Hi fellow aspirants, I take great pride in getting the oppurtunity to post in this thread. i hope future aspirants would be able to gain something from it.
My profile:
Till class Xth schooling from hometown in UP secured 88%, among the toppers .
Class XIIth DPS RKPuram 78%
B.E DCE -75.45% among top 10% of class. passed out in 2006.
I started preparing in 2004 Dec motivated by two factors:
1) There was a lot of spare time and I was not much into extra curriculars so prep for CAT was a good way of utilising time.
2) There were many guys/gals in college preparing for CAT and so it was a trend (if I would have been in some place in UP my homestate I might have gone for IAS or IES prep depending on the trend).
3) I always considered myself good enough to study from an IITwhich I mmissed out due to my bad rank in IIT JEE 2002 (3469) so I was motivated enough to get a tag from IIM though I had no idea about management education.
I gave around 10 mocks and my percentile ranged from 90 t0 99. I was quite satisfied with my preps.
CAT 2005: Overall exam was O.K but messed big time in time management and so ended up with giving 30 minutes to DI which resulted in overall percentile of 95.5.
I cleared some other exams and had calls incuding FMS(MS), XLRI(PMIR), IIT B, IIT D, IIT K. Could convert only IIT K due to lack of prep and motivation. So, joined a well known automobile manufacturer in 2006.
But, I refused to accept failure and worked well for CAT again.
My average mock scores ranged from 95 to 99.
CAT 2006: I was very confident given my mock scores , but once again messed up DI with overall percentile of 99.19 and XAT percentile of 98.53. My only call was IIT D which I did not attend.
I could not appear for CAT 2007 and 2008 due to the nature of my job. I again prepared for CAT 2009 and this was the last chance for me due to family and official circumstances.
I could not prepare as well as I had done for first two attempts . I appeared in 4 mocks and adjusting to online format took some time . My scores were: (in percentile) :60 ,90, 95, 99.98
So, the progression of scores gave me great confidence despite lack of preparation.
CAT 2009: I managed time quite well, the level of paper was extremely easy as compared to the previous mocks or CAT exams I had given. I had a feeling that I had cracked it.
I got a percentile of 99.68 and my calls were:
IIM A,C,L,I,MDI, NITIE(did not appear), FMS MBA
Result:
Converts: IIM A,L, MDI
Wailist: IIM C(70 PGDM), FMS (67)
Finally success has come my way after long toil and hardwork and I can confidently say there are only these ingredients to it:
1) Confidence
2) Practice
3) Basic IQ
4) Never say die attitude
So, if I can do it, I am sure all the future aspirants also can.
All the best and god bless you all!:grin:
Ok people, this post is going to be really long, but I am entitled to that, because I am putting three years of my life down in a single post. So, please indulge me.
Cracking the CAT had been a long standing dream for me. This is the story of how I finally did it. :drinking:
CAT 2007
I was in the final year of college, with a job in my hand and no care in the world. Spent my days playing Quake, boozing and just general timepass. Though I had known from the first year that I wanted to crack the CAT, I didn't realize what it meant to me. Joined Pagalguy in March 2007 but hardly ever came to it or realized its value. Didn't hit the books regularly. :banghead:One big coaching insti held classes in our college, and following the herd, I joined. But, it became more of a nuisance rather than a boon, for what engineer with a job in hand wants to wake up at 9 on a Sunday morning for a coaching class? 
Needless to say, I treated the classes no different from my college classes, meaning I just went 'cause I had paid the money. As soon as I came back from the classes, all was lost and my world was Quakemania again.
The mocks started and I got 93%ile in the first one. That rang a bell somewhere. If I could get 93%ile playing Quake and studying nothing, then I stood a chance. Unfortunately, the bell that this realization rang was not loud enough, and I continued in my slumber. With one month remaining to CAT, I finally realized how important CAT was to me.
Slogged for a month with the Quant and DI books by Arun Sharma, but in hindsight, I now realize that CAT 2007 was practically a lost cause. Sat for the exam and got the following :
Scores : Quant - 97.xx, VA - 96.xx, DI - 60.xx, Overall - 95.40 
:banghead:
CAT 2008
Decided to give it more seriously this time. College finished in May, and I spent the whole of May and June doing a really simple Quant book, all the while thinking that I was practicing some worthwhile Quant. The joining date from my company came soon, and I came to Bangalore in July. Joined AIMCATs the day I stepped into Bangalore.
There are some things you can do, and some things you just cannot. No matter what the reward, there are some things you just will not or can not do. For me, coding is one such thing. I could do Quant for hours. I could read RCs for hours. But, finding my way through tonnes and tonnes of labyrinthine code was something impossible for me to accomplish.
Luckily, there weren't too many restrictions on what you could browse in office. Since I couldn't take books to office, I switched to Pagalguy:cheerio:. I read for hours on end, while my teammate did most of the work. He enjoyed that, and I enjoyed this freedom from office work. Came across the scores of the Bangalore Dream Team, and gaped :shock:. Being an introvert, I generally prefer to keep to myself and make the least social contact possible. Still, I persuaded myself to go to a PG meet. I was already in awe of the_hate , and I probably went just to meet him. Met a lot of other puys too, like Prem bhai, rsriram84, shabadp, yogsconnect, amrutesh666 and some more. Listened to some gyaan from hate. By the end of the meet, rsriram84 and I were pals. He was probably my first friend from PG, and we are pals to this day.;)
I continued to do the least possible work in office. God gifted me an awesome manager. I will not name him here but he was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Read on, and you'll soon know why. Mocks started off with a 98 percentile, but slowly slipped to early 90s. I kept missing cutoffs, mostly in DI 
and hardly ever in VA. QA showed up a couple of times, but that wasn't an issue.
I have one big problem. Before any big exam, I cannot sleep!:banghead: No matter how much I try, I cannot. I had taken a week off from office right before CAT, and thought I would alter my sleeping patterns to adjust my waking time to that of C-Day. Unfortunately, I failed to stick to that schedule, and ended up getting just 4 hours of sleep before CAT ! Needless to say, my brain felt like a ball of gum.
I looked at the questions and just sat there. Nothing clicked. I was so wasted that day, even VA ditched me. Before the result, I spent my days begging God to just give me any percentile above 90, and promising myself that I would definitely crack CAT the next time. I ended up with the following percentiles :
Scores : Quant - 89.xx, VA - 88.xx, DI - 90.xx, Overall - 94.18 :banghead::nono:
Now came the humiliating task of telling everyone what I had scored. I did that, for what option did I have ? 
All around me, people were getting calls, enrolling for GDs and interviews, and I was wishing the Earth opened up and I fell in through the cracks. The prep I did in office made sure everyone knew I was a CAT aspirant, and everyone wanted to know how I had fared. Failure is a bitter pill to swallow, and for me, it's somewhat of an anathema. I absolutely hate to fail. I am my own worst critic, and harsher than the Army when it comes to judgment. The IIM fire still burnt. I promised myself that I won't be denied a third time. I would kill or be killed for an IIM this time.
CAT 2009
This was it. If I failed at this, I was lost. The prospect of year upon year in my current job haunted me, and stoked the IIM fire to a point where it became a madness
. I was ready to give anything for CAT, anything at all. The music in my phone was replaced with audio wordlists. I listened to words while travelling to office, eating breakfast, basically at any time I could. Always carried a set of TIME flash cards in my bag, reading them whenever I could. I was already good at VA and didn't need the wordlists, but I still felt that a lot of my time could be spent more constructively for CAT prep purposes. 
Sleep took a backseat, and I made up a crazy schedule for myself. It was crazy, but it worked. I slept from 6 to 9 in the evening. Had my dinner at 9 and sat down to work around 10, and slogged till 3 or 4 in the morning. Slept at 4, got up at 8 and was in office by 9, bleary-eyed, unshaven and often late. I eat really really fast, so the daily newspaper readings were done in lunch time. Some days, I was so exhausted I fell asleep in the library or was forced to sleep in a resting room my office had:lookround:. Joined a famous teacher in Bangalore, and was amazed with the quality of stuff there. If I couldn't do it with all this stuff, I wasn't worthy of an IIM. There were weeks when I had to go to office on weekends, and this meant I was running all the time, 6 days of office and 1 day of coaching. No rest. No letups anywhere. It was killing, but I was ready to do anything it took.:thumbsup:
The mocks began. The first one, AIMCAT 1020, was not for test series people, but I aced 1019, getting a 99.56 with all sectionals enough to qualify for an IIM Ahmedabad call
. Me and some coaching friends had a small celebration of that success. I prayed that this continued, and barring minor hiccups, it did. Got in touch with Doc at this time [ shashank3012 for the uninitiated ] and took an instant liking to him. He was someone who could, and was happy to, talk about CAT, mocks, scores, strategies, percentiles and all such stuff for hours. Also, he is an optimist, and someone who believes in me much more than I do in myself. The PG Dream Team nominations began, and he even nominated me Captain of his team. :biggrin:This was an unexpected show of confidence, and I again resolved I would not fail. Then came the day I was selected for the Dream Team.
A year ago, I had watched from the sidelines as the Bangalore Dream Team guys took apart the AIMCATs, and I had lived to see myself chosen to the most coveted Team on the whole of PG. That was the first time I began to believe I was good, and good enough to stand among the best. The madness was finally beginning to pay off.
Continued...
My manager saw how hard I studied, and respected that :
You won't find many guys appreciate that kind of thing. So, I wasn't overloaded with work and was able to give time to my studies. The mocks continued in a crazy rollercoaster graph. I defined a miss as not qualifying for an IIM A call. Made a special column for that in my mock scores repository, and aimed for those figures.:wow: I always believed that the intense pressure on C-Day would bring down my performance, and so the aim was to be so good that even on an average day, I would outperform a whole lot of people 
As it turns out, I crossed IIM A cutoffs only thrice in the mocks, but that was ok. And anyway, there was nothing I could do about it except keep improving, mock to mock. :grin:
Finally, CAT began. And with it began the stories of a disaster that was to be discussed, remembered and torn apart for a long time to come
. Everywhere you saw, every time you refreshed PG homepage, there were new horror stories to be seen. Crashes, reboots, missing diagrams, missing timers, repeated questions, the entire gamut was in attendance. Someone advised that I should choose a slot in the middle of the testing period, as the end slots might be difficult as more people came to know of questions from earlier slots. I chose the 4th of December, and started looking through previous CAT papers at a fiendish rate.
The day came. As usual, I was on a 10-day leave from office. I awoke, had a couple of biscuits and tea, and set off. Reached the centre and got in. Then began the long wait for the exam to begin. Finally, I was allotted a system. Being a believer in numerology, I had hoped I would get a machine number somehow linked to 7. I glanced at what the examiner had written on my admit card. S-1. Ok, I could still do it. When you are that nervous, the least little thing going askew can mess you up. Went to my seat. The exam began. As usual, I began with VA. I had to do all, no matter what, 'cause VA was my lifeline. That was where I got the most marks. I did 14 questions and reached the last 2 RCs. To my horror, they were inferential. And not just any inferential, the you-won't-get-any-of-it kind of inferential 
Used every last bit of brain I had to do those two. Did all 20 in VA and got out. Moved to DI, did a comfortable 15 and got out. Moved to QA and started doing. After some time, I glanced at the timer. 15 minutes to go. Number of questions completed - 8. Shit. And then, I started working faster than I had done in a long, long time. At the end of the 15 minutes, I had done around 17 questions, though I didn't count, 'cause I was using every last second to the max. Total attempts : 52. :lookround:
XAT came and went. It was ok, except that I realized early on that DI was undoable in that particular paper 
Took a chance in QA, by doing only 12 questions, out of a total of 40. When you do that few questions, you had better be damn sure they are almost all correct 
Total attempts in XAT - 54. Called up doc, and almost died when I heard he did 71 
!! Then the reports started coming in, and it was not I who had attempted less but doc who had attempted more ! 54 was an above average number of attempts, and a reasonable accuracy rate would see me through.
