marks was nt counted.)..and 25 in v.a...it was good for me...98.33 total..nice score...but i could have done better..and yes, no iim call to me...
but 1 day later..to my surprise..i had a iim-k call under obc quota..
i was delighted...
UNTIL NOW....
MY WEAKNESS:-
1) I was a chinese lang. graduate,so for me quant was tough..but only some sections..i really liked arithmetic though.
2) so was v.a ...as i was more into hindi and chinese...
3) i couldn't sit to study for a long period of time...i usually can't focus for a longer period of time..
4)i was not aiming for the highest goal...and thought that i am not an iim material...
5)i can't do faster calculations.
STRENGTHS:-
1)I was good at arithmetic(only)..
2) i practised many mocks ...as to say..daily a mock..so the exam fear was gone..
3)as usual i pick certain portion and attack it...so in the CAT..i picked only a few questions and solved them ALL correctly...
4)i always wanted to give my best..and i did so..(at least i gave my 2nd best)
MISTAKES:_
1)not hoping for good.so never filled the MDI form..
2) after cat..didn't filled the fms,tiss,du forms
3)was in holiday mood after cat ..from Nov-18 to Jan-8.
after the results came out.. i started preparing for the 2nd round..
MY WORST PART OF LIFE:-
The 2nd round of selection is very crucial one..and take my words ..never overlook that part...i joined pg fully..and started reading the posts made by other puys..they were really motivating and inspiring also added my knowledge base..I really don't have any contacts in IIm..or other top MBA colleges ..so was ignorant of the happenings there....so for me..that was just a interview..
but..in symbi...all my thoughts proved wrong...and then i realised that the interview is more of judging you as a person rather than cross checking ur knowledge...then came the bad interview at IMT..there i was asked that what"RADICAL" change i will bring into the campus(mind it i am from jnu and the question was after the prof. said that "o.k so you are from j.n.u"where everything is supposed to be changed radically")..in the whole interview..i wasn't given a chance to speak...i was interrupted like hell..and i was really upset...after this i came to know what a stress interview is....then came the worst interview of s.p jian...in the first round itself..i was said"how can you dare to change your fiels from chinese to finance"..i just opened my mouth and said "sir, i want.."...the prof. said" don't tell me what you want..i also can want anything..tell me in few words that until now what have you done in finance ..."i said "sir...." prof. said .."ok ok..u are a fresher ..." and then NEVER aske d me any question...in that round we were 6 ppl..and every1 apart from me were asked 4-5 ques...that day also i realised that i really need to prove myself..i need to show them who i am and what can i do...so the next imi interview was awesome..they really listened my business plan..listened my answer..and then gave me opportunity to speak...then came my biggest call....iim-k..that day i prepared my best..was ready to deliver also...but my panel had 2 prof..and i was hell bent on asking math question..i gave satisfactory answers to the first prof. but when he asked the 2nd prof. to question me..he directly gave an integration prblem...mind you all.. for the past 5 years i have never seen that sign...so was unable..i politly refused..then another calculus prob..i said sorry..then a puzzle..which i solved and then another one..which i solved half..and another calculus..for which i had no clue...
all in all..i was shattered..i thought that it was over...
but somewhere in my heart it was there that..i can make it..and i had given some good answers..
then came the biggest prob..the quota issue..i am from a N.C O.B.C...and i had filled that also in my form...the whole quota issue you all know very well..that WE are snatching the seats..WE are lowering the standard of education ..and blah blah...
well i really need to say...that we had a decent percentile in CAT if not good...and personally i had crossed the general cutoff for L,I,K..but i was lagged behind in the 10% work ex thing...is it my fault that interpretation is not considered a full time job??
well,after the quota issue the seats of general has increased ...so y are u blaming us??
well..no fight..but after that issue got resolved ..i ahd the call from iim-c and b also..in iim-c i was once again asked many maths question ..which can seem helluva easy for u ppl..but for a chinese graduate ..it was tough...so i wasn't selected...
but my every nightmare has ended today..as i have been selected for iim-k ...and i am really happy to notify all you ppl out here,whose posts had inspired me..and made me realise that any 1 can get into iims..if i can..any 1 have a fair chance..and really its the battle won in the mind...so just prepare your heart..and do feel that you are an iim material....just like me..who is feeling the same ..right now...
thank you
all...
