[gr8vikrant]

first year in my graduation frm biomedical science and i was confused to go fr mba or msc second yr. i decieded to go in fr mba but was still confused wether to go fr it straight after y bsc or aftr msc. finally i decieded to wait no longr but to go on fr cat straight after bsc. in the mean time i had been univ topper in first and univ scond rank holder in second year. me also had a lot of xtra curricular cert under my belt till that time
so after finally having decieded i bought study material frm daryaganj before leaving off to pune fr a summer fellowship on HIV/AIDS another precious crtificate on the cards
in the lab i used to set up experiments find a place to hide somewhere and study fr cat u know its a sin to say mba in sci labs
coming back to delhi joined sim cat frm ims simply because it was cheap at just 1500 bucks so thought it would be joined by a lot of people and i would have a fair idea where i stand with the pc in these tests, was a consitent performer in the 88-94 pc slot
then came the big day and cat06 and wow the paper was actually gud english was diffi (my strong point) and quant easy (my weak point beng a non engineer)
got 98.66 pc bt a sole call frm iim l :(
nevermind i joined time fr gd pi courses which cost me some 950 bucks see again a gud management of money
was always gud at speaking ,had knowledge of politics world affairs and my acads and also had a hefty file full of certificates to support my cause
then had all the quota fiasco to delay the result but i can never forget 27th april 4:50 pm a day after my exams were over. iiml website said candidates selected fr pgp i opened the link ad put my reg no along with date of birth

cong u have been selected were the word that apeared i shouted at the loudest of my voices and started coughing voilently in excitement and happiness and had to close my mouse tightly so that i may nt vomit out my lunch my other was standing with me and gave me the tightest hug
today i am packing my bags and would be of to luck in a few days
fnds this is my story of cat 06 hope to listen some similar stuff frm ur side

[vikram_k51]

Originally Posted by anandv

My post on All I wanted after resisting for more than an year!

I call this thread as CAT jihadi thread as I somehow feel that this thread unneccesarily hypes up the CAT and has lost its main purpose. personal opinion though! But couldn't resist on hearing words like holy and sacrosanct

The result is : CAT aspirants tend to forget the thin line of difference between passion and hyped obsession.

Months after months are spent, personal lives are put in danger, relationships are kept on gas, job productivity is made to suffer: Just to study for one hyped exam in which all that matters is how you performed in those 120 mins. ( Now 150 minutes). The journey towards CAT becomes a drudgery ,rather than being an enjoyable picnic of like-minded puys.
So much of mental and physical energy is spent , and if you don't score then the end result is frustration,depression and so on...

And the cycle continues in the next year just to satisfy your egos, just to tame CAT because a stupid classmate of yours tamed it and to achieve Moksha

What people tend to forget is MBA entrance starts with CAT and NOT ends with CAT!

I am curious about the post-CAT lives of the demi-Gods of this thread.
How did they fare in MBA academics, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and post-MBA jobs?
Just want to check whether they could put in so much of energy in post-CAT activities also or was CAT only one-off type act?



That's all I wanted to speak about CAT

Sorry anandv I disagree with u here.If u call the expression of joy at achieving something very close to one's aspirations...overhyped...i wud never ever agree to that.
Remember PG is a place for aspirants and not a place to dissect the 'Post CAT' achievements of some intellectual bimbo.
90% of the people who login here are not all go-getters.They r one of those aspirants who put everything on hold for a considerable amount of time.That thing which u called 'drudgery' in an aspirant's words will be 'sacrifice'.But u won't understand that for u belong to some elite club of 99 percentilers who had cracked all the mocks left-right and centre.Right?
It's very easy to be judgemental sitting cosily in the corridors of a place which u so well deserved.But everyone's story is not as happily ended as was urs.
And if this is all u wanted to speak about CAT,You have got it all wrong.
Now 'groan' at me for maligning the sanctity of this thread.
I would have never posted here but your post came after two brilliant posts and could not help it.Sorry.

[orca]

This thread does motivate ppl. The problem begins when junta begins to believe the "This guy cracked CAT after 3 yrs of trying and lived happily ever after" story though this was never the intention of the thread starter.

For every chandoo or anupam who *did it* after 2-3 tries there are atleast 500 ramus who couldnt do it even in 5 tries. I personally know of ppl who gave it all for CAT, flunked on D-day and dont have any kind words for the IIMs ever since

On that note let me tell you how my CAT exp left me with a fantastic story to tell for the rest of my life

April 11, 2006

Slept at around 11 PM expecting the IIM results to be out anytime. Had a NITIE convert by then but had time only till April 14th to pay up the confirmation fee. With 5 calls I thought I could take the liberty of paying up only on 14th if the need arises (50k was at stake), booked myself a flight to Mumbai for the 13th.

Awakened by a call at 12:30, C results were out. Ask my friend to check up mine, dinged. Not even a waitlist. There go my ABC hopes (the B panel had ripped me apart, wasnt counting on that one). Back to sleep

April 12, 2006

Walk into office at 9:30 AM. Around 10-10:30 B results are out, I am out as expected. Around 12 the L results out, I am WL#366 and I say to helL with it I could slowly sense my mood changing now !! I had a good GD/PI at L, K was rather bad and I was expecting a kick from K. "Do I really need to fly to Mumbai 2moro ??" In the meanwhile a couple of frends call me to console me on my BCL debacle, I just laugh it off.

Another hr later K results out, not even a waitlist. Taking that flight to Mumbai was looking reality now.