FMS too came and went. Attempted 111. But found that 3 RCs had been repeated, and people had completed those in 10-12 minutes flat !! FMS appeared to be a lost cause. But then, what could I do?
Results started coming in after what seemed like a long long time. XAT came in first. 99.01, all sectionals secured, BM call. Nice. FMS came in. Ding. Heart breaking , but expected somewhere in the core of my heart. Still no sign of CAT results. 
My XLRI interview was scheduled for Feb 28, 5:40 p.m. . At around 1'o clock, I was reading on my laptop when a tweet popped up from Pagalguy - 'CAT results out!' It was the moment of truth. If I had crashed, I would be so depressed that I would be in no state to take up the XLRI interview. I had about 2 minutes to check my result before the servers crashed. I chose to see it. Twice I typed the wrong registration number, 'cause I was trembling Finally, Ctrl-C + Ctrl-V came to my rescue, and the results opened. The first figure I saw was 98.58. Shit. Another year down the drain. But then I saw it was only the Quant percentile! I glanced at the overall. 99.85 
Glanced at DI. 97.96 
This looked unbelievable, and I knew VA would not desert me. 99.65. Wow ! 
:clap:I was through! Ahmedabad declared its result along with the CAT result. A quick Ctrl-F + Ctrl-V found my roll number in the list, and my face lit up like the Sun :grin:. Shillong was never going to call me but I checked anyway. Ding. No problem. I didn't really care anyway. Called home to tell them the result, and then called Doc. To say that I was sad for him, would be an understatement. Called madam (NeverG!iveUp ) to know her result. But I was short of time, so I dressed and left for Delhi. XLRI went like a breeze. Took a cab and came back to Gurgaon.
All the interviews went fine. Was greatly helped by Doc. Any amount of thanks I give to madam will be insufficient. She helped me clear up a huge number of interview concepts, and our discussions on interview prep are sweet memories to cherish. Lady, I wish you the best in life, and may you get all you wish for! :thumbsup:
Had some jitters only for Calcutta, since it was the first one:drinking:. Ahmedabad was great and I missed only 3 questions in the whole of 25 minutes. Lucknow was a bit odd, with some random discussions in the midst. MDI was bizarre , but I did not want to convert it anyway, so I mentioned in there that I had calls from A C L and had rocked the interviews, and will convert all! 
Calls for the 2009 season : IIMs A C L :cheers:, XLRI-BM , MDI :clap:
Converts : IIMs A C L :w00t:, MDI :biggrin:. XLRI-BM waitlist at 11, which converted later
Will be joining A 
. Totally a personal decision. All IIMs are God-level institutes. But, I wouldn't be able to live without WIMWI. For me, to give up WIMWI when I have the chance, is unthinkable.
Random Gyaan : I think too many people don't give CAT the respect it deserves . The exam might have gotten easier, but then, its easy for each of the 2 lakh aspirants 
An easy exam is harder to crack, because a single silly mistake can make or break the day, and hence there is no margin for error. I have always revered CAT as the holiest of exams, for WIMWI is, to me, the holiest of institutions 
. Respect the exam and don't take it lightly :nono:. Hard work won't be unrewarded forever. Use every minute of your time constructively if possible, for its better to do that than to think, some day, that you could have done better, prepared better, studied harder . Kill yourself for a year, and you'll be a God the rest of your life. Don't waste weekends, for that is the most precious time for a working CAT aspirant. Do justice to CAT, and God will do justice to you :thumbsup:
PS : This post was awarded as the Best Post at Puyscars 2010. I thank all who nominated me, and hope that my story has inspired some to rise above themselves and follow their dream.
Friends, I have been a "Jack of all trades, master of none" kind of a person all my life. I had never really achieved something big in one single domain. Small achievements were always there and they were across domains. To point out 2 of these:-
1.) I had heard of the IITs since standard 6th. Studied really hard in 11th and 12th, on the D day luck wasn't on my side and some silly mistakes in Physics(which was my favourite subject) did me in. Got a rank of 3157. I was amongst those who had "cracked the JEE" from the city of Amritsar but I hadn't really cracked it. Didn't get a respectable branch at the IITs and thus did my engineering from Thapar.
2.) I played cricket at the U-14, U-16 state level but never made it big. U-14, I played when I was in 6th, at the age of 11. The game was my passion, but when I played professionally, I knew I was good but I didn't think I was so good that I could make it really big. I remember some of friends who I played alongside at the U-14, U-16 levels, they were so determined. For them cricket was everything, they worked hard and gave their best. Some of them are playing Ranji for Punjab now and some have played for the Kings 11 in the IPL. Bharat Lumba, Karan Goel, Manish Bhatia, Sharad Lumba to name a few (just search for them on cricinfo).
When I was in engineering college and afterwards at job, seeing these folks I felt sad sometimes. Cricket was my passion and I felt those days when I used to play were the best days of my life. I'm a firm believer in the fact that hard work pays off and I started wondering if I had worked hard, really really hard, may be even I could have made it big someday.
So there was always this feeling in me given my JEE performance and my cricket, that I had under achieved, that I had never really made it big.
I started to yearn, I started to look up to people from the IITs/IIMs/cricketers with a bitter feeling. I just wanted to make it big somehow, somewhere.
So I thought let me try my hand out at the CAT and lets see if I can make it to the IIMs. 3 attempts in total:-
CAT '07:- This I gave without any preparation. This was when that feeling of making it big hadn't come in. My VA was pathetic, managed 68% in that with an OA of 92.7
CAT '08:- I moved to Bangalore in Jan '08 for my last semester internship. My job was also at Bangalore, was to begin in July. Decided to go in for coaching classes in March. Gave AIMCATs, performance was around 96ish average with less marks in VA everytime. Scored 99+ just once. I used to score heavily in DI and thus didn't prepare for DI for the CAT. I practised only VA and QA. As a result my CAT 08 scorecard read :- VA 96.67, QA 96.01 and DI 75.77, OA 97.56...What I noticed after the CAT was that in AIMCATs, it was always the DI questions that I had attempted in the LR and DI section. I had a disliking of sorts for LR. CAT 08 had 2 easy LR sets and I had not even looked at them. I spent a lot of time in DI and was able to attempt only 7 questions.
The results brought 2 surprises (which have a high impact in my L convert this year). One was Shillong call and the other was SPJIMR - finance call. I knew nothing about current affairs, my GK was extremely poor and I was an introvert. Luckily the interviews were 3 months away. I studied everything, everything that I could think of. Every damn term and it's implications in economics (my mom is a Phd in eco, so that helped), quite a lot about finance and a lot about politics. By the end of 3 months when the interviews were due, I was getting sense of the broader socio-economic landscape in India and around the world. I was confident going into the interviews. Converted the SPJIMR call and was rejected by SHillong (the results came out on the same day).
I had thought of joining SP when I was visiting PG threads about Life@ some IIM thread. Then and there I realised that this is what I had written the CAT for in the first place. No doubt SP is a good college, but If I join it this year, that feeling of being a "jack of all trades, master of none" and having never really made it big would always be there, for the rest of my life. I thought hard, I felt if I could manage calls from SP and Shillong with a low percentile this year, then God forbid, even if my CAT goes bad next year, I'll still get these 2 calls. That's when I decided to give another shot.
CAT '09 (May '09 and beyond):- Because of my good performance in VA in CAT '08, I got confidence and surprisingly, I was able to do well in VA in almost all mocks. That resulted in my AIMCAT average shooting up drastically from last year, since I had always scored well in QA and DI. I paid special attention to the LR section this year. I'll say I didn't really slog for studies, I believe in maintaining a balance and never over do anything. I studied 1 hour daily on weekdays. I didn't study on weekends since I had joined a cricket club in Bangalore (Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey have played at the same club) and we had matches/practice on weekends. This way I was also close to something that I had loved. As far as my work is concerned, I'm not that much of a technical person and although I was performing really well at work, I wanted to get out of it. I'm more interested in finance/markets/economy etc and wanted to do something related to that. I felt, if I can't crack the CAT this year, it'll be trouble for me.
One big thing that I did this time, was reading the newspaper/magazine. From my interview experiences of last year, I had learnt that getting a call is one thing and converting it is totally another ball game. Anything that I didn't understand, I googled, for I knew at the IIM interview they can ask anything under the sky. I became so confident that I felt that even if I get one call, I'll convert it. To understand India's socio-economic scenario with a greater depth, I read Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India- Ideas for the new century. It's an amazing book, let me tell you that. Anything under the roof about our nation has been covered.
Come the week before CAT and I had a break up with my girlfriend. She wasn't just that, but had been my best friend since I was 13. I can't mention the reasons here, but the reasons were out of my control. I was depressed. Talked to prem bhai (prem_ravi) once and he said "You have to be bigger than this". I remember those exact words and they kind of stuck inside my brain. I realised that there are a few things in this world that you can be fully in control of, and doing well in the CAT was one of those. So I went in with a vengeance towards the CAT. Attempted 52, was happy with my performance and knew that the accuracy would have been Ok. Given my profile, I knew a 98.5 would still land me with 1-2 calls and like I mentioned before, I felt that was enough for me, for I was confident of converting.
The results came, I had got 98.72 OA (94.26 QA, 96.5 VA, 97.59 DI). B,L,S calls were there along with SP, MDI and IIFT. I had also decided till this point that I'll go to whichever college I convert this year, because If I can't convert this year, with this much prep, then it's not feasible to give the CAT again.
1.) IIFT interview/GD was good but I did badly in the essay (The topic was "Domestic animals are man's best friends. Didn't know what to write really). Given my bad written exam score, I wasn't expecting a convert. But got waitlisted in the K center.
2. ) IIM B was next and this was the biggie. This was what I had waited for.
I felt I had written a good essay and given a decent interview. But I had made a mistake in essay. There were 1.5 pages given, .5 to do the rough work and 1 page to write the essay. I didn't read the instructions carefully and ended up writing the essay on the entire 1.5 pages. This, coupled with an average PI and I wasn't very confident. Verdict--> Rejected.
3.) SPJIMR was next. Interviews were awesome to say the least. I felt I haven't given better interviews. Verdict --> Rejected. Was shocked and shocked, my friends would be an understatement.
4.) IIM L was next. Essay and GD were good and PI was awesome again. Nandan Nilekani's book helped here as I was asked lots of questions about the socio-economic scenario in our country. Verdict-->
5.) MDI was next. GD awesome, PI awesome. GD topic was deregulation of oil prices would lead to inflation and hence it shouldn't be done. Had read loads and loads of economic times articles on this during the past one year. It was a piece of cake. Verdict -->
6.) IIM S was next. Didn't really feel like giving the interview. Managed to do well both in the case study and in the PI. Verdict-->
PG and friends on PG have helped me a lot. Looking at the scores, getting motivated, making new friends was an experience for me. Made countless friends, people I had never met before. Prem bhai, Sriram, r11, Doc, Bmr, Assassin, Sammael, Madam G, naga, raghav507, anshuljain_iitd, prakhar, Don to name a few.
But the biggest entity that has helped me has been God. During the last 6 months, my belief in God has risen exponentially. I never asked anything from him during the last few years, but prayed daily, thanked him at the end of each day and studied seriously whenever I did. My grand mother always kept on telling me "Guru Ramdas da hath tere sir te hai, uh jo vi karega thik karega" (Punjabi) meaning "Guru Ramdas, the 4th Sikh Guru's, hand is on your head, whatever he does, will be right only." I also read a few chapters of Quran during this time and it had made me a better person. It mentions of the judgement day (Qayamat ka din), when an account of our doings will be taken by Allah and based on that we'll go to Jannat (Heaven) or Jahannum (Hell). So I try not to hurt anybody and before going to sleep I go over the things have done in the day and see if I have hurt someone.
Friends, hard work is the key to success, there's no doubting that, but luck is also there. Luck is decided by God. And if you're a good person, or even if you're not a good person but not a bad person, God and luck will be on your side. He will desert those who are arrogant, who are not true to themselves.
