IIM GDPI Experience: Failure in first attempt; Through in second

[lostinoblivion]

Calling all puys who failed in the first attempt in the GDPI at IIMs, but cracked in the 2nd, please share your experiences, your learnings from the failure and kind of mistakes that had harmed your case. This will certainly help people who are facing the GDPI at IIMs in the coming months.

Thanks In Advance,
LIO

PS: Moderators, if this thread already exists, kindly direct me.

[prtk]

This is a great thread even though I am not sure if it already exists.
Surely there would be lots of people who would have cracked cat the second time around ( personally I know many people like this).
Starting with my case officially I have given 2 cats (but thanks to Ranjit Don cat leak) have written cat thrice
one in 2003 and another one in 2005.
First time around VA took me down with percentile of 89 (overall 96) no calls from IIMs had calls from SP , MDI and NITIE couldn't convert.
My learning’s from the first cat

1) First and foremost was to improve my English by reading newspaper daily (took decision to read "The Hindu" daily though it was painful initially I started enjoying it after some time)

2) Be flexible in your approach while giving mock cat try different combinations of sections to be attempted ( i.e. which section to attempt first which q to attempt first extra) use first few mock cats for coming up with good strategy

3) You have given cat once so you already know the fundamentals of QA , DI and VA use this for your advantage and practice more. CAT is all about practice there is no hard questions which a person can't answer given time. So only thing which can differentiate you from others is your speed and accuracy; which can only come through lots of practice. Give as many mock cats as possible.



4) And finally be cool on final day its not end of the world even if you can't crack cat remember its a great time to be employeed in India right now with lots and lots of opportunities so keep cool.

See CAT as just one of the paths leading to your final goal in life and not as final goal itself and life will be made easier for you.



Well all these things paid off in the end and I finally landed with percentile of 99.75 and 5 IIM calls (This time around also English was the undoing with percentile of 92 resulting in rejection from IIMA but I guess it wasn't that bad for other IIMs)

[lostinoblivion]

Thanks Prtk for sharing ur experience and learnings.
Other experienced cat-givers and cat-crackers, please pour in urs as well.

This thread could be really helpful, especially when the GDPIs for IIMs are just around the corner.

Thanks & Regards,
LIO

[vahbuna]

well my story so far

CAT-04
overall :99.27
quant :99.91
DI 98.xx
va :77.28
so va put me down that year....

CAT:05
overall:99.27 (yes 99.27 again)
quant:99.17
va :97.xx
DI 89.61
so DI put me down and ended with 3 calls LIk but all three chucked me out during the interview process.Havent applied to any other insti..

CAT:06
overall:99.72 (yes the same 4 digit again just cjange in .27 to .72 )
va:97.7
quant:98.92
DI:99.05
got I LACK B .. and expecting calls from MDI and spjain too...


m not so gud in english
well my take is .but worked on it and finally its paying ...read lots of novels , magazines
and other stuff .. ab to iim jaana hai ..bahut maara le cat de dekar ...