CAT 2005:
In my 6th semester of engineering I decide to join a coaching class(IMS) for taking CAT 2005. QA and DI was my strongest point,thanks to my pretty decent calculation speed.
I had a problem with VA,especially RC but was good in VR(verbal reasoning). Come the
First Simcat and I am thrilled to get a AIR in 160s,next I take a free CL test and my rank is in the 50s.Except for two Simcats where my rank was a 800 and a 1000(sumthing) I was lucky enough to be in the first 300 consistently(including a number of two digit rank in SIMCATs and free AIMCATs) So I keep my expectations really high and decide to apply only to MDI apart from IIMs under Cat. Had also applied to JMET and XAT(cus my mentor insisted on it,was never comfortable with XAT pattern).
On the day of CAT, I am all tensed and nervous cus of few personal things,had slept only for 6 hours(tat too thanx to a sleeping pill ,which I am using for the first time in my life).When I receive the paper I see that it's the 2mark&1 mark pattern with only 90 questions(change from the 1mark for all ques pattern). The first 10mins of the exam was the toughestI am hardly able to concentrate and I was sweating a lot..i jump to the 2mark of VA directly and do the questions like logical ending of a sentence and picking the correct/incorrect statements etcgives only 35 mins for VA and jump to my strongest sections DI and QA.
Coming out of the exam,I have a pretty bad feeling that the performance wasn't satisfactory.
I go back to the hotel room to know that I had screwed up pretty bad, as for VA they had to asked to identify the Correct statements and I went for the in-correct ones :banghead:, ther wer 4 questions of that sort I am devastated as I had answered only few questions in VA and was counting on the grammar part and all of a sudden I have -2.66(4 negatives) to cover.
When the results comes out I am not shocked to knw that my VA is only 90.xx and a measly overall of 97.xx(had only 94%ntile for QA) so overall I am very disappointed to say the least..
Important lesson : Just relax the day before and the time you take the exam..very easy for me to preach. The important thing is a cool head.
Calls 2005: IIT-B&D;(Din convert either.)
CAT 2006:
I had got into a leading Indian software company but had postponed the joining date to the week after cat. That gave me 4 dedicated months to prepare for cat. The performance in Mock-tests were realy pleasing with a worst rank of 600 for one Simcat and rest in first 250 consistently for other Simcats and the free tests of other institute.
Day of CAT : This was like a do-die situation for me(i had taken a 4month sabatical only for CAT ) the pattern had changed to 4marks per questionas usual I answer VA first,situation is the same as first catnot at all surprisingly I am unable to concentrate,the RCs were just not making ne sense was just watchin wat my neighbour ws doing for sumtime(not copying 😉 ). Then somehow manage to continue to other 2 sections.
Result : A pathetic -3 Marks (!!!!) for VAhad pretty gud score in other twobut wats d use wen u have 40%ntile in VA L.
Important lesson : Keep a cool head Dont bother abt the stakes
2006 Calls: IIFT,IIT-B&D; (Din convert ne)
2007 CAT:
Working professional now, so hardly anytime for preparation.. was a part-time faculty for QA preparing for the classes i was taking was the only preparation I had. Time was passing for me and I dint want to give cat one more year,so decided to give all examsSNAP,NMIMS,JMET,CAT,XAT, IIFT. (Missed FMS sumhow).by this time I had a reputation of not being able to handle pressure, so I had decided not to carry ne dream about IIMs.
Takes Aimcats nd Simcats this yearvery happy with my performance, had AIR 12 in Sims and AIR 22 in Aims as my highest and a 600 for an Aims my lowest.
CAT : The same old story the first 15 mins, I am totally blankagain VA is the first section..found DI pretty easy..
Result: VA 76.76 Loverall:98+%ntile with a 99.xx in DI.
I am surprised to see an IIM-K call through OBC (80%ntile-1more mark- in VA would have given me a few more IIM calls-under OBC though), IIM-K in the end I din attend the interview as my interview was on March 12th and IIFT result was announced on March 11th. Decided to giveIIM-K the skip cus of personal preference/reasons.
Calls:IIFT,IIM-K,SIBM,SCMHRD,NMIMS,IMT-G,IIT-B&D.;
Din Attend: IIM-K, IIT-B&D.;
Reject:SCMHRD
Converts: IIFT,SIBM, NMIMS,IMT-G.