Time for lunch. Have a lonely lunch, wasnt really in the mood to talk to anyone.

Around 2:30 we get news that the Kannada movie idol Dr Raj was dead. 10 mins later it hits me, Dr RAJ is dead !! Riots will start in the sity soon, section 144, curfew and what not !! Will I be able to even get out on the streets tomorrow leave alone catching the flight to Mumbai ?? Decide to talk to the NITIE folks about this. Call them up and explain my situation, the folks were patient and said fax ur DD ASAP, we'll try holding the seat for you till Monday if you cant make tomorrows flight. *ahem* catch is that the DD is at my residence and stone pelting had already started in the city. After 4-5 calls to frends I somehow manage to fix up an alternative to fax the DD today but decide what the hell, lemme wait till I results some out. Then I remember that I dont have the printout for the flight tickets. My comp at office wasnt getting through to the IA site so I run to the travel desk, they have access only to a dot matrix printer Get the printout and begin the long wait for I results.

In the meanwhile everyone passing by my cubicle stops to ask me which IIM I am off to, somehow manage to keep those pests away and yet look normal At around 6 my boss calls me in for a meeting, had to commit to whether I wanted to stay or quit, hikes were round the corner you see Ask him to give me time till EOD, as if I needed more dependencies at this point of time.

Start typing out a detailed email to the NITIE admissions and as I am about to hit *send* I get the new ki I results are out *darn* my system needs a reboot Take up my cubicle mate's system and key in my details, finally see a convert. So I aint gonna go to Mumbai after all, go out and smoke my first sutta in more than a year.

All set for Indore now (its another matter that I finally ended up at K), decide to call it a day. Go down to the reception and try to book a cab, no cabs available, have to stay at office or walk, chose the latter. Roads were deserted and pieces of glass lay strewn all over. I usually cut a Km by going through Forum mall but the damn thing was closed as expected. I decide to use my *techie* tag to convince the security guys to let me through but all I get in return are some choice kannada gaalis. Take the longer route, as I am walking a police jeep stops and starts abusing me in a combination of kannada + english + hindi. Tell them my situation and the officer tells me - "you have 5 mins to get out of sight else I'll shove this lathi up your a$$". Finally reach home, have a nice hearty laugh about this entire thing. Pity that I could hardly get to eat over the next 2 days because of the curfew. It kinda topped off a perfect weekend

The next time someone gives me gyaan on stress management, I'll knee him in his groin.

[nidea4u]

This post is kind of inspired by ORCA's; just above. Reading his story I recalled my CAT days. Here how it all unfolded: Don't remember a few dates though

Well 1st attempt at CAT in 2004, scored 99.65%ile ..... never expected it to be that good, guess the unusual DI paper made my day like it spoiled for many. And luckily for me I even had the good balance in my sectional scores to get all 6 calls, add to it the MDI, SPJAIN, NITIE, IITB and XLRI calls. Well FMS booted me in the entrance exam itself.

Decided not to be picky for interviews as I wasn't for applying either and to go for as many interviews as possible. Finally managed to attend all of them except IITB. Yeah traveling from Kolkata to Mumbai twice for SPJAIN and NITIE and then once to Jamshedpur took its toll on my dad's bank account, but it taught me few important lessons for the rest of the interviews too.??:

The MDI interview kick started the process, thankfully it was in Kolkata only. However the final results were declared on the notice board of the institute and even before my second interview with SPJAIN !!! PG came to my rescue at that time, the MDI-tes in PG were literally running up and down collecting registration numbers from the posts and then posting the results. Thanks a lot to them, I still remember the refreshing button in browser was clicked some thousand times that day. Few tense hours on my side and result a REJECT :neutral:. Well it isn't the best start I was looking for there were lot more to go, so dint feel that bad. What I din't know at that time is the wait for me would be longer than I expected.

Second SPJAIN, pathetic interview, booted in the 1st round itself. some 8000 bucks worth air tickets went down the drain

Third XLRI, well I now feel the interviewers were willing to take me, I just din't give them enough reasons to do so. I was extremely silent and the interview went no where. Still had some hopes in mind .....

4th IIMK (as far as I remember 5th March). Dont know what happened to me that day, just before leaving for IIMC campus for the IIMK intvw, logged into PG and came to know some non-confirmed link was out for XLRI results. Din't want to see but couldn't resist, went to the site and got a REJECT. Yeah still somewhere hopes were alive, for once I was praying that it shudn't be the right link, but news of admits had started pouring in...... and I wasn't even waitlisted :(. Well life moves on and went to the IIMK intvw with some desperation having creeped in already. 3 consecutive rejects so far, the world is not all the same as it was 2 months back when the intvw calls started coming.
The IIMK invw for me is a story in itself which I remember to have posted somewhere else. To sum it up I dint feel I aced it.:neutral:

5th NITIE (7th March) Some 8/9000 bucks once again for an intvw which lasted 7 mins. They never told me it was a reject but I learnt from the student volunteers that every1 in my panel had atleast 20 min intvw. The truth was too hard to accept for me at that stage, came back with lot of self doubts and a confidence level which urged me to start preparing for CAT 2005........ even with 5 interviews left to go.

6th IIMC (14/15th March) In the meantime XLRI formal results were out and my prayers were unanswered this time, it was the same link. I wasnt in the mental condition to attend rest of the intvws even. Thanks to a few friends who brought me back to my senses and I finally decided to give it a last try. And this time I was praying that no more results should come out before it all ends. Well IIMC (PGDM and PGDCM): my best GD ever and the coolest intvw ever. However not always a peaceful intvw brings peace to the mind.