So my 2 cents in the end, work as hard as is required, maintain a good balance to your life, do not do bad things in life, thank God daily and be true to yourself. You'll get what you want, no one can stop you..
Thanks,
Gagan.
A moment comes in everyone's life when he/she adorns the victorious throne meant for chosen few. It need not be an IIM seat or Forbes list of the Richest. It starts with winning that first spoon race in class 2nd, singing a song in front of a large gathering without letting the knees tremble, boldly facing the phenomenon of being a laughing stock just because you dont listen to Iron Maiden or Enrique and finally not accepting the fact that you cant solve that quants problem. All are rubbish. I have experienced each one of these.
I am not here to write my life story. I will concentrate only on one word - CAT. Since the past 3 years that I have known CAT, I have always experienced but have always failed to comprehend the aura that surrounds it. When you start thinking of topping that one exam,the rush of blood inside indicates that you are made for it. If the adrenaline starts flowing inside you and your legs are restless, it points to the fact that CAT beckons you. Not all get this feeling, some lose it before they start. Some lose it half way down. Some stand against that wall. If it will not be tumbled down, it will atleast be cracked.
Enough gyaan ? So have a look at this :
aimcat 1001 - 80.44
aimcat 1004 - 86.75
aimcat 1005 - 99.78
aimcat 1006 - 98.75
aimcat 1008 - 94.14
aimcat 1011 - 90.48
aimcat 1012 - 89.01
aimcat 1015 - 94.58
aimcat 1016 - 93.54
aimcat 1017 - 91.80
Each failure in mock made me wake up half an hour early and study. Visits to DT scorecards made my heart burn. Each Light up the fire inside you, to prove yourself and the world that you ARE the person you think you are.
CAT 2009 - 99.99 with 99+ in all sections
So did PROMETRIC do it for me? I dont know. I only know that I did it for myself. My job involved travelling almost every day. I have never stayed in Chennai which is supposedly my base location. Even right now, with 10 days to go in Britannia, I am sitting in a hotel room in Patna and writing this. CAT was on 6th Dec and I was in Rudrapur (google if you dont know where) whole november. I woke up at 4 in the morning and studied till 8 before heading to factory. 24th march was IIMC interview in bangalore and I was in Gaziabad on 23rd afternoon in factory. IIMA on 5th April - I was in Pathankot on 1st, Jammu on 2nd, Kanpur on 3rd and finally in Banaglore on 4th april 12 midnight. I left banagalore for Kanpur only to be back within 2 days : IIML on 10th.
What keeps one going - seeing everybody around talking about byju sir's classes and boot camps while you are struggling with anemometer in 45 degree heat near the oven with an IIM interview next day? Determination.
I was advised by one and all, to apply for a medical, go on leave and sit and prepare and make notes and revive current affairs and attend mock GDs. Given the person that I am, running away from one job to finish other is the last thing I will think about. I faced it head on. Each interview attended without Prep,but surely with confidence. Because I had faith in the person that is inside me.
So last two questions:
1. Do you think you are better than what you are being treated like?
2. Do you belive that life is short and you are delaying the success that you deserve?
If any of the answers is a YES, get up, open the official quants thread for 2010 and start!
The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and howmuchsoever tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!!
Hope I could enkindle the much needed fire inside.
First up, I didn't crack CAT, and to be honest, I am glad i didn't....
First a little bit about me, I am currently in my final year at Hansraj College, DU, studying Physics Hons, I had been a decent student in school, a 60%er till class 10, because i hated maths and hindi, i just didn't like numbers and was always poor wid hindi grammer...but i put in a lotta hardwork to get 93% in 10th, and 84% in 12th.....So, i knew i could begood with numbers, when i put in hard work, but never loved them as much as i loved words....
i loved physics though, so chose that as my graduation subject, turned out to be a huge mistake - physics in DU or for that matter anywhere in india, is the same-ratta-shit-to-get marks-in-exam thing, no scope for free thinking and asking questions, which was exactly what I came for, also picking a strenous course like physics hons meant I hardly had time for extra currics, but I managed to get some by joining clubs, nss, etc in 3rd year, as i result i expect to get 55% in my 3rd year exams, i had 72% agg in 1st two years, but i have no regrest as long as i pass....i have also worked as a freelance writer for the ic chip magazine and techtree.com......am an avid reader,gamer,movie critic,foodie and adventurer....
I decided to do an mba by the end of second year, so got a book on quant by arun sharma, an old CL package from daryaganj and made my mind to finish them...but that never happened, I ended up having too fun much in college, and could only do 10% of both the book and the study material.....It's a decision i do not regret, for I can do an MBA ant any point in my life, but these moments of college masti will not come back.
Also i didnt enroll for any coaching, as i've always held coaching centres in contempt, i've never liked the work they do, create an illusion of the exam being so hard that you can't do without them and then milking you for money.....But I joined up TIME aimcat series, so that i would have some practice.....it didnt help me much, i never scored about 85%ile overall, and 80% in qa, i generally scored arnd 60% in quant, over 90% in eng and 85% in di....i did make an effort to review the test and attempt the unattempted questions, id put in 2-3 hours a week.....soon the b school forms came out, and i quicky filled up CAT,IIFT,TISS,XAT,SNAP,FMS,MICA n MH-CET n NMAT........
first up was IIFT, quant went really bad in this 1, and I knew I'd never make it, and was later proven true. Now I felt an urge to work on my math, but everytime i tried, it felt like a chore.....CAT went okay, i thouught i had done okay, but i was mistaken, a 38%ile in QA sealed the fate for me quant, same story for XAT, but i still got a 90%ile XAT, which in addition to my orissa domicile, got me a call. I forgot to mark the OMR sheets in SNAP, so that was a waste....TISS was nice, cuz there were no sectional limits, and i knew Eng and DI might take me through....
FMS was the one i really wanted badly, probably because of my DU background, and also it had twice as many questions in eng as in maths, and there was a concept of having the sectional cutoff at 33%ile in each section....but unfortunately the invigalator gave the test paper early and some people started the test early, that really put me off, and i started with QA, a big mistake, i messed up QA and then messed up the entire paper....so my beloved FMS was out......MICA again was nice due to lack of sectional cut offs, NMAT was d usual QA-messes-me-up story, and i was bored by the time CET came along....
I got calls from TISS n MICA in addition to XIMB....
this is when it struck me, i was never ever gonna love numbers, so if i was stuck with finance in IIM A, and passed out with a huge salary, I'd still hate my job, so it was a good thing i didnt make it through all those exams, infact i see them as sorting through clothes, the ones i cleared were the ones which would fit me, the ones i didnt weren't my match.....A helluva lot of people, think not making it to a top b school as failure and spend a lotta time trying to beef up on stuff they're not naturally good at. be it QA,VA or DI.....they never think that you're life's pretty short and the world is too big to waste energy on trying to modify yourself so that you can become a manager, i wish they did something they were naturally good and loved, the money would come anyway.......
anyway, now i was really pumped up about TISS n MICA, not so much about XIMB, coz i got there not becoz of my merit, but becoz of the domicile quota...
my ximb interview was the worst, the profs asked my ques on my acads, i didnt remmeber a thing, but the GD was good.....when profs end up asking questions on physics in a B school interview, it shows how "smart" they really are!
TISS interview was great, it was my first time in Mumbai, i had a great time roaming around, the interview was more like a friendly discussion, they asked me a couple of HR related ques and I gave them as much as a logical answer I could think of....my GD was bad, no one had met each other before, so everyone was trying to hog the limelight, it was a bit of a fish market...
MICA again was good, a good GE and a PI on the lines of TISS
I cleared both MICA and TISS and am currently WL 9 (domicile) on XIMB, I am joining TISS and couldn't be happier the way things have worked out.
You can read my TISS n XIMB GDPI posts below, I'll post my MICA one too later on....
Oh and I got 65/70 in PI n 14/30 in GD n 44.6/70 in TISS.
TISS:
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/other-exams-xat-fms-jmet/49464-2010-12-discussion-thread-tiss-93.html#post1986398
XIMB:
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/other-exams-xat-fms-jmet/50566-2010-ximb-gd-pi-experiences-12.html#post1933216
Getting into IIM A was my dream since 2nd year of my IIT. The journey started in 2007 and finally ended in 2010.
CAT 2007
I never believed in solving books for preparation. I preferred giving as many mocks as possible. This was my first attempt and thank God I was blessed with wingies who were as dedicated to CAT as anyone could ever be. Some of you might have heard of one, Basilisk, he was an active PG user and a 100%iler in CAT 2007. None of us ever opened a book on DI, Quants or VA but we registered with 4 coachings TIME, CL, Erudite..(can't recall name of one). IMS had mocks at the same time as TIME so we used to get IMS papers from someone else.
Giving Mock at home wasn't that easy if we got that paper from someone else . It was filled with his calculations and tick mark against his answers. We had to erase whole paper but we couldn't do this ourselves incase while erasing, by mistake; anyone saw and remembered answer to a question. Yeah, we were that competitive. So we used to ask a fellow wingy who wasn't giving CAT or one of our juniors to erase everything . We used to get 4 photocopies of that erased paper and used those photocopies to remove even the slightest possibility of knowing correct answer by looking at the pencil pressure mark (which can't be erased). Even for evaluating the mocks that we gave at our room,classrooms we had rules like only those solution will be counted where you have filled the option like in OMR instead of a tick. As we calculated filling takes approx 3 secs more than a tick multiply it by 90 questions and that's whole extra 270 secs or approx 5 mins, that means extra 1-2 questions. Needless to say in any mock we submitted papers after 2.5 hrs even if the invigilator didn't ask us to stop.
I did this 5 paper a week and then their analysis every week till November 2007. Results came out I got a 99.31%ile but screwed up my VA with just 85%ile. Remaining 3 got into IIMs , 2 in A and 1 in C. Damn!!
CAT 2008
This time I didn't have anyone to compete with so I became an active member of PagalGuy. Subscribed in all VA threads and few quant, DI threads. After last year I was fairly good in Quants,DI but VA was my nemesis. And then I met this guy "Varun Khullar" on PagalGuy. I thank him for me being able to clear VA cutoffs. Every day he used to give practice questions on PJ, PC, RC, FIJ, LUDI etc and explained to me the solutions. This year I registered with Time and CL only . I even nominated myself for DT,UDT,NCR DT teams of PG but wasn't selected anywhere. So I just looked up to their scores, competed with them and tried to do better than them 😛 😁 .
Got 99.81%ile with balanced scores in all 3 and calls from LACKI. In A interview I couldn't recall 2nd Law of Thermodynamics and I am a BTech Dual in Mechanical with specialization in Thermal. And then I couldn't answer place to visit in A (I didn't know about Sabarmati Ashram) and more than 2 places to visit in Kharagpur ,my college( forgot about army air base). So I pretty much screwed my A interview and in C I couldn't answer what are derivatves when I have been working for past 1 year as a derivatives trader. Since I was only interested in A,B,C I knew this season was pretty much over. Converted I but decided not to join and give A one more shot.
CAT 2009
This time I wasn't that eager to give CAT partly because it was online and I loved paper and pencil format but filled up the form any case and registered for TIME,CL mocks. First few pleasant surprises came when I got selected in DT and NCR DT which actually forced me to forget about last year and get good percentiles according to their standards. Didn't prepare much except for few mocks and following 4-5 threads on PG . I never filled any other forms except CAT and this time was no different.
Results came out in Feb, I had 99.61%ile and calls from A,C,K. Interview of A,C went fine. Results from C came out first and I was rejected, not even in the waiting list. And I started dreading a repeat of last year but then A results were out.and Finally I was selected in the institute getting into which was the only reason I gave CAT. Yataaa!!!! (Yesss!!! in Japenese)
Patience pays provided you keep working hard towards your goal.