Important Lesson:
In my 3yrs of CAT experience i have come across more than a dozen pepl whom i have consistently and comfortably outperformed in Mock-tests,but who eventually ended up getting d coveted calls.I can argue all day,tat my prepration was better than theirs,but who said cat is only about hw gud ur in Va or Qa, its more importantly also about presence of mind/Pressure handling.
Kindly keep a cool headdon let your personal worries affect you during that 2.5 hrs(I knw, I am not the right person to give advice on thisbut hopefully some1 will pick a cue from my experience.) Clearing CAT definitely takes a bit of luckbut most importantly u need a very cool/calm head on your shoulders.
For CAT the stakes are high...3 awesome colegs(A,B,C) and 3 more top-ten colegs(L,I,K) are on line so the need to perform well on that particular day is amplified.
The regret of not getting an IIM call - through general merit still lingers 😞 , but its time to move on.. :-)
All the Best for future CAT takers..:cheers:
I started my CAT preparation in December 2005 during my third year of Engineering (CSE) in NIT Trichy. I enrolled for classroom coaching with TIME Madurai. I attended the classes regularly but did not prepare much during the rest of the time. And then I went to Chennai to do a project during the third year vacation (May, June). AIMCATs started and my performance was not great. I always did well in DI. I did okay in QA but I was horrible in VA. Once college reopened in July, I had a lot of time to prepare for CAT. Placement season had started and I did not want to spend time on placement preparation. I attended the interview process of about 4 companies and got rejected. I informed the placement representative that I will not attend any more interviews till I am done with the CAT written exam. That way, I could spend maximum time on CAT preparation. I did not study my college subjects either and got a GPA of only 6.2 that semester!
AIMCATs 06 season:
The AIMCATs ended. I had attended only 14 out of the 20 AIMCATs. And among those 14 AIMCATs, I had missed the DI cutoff twice, QA cutoff five times and VA cutoff believe it or not 11 times!! I had no confidence that I will clear the VA cutoff in CAT either. I was good only in Deleted sentences and okay in RCs. My accuracy was pathetic in the rest of the VA part.
CAT06:
I did not have high hopes of doing well. I knew that my performance in VA will be the deciding factor. I used my usual strategy of DI-QA-VA. But I found the DI section so simple that I felt that I will have to attempt a lot of questions. I ended up spending 1 hour in DI section itself. I attempted 20 questions and got 17 correct. Net score 65 with a percentile of 99.80
I spent the next 50 minutes on QA. I attempted 12 questions in the first 40 minutes and got all the 12 correct. I spent the next 10 minutes on that luggage problem and did not mark the answer for both the questions! Next score: 48/96 = 50 % with a percentile of 95.27
I had only 40 minutes left for VA. I attended 2 out of the 3 RCs. Luckily one of the RC questions was not printed completely. I attended all the 5 questions on Deleted Sentences and 4 out of the 5 FIJs. I attended 17 questions and got 8 questions correct. Net score: 23/96 = 23.96% with a percentile of 93.90
My overall percentile was 99.41
My biggest mistake:
The final result was a big shock to me. After the CAT exam, I checked my answers with all the institutes. I got only 8 marks in VA according to the keys of TIME and IMS. The maximum that I got was 18 according to CL key. I didnt give myself any chance of getting even a single call. I used to post on MDI thread asking whether the VA cutoff will be low for MDI and whether I will get a call. My TIME director asked me to prepare for gd/pi without worrying about my VA score. But I was too pessimistic. I wasted the one and a half months that I had (nov and dec). I prepared for XAT seriously. But I couldnt clear the VA cutoff in XAT.
Gd/pi:-
I got calls from CLIK and MDI. Three of the 4 IIM interviews were over by Feb 17th. I had not done any preparation till the results were out. And I had no clue where to start with just one month left for my first IIM interview (feb 5th IIM K). Only 3 of us from TIME Madurai had got IIM calls and it was not possible to have mock gds. The TIME workshop that I attended on Jan 27, 28th in Bangalore was the only coaching that I attended. And it turned out to be a rude shock to me. I could hardly speak in any of the mock gds that I attended. And everyone seemed to know much more than me! I attended a mock interview and I was rated 3 on 10!
My performance was not any better in the IIM gd/pi. I hardly spoke in the gds of CLK. My gd performance was decent in I gd. And because the gd performance was bad, my interviews started off on a bad note more often than not. I was asked about my bad gd performance. And another big mistake I made was that I flaunted my computer engineering knowledge and certifications to make up for my almost nil extra curricular achievement. The question that naturally arose was Why do you have to do an MBA when you are interested in computers and have a good job in hand? I couldnt answer that question convincingly either.