7th IIMA (20th March) Nothing much to mention other than it was long and I did well. Still did a small goof up and therefore cudnt take any guess on the result.??:

8th IIML (21st March) Having attended IIMA previous day, somehow I was boiling with confidence, was totally prepared to handle it. However as it's said there is a very thin line between supreme self confidence and arrogance. Unfortunately in the last part of the intvw I was the 2nd. Very odinary GD for me and the intvw went well until they decided to put some pressure on me and I became too bold and started answering some of the questions with abrupt one liners.

9th IIMI (30/31 March) In the meantime NITIE results were out and I wasnt surprised not to be selected. Din't feel that bad though. Now the intvw: One of my worst days. Was a total stress/steam rolling intv. Was asked all kinds of questions under then sun. Never let my guards down but still felt exposed . Had a rapid fire round too, scored some 2/12 in that. And the panel decided to enjoy my situation for 30 mins before they let me go :grab:. Nothing against the panel but I felt better once again to be in the open air of IIMC . Had it been my choice I would have walked out in 10 mins. Was taunted, ridiculed and pinched again and again and in the end I was left wondering what went wrong. Well at that time I din't know that not everything went wrong

10th and last IIMB (6th March). the last day of my intvw, the last day of intvw for B across India, the last day for any IIM to conduct intvw and the 1st day the IIM results came out. But for now let's keep the results out of the picture since they came out arnd 10/11am and I was waiting for my intvw at that time with my cell switched off. Well the GD just had too many good people. Tried my best, result was so-so. Knew the intvw would be the deciding factor. was 3rd for the intvw. Had THE best intvw of all, answered each and every question, be it from current affairs, acads or extracurrics. However the funniest part happened later. Came out of the room to find the next guy talking over phone and already rejoicing. Someone told me he got a convert from IIMA, and he knew it even before going for the B intvw. Only one thing came to my mind at that time JEALOUSY !!!!! Found out that IIMA results were out and I was just waiting to get back home.

On my way back home one frnd called me up to inform IIMK results were out too and he had an IIMA call and IIMK waitlist. I was eager and scared at the same time, wanted to be in his shoes for once:satisfie: Another friend calls up to inform she has a reject both from IIMA and IIMK. (She finally made it to IIMC which was her 1st choice)

Came back and decided to check IIMK 1st. The result : REJECT !!!!! Perhaps I got too used of the term to have it any effect on me or having a fantastic IIMB intvw i was banking on it. Whatever it was I had 5 consecutive rejects and was well on way to create a record of maximum rejects

Next the big thing for me: IIMA. Was literally putting the numbers in with trembling fingers. After pressing enter I was only looking for one word "Not", yeah was that negative after all this. Funnily the page neither had the word "Congratulations" nor "Sorry". Was confused and started reading the entire paragraph which read something like "You have been selected..... ". Was left dumbfounded !!!! Read it over and over again to find out the mistake in my understanding
Yeah at last a convert and that too from my 1st choice, something that at times I felt was not achievable for me. Still I was scared and the worries finally ended when I got the letter few weeks later.

The rest of calls, well IIMA opened the gates for me and I converted IIMC (PGDCM), IIMI (!!!!! yeah even after that) and IIML (waitlist which finally got converted).

Rejected by IIMK and IIMB (Yeah dint expect this !!!)


Hence ended my CAT journey in a sweet note which taught me a lot and has changed atleast one thing in me, I am a super optimist now, I have seen lows and survived through that, something that gives me inner strength to withstand initial setbacks and be confident to start from the scratch again.

[ashishyahoo]

MBA Entrance Examinations, Determination and ME...


Disclaimer: All characters/ incidences below are purely real – and any attempt of associating the stuff with fictional mumbo-jumbo will NOT be tolerated. .

Acknowledgements: Chandoo’s first article. (I always dreamt of writing one just like that – some day )

Warning: This article is meant for fun-reading, inspiration – and may be of some help only to the average percentilers at CAT and other entrances. If the top scorers and absolutely confident 100 percentilers at CAT think that they need better gyaan, they better look elsewhere

Amidst the myriad questions of ‘Why MBA’, ‘Long-term goals’, ‘Short-term goals’ etc etc – was me – somewhere in July or August 2003 – when we began with Semester 5 in my engineering college. Probably that was the semester, which kicks off Computer Science on the whole – and here I was – dreaming of some other things – like how was my life proceeding, and whether I was evaluating myself properly. Programming certainly wasn’t the thing I would be happy doing for the rest of my life . I believed more in the Howard Roark philosophy – When I have around 50 more years to live, I feel I should be spending them in the way I like – and work in the field I am best at.

Probably it was the Economics and Management subject in Sem 5, which set me thinking in some direction about the same. The ideas inspired me – and I could associate with the subject better – maybe also because the teaching of the faculty rocked. A post-graduation in the field of Management – an MBA, had heard about it long back – even before I had joined my engineering college. Was it the real push for a great career? Was it the thing I would need to build myself to better prospects? I needed to find out. Got some magazines – old IMS magazines (Advancedge) – read more. Inspiring stories, great institutes – yes – maybe I had to get there. This is probably what is real education – real learning.