And here goes my version of this thread. Really! If I look just 3 months back, I wouldn't even have given a thought to write anything here but I guess the destiny had something else in store for me. :)
The whole MBA thing started for me way back in 2007 feb when I was about to complete my first year at my first company. Although MS was my first ambition but an average score (8.33/10) at college and practically no papers, I decided not to go for it. Moreover, I saw some of my seniors coming back to India after their MS to get the job that I was doing. So, I didn't find a value add in doing just an MS and NOT PhD which would anyways be too much for me.
I am a little desparate about a post-grad and so the obvious choice was an MBA.Btw, I have a pretty decent background, I guess... cleared IIT in first attempt and completed Comp Engg from a very reputed insti followed by a job in one of the software giant and have a pretty fat salary as of now. I am also running an NGO in Hyderabad for over two years now and it's doing great. So, I had a reasonable confidence to crack an interview, if given a chance.
CAT 2007
Coming back to the old story... after I decided that an MBA is what I really wanted to do, I joined CL regular classes at Ameerpet center in Hyderabad and started giving its mock CAT etc. Frankly, I believe in self-analysis. There are many coaching instis in business and I don't think joining every single of them is worth. Too many cooks spoil the broth! Join just one for practice and regularity sake... practice hard... do revice all your exams... every single question of it and see for yourself if the question that you picked was a correct choice or not... were there other questions that you should've picked first? was the time given / section correct? was the time given / question correct? etc etc. Do a thorough analysis!!! I did this exercise religiously in my first attempt (even till date). My mocks were okayish... I was scoring 90+ percentile everytime (got an occasional 66%ile too
) but was really not hitting 98+ at all... just once or twice may be... reason? I was taking things too seriously or probably was trying to do stuff too systematically. For ex., I wasn't giving more than a minute and a half, say, per question in quant... even though I was close to get an answer, I somehow used to move ahead.. this used to cost me those crucial 2-3 questions which creates the difference between a 96 and a 99 percentiler.On the D-day, for the first time in my entire life, I really thought about results / post CAT stuff... thanks to my flat mate who, I guess, is paranoid about it... he'll eat curd / sugar on D-day as a good omen but will refrain from hiring a cab to go to the center saying that he doesn't want to make a big deal out of this exam... as if eating curd/sugar hasn't already made the exam a big deal.
As per an old saying, don't touch any negative person on the D-day or else the electrons from his body will flow into yours and you'll screw what you are up to. I screwed my first CAT because of this post CAT tension. 
Got the following percentile...OA-94.56 :lookround:
QA-96.76;DI-89.53;VA-66.10
Aftermath and Analysis
My DI wasn't so good and so I was expecting some 90-93 percentile only close to which I actually got. Quant was my strong hold and I was expecting really high percentile before CAT but my attempt was not so high but accuracy was high (100%) and so I got 96%ile. VA was definitely a set back. I always struggled with VA in my MBA journey. My strategy was to give 50 mins/section in CAT 2007. Ideally, I should have given close to an hour to VA but failed to do so and so flunked in the exam.
By the time the results were out, it was clear that I wasn't going to make it into any of IIMs in 2007. I filled option to get calls from other instis taking CAT score, XAT, NMIMS (wouldn't have joined for sure), FMS (might not have joined) and JMET and flunked in every single of them. In XAT, I did the biggest blunder of my life... I think I accidently filled wrong bubbles in DI section.. probably instead of filling question 31, I filled question 32 and so subsequent questions were filled wrongly which resulted in me getting a single digit percentile in DI section.
I didn't go for a rechecking as I was confident that I wouldn't have cleared VA section anyways so it wouldn't have made any difference.As if this wasn't sufficient, I did a blunder in my job in the same time frame as well which resulted in some sleepless nights at office and me trying desperately to save my job... probably my past performance and my managers confidence in me helped me sail through that difficult time but one thing was sure that I really had to do a loooooot for about a year to clean my image and get a good rankings in the subsequent reviews. All this lead to a little instability in personal life as well which was quite obvious. Gosh! That was a difficult time. :lookround:
Future Planning
So basically I had screwed up eveything that matters to me quite royally:
- I screwed up ALL B-school exams.
- I screwed up my professional life.
- I screwed up my personal life.
or do something negative in your life. I begged to differ here. I believe that there is some reason behind everything. Everything that happens in your life happens for something good. All this led me to become self-critical, taught me to understand myself and my strengths and weaknesses better, taught me to be a fighter and gave me a very strong reason to come back fighting. Two things were clear. I can't quit my job in my current company at such a low point. I can't quit my MBA dream so easily in just one try. So, I planned my way out. It was already over a year work-ex for me and had I got selected in CAT 2007, I would have got 2 years of work-ex when the classes would start that season. I would have been eligible for ISB in next season (2008, that is) and I wasn't sure if the batch profile at IIMs would be good for a person with 3 years work-ex as IIMs were more inclined towards freshers at that time (totally my perception). So, I thought to go after the GMAT way (which in many ways was really a good decision). At the same time, I really planned my work at my company one and a half year ahead of time with a very strict timelines. As I was starting at a low at my company, I knew that I'll face criticism in the first six months atleast i.e. till April 2008 before I can really start to prove myself again.
Season 2008
So I planned a lot of things for 2008. I call it a year dedicated towards image and personality makeover. ISB and other international B-schools asks for a BALANCED profile with decent GMAT score (read 750/800), a good work-ex (good performer) and a social work angle (NGO work). I needed something big to change my life and so we (my friend and I) decided something big.
For MBA entrance, I decided to work for GMAT. Did a self study completely with no class-room course. I had had enough from CL's one year program and I didn't feel any need to repeat the same stuff for GMAT.
Took a date in August and started preparations 4 months in advance. Main focus was verbal as I was really confident about maths. GMAT came. Scored close to 700 only (Maths 99%ile and screwed Verbal royally).For work, planned a year and a half down the line and I tried to follow it as religiously as possible.
For NGO, I FOUNDED ONE!!!
There are too many details for all the above stuff but I am not gonna go deep into that... basically this was a super busy period and I was swamped with work left and right all through the year.
Anyways, I applied for ISB and got REJECTED!!!
Upon asking the feedback, they said I need more work-ex and GMAT score and NGO was not THAT old. Anyways, CAT was approahing fast. Unlike last year, I didn't apply for any other colleges other than IIMs. I joined TIME test series this time just to get the feel of the exam. Attended a couple of tests only and I performed decently (98%ile) so decided NOT to take any more. 😛 On the D-day, I went with a cool mind and a flow only to discover that I had committed a new mistake this time. CAT 2008 had 25 questions each in QA and DI and 40 in VA. This means nearly 44.44% paper was VA and so nearly at least 50% of my time should have gone for VA section only. I didn't do that and devoted 50 mins / section. Result: QA: 99.77%ile, DI: 98.xx%ile and VA-72.xx%ile. I had screwed VA again. Although I realized this mistake as soon as I reached VA section (I attempt it at the end always) but I couldn't do anything about it.
Another year went into the dustbin but this year wasn't as bad as last year. I look at positives. My company ratings improved and so were my CAT scores. I got an idea of GMAT and ISB and my NGO was already a year old. This wasn't that bad a year afterall.
To be continued in the next post (next page)....
Continued from the last post...
Season 2009
To be honest and frank, I kinda started liking this change. I was able to plan my life in advance and was able to get the desired results in my work life. I don't hate software industry at all, in fact I love it so quite honestly it wasn't so bad for me working in my company. There was a good feeling wrt my NGO. We work in the field of child education and so the little interaction we had with school kids made me feel good that we were doing something good and bringing smiles on some faces atleast. We even celebrated Holi and other festivals with school kids. That was fun!!!
By this time I had got a really good feeling about B-school enterances and I was kind of confident that I can crack the exams this time around.
I won't call it an over-confidence rather I'll call it "boredom got me" factor that I didn't join any coaching classes/test series. I was bored of repeated loops of test and analysis and so I decided not to join anything for this year. Instead, I joined CSIM course on NGO management and social entrepreneurship in Hyderabad to study about NGOs and how can we develop them. I spent my entire Saturdays for four months (Feb-June 2009) in this course. Subsequently, we raised over a lakh of rs for the education of 40 students in this year. Thanks to this course!!Time passed by and I was getting better in my career and my confidence gained alot over time. My NGO reached a really good level and there was just one thing to fix i.e. MBA. With all this, I really didn't realize that CAT 2009 ws just aound the corner and I NEVER EVER studied for it in the entire year. Anyways, kya farak padhta hai!!!
This year I prepared for my CAT exam only on the D-day! My exam time was 3:30 pm on Dec 2nd and I revised my quant concepts in the cab while going to my center. 😛 I was pretty regular in reading news papers, editorials and magazines and was banking on them and my prior experience with CAT and GMAT. This year CAT changed to online format so I made sure to have gone through the UI portion well in advance in order to adapt myself for the exam. That was helpful. As I had already taken GMAT last year, this change wasn't big for me at all.
My prior encounters with CAT taught me to give some extra time to VA section as compared to the other sections and divide the total time based on the # of questions per section and not 45 mins / section that I did last year. Fortunately, CAT was straight forward in that aspect i.e. 20 questions / section. So I decided to give 30-35 mins to QA, 40 mins to DI and 55-60 mins to VA section and this time I made sure to stick to this timeline at all cost. I attempted 12/20 (35 mins) in QA, 15/20 (40 mins) in DI and a whooping 19/20 (60 mins) in VA. With absolutely no practice at all, some errors were expected but I was confident that I had nailed the exam this time. I was particularly satisfied with my VA performance which was a spoiler in every season and every exam. Results: QA-96.48%ile, DI-99.24%ile, VA-94.67%ile and OA-99.28%ile. I got two calls i.e. IIM L and I. I missed A and C by just one question in VA. Had I corrected one more question, I would have got A and C calls as well. B takes acads topper and so I was out of ques (X-78%; XII-81.2% and BTech-83.3%). Same was the case with K and S.
Interview Prep
Having got the calls from one of my dream colleges, IIM L, I was really excited. IIM L has some special place in my heart and personally I'll rate it above A/B and C. Note: It's a personal choice and the reasons are perfect ONLY for me. You might have some other parameters but for me, its focus on work-ex ppl with a focus on the overall profile of the candidate and not just his/her acads (read purane paap). I feel more suited here.
There are many more reasons but let's not discuss them now.My interview prep started with CL (again). I joined CL's GDPI prep course at Delhi, Canaught Place center. I attended 4-5 GDs which were good. I've seen Hyderabad's GDPI classes and quite frankly I didn't find them worth attending post Delhi-CL classes. I also attended the boot camp program of CL and trust me I really found it good. Although I was a little skeptical about the PI that those guys would take but I thought to attend just one for the sake of facing one before interview's D-day. They screwed me!!!
Every single subject, every single place that I had been and even my stronghold i.e. Maths!... they just nailed me!!! They also proved that it was my biggest mistake to have opened an NGO when I already had an option to help the needy ones with the available resources / RTE act (although later I realized that whatever we were doing in our NGO wasn't at all a wastage because of some concrete points :P). That was an AWESOME experience!!! CL Delhi Boot Camp Rocks!!! For the first time in my B-school prep, I really understood the points where I was really weak (in PI only). I found out that I had to study in-depth about: - My acads esp Maths. I decided to say to IIML and I interview panel that I know only maths and you may ask me anything from this subject and so I had to prepare really well.
- The places I have been (Delhi/Varanasi/Hyderabad). Not just from knowledge sake point of view but also historical importances, important places, main revenue earner fields, political scenarios blah blah. Literally anything and everything that I can.
- RTE act... in depth as I had an NGO.
- My work-ex through and through. My company, its rivals etc.
- Generic things about NGOs and related discussions.
- My Personal Data Form. The very first question in my boot camp was... tell us something that is not there in your form. I gave both L and I forms and it had literally everything about me. I was caught on wrong foot and I blabbered something that was definitely not my stronghold (stock market) and I was beaten quite badly on that.