Final Results:-
I had submitted my OBC certificate during my interviews and there was supposed to be OBC reservation that year. Just before the results were to be announced, a stay was imposed on the implementation of OBC reservation. There was a delay in the results because of it thanks to the HRD ministry. And during that period, I felt bad at times that I am a part of PG. When I applied for CAT written exam, the category was asked. I had OBC certificate and I shaded that option and sent a copy of my OBC certificate along. I had no hope that there would be reservations that year. It was only when I saw the IIM A gd/pi shortlist details that I knew that there will be reservation for OBCs. I did not make any mistake by mentioning that I belong to the OBC community and I knew that this was the case with most of the others as well. The delay in the results was a pain to every one of us. Unfortunately there were quite a few posts which caused a lot of hurt.
Anyways The results were out in the end of April. And it was like this IIM C rejected; IIM I waitlist; IIM K rejected; IIM L rejected. I had been rejected by MDI earlier itself. I felt devastated though I had done badly in the gd/pi! I saw that a lot of people had been put on the IIM I waitlist. So I didnt think I have a chance of making it.
Twist of fate:-
I was waitlist #73. I was elated. Everyone I spoke to told me that it will surely clear. I was very confident that it will clear. I felt that I am going to an IIM finally. I used to visit the IIM Indore website everyday and see the IIM I virtual tour! Alas, only 20 cleared after the first deadline. All was lost again. I made up my mind that I will have to head to Hyderabad to work. Another 24 cleared after the next deadline. But it was not good enough. I ended up at around WL #25 I guess. Anyways I decided to take up the job.
Gains:-
All was not lost actually. I got a few really good friends on PG and during my interviews. Murari (Pg id muraricito) who is in IIM C and Prahalad (PG id not required :happy: ) gave me a lot of support. They gave me a lot of confidence and told me that I just have to speak in the gds to get through. I spoke to Prahalad and asked him for tips. He told me how the Career Launcher materials (especially the sprint tests) had helped him. I ordered it online and got them. I found them very useful too. And more importantly, Prahalad told me the importance of getting questions like Parajumbles right in VA. He told me that it is impossible to be sure about getting an RC question right but questions like Parajumbles are not ambiguous. That was the time I started believing that it is possible to get PJs right! Thanks for your help guys. And I will forever be thankful.
I learnt the importance of gd performance. And I also felt that I needed to have something to talk about in the interviews. Something I can speak about confidently. And not my IT certifications for sure!
I enrolled for the TIME AIMCATs alone. I could take up all the 20 AIMCATs since I was a classroom student the previous year. I also got a discount thanks to my CAT percentile (big consolation :p). I took up a mock CAT at home a day before the first AIMCAT (0820) which was on May 27th, 2007. I didn't do any other preparation. The first deadline for the IIM I waitlist was May 15th. So I had just recovered from that disappointment :happy: I found the AIMCAT to be easy; mainly because it was the same pattern as last year's CAT. But I was shocked by the result though. I got AIR 22 out of 11777 students. The turnout was not much but it gave such a huge boost to my confidence. I believed that somehow, I had actually got better.
I was very happy with my performance in the mock CATs. I attended 19 out of the 20 AIMCATs. I scored above 99 percentile 8 times; 3 times in 98-99 %ile range; 5 times in 97-98 %ile range; twice in 95-96 %ile range and my lowest was 94.45 percentile.
I missed DI cutoff once; QA cutoff twice and VA cutoff five times. DI was clearly my strength with 9 scores above 99 percentile and only two scores less than 96 percentile. I was okay in QA. I was more confident about VA this time. I had got a couple of scores above 99 percentile in VA. But I was inconsistent. And I felt that VA will be the deciding factor this year too in CAT.
When the AIMCATs started I wanted to make it to the Dream Team. But my performance was not good enough. I was very happy that I made it to the Underdogs Team. Logging on to PG was the first thing on my mind everytime I completed an AIMCAT. I could judge how good/bad my performance is from the scores posted by my UDT mates and DT members.
CAT '07:
I had changed my strategy to DI - VA - QA 45-45-45 and then a buffer of 15 minutes.