The Common Admission Test – had heard about this before – but never knew that I would be taking it at any stage in life. I enrolled for the IMS Correspondence package at Goa, and they sent me some average kinda material. One of the days in June 2004 I was sitting listening to an inspiring lecture from a student who had made it to IIML that year – a senior Goan. At the end of the lecture, he had one piece of advice – use this site – its really very helpful. I rubbed my eyes and for a second couldn’t understand what he wrote – whatever did that name mean in the world of MBA entrance examinations. Nevertheless I took it down on my book and thought I would sign in right away. Pagalguy.com.

From then on began a roller coaster ride of studying DI, Verbal and Quant. CAT had leaked just the year before and had come out in a terrible form at the time of the re-test – with a terribly tough Quant section. Hence of course the normal rigmarole which I wasn’t aware of, at that stage at least – the coaching classes start putting up mock tests which have difficult Quant sections only. At that time however, IMS was the only institute I was aware of – being the only one in Goa. The additional info would come from PG – for some days I failed to understand why were threads entitled AIMCAT 0503, 0504 etc etc. It really took me some time to know that these were mock cat names – or rather numbers J. Goa still had to open out in terms of coaching classes and the prepratory environment for MBA preparations.

Sectional tests, Mock tests – I was on a spree – I wasn’t scoring great – but well kya mazaa aa raha tha… competition – nice fun. Got some TIME mocks, CL mocks xeroxed from my cousin who had taken the test series in Pune. They seemed tougher than the IMS Simcats (except for the godly IMS DI ). I must have taken around 60 to 70 mocks in those 4 months or so – in the end it was almost every day – with the hope that the max score dwells on D Day. I made many friends in PG – some high-edged mock cat’ers, who would beat the hell out of the others in the percentiles. I would hardly be studying the college stuff at that time – the seventh semester passed away so fast that I hardly came to know. I had only one thought – CAT. Probably that’s why what awaited me on that day took its share of fun – and I had my share of misery.

CAT 2004 – Dadar, Mumbai. Goa had been removed as a CAT center that year itself (to my bad luck) – so the trip to Mumbai was necessary. Kept cool on the previous day while revising only very important stuff. What was landlocked in my mind was how I had to answer the paper, my ‘strategy’, my scoring sections etc. Yes – childish stuff. November 21 2004. IES School at Dadar was crowded (had already been there the previous day). Once I was seated at my place I was simply praying was a 3 section paper like CAT 2003. What came was a 3 section paper – but with a blast of surprises – differential marking for the first time, reduced no of questions (to 123), and well, loads of surprises inside the paper too. What I did in the next 2 hours involved more of praying and less of confident problem solving – yes – I wasn’t confident – of each and every question. Even in Verbal, which had been my strongest section. I tackled the ½ markers, the 1 markers and then the 2 markers – in that order. My order was supposed to be verbal/DI/Quant – 40 min for each. I must have taken 45 min for Verbal, then came to DI (my weakest section) and tried to go in for the 2 markers (read as overconfidence ). Unfortunately I attacked that question which was wrong – the infamous hockey set problem of CAT 2004 . Checked it out for some time, cudnt make any sense out of it, and then moved to the one markers – no more himmat left for the two markers. Managed to solve some of the one-marker sets and then moved to Quant – tried to blast this section, but apparently I ended up ‘not’ doing it. This section had loads of scoring problems, which I managed to oversee . The two markers were a piece of cake, but in my spree I didn’t even notice it. Managed an attempt of some 75 marks in the paper and came out quite shaky.

The wait till the New Year was long and unbearable – and the result – one of the biggest shocks of my life.

Overall percentile – 85.XX :( :( :(
DI – 84.XX Quant 83.XX Verbal – 77.XX

Contd...

[ashishyahoo]

Contd...

Expectations came crashing down, thoughts of wrong bubbles shaded passed by – well, so many other things happened. The first reactions were, of course, its useless for me to take it up again. Had already lost so much money having applied to NITIE, MDI etc in the same year. Anyway I had my campus placement secure, though I had lost out in the seventh semester marks, after having topped the University in the sixth semester.

I couldn’t get over the entire thing so easily. This was soon followed by a mediocre IIFT entrance (Mumbai again) and a mediocre XAT (some 85 percentile again). Still the thought of the coveted schools wasn’t leaving me. But I had to forego it for sometime at least. Finished my engineering, and was awaiting the joining letter from my company. In the meanwhile I applied to several other companies (maybe to prove myself to me) – companies vied by several others. The joining letter hadnt arrived, and I had some other personal issues on my head. Thoughts of CAT 2005 floated by, and I grabbed hold of them. I had to leave Goa, and opt for a better test series, and of course work harder. With some news of my posting being at Bangalore, I left for the city in the end of July 2005. I signed up for the TIME test series, and started taking them up eagerly. At the same time I also sat for some company tests/ interviews. September 2 2005 – I come to know that I have made it to one of the best MNCs in the world, and my joy knew no bounds . Eventually I joined it on September 19 2005. During this period the mock cat series was on, but my scores were diminishing badly. Only once or twice could I get the score to a 95 percentile or a 96 percentile. To make up for my confidence, I enrolled at Career Avenues and interacted with Amit Saboo – who gave me some amount of confidence in the entire thing. I took up his mock cats too, in which I would at least score better than what I did at the TIME mock cats. I took up some of the old CAT papers and managed to solve quite a few. I tried to understand some of the mistakes I had made in CAT 2004 – but probably they are too many to enlist. I made sure somehow that I did not burn out myself with mock cats as I had done in 2004. I somehow got a broader horizon to CAT by having interacted with a lot of people – grasped it more as a skill gauging test, rather than a flat 3 section paper and so on.