BTW, boot camp at Delhi was the last GDPI I ever attended for CAT 2009 prep. I met the panel directly on the interview day after this. There were a lot of things that I followed for the preparation like purchasing a couple of interview dresses... stiched trousers/matching ties... all in a couple... it was a big deal for me, I agree. I got the interview call for the first time and I wanted to prove myself at any cost!!! Jidd thi to bas thi!
One more thing, I prepared for IIML and IIMI differently. For example, the answer to the question, "tell us something that is not there in your personal data form" would be different for different instis as the personal data forms are different. For IIML, I was really in contact with my mentors who had been really supportive. I asked them to review my essays and got really good feedbacks that helped me to improve myself!! Thanks Aditya, Siddhartha and IIML for such a fruitful partnership even when I wasn't a part of IIML family.
Anyway, D-day arrived and here is my interview experience for:
- IIML
- IIMI
You guys can PM me for any further details, if you wish.
I'll be more than happy to respond back.Cheers
PS: I joined and followed PG AFTER I was selected for the interview rounds and I found this site to be really helpful esp in knowing what's happening in the interviews with our peers/competitors. People are really enthusiastic to share their experiences and the whole experience was a great fun. Long live PG!
I waited a loooooong time for my turn to post here. Here it is
Disclaimer: Don't read this if you are a 99%iler in Mocks. Read this if you are an underdog and you still want to make it to an IIM
Preface:
This is for the underdogs who think CAT is beyound their skills. I myself was an underdog who did my UG in a not so-known college in a remote rural area in TamilNadu. There were only 2 CAT takers in my college at my time. Nobody was around to motivate me and to guide me. But I was determined to crack it and get into the IIM's and I did it. The key to cracking CAT for my kind of people is, i think - PERSEVERENCE. Never give up. I faced a lot of hurdles in terms of work, not good coaching, etc. But then, if you have a determined attitude, no one can stop you.
This is also for people who score pathetically in their first ever mock and who retrospect about their decision to take CAT.
September 2006:
It all started in September 2006
October - December 2006:
It was then I started analyzing about MBA education in India and it was then I came across a beautiful site called Pagalguy. I understood that there were 6 IIM's (at that time) and some Ivy League B-schools which are worth joining. I was stunned when I came to know the level of preparation needed to crack CAT (the monster).
January 2007:
I joined a coaching institute in Salem since it was my native. Every weekend, I used to go to Salem to attend classes and come back to Erode for my college. It was very hectic; moreover, I didn't have any good coaching there. My 9th standard Mathematics teacher used to come there to teach Quants (He doesn't know to teach even 9th standard Mathematics properly). He used to dictate a question and write down all the steps in the board and we used to copy. My notes were filled with steps, but my mind was emptyJ. On the contrary, I had a very good English faculty. She taught us entire grammar in 4 months span and we also were accustomed to its usage.
Mock Tests - Season 07:
I used to score 65%ile only. In spite of it, I would always be in top 5 in my city rankingsJ (Mine is not a very big city to have good exposure about all these things). I never used to come back and analyze the paper and my marks never improved. I stayed on in 65%ile till the end. In spite of all these, those were my happiest moments, because I found my girl in my instituteJ. I used to attend classes and exams, just to see her and talk to her. No other intentions:P
(the reason for my failures in CAT 07 was, my preparation was not streamlined. I was studying something randomly without any proper plan)
In the meantime, My college was also over. I whiled away my time happily, having nothing to do. I was in a mindset that I completed something great J.
Joined CTS Coimbatore:
Joined CTS for my fresher training on August 06, 2007. After around 3 months of loneliness in my home, I attended training program in Coimbatore. Back to Party :P. Wow! Beautiful girls! I had a really wonderful time in training. Started earning too J. Those were my happiest moments.
I was not at all focused and suddenly the D-day came. I went to exam hall and attended almost all questions. Want to know how I scored? Well, it was horrible. Scored 75%ile. I was dejected. I felt at that moment that CAT is not for me. It is only for IIT geeks.
Season 07 was over and it was a mega flop for me.
Season 08 begins:
Suddenly, I thought of an idea after coming out of exam hall. Why not join the rival institute here in Coimbatore and again start my preparation? Yes. I went to the institute and enrolled myself. But this time, I was serious and started preparing seriously. I divided the next one year into 3 phases. The first phase was 'Preparing Basics' and this was till end of March. I successfully completed the Basics of Quants. After this, I started working out problems in each chapter till June.
Now, to my bad luck, I was put into a worst project. I absolutely had no time to prepare. I used to work for 12 to 14 hours daily. Sometimes, I came back home the next morning 6 O'clock. All my preparations went in vain L. I started forgetting all what I learnt in the past. My job was mentally pressurizing. I even went to the extent of quitting my job and preparing for CAT. But my mentor in my institute told me to stay there. He motivated me to continue in Job.
It was October 2007. I did not buy any application form as I thought I would not do well this time also. I told my mentor that I will prepare next year.
Season 08: No show J
Season 09, the final chapter of my preparation:
By November, I was released from my horrible project and a breeze of confidence flowed in me. I started preparing with renewed vigor. Followed strict timelines. Finished revisiting basics once again in February. I got some additional books for Quants and started working out many problems. I was well equipped to face Mock tests.
At this juncture, I would like to add that I have never read any novel, right from my childhood. Contrary to what most people say, Verbal can also be cracked if you do ample examples and get accustomed to the usage of english. Read Newspapers at least.
I joined Career Launcher for additional Mocks. Started writing mock tests every week. One mistake which I avoided this time was - not analyzing the paper (oh sorry, this time, CAT was online). Every time I completed a mock test, I analyzed it for around 5 hours. By doing this, I could figure out the mistakes I did. I stopped spending time on Speed breaker problems and focused on easy doable ones. My scores improved every time. I scored in the range of 88 to 96%iles. I was confident that I would crack CAT this time (I was OK for any of the top 20 B-schools, as I could not score 99 even a single time).
D-day and the aftermath:
I was much tensed on the D-day. To such an extent that I got a mild fever L But CAT 09 was very easy compared to previous years and I did extremely wellJ. I was very happy and prayed that CAT should not be rescheduled (as many protests were going on).
Results were fruitful. Got BCLIK calls. Converted Lucknow and I am joining IIML J.
This is a gist of my 3 years of running after CAT. Groans and Thanks welcome!!!
My Tips for beginners:
1. CAT is not a monster. It is like the Ikran (bird) in the movie Avatar. Once you know how to maximize your performance in mocks, then you are almost done (though last minute fiascos may happenL). Tame it and it obeys you.
2. CAT is a game of selection. You should know which questions to select and which ones to reject. If you try to attempt the speed breaker questions, it will eat up your time, morale and your performance.
3. Even a 100%iler will not be able to answer all the questions in CAT. If you correctly answer even 50% of questions in CAT (not 2009 CAT of course, which was easy), you will be the 100%iler. Analyze your strengths and weaknesses and choose questions accordingly.
4. The most important thing is - Join a good coaching institute where there is real competition and a good coaching. Unless there is a healthy competition, it is very difficult for you to improve.
Here's an account of my tryst with CAT
CAT 2007:
Joined a leading coaching institute in the final year of my college. The main motivation behind writing CAT at that point of time was to avoid a coding-job J . I got 99+% le in the first ever mock I took (without much preparation that too). In fact, during the course of 20 mocks (I guess I was one of the very few guys in my college who took all the mocks). I realized that the only hurdle in my path was the verbal section(missed clearing the sectional cut offs around 5 times). Unfortunately I never analyzed the AIMCATS. Mugging up word-list was never an option.
Had a sleepless night the day before the D-Day. My worst fears came true and had a not so good exam. (I didn't write any other exams)
Verdict:
Overall : 99.43% , Quant : 97.2 % , DI : 99.89% , Verbal : 79.85%
CAT 2008:
Joined TIME test series pretty early and took the mocks religiously as in the previous year. My scores in the verbal section were improving and I was in toppers' list approx 14 times out of 18 mocks. (Got less than 99%le only once). I was pretty confident of scoring 99+% in CAT with decent split. But God had something else in store for me.
Verdict:
Overall : 99.14% , Verbal : 97.36%, Quant : 99.3%, DI : 79.42% (DI was supposed to be my strength)
CAT 2008 made me realize that on a given day I can smash any section or can get screwed in any section. In fact I told my friend "Agle saal quant ki baari hai".
Wrote JMET , XAT and FMS too. Had a rank of 273 in JMET(didnt attend IIT-B interview), didnt get XL call (again blame DI section, overall - 99.21%) and couldn't convert my FMS call. (99.84%)
CAT 2009:
I decided that this would be my last attempt at CAT (aur kab tak likhte rahenge). Joined three test series and wrote most of the Proctered mocks (total number of mocks written this year: 36). Analysis of each mock used to take around 2-3 hrs. I followed BMR's strategy of attempting more questions and worrying a little less about the accuracy (this helps especially in the verbal section). I got lot of motivation from people like r11gupta (we both work in the same office, so I know him quite well). Took each mock seriously as if I was writing actual CAT. I started reading online versions of newspaper (The Hindu) so that I get accustomed to reading passages in computer (I guess this helps). Took mocks sometimes at 9 in the night (after working from 9-7 in the office). My performace in the mocks were pretty good this year too (worse than last year though, avg mock score this yr being: 98.95%).
Was pretty confident of cracking CAT. A night before the exam I got to know that my exam was rescheduled(Originally it was scheduled for 30th Nov). For next three days I had no idea when I'll be giving my exam and lost all the enthusiasm. Then on 4th I got a mail stating that i'll be having my exam on 7th dec in the same centre and that too in the same lab!!! (Till 3rd dec , not even a single person was able to write exam in that particular lab).
I attempted around 53-54 ques in CAT but was not sure how good that'll turn out to be. (After all every second person had attempted more than 50 questions).
Verdict :
CAT 2009 : Overall : 99.94% , DI: 99.99% , Quant: 96.95%, Verbal : 98.98% (Calls from IIM-A,B,C,L,K,S)
JMET : AIR-8
XAT: - 96.5% (Had an off-day)
FMS - 340/800
Converted IIM-C, IIM-B w/l30, MDI,IIT-B,IIFT
My dream has been only one right from the day I joined my engineering. Get a great score in GRE and join some Big US university. I tried every possible thing to achieve this goal. I Joined GRE coaching at the end of my second year and gave my GRE in my first semester of my 3rd year. I scored 1350(messed it up in verbal almost all my RC's went wrong as I was too tensed). Then at the end of my 3rd year I got placed in Infosys( I attended the interview just because all my friends attended it). That day I never knew that this organization would change my life.
Now here starts the real story. It was June. Yes to be precise June 26th that a long lost school friend replied to a post in Orkut. After initial exchange of scraps she mailed me her Phone number. And it was not long before we started having conversations which ranged from few minutes to 3 hours. And I met her for the first time after 8 years on October 23rd 2007. Our conversations continued and in the meanwhile I started with my application process for pursuing my dream. It was not much difficult as I have put in every effort that would ensure me an admission in top 20 college. By the end of December my application process came to an end and I started seeing our friendship in a different perspective. By end of Jan I knew that I was in love with this Girl and I subsequently proposed her on February 7th. She took her time and she accepted my proposal. Once the relationship got through the initial honeymoon period the emotional conflicts started. I started demanding and she started rebuking me. And by the end of may I had admissions to 2 top 20 universities But our relationship was strained. And it was during this period I had to take one of the toughest decision in my life. Should I go to US and forget all these or stay her for 6 months and set right the relationship. I thought the second option would be better and I promptly deferred my admission to next year( I thought 1 year is really a short period in a career span of 50 years). This is when my job at Infosys came to my rescue. I told my my parents that I wanted to get an year experience which would come in handy during my stay at US. They believed me e. And on June 9th I joined Infosys.