I started with DI and found it to be easy. I solved 13 questions in 40 minutes. I switched to VA and spent 55 minutes continuously on it! I attempted 18 questions spending a lot of time on PJs and deleted sentences because they were my strengths. I had 55 minutes left now. I decided to do Quants for 50 minutes and spend the remaining 5 minutes on DI. But I found QA to be tough and could never get back to DI!
I was getting 42 in DI ; 38 in QA and 32 in VA according to the keys of TIME, IMS, CL Somehow I was getting the same score in VA though I was getting different questions correct. I knew my DI score may not be good enough. But most worrying was my total score of 112. I knew that it wont be 99 percentile. I posted on PG saying that I will never realize my dream of studying in an IIM. Not even an hour had passed and when I checked PG, manish (justlikethat) and anirbhan (anir_iim) had replied to my post saying that I will surely get calls. I can't express how nice I felt when I got such support. I have a treat pending :happy:
CAT '07 results:-
I scored the same 38 in QA (97.73 percentile) ; 43.75% in DI (42/96) which fetched me only 93.13 percentile and 52 in VA 99.91 percentile!!! I had got 14 out of the 18 questions correct in VA :happy: I got all 3 correct in both PJs and deleted sentences which I expected. But I certainly didn't expect that I will get 5/6 RC questions right :happy:
I got 99.74 percentile overall when I had been wondering whether I will get 99 percentile! I got calls from LIK in general and A in OBC.
Other exams:-
XAT:- I missed the LR cutoff in XAT but got 96 percentile in VA this time :unhappy:
SNAP:- I got 90.75/180 in SNAP and cleared the sectionals. I got a call from SIBM.
FMS:- I cleared FMS as well with 99.39 percentile in MBA FT and 99.50 percentile in MBA MS.
I was very happy with the results. I had cleared 3 out of the 4 exams. And more importantly I had cleared VA cutoff in all. I felt good that I had made a lot of improvement compared to the previous year.
Gd/pi:-
Though I was not expecting any IIM call this year as well, I knew I will get a call from MDI. I didn't do much preparation during Nov-Dec but I had developed an interest in reading books on Communism, World War during my CAT preparation and I utilized the free time I had to read a few books on those topics. The TIME gd/pi coaching in Hyderabad was excellent. I attended the workshop and the regular gd/pi coaching as well. I was much more confident this time.
I made good contribution in all the IIM gds. And except that of IIM K, the remaining IIM interviews were also good. I mentioned reading books on history as my hobby in all the interview forms and I was questioned on the same in all my interviews except in that of IIM K. In fact, I was questioned on history for half the duration of each interview. I felt more at ease. I mentioned playing foosball as my number 1 hobby. Unfortunately I was not questioned on it at all :unhappy:
I spoke only once in MDI gd. And my interview lasted for about 10 minutes, of which we spoke about Napolean and Hitler for a majority of the time.
Final results:-
I was waiting anxiously for the results like everyone else :happy: Results were just 1 day away and OBC reservation was the last thing on my mind. I knew that my IIM A interview was just an experience. And then the SC did it again :-P OBC reservation was to be implemented but excluding the creamy layer among the OBCs.
Again there was a delay in the final results And again there was a backlash on PG :happy: I didn't visit PG for a couple of weeks.
Thankfully MDI announced its results on April 16th And what a surprise! I had made it to the first list itself :happy: My overall percentile had a huge role to play in this though. But I felt so relieved that I am going to do my MBA this year and that I won't have to go through the whole process again :P
May 1, 2008: IIM K rejected; IIM L converted in OBC quota. IIM A had asked me a week earlier itself whether I belong to creamy layer or not. My OBC certificate states that I do not belong to the creamy layer. Technically, I do not belong to the creamy layer. My salary alone is enough to exceed the limit of 2.5 lpa but then my salary wouldn't be taken into consideration. Morally though, it would have been wrong on my part to avail the reservation. I replied to IIM A that I belong to creamy layer. And I made up my mind that I will be heading to MDI.
IIM I was the last to announce the results. I entered my reg no. and date of birth thinking that this is the last time I will have check the results. I was praying that this last one should prove lucky. And the page said "Congratulations!" But I couldn't come to any conclusion. I wanted to make sure that this was not in OBC quota and called up the IIM I office to confirm. The person on the phone explained to me patiently and I could finally believe that I had made it :happy:
Comments:
As I head to IIM I, I am excited that my dream has finally come true. After the CAT written exam, I was distraught that I will never get to study in an IIM. But God has blessed me abundantly.