At the same time I made some very close lifetime friends through PG, who took the mock cats with me – nicked as akhil_agrawal, bhandari, nitin_jain etc on PG. We shared thoughts, exchanged loads of views, took mock cats together etc. Besides these of course I made tons of other friends on PG. Enjoyed at some PG meets in Bangalore – finally met Psychodementia and some other known Pgites like Orca (was in my company itself), bingo (one of the first timers on PG) and many many others – most of who might be absconding from the scene now. A simple evaluation would tell me that I was strong on my HR skills, and I needed an MBA to get on into that field. It was the only thing which would get me there. And well - no compromises on the institutes - this being my last education - only a college in the top ten wud suffice . Though, somehow with the hectic training etc at my company I was kinda all lost. I decided to give a couple of entrances, but apply to not more than one college in each. Thru CAT it was only the IIMs – probably as I wasn’t at all confident, and gauging myself from the mock scores, I could see that nothing was possible for me this time. But I simply couldn’t resist taking the exams.

CAT 2005- North Bangalore, Vivekananda College. I stayed overnite at a friends place the day before and it was quite a normal day, with absolutely no stress from my side. And why should there be – I had nothing to lose if I didn’t make it. Probably the attitude was lacking this time though. The morning of CAT – the normal crowd. My friend departed just before the exam – and I sat there, expecting the worst to happen – well, its CAT – and there are bound to be surprises . The paper had even more reduced questions, 90 this time, with continued differential marking, though this time more structured. My method of solving was simple – the same – Verbal/DI/Quant – 40 min each. Whizzed through Verbal, and landed up at DI – the usual nervousness. This was one section I could neva get even with – and well, the nervousness existed in some small amount coz I had neva managed to practice enough for this section – had always got bored during my entire preparation cycle. Solved only 13 marks here and moved ahead to Quant – where I could solve at least some of the questions with ease. I had kept in mind this time that I only had to pick the sitters, and had practised well at it. Hence I could do it with some ease at least. Attempted only 65 marks on the whole. I knew it was very less the moment I counted it out.

Just a week later I came to know that I had made a very silly mistake in the lone 2-marker set I had solved in DI. That ends the story – I didn’t need to look more at the result – the loss with that one set was mammoth. The tragedy was that of course, I had to get the bad news on yet another new year

Overall percentile – 89.XX :(
Verbal – 93.XX Quant – 93.XX DI – 35.XX (holy cow !! )

Immediate thoughts – no more CAT for me. I would never be able to solve the kind of problems which came for DI. I was a loser at these puzzles – and would neva manage them inside the exam hall. Yes of course, given some good amount of time, maybe I could do it, but not there in the hall .

Yes, to provide some solace were the other entrances – IIFT, which was immediately after CAT that year – went good, but eventually a shocking reject – couldn’t believe it, but I guess I was getting used to the bad luck. JMET banged right in my face – disqualified – not even a rank, XAT had the same mark left – some 85.XX percentile. And well, there was FMS too this time – with a cascaded reject effect What went really wrong was the TISS application – one real big tragedy in my life – my TISS application somehow never reached them – and got stuck due to some problem in the courier office :( :(. I came to know this only after the list for the students answering the exam was released, and my name was missing. I was devastated – the only exam left in the year also had had me bowled out – that too without taking it. :(

Eventually after the GD/PI some of my friends made it to some B-schools, and left from Bangalore with a promise from my side that I would make it the next year. I really don’t know why I committed in that way – did I have any confidence left in me, when nature itself was turning against me and telling me a different tale? At this point of time, I really didn’t know. I needed a lot of time to myself – and I made good use of it. I put to thinking as to whether I really needed an MBA – the answer was surprisingly a ‘yes’. The roads to the HR sector branched through this field of education – it was either some correspondence course I had to do, or a residential MBA, and I would have anytime have preferred the latter. 2006 was a turning point in my maturity and my thinking levels. I put in a lot of hard work at the work place, and spent the remaining time mulling over the entire thing and also reading a lot of books. Did loads of research in the HR field too. The road ahead appeared tough, but it was definitely my last shot – couldn’t take it once more, as probably I was giving a lot of my personal self and resources to it. I decided to give it all I have this time.

I was hell bent on making the preparation more structured this time. Mocks – yes – but not without proper analysis. I introspected myself well, and saw that I was an average CAT taker, who could make it to an average 97 to 98 range – but on a high scale could just peak if the score required was less. (People in this case always pray for a difficult CAT paper). I can say that in 2006 I must have spent around 65 percent of time at devising strategies, and 35 percent for concepts . If I enlist whatever preparation I did in the latter half of 2006 – it would probably lag on for a few more thousands of words – so lets keep it minumum. I enrolled for both TIME and CL mock test series. I used to take the TIME tests on Sunday mornings and CL tests on Sunday afternoons (read as useless – in fact the quality of the mocks deteriorated and so did my performance). Besides these I would take up the CAV mocks posted on PG too. I started giving more time to preparations and lesser to the office work.

Read a huge lot of stuff from the net/PG/other areas on tackling the entrances. I had it entrenched in my mind that the concepts are best wrapped up fast and all problems of similar kinds which had to be broomed. . There were two main things I did. From August, I solved all the old original CAT papers from 1996 till 2005. I knew that the problems coming in the mocks had a style picked up from old CAT papers, and I was right. Besides I noticed something strange and advantageous – the questions in the CAT papers were repeated too – believe it or not, several quant questions had been repeated, some styles of verbal questions, and some DI types. This would be great as the questions could be repeated now too . The second thing I did was keeping a notebook to note something I called ‘Out of the box fundae/problems’. These were fundae that one would hardly find in the basic concepts books, and in normal problems. You can find some of them floating on PG now, but previously they were hardly present. Some problems too, which had fundae which cyclically repeated throughout mock tests and entrance exams. I found this extremely advantageous in the mocks.