I really liked the environment there. And it was not long before I realized that this was not the thing I really loved doing. And the fact that I would be leaving Infy at any cost made me skip my classes in training. I just passed away my time at infy scoring B's and B+'s. Enjoyed every bit of my training and mean while I sorted issues in my relationship. By the time my training ended recession took over in US. With the fear of not finding Jobs there I Deferred my admission for another year(So That my date of Joining Penn state univ would be Jan 2010). It was during this period that a friend of mine brought application for CAT . The life at production was really tough. Added to that pressure of working on weekends and my laziness lead to conflicts with my manager. It was in these circumstances that I gave my First cat. People might think that I was crazy. But it is true that I attempted all the 90 question in the cat exam(I made good number of guesses). But when I checked out for the key, I realized that I would be scoring near to 95%. And true to those keys my percentile was around 95(D.A being 56). This is when I realized that I truly had potential for CAT. Till then I believed that CAT was not the exam meant for me.
At the end of march my manger released me from my project. Being in bench and Knowing that I would be leaving Infy at the end of 6 months I enjoyed every bit of my stay there. I played tennis, enjoyed splashes at the pool. And all those rides with my G.F. I can never forget those. During this period my Friends started taking classes for CAT. And suddenly my family's fortunes took a downturn and my plans of going to US. Took a severe beating. I was suddenly depressed and was left again with 2 options. Either go to US at any cost or live my life at infy until the situation gets better. I choose the second option and this is when I thought of giving a serious attempt for CAT. I talked to few of my friends who already have started with their preparation. It was already mid September and Most of them were of the opinion that it was too late and advised me to prepare for CAT 2010. But only one(Anvesh and for fellow puys it is anchun) among my N number of my friends advised me to give my best shot. suddenly I was put into a project in which the technology(SAP-PI) was completely alien to me. But luckily this project was one of the coolest projects in Infosys.(I got to work for only 10 days in the last 6 months).
Anvesh had been the best thing that happened to me at Infosys. He mailed me the Total Gadha Material for Number systems and Geometry. I started working on geometry as I have never dared to touch a problem in geometry during my school days. Slowly I started with basics. But in a short while I was in complete command with most of the problems in geometry(thanks to the material). In te mean time I mulled the idea of joining cat classess. But owing to the exorbitant prices for the classes I decided to join AIMCAT test series. I bought a set of time material at KOTI for 1000 Rupees and started working with my basics. By the time I gave my first AIMCAT, 10 of these tests have already been conducted.. I approached my first aimcat with a target to score at least 90%. But the result has been disastrous. I scored a meager 45%. After 2 days I gave my second AIMCAT and scores have been even disappointing. I scored "-3" marks in verbal which was supposed to be my strong area.( My overall percentile had been 19). I took a week to come out of this shock. And the next AIMCAT I gave proved to be even disastrous. I scored "-11" in DI.(over all percentile hovered around 17). This I took as a challenge. I now knew that something was seriously wrong with my preparation. And after thorough postmortem I realized the following lessons
1) I am wasting too much time solving the Basic material of Time
2) I have got only 50 days to appear for CAT so make use of the maximum time.
3) Stop going out with my GF on weekends.
4) Give sufficient time for solving verbal section in the exam
5) Give respect to difficult problems
I talked to friends who have been preparing for CAT and finally narrowed down that Anvesh and I had the similar attitude. I talked to him about the strategies that he has been following. And Finally I devised a strategy and now I solved a CRT in which I surprisingly scored 130( which according to time is 1 mark less to get a IIM Call). This gave me a lot of confidence. And I changed my approach of AIMCAT's I started solving only the easy problems and my scores started picking up.(usually varied from 60-85). I solved every MC and CRT available on TIME website. Scores here have been really good.( usually in the range of 130+).
It was almost first week of November. Now I was quiet comfortable with my project. I literally had no work to do in office. So I thought of utilizing my time at office. I started bringing my material to office and solved all TBP series in two weeks. Anvesh sent me all the previous year's CAT paper's. Following is the daily routine that I had followed.
1) Reach office at 9:30
2) Go through Total Gadha Material once
3) Answer a previous CAT/JMET paper.(Only quant and DI section) in 90 min
4) Take a break till 12
5) Have lunch at 12 and comeback at 1:30
6) Analyze the paper till 4
7) Go home at 6
Relax till 9 and work with the AImCAT's that have been left out.9) Sleep at 1130
I followed this for the next 25 days. I discussed every bit of my preparation with Anvesh. He almost knew everything that I did. Finally I stopped this routine on November 26th. I thought I was ready for the D-DAY. I had my exam on 7th December. Most of my friends had it much before that. So speaking with them I realized that 44-50 would be good attempts. I finalized a strategy of 30 min for verbal
45 min for rest of the two sections and 15 min of Buffer time.
I approached the exam with a open mindset. I had not an Iota of tension. I finished my verbal section in exactly 22 min leaving a Comprehension. comprehensions here have been breezers as they were quiet similar to those given in GRE. finished quant section in next 50 min leaving 3 time taking problems. this gave me enough confidence that I had sufficient time for DI. DI paper was not that difficult but I got stuck up in two sets where the data was not sufficient enough. I attempted 13 problems here. So my total attempts have been around 45-47. And I was quiet confident that I have done reasonably well. This was the day my girlfriend called me and said enough has been enough and that I never really loved her. I somehow convinced her. But the next exam was JMET andI screwed it up.( I went to the exam without a pen pencil eraser and even watch). Now came the shocker. My girlfriend wanted a breakup. I was totally shaken. And life at this point seemed endless. Now I knew that everything has gone and the whole purpose of me not going to US has gone waste. I was depressed and at times irritable. To come out of this depression I started preparing for CAT 2010.( which left after a week). Meanwhile JMET results were out.( I scored 65 marks and my rank was something around 3000). Now my only hope was cat results. I started getting restless. And finally the D-day arrived. Seeing the result I could forget everything. The sacrifices I made and everything made sense . I have lost my love but I have won my Future. I always believed that interviews would be cake walk for me. I dint get any IIM CALL. But I had calls from MDI,IMI and IMT. My only thought was to convert the MDI call I had. And it was predecided that that if I failed to do that I would take up cat again.
Again I believed that coaching would get redundant and thought of preparing my own answers for interviews. I first started with all the possible question that would asked in an interview. Then I worked on answers for the question with which I had been uncomfortable. I discussed these answers with my friends and refined them further. Apert from this I didn't put in any other effort.
April 2nd:IMT interview
Essay was pretty easy and interview went fine just that I struggled a bit questions pertaining to nature of work
April 7th 2PM MDI interview with panel 2
I had the worst GD in the whole group. People ran out of points and started getting redundant so I sat silently and spoke only twice. But the interview was one of the best I had ever given
April 8th IMI interview
Good essay bad Extempore and again good interview
I now knew that I would make it to IMI. And believed that I would at least make it to MDI HR program at least in waitlist. But the result came as a shocker. I was selected for the first for PGPIM( I mistakenly gave PGPIM as my first option which I regret now).
My advise for other cat aspirants would be
1) Never loose faith in ones own abilities
2) Don't get bogged down by the hoopla created by coaching centre's.
3) Never get bogged down by test series. These test series doesn't reflect and will never reflect your performance in the final cat exam. they will infact never simulate your actual performance. these exams should only be used to assess you strengths and weaknesses. these exams will help you to sit with full concentration for 2.15 hours. apart from this i dont find any uses from these examinations. I personally feel time aimcat series contain too tough questions which you would generally avoid if given in an exam. I cant speak about other test series as I never took them
4) Have a nice peer group which would motivate and encourage you
5) above all plan in advance and never ever over work
This part of my journey has been an experience in itself. i have seen the worst. Lost everything right from my love to all those little enjoyments. But at the end i kissed that elusive taste of success.
Finally I would like to thank all the people(especially Anvesh, Chakra and Vamsi) who have been part of this league of my journey.
Well my friends this is going to be one really long post so needless to say I am expecting groans.
It all began in august 2008 when 1 evening,drenched in rain, I went to IMS hungerford street in kolkata with dad to take admission.I had to appear for the preliminary test first,which, i was told by the IMS ppl,was pretty much on the lines of CAT 2007 paper.Now everything seemed Hebrew to me,be it the problems on number system or time and distance,the endless tables in the DI section or the parajumbles and RCs with options that seemed identical.Now as i think about it,having solved a few hundreds of them in the past 1 and a half year,i cant help smiling at my sorry state that day.
Classes began in October and I started kind of enjoying the lessons on Number system,Percentage,profit n loss(felt nostalgic and a little weird when i studied CP,SP all over again after 6th standard) the LR puzzles et al.The grammar classes were pretty boring though.
Come June 2009 and all my friends had joined M.Sc courses in reputed institutes.I was the only black sheep in the gang,deciding against an M.Sc and dropping a year to prepare for CAT.I realized that this was going to be one loong vacation staying at home all the time except for the occasional hanging out with friends.But i really didnt look forward to this one as much as I always had at the onset of the holidays.On the contrary, questions kept cropping up every now and then in my mind.Wouldnt it be demotivating to stay at home for 1 whole year while all my friends would be busy with their higher studies?What if i couldnt crack the exams?Not a single day passed when these disturbing thoughts didnt cross my mind. The road ahead was going to be very,very uncertain.But somewhere deep,down inside i had a feeling that i could make the cut.
Come August and application season began in full flow.The CAT notification was followed by application ads of the various institutes.One would find the application deadline of one institute or the other every day in the newspaper.I had decided that I would appear for all the major examinations and would apply to most,if not all the good institutes.One morning,I came across the ad of an insti i had never heard of before.It was called 'IMI delhi' and the application deadline was november 27th .Paid a visit to their website,did some research on PG and found out that it was a pretty good institute and the cutoff of 96 itself testified for it.I decided to fill the form,along with the others.
Mock season started on a disappointing note with SIMCAT 1 fetching me a meagre 83%ile.However it helped me 2 realize where i stood at that point of time and pushed me to start pluggging the loopholes in my preparation.I also registered for the CL test series.Simcat 2 onwards things started looking up and I started to score consistently in the 90's.However, I always managed to miss the quant cutoff,sumtyms by a whisker.:splat::splat:
I could never manage good scores in the CL mocks despite doing well in IMS simcats throughout,something that will always remain a mystery to me.At the end of the mock season,I had quite a few overall 93s,94s and95s to my name,a couple of 97s and 1 in the 80s.my CL mock tally was much worse though,would rather nt discuss it.:splat::splat:.neway at the end of it,though i was nt aiming for the IIMs,I felt that i was in pretty good shape to put up a good show on C-day and the other exams for that matter..
2nd of december.The day i had waited for so long.Fortunately I had a glitch free,peaceful exam and once it was over,my gut feeling told me that i had done a good job.I had focussed on accuracy more than the number of attempts,which had always been my stategy in mocks.With 43 odd attempts,i was prety confident of getting at least 40 correct.But afterwards, seeing countless people on PG attempting 50+,my confidence kept dwindling steadily.....
CAT was followed by SNAP,IBSAT,XAT,FMS and NMAT in order.except XAT and FMS,i felt that i had done well enough in all the exams to fetch me calls.Guess what,reject after reject awaited me everywhere,in many cases missing cutofffs by a couple of whiskers.By february,all the results had been declared and there i was,seriously doubting my abilities which i was counting so much on.All my confidence was in shambles and the thought of sitting at home for one more year sent frequent chills through my spine.Not only would it shatter me,but also my parents whom i had asssured right from the beginning with words oozing in confidence.But they kept supporting me all this while.Indeed,that was one phase in my life that taught me big time how painful failure can be.
I had a lone ICFAI call and was hell bent on converting ICFAI hyd coz it was the only option i had in hand.i felt ridiculous when i reminsced of the days when i had dreamt of taking admission at instis like XIMB,SIBM-P,SCMHRD etc.I went to hyderabad well prepared with d micrpresentatn topics and thankfully had a good microprez as well as PI.