Surprisingly, quite a few asked me whether I am going to join IIM Indore! Well I sure know how hard it has been for me to get this. And I want to make the best use of it :happy:
And PG will always be special to me. PG sure made my CAT preparation so much more interesting :happy:
Here are the details of how I prepared for CAT'07
Finally I get to post on the thread I always wanted to.. Finally, after more than 3 years of visting PaGalGuY.com, I get to post on the most sacred thread of all
Well, here's my story.
I was never an ambitious guy. Growing up in a small town like bareilly, I used to think that I would never be able to compete with the big-town boys.
This feeling was further reinforced when I got a rank of 16,500 in the IIT-JEE screening and was consequently not able to sit for the mains examination.
I finally got admission into Manipal engineering and was happily whiling away my time till the 6th semester when the results of my 5th sem exams came. I had scored a GPA of 1.72 out of 4.0. Though expected, I had never imagined that I would not even be able to cross the minimum pass GPA (2.0). However, since I had scored better in my previous exams, I was able to scrape through due to the cumulative GPA effect.
But back home, my parents were really disappointed. There were 5 other students in my college from my township and all of them had scored more than 3.3 in the 5th sem. And all this in a industrial township, where everyone knew everyone else. It was going to be difficult to face my parents when I got back home.
During this time, there were two free mock-cats held in our college. One by time, and one by ims. I gave both just to see what all the hoopla surrounding this stupid exam was. Getting 85 and 90 percentile overall in them added nothing to my false confidence. It was impossible for me to get through a competition which involved 1.8 lakh other aspirants (at that time).
However, the news that Infy was coming to our campus galvanized me. I studied almost 2-3 hours a day (a humongous number by my standards) for the written infy test. It's a different matter altogether that I had finished the George summers puzzles book halfway in the first year itself just to kill time.
Anyways, I made it to infy. The other 5 people from my township didn't. My parents found it hard to believe that I alone of all 6 could make it.
I went back home and could face my parents again. That's when my mom brought up the subject of cat/gre/gate etc. She said I had to take at least one among those exams for further studies and to choose one. I had already spent 3 years in engg and didn't want to waste 2 more years studying technical stuff again. So, cat it was for me.
My mom was a little disappointed by this choice of mine. Why, you ask? Well, the other 5 were all taking up gre. :huh: :|
I spent the 7th sem back in college in as careless a fashion as I had the 5th sem. Meanwhile, another IT company (perot systems) also decided to offer me a job and I decided to join it since they were also offering me a chance to do my final sem project there.
Meanwhile, I had filled up the form for cat-2004 and had decided to give the exam in Bangalore. My preparation for the exam by then, consisted of solving the DI book of ims (taen from my room-mate) and the 2 mocks I had written earlier. Seeing this, one of my friends made a bet with me that I would not cross the 90 percentile mark in cat. I took the bet. Also, on being goaded, I said out loud that I would go for only the top three (ABC) or nothing else. This happened in august and I was the butt of all cat-related jokes for the next 4 months.
I reached Bangalore the morning before cat-day. After spending the whole day looking at the pretty females on MG Road 
, I called up my old school friend (who was not giving cat, but instead had just a sessional on Monday 
) and went to a pub at 10 in the night. We kept on guzzling beer 
and head-banging to the rock music being played by the DJ till 2 am. After the pub owner chased us out, we went to a restaurant and had chicken till 3 am.
Finally, we decided to call it a day and my friend dropped me at my hotel room at 3:30. The exam was supposed to start at 10 am so I had 6.5 hours to rest.
Or so I thought.
I was rudely kicked awake at 6:30 by my hotel room-mate who informed me that we had to leave the hotel room by 7am. Being in no state to argue, I somehow managed to get freshened up enough to go out with all of my hotel roomies and grab a coffee.
When the papers were handed out to us in the hall, I was a bit surprised to see just 123 questions instead of the 150 I was expecting. Both the mocks I had given had contained 150 questions each and this real thing did not. Judging by the uncomprehending looks on the faces of everyone else in the hall, this was an unexpected blow right in the solar plexus.
During the next 2 hours, gave the paper very calmly. Occasionally even taking time out to look at the more visually enticing members of the opposite sex. 
When I compared my answers to the various institute keys, I knew I had done well. However, I had said ABC in my arrogance and there was no way I was getting a call from any of the big three. So at the end of the 7th sem (December-2004), I went home planning to join perot systems for my final sem project and the consequential job in noida.