Though I saw that my scores did not improve in the mocks – in fact, they worsened. I would score in the CL mocks, and not do so in the TIME mocks. I would score the best in the CAV mocks, which I felt were really designed well. Then I did something drastic – I stopped seeing my TIME and CL mock scores. I did this for two months upto CAT. Believe me, I just used to answer the test, come home, solve the unsolved problems – that’s it. I made a ‘repeated mistakes’ doc separately – which I would keep seeing after October. The only mock scores I would check were those of CL FLT’s and the CAV mocks that I took at home. These were my only morale boosters.

However much one is prepared, the CAT surprise throws him off guard. This is something well heard of. As usual there were rumours and half truths on PG on how CAT would be this time. 2.5 hours – of course that was the in-thing new for 2006. But anything else was unknown. I had decided there would be no surprise in terms of paper pattern that could throw me off-guard – and well – definitely the mock tests were helpful in it (in fact TIME covered almost all patterns possible). Besides this, I myself made a ‘countdown’ doc in which I prepared my final strategy – as to how I would answer CAT 2006. This strategy was devised by having put all the initial 8 to 10 mock cats of the season to severe experimentation in terms of order of sections, break up time etc. This would be what I was most comfy with. Besides this there was a supplement in the doc that made the adjustments for all kinds of patterns – starting from 75 questions, 25 per section to 200 plus questions (which was also predicted by TIME, Munira L etc). All such things boosted my confidence – inspite of low or unseen scores in mocks etc. Besides all this, I would continue solving home tests, and new problems. The struggle continued till Nov 17th.

Contd...

[ashishyahoo]

Contd...

CAT 2006 – North Bangalore – Malleswaram – MES College. Spent the previous evening at the same friend’s place. Much much more at ease and confident than on the 2 years before. Enjoyed a bit with these guys before finally hitting the bed at nite. The morning crowd as usual – was used to this more than anything now. The college was a popular one, though not a huge one. Having relieved myself, I sat in my place – and didn’t know what to expect – nothin could much of a surprise now – was sure about it. The paper in – 75 questions – 25 per section – one of my expected patterns – but one of the least expected ones. 'What were the IIMs doing reducing questions' was my first thought. This was a desparate way of evaluating people – a single drop would kill – instantly . What I missed to see initially was that there were 5 options per question – somehow missed seeing that. Though the neg marking was 1/4th , the only relaxing factor. Besides this, nothing was relaxing for me once I started off with the paper. 20 min into it and 2 bubbles shaded in verbal – an utterly, hopelessly ambiguous section. Was wondering what the others were experiencing. My luck was it that somehow I struck on the right easy questions in DI. Though I couldn’t make the most out of the Quant section – how much ever easy it may have seemed at the first shot. But solving earlier CAT papers helped - i spotted lollipops evrywhere from past CAT papers At the end of the entire thing I put my head down – nervousness had once again taken the better of me. Had managed a decent attempt, but could have done much much much better. Knew the others could have blasted this CAT.

Attempts – overall 45 questions - Verbal – 19 questions, DI – 12 questions – Quant – 14 questions. – totally dissatisfactory by my standards.

The drama that followed in the next 2 months is well known – the usual jhagda between the coaching classes over the English answers – it was counted out as an endlessly debatable section – with totally ambiguous answers (and well the IIMs came out with some totally different answers at the end ). The pattern of CAT resembled GMAT this time – but the Verbal section could have been much better. Besides this were the mis-prints and so on. I don’t need to state more about it – its well known. The jhagda over the the CAT Retest still rings in PG as of today too . Though I stayed aloof from the coaching classes hassles – didn’t check my scores/answers etc. Was not at ease – but somehow managed it. Didn’t take IIFT this year as I knew I could neva score in that test. JMET was well balanced – but could have done better – though the result was terrible (some 3000 odd rank – useless to say the least). The only other exam which probably boosted me was SNAP this year – decent paper and managed it real well – all due to my sound preparations – a score of 91.25

Though the new year brought sad news again. The score at CAT –

Overall percentile – 94.56
Verbal – 85.35 :( Quant – 93.XX DI – 89.XX :(

The enthu after CAT results was all lost – faint hope for the other B-schools, but of course not the IIMs. I couldnt believe my verbal scores - that too when I discovered that somehow 10 marks in my paper were absconding - my calculated score was 10 marks lesser than the expected one. Also, in verbal I had certainly been very close in eliminating 3 options, but got caught at the final 2 - almost evrywhere :( . The worst part was that I noticed that so many of my good PG friends lost out coz of the same – the ambiguous Verbal section. (one of the biggest gang I had made in 2006 – awesome Pgites, all brainies to say the least). And then there were people who made it coz of sheer luck, maybe blind shading, or riduculous reasoning. There was little energy I put after this in XAT – was calm, composed and had a decent paper – though it was the worst possible paper I had seen in my life – perfectly CAT imbibed, though with a monstrous ‘none of these’ alternative in each question which destroyed it. (sorry XL guys, but I have said this before too ). To add to it the shock at the results – a 28 percentile which XAT gifted me at my birthday – wat the hell was zattt??? was shaken up – but kept control .