In the meantime,CAT results had been postponed umpteen times and by now, i had no hopes watsoever on it.going by the other results and the fact that 50+ attempts were d order of d day,i was pretty sure i would land up somewhere in d mid 80's.
The results were declared at 3 pm on 28th feb,the fateful day.I was hardly upbeat about it as i was quite sure of d outcome.the servers were crying out for mercy and after a couple of attempts 2 chek d results,i gave up nd went 2 take a nap.i woke up at 4.30 and logged in to catiim.in . Fed in my DOB and cat regn no hit the enter key.Suddenly, i realised that this time i wud get to see my result,it wasnt goin 2 b a 'this pg cant be displayed' this time.And there it was!An overall 98.26%ile with decent sectionals!could have been far better had it nt been for quant.Well,finally something to cheer about after so many days spent in gloom!Evry1 in the house was ecstatic.
The next day,ICFAI results came out and i managed to convert ICFAI hyd.soon afterwrds, i got gd/pi calls from all the CAT instis i had aplied to-LBS,KJSOM,TAPMI,IMI,IMT and MDI.GD/PI preparation started full throttle.The months of April and May were busily spent,attending mock GD's,PI's at my coaching insti,trying to make sense of d union budget,womens reservatn bill,food security bill et al and then of course, facing evil creatures known as interviewers.Some of them were totally chilled out PI's,some were hardcore stress ones.In the end,i managed to convert all of them except MDI.And now,I am happily off to Delhi in June to join IMI.the journey has finally come to an end in a very satisfying fashion,though i had to wait a lot for d good things to happen.will embark on another journey very soon....
The CAT journey has helped me mature as a person in many ways and i feel i am better equipped now to face d challenges that life might throw at me in d days to come.This is one phase in my life that I'll cherish for a long time.:D:D:cheers:!!
That was all i wanted to speak about CAT.
I am no role model here.
I didn't aspire for an IIM in the first place.
I didn't take mocks seriously. I never joined classes.
I never made 90+ in any of my mocks or CATs
I am no ST,SC, OBC, XBC, NBC
I was a MICA fanatic but never made a cut...
Still I made into IIM..heres how
For my family education is everything, I topped my Xth, XIIth, top 10 in BITS Pilani Mech, got into Mahindra Engines Development.
But my passion lay in product marketing
Every year I applied for dept change and turned down coz I didnt have an MBA
I applied for all best for Mkting schools in the country, didn't aimless apply to all colleges. Everyone told me that was a bad idea, I stood by my logic.
Year after yr, CAT was no where near what i wanted and I was lazy to prepare. I started developing my own marketing skills, there was one point where top bosses in PD asked for my opinions on marketing and stuff..
I got into a very tight project and i had no time to prepare for CAT 09. A new franchise of CL was opened in Nasik. I negotiated and got the package at 500/- only. It was just the online package, I had no peers to study with. I thought i needed flexibility and freedom in my preps. So i convinced my boss to give me a laptop, pre-emptively applied for BSNL wireless internet (2months waiting) and found a govt library to study.
Never did I get 90+ in any mocks and I thought if i get 85 odd in mocks i would clear the MICA cutoff of 90 in actual CAT. Luckily this year MICA scrapped CAT criteria and I didn't bother about my CAT results.
My CAT was also a disaster, it was postponed without my knowledge. Screens went blank many times. Didnt get a second chance after many follow-ups with prometric. Then I left it as MICA scrapped the criteria.
A day before MICAT, I went MICA and saw seniors and got the feel of the campus. After MICAT somehow the feeling was not there and I was very worried. Then MICA shortlist came and my name was not there and felt so dejected.
I always wanted to go alone on an India tour and the time came for that. We launched a new product and someone from our team reqd to travel the country for feedback. I volunteered and had the time of my life. Went to most parts of the country, stayed with strangers, learnt local customs..from deserts to himalayas..godavari to ganga I covered in a month...
While I was in Lucknow I got a mail telling I was shortlisted for IIM Indore PGP GD/PI. I passed it off as one of the phishing mail stuff and fwded it to my friend to confirm the authenticity. Later I found out the criteria for IIM indore was heavily based on work ex and past acads which I already have.
With my disbelief I approached my UG batchmates who are at IIMs and they helped me filling the form at the last moment. I traveled 200 Kms just for one GD and one PI session from TIME Dadar. Made lot of friends there.
The mock PI panelist coincidentally happened to be my friend and I told her I am not taking mock PI, instead I ll sit through all PIs u are going to take for the day. She agreed and I found a pattern of all answers people prepared for and now I was sure of what not to tell.
Then I camped with my college friends passed out from XL, they advised me only one thing, the "Tell me about yurself" question is the make or break question and asked me to master. I rehearsed the crucial points I thought was unique about me. I didnt bother about womens reservation blah blah, IPL etc etc...my only goal was I should be clear about me and my goals, if that is done everything else can be managed.
My PI was more like M.Tech Automobile than MBA, the panel knew so much on engines which even I didnt know. I was able to answer most of them. I didnt know how to react after the interview. Then I said to myself I had a different workex, my acads are good, I didnt mess the interview...so I was little confident...
All I realised in this journey was
1. Attitude comes first, knowledge 2nd.
2. See the bigger picture, the smaller ones will fall in place.
My attitude went into a transformation after my India trip. Met the rich, the poor, the shoe lickers, the genuine entrepreneurs etc. I learnt from each one of them,. This place is amazing and it taught me life.
Here I am now, waiting to join IIM..... the 90 percentiler who made it into the IIM...or rather...the guy who prepared for MICA and got into an IIM
I am a very lazy person so I focussed on only what mattered to me. The only take away for you is
ATTITUDE towards CAT and life...
I have seen many people who has put their jobs on jeopardy for CAT...I would advise that CAT is a very small thing in this life and just give sufficient importance before exam. That will do.
See beyond CAT and college. See also how you can support your family, are you ok to pay your loans and high rent in mumbai or delhi (where normal MBA grads go), are you joining just for the sake of joining or really the college will lead you to ur goals...
Packages will come and go. But your plan should be package-proof. If you want to be IT consultant, go ahead do whatever you want to be the master...packages will chase you...it is YOU that matters finally...not the college, not the package, not the blackstones or BCG's...
"In the blink of an eye, you ll finally see the light" - Aerosmith's 'Amazin'
Most of you would have read my posts
2007 post: http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/all-i-wanted-to-speak-about-cat-25002933
2008 post: http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/all-i-wanted-to-speak-about-cat-25002933
2009 post: http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/all-i-wanted-to-speak-about-cat-25002933
After the L debacle & XL sacrifice, I was left with no other option, except but to continue with my work. I wasn't that sad because my JOB was very challenging indeed with lot of day to day problems which helped me as a professional to grow much more
But CAT 09 was already there in my mind. Now, mocks were going well. That was my only preparation last year & that too I was doing it without any emotional attachment.
I used to appear for the online Mocks & prepare from the hardcopy mocks. I never had the mood or patience to analyse online Mocks. This time around my partner was DonIIM an equally passionate guy. We use to solve papers & discuss over the phone.
Dec 6: for the first time, I felt I was under no pressure. 10 secs before the exam, I felt that whatever may happen to this exam Iam going to be happy. Started with Qa, moved to DI, then to VA & finally to Qa.
Total attempts: 53, QA - 16, DI-18, VA-19Time Spent - QA - 105 mins, DI- 20 mins, VA - 25 mins
After the exam, I forgot about CAT & was busy with lots of other things in Life.
Feb 28: Results were out & I couldn't check my scores. All I knew that time was I have a call from IIMA & I also felt that there is a high probability of an IIMC call as well as IIML call, which eventually turned out to be true.
IIMC came out with its GD/PI dates & I was called in on 22nd March. This time I didn't want to join any coaching institute, so worked on my own. I almost had a strong feeling on the set of questions to be asked & I introspected myself to get the answers. Also, started working on the current affairs, which I felt may play a role in essay/GD/PI too. That's the preparation I did for my next phase.
From March 16-21 , I had taken 6 PIs, 2 by Soham(IIMC), 2 by Prahalad (IIMB), 1 by Saini (IIMC) & the last one by Praveen Mantha(IIMC). By 21st evening, I was damn confident (unlike the previous here)
You can read my experiences here
IIMA: http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/2010-2012-iima-pgp-essay-pi-experiences-25051517
IIMC: http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/2010-2012-iimc-pgdm-pgdcm-gd-pi-experiences-25051812
IIML: http://www.pagalguy.com/discussions/2010-2012-iiml-essay-gd-pi-experiences-25051890
1.How do you feel after this convert????
If I have to answer in one line, I would say "This phase of my Life is called as Happyness". If I just turn back & see, in these 8 by gone years , onething which was an integral part of my life was/is CAT. Every step I took I always had buffered a provision for CAT first & then anything else. Every time I failed, I stood up with a feel that Iam close, I can do it & next year I would be in an IIM. Infact for these 8 years ie (365*24*6+ 366*24*2 hours), this feel was constant. I always believed during the beginning of the season, that next year by now, I will be sitting in a classroom of some IIM (especially IIMC). Today, that dream is true and you can feel, how Iam feeling..
2.what gave you the motivation to hang on for 8 years??????
The sheer love towards my passion/dream. I always believed in onething, "Its my dream, if I don't fulfill it, who will fulfill it for me". I never attached any monetary benefits to my dream, its just a plain, simple & sweet dream & I hope , you will agree that, we all love dreaming & some of us take one more extra step to make of our dreams come true. Iam not a super being, Iam like any one here except but I sustained my injuries, lived with my routines & still kept on dreaming.
3.Why not a one year programme????
An MBA, I don't know how much value addition it will be but, I wanted to go back to studies to do some justice. I was a good student till my 9th standard way back in 1992 & then disaster stuck in the form of our family issues & I could never do justice to my studies though I don't have any issues with that now. I want to feel the college life now, which I could not.
4.Do you see any value in doing an MBA now, when you are already in a goodjob???
Value is a perception, an IIM degree is not going to hurt me. It's the self satisfaction, its feel. When Iam in the death bed, I don't want to say that "I tried something, couldn't win over it, moved away with other things in life".For me the greatest value is ,"I believed in something & I tried tried & tried and then one day I achieved it"
5. How do you find time for preparation?????
People say, "When you have will, there is always a way". My complete struggle with preps & getting adjusted happened in 2005-2006-2007 (you can read it in my blog: http://www.catajourney.blogspot.com/). It wasn't easy , handling a family, job, studies, part time teaching etc etc etc, but it wasn't tough too. Mentally I was there, I was there , I was there in whatever role I played. Believe me,if some says, you need to sit down 2 hours every day & mug mug mug, that's when you can crack, I would say he or she may not be 100% true. For me, I believed that, how much ever I prepared let it be even 10 minutes, I should feel happy, when I go to bed that,"yes I have moved atleast a few inches closer to my dream". So don't pressurize yourself, don't feel bad if you cant prepare for sometime & please, don't quit your Job for CAT preps. Believe me, Cat doesn't need 8 - 10 hours a day & also quitting a Job would become an added pressure when you get into the exam hall. Secure your survival first & then think about doing justice to your dreams.
6.Whats your advice to future aspirants
Nothing, believe in yourself. Don't go by what others say, listen to your heart & if possible to your mind too. Never compare someone's profile who has aced CAT & please don't feel that you cannot crack CAT.
As you all know Iam 33 (first impediment), Married (second impediment), 58.4% BE, 61% 10th standard (third impediment), 10 years workex (fourth impediment), also not so great in Mocks -percentiles ranging from 12 to 99.9 (fifth impediment), not so great in english- Village background (sixth impediment) can convert an IIM call today, believe me - any one here can do so. All the above said are not actually impediments if you feel you can still ace & convince others about your dreams. Inspite of not having any of these impediments, you may not reach to your destiny just by one single thought that "I cant crack CAT". ITS ALL WITH IN YOU & YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN TILL YOU ACHIEVE. One or two or three failures should not change your thoughts & belief ie I was rejected by IIMA in 2007, still I believed, rejected by XLRI in 2008, I continued believing, rejected by IIML in 2009- I believed & converted XLRI-GMP in 2009, it added to my confidence that one day I can convert a 2 year programme. Finally in 2010, I have converted IIML, waitlisted at IIMC though I am rejected by IIMA.