Come December 25th, and I read on rediff.com that cat results had been declared and also that a site called Pagalguy.com had "leaked the results". That was the first time I visited the site and found that there was absolutely no mention of the results whatsoever. It was just a simple forum where some people discussed cat. Figuring that there would be hundreds of forums like this, I did not think much about pagalguy.com (what a weird name!) and went back home from the cyber-caf.
However, the next day there was a lot of coverage in the media about the cat results. Again a went to the cyber-caf, and found that the cat results had actually come out. And, surprise of surprises, I had got a percentile of 99.05 overall, which gave me a lone call of IIM-C.
That day, my friend lost the bet. I won something more important, I won my self-belief.
Well, unfortunately the GD-PI process is a whole different ball game from the CAT, as I found out later. Going into the C GD-PI with the same level of "preparation" as I did for CAT, I was a nervous wreck by the time the GD started (my first GD ever, incidentally). Things turned out as bad as they could possibly have. Out of the total 15 minutes given for discussion, I got a total air-time of 10 seconds.
Things went from bad to worse during the interview with the panel members laughing at my answers. It was a relief when the interview was finally over.
I came out of the hall and walked straight-out of the waiting hall without bothering to look back at the people asking me how my interview went.
I knew the result of my interview as soon as I went home to my college hostel. I remember crying a lot in my room. I remember thinking that I had messed up the best opportunity that God had given me in my short life of 20 years. I remember getting up at 4 a.m. every morning for the next one month to go to the temple. I remember sitting there looking at the stone idols hour after hour, second after second. I used to finally come back to the mess, have breakfast, and sleep.
However, all good things have to come to an end, and so do all bad things. I was lucky in the fact that some of my best friends were there with me in the college and they told me in no uncertain terms what they thought of my first attempt. I had proved almost everybody wrong. I had had college toppers come up to me and tell me that I was the "surprise package" for this year's CAT. There were discussions in the college hostels about who the most intelligent person in the batch was, and my name started featuring prominently in these discussions.
The fact that I could do all this by just writing a stupid exam was shocking to me. I was a perennial also-ran. I was always the guy who came in second. I was always the small-town boy who liked to live away from the glare of the spotlights.
After the cat results however, the reality was different. I had unknown people coming up to me and shaking my hand and saying to me "good try man". I had people saying "oh! You're Soham?" when I said my name to them. I felt good.
Well, I finally decided to join infy after college. Since the joining date was quite late, I decided to teach part-time at the local cat-coaching institutes. This ensured that my studies for cat were also upto scratch. I put in some long hours for the exam this tyime around and was doing quite well when I joined infy mysore.
The next couple of months went by smoothly. And I promptly lost touch with all the preparation I had done over the last few months. When the D-day was 4 days away, I was informed that I had to relocate and join the Chennai office on the Monday after CAT.
Needless to say, the exam was screwed up for me. I checked my result only the day after the results came out and the overall was 92 %ile for me. I had screwed up in DI this year (72 %ile) after screwing up in quants the last time around. I had a nasty feeling that somehow, the verbal section was to be my nemesis the next year.
It was in preparation for CAT-2k6 that I finally started getting a lil more active on PG. After CAT-2k6, I even started participating on the cat-retest thread. This was the year when there were lots of mistakes in the question paper and I was not happy about it. On top of that, I had gotten screwed in verbal as I had predicted. For the second time in my cat-journey, I had a 99+ score and a lone call to show for it (IIM-I).
Although I did join a coaching institute for the first time in my life (for GD-PI), my heart was not in it. This was primarily because I had already fallen in love with IIM-C, the same institute which had rejected me the first time I had crossed the boundaries of cat. I could not think about any other institute other than C. It was with this kind of a mindset that I went for the Indore GD-PI. The GD was a bit better than my C interview 2 years back, but the interview was even more pathetic.
I came back laughing this time around, since I knew in my heart that the next year was going to be MY year, no matter whether I converted or not. The horror stories of people leaving converts only to get the same insti the next year again did not deter me. When the final results came, I was wailisted at 68 for I. I still do not know how far the wait-list moved for IIM-Indore for the batch of 2007-2009. :)
As I started approaching CAT-2k7, I heard myself asking some critical questions. I wondered why I wanted to go through all this torture again. Was I a masochist or what? And to top it all off, I was not too happy with the current state of my career. I understood that if I wanted to do an MBA, I had to draw a line somewhere. I could not go on writing this stupid exam year after year just to prove a point. That's when I decided to write all the MBA entrance exams I could. I filled up the forms of CAT, XAT, JMET, IIFT, FMS, MDI and even SNAP. I wanted to take admission this year, no matter if I got my dream college or not.