I can say that TISS was the only entrance that I blasted this year – left only 3 to 4 questions out of the 120-question paper. After the XL debacle, this was the only best college I was aspiring for. Thankfully it was an easy and decent paper. The DSE paper I took last went well, but I was unlucky – maybe I needed more speed in it.

Feb first week I had all my season-end calls – SIBM, SCMHRD, TISS, MDI (HR).

GD/PI Preparations:


Probably one of the most dear, memorable and enriching phases of my life. Memorable coz we had a good number of PG meets in this phase. . Dear coz it finally bore fruit. Enriching coz I must have neva increased my own knowledge as much as I did during this period . As usual, I have always been more confident for the GD/PI phase than for the entrances – though I had neva reached it uptil 2006.

SIBM/SCMHRD involved almost NO GD/PI preparations. Except for an all interview questions doc I prepared – listing out all the ‘most common’ interview questions and my answers to each – eg Tell me somethin about ureself, why MBA, why HR, best experiences, memorable incidents, work life etc etc. This doc was my only weapon for the interviews. The GD’s had almost zilch preparation done. Soon after the first 2 GD/PI’s I enrolled at IMS for the GD/PI classes and attended two mock interviews at the Achievers Workshop, which was indeed helpful. But what helped more was my personal preparation – interaction with HR guys in the company, with managers, top-notch introspection, preparation and modulation of the answers, speaking to the college seniors on chat etc – and above all a lot of work on the net. Wikipedia was my biggest source of information. I must have downloaded hundreds of webpages from Wiki about past political and social events, general knowledge, facts, trivia etc etc. Things that have happened in the past in India, and too in detail – most of the things that I wasn’t even aware till now. Truly speaking I never had the habit of reading the newspaper since childhood – maybe one reason was coz we always used to get a regional language paper at home. At Bangalore I somehow forced myself into the habit. Though the info I gained from Wiki, Google etc was of immense help to me.

Besides this was of course our great weekend GD/PI ‘bash’ – the Bangalore PGites meeting up for some GD/PI practice. Anarchy, Prem, Krishanu, Mufasa, Ashwini, Billy, Vijay, Saurav, Atul – some of the people I can enlist, along with whom I really practiced a lot – and the gd/pi sessions were indeed really helpful (hats off to Anarchy’s feedback sessions ). Somehow all these things together clubbed to uphold my confidence levels. The interview questions doc expanded like anything, and so did my folders on ‘India and issues’, ‘Docs to read for gd/pi’ etc etc. These contained other things like info on institute background, faculty of the institute, about the course, the electives etc etc. Background study of HR subjects like OB (my personal interest), other HR related arenas were also included.

All in all – I was a reasonably confident man on approachin MDI on March 12th at IIMB and TISS at Mumbai on April 16th. The GD/PI links to all my experiences are given below: (for additional details refer Risen from the Ashes)


SIBM

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/other-...tml#post674922 (SIBM 2007 GD/PI experiences..)

SCMHRD

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/other-...tml#post685235 (2007. SCMHRD GD PI Experiences.)

MDI(HR)

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-an...tml#post714943 (MDI (HR) GT/PI Experiences)

TISS

http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/other-...tml#post751897 (Tiss Hrm&lr (2007-2009))



All done – I was just awaiting the results. Probably this year was the most ridiculous year for MBA aspirants - with an errored CAT paper, a cry for a retest, delayed results initially, vague results, and then the OBC thingy – which delayed the final results even more. WL 15 was my MDI result – was very much hopeful about it – but fingers were crossed. Though the longest wait was on the day of the TISS results. It was something I had expected more than anything – with an excellent test and PI, a decent GD and a decent profile. Though it wasn’t to be – I had a reject from TISS – and spent 2 or 3 of the worst days of my life thinkin about why did it happen. The blow was harsh – though things worked out in May second week when MDI converted. Yes – finally it happened – for me – and for u folks too who have been bearing with me throughout this full story .

Looking back now I want to leave all my regrets behind. The HR course at MDI ranks third best in India, and MDI is definitely in the top ten colleges – hence it ascertains my target (one in the top 10). Maybe whatever happens always happens for the good (a dear friend’s advice which I shall always remember). My losses through the entire journey would probably be mainly monetary, and psychological – but my gains were totally on the intellectual and on the social side. I have grown – have matured – as I can see now – to someone who didn’t know CAT – to someone who will be doing his masters from one of the best colleges in India now. I have gained a lot of experience and wisdom in the entire experience – and would be more than grateful to grant it to others. Along with this, I have gained friendship of some of the most intelligent people in India through PG – one of the best places I have been at. Friendships that would last for a lifetime – that too even before I have done my MBA.

Contd...

[ashishyahoo]

Contd...

Advice to future aspirants (if you consider me worthy to be givin it )

On Mock Tests:

TIME – Probably the best for experimenting, but real difficult at times – so take a pinch of salt
CL – Superb in Verbal and DI – way too tough in Quant
IMS – Have improved much much more in 2006.
CF – Decent, and good morale-boosters.
PT – Heard they were just about ok.

I would say any of the above with good analysis of where you went wrong after each mock, and noting ‘out of the box’ problems would suffice more than enough. Of course, above all this, comes solving all the previous CAT papers, being thoroughly sure of every old problem that has appeared, and also of the concept attached to it.