Having said this don't make your dreams your master, don't get frustrated if it is delayed. Enjoy the process, go along the flow & believe, "ONE DAY IT WILL HAPPEN"
Use PG to make good friends (even for a life time).
Iam finally happy, because I used to preach & advice people a lot on the above said points (whoever comes to me), but there used to be an uneasy feeling that, yes Iam believing, Iam preaching but in reality Iam still a failure, I couldn't convert a call. Today, I have a point that I was & am right.
The primary reason for my existence in PG was to set an example to people who are married, who have lots of responsibilities in life, who are out of touch, who are from a vernacular back ground, but still have a dream & also have a doubt whether they can pursue their dreams ie can they compete with fresh , young, strong minds. Now, I have done it, so can you.."Guide your dreams to destiny & you can do so, if you want"
As I used to say, today if anyone of you who want to quit your dream halfway due to any reason, just stop for a second & think.
As the "Do not Quit" poem reads, "And you can never tell how close you are, it may be near when it seems so far, so stick to the fight when you're hardest hit, it's when things go wrong that you must not quit"
This is the story of a normal person from an unknown village to an IIM..
All the Best.
Update: converted IIMC on 19th June
Have always wanted to put my story down here .
Finally ! .. i get a chance .. 
My Background :
B.Tech CompScience
Class X - 90.0% Class XII-96.5% B.Tech - 7.5/10
31 Months IT experience ( as of Jan2010) with a Fortune500 company
2007 : 96% ... Expected awesome mark in VA as per TIME keys .. and it bombed. Attended TIME classes and Mock tests.
2008 : 98% ... Lone call : MDI .But they had no interested in 98% fellows . Wrote Mocks here and there . May be 5-6.
2009 : 99.3% with skewed sectionals .. No call . Didn't apply anywhere else apart from IIMs. Was looking at UPSC by then . Wrote 2 Mocks in all i guess.
2010 : 99.00% ..Calls IIM-L .. IIM-I .. MDI .. NITIE .. .. No mocks written . Total preparation done 10-12hrs.
Moral of the story : Don't attend coaching classes .
My mistake : I never took the test seriously never prepared properly .
I am not ashamed of the fact that i took so many attempts. I think it is a crazy exam and has really little correlation with IQ of the applicant
After my prev. attempts .. esp the last one in 2009 where i got 99.3% with no calls from IIMs .. i decided not to write CAT ever again . I was keen on writing UPSC 2010 . Hence decided not to try CAT and focus on UPSC. Afterall both are Administration only .. one is business administration .. one is junta administration .
This friend calls me on Oct 2nd-ish .. basically the last day before buying the CAT form .. he counsels me .. "Why not give another shot !" .. i tell him.. "Dude tomorrow last day .. forget it " .. Next day .. i learn IIMs extended the dates by some 10 days or so ( Can't remember exact details .. but it was due to some stretch of holidays in September end and Oct 2nd holidays .. some such) .. So i thought .. "Okie .. someone seems to want me in" ... :)
2 days before CAT .. i realised i left my hall-ticket in Pune and it is reqd for the test ( wat was tat thing called ?? .. voucher .. yeah ! ) .. My center was in Hyderabad .. If i wanted to write .. i would need to travel back and forth in a day .. again .. thoughts came to my mind .. "Forget CAT man .. try UPSC" (like hrithik roshan in lakshya .. "i think my country needs me yaar" ) . Then again ... decided .. "its okie .. this was also on the wishlist from sometime ... so do the Pune-Hyd trip .. and write CAT .. atleast lets fulfill that friend's advice in october" .. I did Hyd-Pune-Hyd trip a day before the exam and reached Hyd on the day of the exam . The test went well .. for once i knew .. this time i wouldn't be having skewed sectionals.
Quit the job that was giving me around 7LPA in Jan 2010 .. like Sachin .. pre-meditated shot .. had absolutely no clue what was in store .. i just wanted to quit that's all ... Joined a sales and marketing job after being interviewed by IIM-A&B; grads for it and quit it in 3 days .. Dunno why i took it up really .. perhaps just to assure myself that i can get a job anyday ... ... Sometimes over-confidence helps
Attended a slew of interviews in April 2010 (for details check my signature) .. All went on predictable lines .. i knew that my cv isn't all that bad and i can talk confidently enough about myself .. so if given an oppurtunity the chances of me converting the interview is more than 80-90% .. and so i finally made it .. Got through IIM-I IIM-L NITIE and MDI ..(Got through another institute too but the way the intrvw was conducted left me with a bad taste .. so wouldn't mention it here ... its in a place tat starts with G and in my interview they were campaigning for a sister institute that starts with N ) ..
Will be joining IIM-L ... Its a nice feeling .. but i am not very elated .. like my user name says .. i feel like a "War veteran" .. have seen so many wars .. for once i won .. will have to see many other wars in the future anyway ! .. why get excited
A lot of people say ... there is life beyond CAT .. cheer up so on .. but i think CAT matters a lot .. more so an MBA from a good BSchool matters a lot ..
It is hard to describe my feelings when I finally write in this thread! Satisfaction? Excitement? Success? I dont know. All I know is that I have been waiting for 2 years for this day!
CAT 2007 season
It all started at a chai shop in Ichchhanath, at NIT Surat, when I was in my third year. I was more than half of an engineer, and the question of future, career etc started raising its head. An IT job? No thanks. A career in electronics(my branch)? Not interested. I confess that I decided to try for CAT after eliminating the various other options!
Like everyone else, I joined IMS and wrote the SIM CATs. In a test or two, I scored high percentiles and suddenly everyone was talking about IIM calls and all. Somewhere, I believed that I had it in me, and prepared now and then. The D Day was nearing.
Come November 15, 2007(think that was the day berfore CAT) and I was on train with my friends to Ahmedabad. It felt like just another tour with my friends! The night before CAT, I had an asthma attack(I am allergic to dust). I could sleep only around 3 am and slept till 5 am. I remember lying in the bed and praying that I fall asleep soon!
On the D-Day, I was more or less ok, but I was tired and in no high spirits. In the exam, I started off with VA(my strongest section) and did well. Attempted 24/25 in an hour. Then DI. It went downhill from there. The very first set, I was stuck. And I was stubborn enough not to let it go. Maybe, the very good VA section contributed to the over confidence. After trying a couple of sets, I tried QA. No success there too. By this time, my confidence had touched an all time low. After the exam, I was sure that it was worse than even my mock tests.
Result- Overall 93.xx, VA-99.xx, QA-85.xx, DI-67.xx
What CAT 2007 taught me
- If you are strong in a section, it doesnt mean you have to spend all your time in it.
- Dont be stubborn and keep trying a question if you are unsure about the logic. The golden words are.LET GO.
- Remember that if you get tense, you have to get back on track asap.
Then I wrote FMS, XAT. Got 95 odd percentile in XAT. By then, I was placed in IBM and BPCL. I decided to join BPCL as a management trainee, as by then, I had decided that I would be doing an MBA, and a managerial post will help in the long run.
CAT 2008 Season
I was too busy with my job to prepare hard for CAT 2008. So I decided I would write only CAT exam and that too just for the sake of attempting it. Lo and behold! Cat 2008 was like a cakewalk(well, almost!) Started with DI (which had let me down the previous year.) Was happy after finishing it in just over 40 mins and proceeded to Verbal. Which was again very good. After that came QA. I attempted those questions for which I knew the logic, and skipped the rest, just like that.
Result- Overall 98.97, VA-96.xx, QA-92.xx, DI-99.xx
After the results were declared, I was happy and sad. Happy because I did this without any preparation. And sad because QA let me down. If I had answered a couple of questions more in QA, I would have got atleast 2 IIM calls.
The day the results were announced was also one of the saddest days in my life. I was working, when I got a call from the TIME manager. He told me I had got a K call. I was ecstatic. I rushed to a caf, and there it wasYou have been selected for GD/PI at IIM K! I was on top of the world, and informed my closest friends, parents and a few relatives. I couldnt concentrate on my work, took a leave, and went back to the caf to see PG and the result once again.
You wont believe me, but this time, I got a regret message. I called up admissions, IIM K and spoke to the professor who was in charge of admissions. He said there might have been some error and confirmed that my name was not in the list. And said something about my name being in the first list of only CAT score people, and when they included work ex, I didnt clear the cutoff.
To say that I was disappointed would be an under statement. I messaged my friends to ignore my earlier message, and told them it was just a MISSED CALL from K! Totop it all, TIME centre had already published my photo with the other call getters, and I had to explain to some that I didnt have a call! The TIME director apologized, but said that he was seeing something like this for the first time in his life. Well, that left me in my company for one more year, and ample time to prepare for CAT 2009.
What CAT 2008 taught me
1.A major part of success in CAT depends on how cool you are on the D Day.
2.If you attempt only a few questions in one section, probe further, until you are sure about clearing the sectional cut off.
3.The last and most important, Dont be let down by failures. If you have a missed call from K one year, aim for an A call next year and convert it!!
CAT 2009 Season
I had sufficient time to prepare, and I utilized it well in the initial days(March-June). Then enthusiasm levels dropped, and work started getting more hectic. I wrote the online mock CATs of TIME and my scores were good. But I failed to perform consistently in all the sections. However, VA continued to be my strongest section.
Another important thing happened. My GF!!! She was the one inspiration and motivation, who never failed to encourage me. Most importantly, she believed in me and used to be angry when I was pessimistic at times. Some stressful days at work and some mock CATs later, I was ready to bell the CAT.
On the day of CAT, I had no strategy in mind. The idea was to remain cool and maximize the attempts, as the word was that online CAT 2009 was a cakewalk.
I was surprised to find that the exam was not as easy as it was hyped to be. DI was pretty doable. QA required logic and quick thinking, and was in no way a breeze. And the surprise was..VA was quite tough! My slot had the privilege of getting 3 abstract passages for RC, out of a total of 3 passages. And, the sentence correction and everything else was not easy, to say the least. In as much as 10 questions, I had to choose between 2 options, both of which seemed likely.
After CAT, I knew that my entire chances depended on VA. If I had done it well, I was through. Otherwise, it would be another year for the next CAT! The results were declared after a huge delay and I was disappointed when I saw this:
Result : Overall:98.82 QA:92.50 VA :94.50 DI:99.25
There, I thought, another year down the drain. I was sure that I would not get any IIM call, as last year, I had OA 98.97. Here again, it was my GF who was somehow sure that I would get atleast a lone call!! IIM A,B,C. No call. As expected. IIM L..SurpriseI couldnt believe my eyes! My registration number was there in the list. I was on top of the world! IIM KAgain..CALL!! IIM I.. No call. Oh, and a call from SP Jain too, after the CAT scores were declared(Second list)
After the initial days of frenzy and celebration, I realized I had to prepare for the interview. I decided to follow the current affairs closely, as it was my weak point. I also assured myself that I am already good, and PI depends on what you have been doing till now, and not only on the last few days before the PI! The only coaching I took was a GD/PI workshop in Bangalore conducted by TIME. The mock PI there was the worst PI in my life, and I thought I had no chance unless I drastically changed myself! Here goes my PI experiences at IIM K and IIM L.
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/51842-2010-2012-iimk-gd-pi.html#post1985301
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/51890-2010-2012-iiml-essay-gd-15.html#post2069904
Finally.. Both IIM L and K converted. SP Jain reject. Joining hel(L)!!!!!!
More than anything, I am relieved that I am finally chasing my dream. And I learnt many important lessons in the 3 years before I finally made it! The most important one is Dont succumb to failures, and try hard till the goal is achieved.