But having screwed up three different sections in my three previous attempts, all I was praying for was that CAT should not contain 4 sections this year.
The night previous to CAT, I did not booze. I went to bed at 10 in the night and stayed wide-eyed and awake all through to the next morning. However, one good thing is that I had logged off from PG for the last 2-3 days and was not speaking much about CAT to anyone.
I gave CAT with as much of a cool mind as I could muster. When I came back home and checked the answer keys of the various institutes, I was getting marks ranging from 124 to 144 out of the 300 possible. I was clearing all the cut-offs by a big margin and I had a huge grin on my face that night. Fate had good things in store for me this year and I knew it.
Anyways, I gave all rest of the exams after heavy bouts of drinking the previous night before, and the results confirmed what I had begun to suspect since my results in CAT-2k4. I was good in these exams, whether I drank or not. The results which were out before the cat results showed my suspicions to be true. I received calls from IIFT, SIBM, IIT-B etc. but all I was praying to God was that my IIM-C interview should be the last of my interviews. I wanted to take all the rest of the GD/PIs as preparations for the big one.
CAT results came, and it was exactly as I had hoped. ILACK, and C was at the last! I finally had my second chance to convince the IIM-C panel about how badly I wanted to join their institute. And this second chance had taken me three more years to achieve.
Anyways, even the results of the exams I gave after CAT came out happy for me. I got calls from all the institutes I had applied to except IIM-B. All my overall percentiles were above 99.6. Just one problem, the FMS date was clashing with my IIM-C interview. Lots of people I knew got their date for FMS changed. I didn't purely because I did not want any interview after the biggest one. Consequently, I had to skip the FMS interview.
It was during this time that I started thinking about how everything was going according to my plan. Was it because of my hard work? NO. I had worked the hardest in cat-2005 and that had fetched me my lowest marks. Nothing I could think of could explain the way that everything was happening just as I had prayed for.
Except one thing. Destiny. It was the only thing that explained why my IIM-C interview was at the last. I knew then that that there was nothing that was going to stop me from getting into joka this year around. It did not matter that I had filled up zillions of forms. It did not matter that I had even gone as far as pune to give interviews for colleges which I never wanted to join. It did not matter that I had already quit my job.
I decided to put my birthday celebrations on 10th april on hold since the IIM results were supposed to come out on 11th april and I wanted to give both my convert and birthday party together. However, the Supreme court gave me a nice birthday gift on 10th by removing the stay order on the OBC implementation. This meant a substantial delay in the release of the results and a substantial increase in my nicotine intake (which went up by 400%). The only thing which kept me sane in this time was the fact that I had converted XLRI.
Well, the results finally came out on the 1st of may. IIM-B declared it's results at 1:00 am on 1st of may and IIM-C was the next in line at 10:00 am. After checking the IIM-C results (rather getting them checked by my lucky charm), I did not bother checking the other results. I had converted both the PGDM and PGDCM courses and was going to joka at last, 3 years after I had first had the opportunity, and missed it.
At the end of my CAT journey, I realized many things. CAT for me had not been about how much hard work I could give. It had been a question of how many failures I could take, and still have the courage to try. Rocky Balboa's saying proved true for me.
It was also about testing the limits of my desire for something. CAT demanded both passion and detachedness from me. I realized that just passion for the exam would make me crazy with tension and just having detachedness was simply not possible. That is when I challenged myself. I asked myself whether my spirit to get into IIM-C was so much that it could overcome itself and help me remain calm during the pressure cooker situations. I found that I could answer myself in the positive.
And finally, I realized that it is not what others say that matters, but what you want. It does not matter what percentile you have in CAT, but to get into your dream insti. For me, the objective in my final attempt had not been to hit, maim or kill the cat, but to get into IIM-C.
Finally after 7 IIM interviews, 6 appraisal cycles at work, 5 months of unpaid professional life, 4 CATs, 3 years of preparation, 2 useless 99+ percentiles and 1 bloody good IIM-C interview, I land up at my college-Joka.
Hopefully I'll learn faster here.
Soham
PS: Thanks for reading all this.