On indivudual sections:

Verbal – My strongest, but didn’t help me much when I wanted it to. A good day bad day concept (read my notes elsewhere on PG – and on the new Verbal thread for this year). Be inherently good, and crack it. No one day/two day preparation can help you here. Especially when the ambiguity in it is increasing to large extents. Focus more on comprehending stuff – watever it may be. Will be very hepful – both in Verbal and in RC.

Quant – Past CAT papers – the best source of information. Besides these come the ‘out of box’ problems. Try things like TWI and Vedic Mathematics if only you are very confident about them ( I wasn’t, hence they didn’t work much for me). But TWI is indeed a very useful approach, especially the ‘bottom-up’ approach (through the alternatives).

DI – I am not the person to contact for this section. But what I referred – DI A Question A Day on PG, the book on puzzles by George Summers (hardly solved any, but helpful), and of course CAT oriented problems.

On CAT on a whole:

One thing I agree with Munira L on this - the sectional percentiles do matter, but what matters more is the overall percentile. If the overall percentile is low, you are directly out of the race. Though its slowly moving to the stage when the cutoffs wud be sectionally 99/99/99 and overall 99.5. The day is not far when this too will happen..

On GD/PI:

I attended IMS only – so cant comment much on the others. But this is where there is maximum preparation required on the personal front. I could probably do much better here coz of the confidence I had in myself. Make sure you get a hold of the workshops which IMS/TIME/CL conduct – they are really decent and a very good practice. I am always reachable on PG for help on this phase of the preparation (might not be a very good contender for the previous phase )

On the personal front:

1: Be sure of where you are now, where you want to be, and how would an MBA bridge the gap between the two. Only then can you jump into the ocean of preparation for these entrances – else its useless – believe me.

2: Pagalguy.com. Only this site would give you info, reviews, opinions from thousands of people who have made it, and loads of loads of trivia. I don’t think I need to say more about how to tackle CAT mentally/physically etc. Believe me, its more a game of the mind than of anything else. As so many others have said, get out of the hype surrounding it, and be a winner . Most importantly, (its tough but try it) – be yourself when the time is cricical – around ten to fifteen days countdown to CAT, on the day before, and of course on that day. It will always have surprises, and the aura of the unexpected. Its how you wish to tackle these things, by being prepared and being confident, or by thinking that after all its only an exam . Refer Pagalguy for words of wisdom from Chandoo, PsychoD, Orca, vinz and several other veterans on hundreds of different threads. Since I began on CAT, there has been almost no day when I haven’t checked PG – it has become a part and parcel of my life – and will be so too. In the words of Amit Saboo, it is really a goldmine that Allwin discovered 5 years back.


How I believe the CAT should be:

In the current world scenario, I believe that the CAT should have some subjective stuff also, probably an objective screening test, and then a second level test accompanied with essays, SOP’s, situational problems etc. This would screen out the real managers from those who make it through plain IQ. Of course following this can be the GD/PIs. The hype surrounding the supposedly 2 lakh aspirants would also be diminished in this case – as those who are worthy, and know why they need to pursue a career in management would be differentiated from those who don’t.


Signing off for now with a ‘kind of’ satisfied feeling. The calm mind is yet to see another storm, and even more thunder – the next 2 years promise to be two of the most gruelling years of my life – and yet the most fun-filled. Looking forward to an even more enriching phase of life now .


Ashish Kolvalker

MDI PGP-HR
(Batch of 2007-09)

[manish_cat]

CAT- of AAM ADMI (COMMON MAN)

Well friends to begin with I am not into the IIM-league but still feel dat my experiences will prove to be more than helpful for most of the junta.

My Profile:
X - 91% (CBSE)
XII -76% (CBSE)
B.Sc Statistics - 63% (D.U.)
Work-Experience- 2 moths in December’06 (so as good as not having any J)

So u can all see that my profile is nothing too much to speak off.
Still I had a desire to get into a good institute.
So, in my third year I started preparing for CAT entrance test.

CAT-2005

I didn’t join any institute since I never thought it could really help me.
But, I joined IMS simulator test series which I personally feel is the best since the tests are not unrealistically tough n the scores are a good reflection of what score to expect in CAT if not more. So, I started preparing for CAT in my vacations and almost completed DI and Quant in one d half months and was more than satisfied and was sure to do well in these two sections. Then I came back to campus wid a single desire to prep Verbal. But I was more than sure that mugging the words wasn’t my cuppa tea. So, I started reading books, newspaper n lots of stuff on which I can lay my hands upon.
But, then being in DU n that too a hosteller there was too many distractions like elections which took my precious time.

[manish_cat]

Then my Simcats started and I found that I more than prepared for DI n Quant bt seem to b lagging in Verbal section.
I was getting good scores overall but the sectional cut-off of Verbal seems like a far ask for me.
So, I formulated a strategy to let IIMs go and concentrate on good B-schools by securing better overall score. The last Simcat dat I gave was on the same strategy n I scored 90 percentile.
So on the d day I resumed the same strategy and had a decent paper. Though I was quite confused when I came out of exam hall since I found it to be difficult. But to my great satisfaction this was same for most of other guys too.
Finally, the results came out and d results were in line with my expectations.
Overall- 94 percentile
DI- 99
Quant-92
Verbal-60

NMIMS-790 rank
Missed FMS cut-off though I had great hope after I d given my entrance test.

I had calls from UBS, LBSIM, NMIMS, Welingkar. But I failed to get into any institute, as though they wanted me to feel sorry for not having a Work-Experience and that too without a B.E. degree dreadful.