Finally the day has finally come, when am about to post my most important journey in life till dateThe CAT

The Motivation
2006:I was about to enter an engineering college. I happened to meet a distant relative, an IIMB alumnus who was doing exceedingly well in life. The respect that he gained from others inspired me to do a MBA from IIMs(BLACKI in those days).I set my eyes on CAT and started preparing with whatever material I could lay my hands on. Then I happened to have a chat with him. He said "don't burnout so early .Take it easy".

Whiling Away
2007: Then I concentrated on engineering studies and whiled away the remaining time.

Coaching:
2008:I was in the 3rd year and joined TIME(herd instincts are too strong you see) super long term coaching for CAT 2009.I religiously attended each and every class.Then,I worked out most of the practice exercises and books.
2009: Mock season started.1st mock I scored 97.xx and in the 2nd mock scored a whopping 99.91 percentile. My friends started teasing me that I was an IIM material. As mocks continued, my performance fluctuated from 90 to 99.

The 7.5
I was not a believer in astrology in contrast to what I am now. It is said every human has to pass through 7.5 years of misfortune in his lifetime called "Elarai"(in Tamil meaning 7.5) authored by Lord Shani Bagwan. During 2009,minor health problems started troubling me. I wasn't able to concentrate on studies. This depressed me and anxiety started engulfing me.CAT 2009 came. It was the first shift to computer based test. No one was prepared for it - neither the IIMs nor prometric.CAT 09 was probably the most unfair CAT exam..wide allegations of glitches, extra time for some candidates, repetition of questions for later batches, re- exam for certain candidates and so on. I came out with 94.34 percentile and it was a shock to me. I felt I should have got more. Feeling of being wronged started affecting me. Got a lone SPJain call and was rejected outright after the interview. The emotions that went through me those days can never be explained in words.

Season2:

With support from parents I made up my mind for the second attempt. Joined a job and was preparing simultaneously. This time I was prepared for any eventuality."Let me put in my best..am not worried about the outcome "those were my thoughts. My health did not improve though. This time I joined CL Proctored mock. I found the content of CL refreshing though there were only few exam takers. I was performing steadily in the mocks and then came the C day-CAT 2010.I did well with a decent number of attempts. Then came the results night.12 Am - 99.59 percentilewow..a careful look read Verbal99.95(awesome thanks to CL), DI 96.xx(ok) and Quant (85.53 ohgod not again).Lower score in a section got me an astoundingly low number of calls - Lucknow and newer IIMs only. I converted new IIMs but could not convert Lucknow despite what seemed to me a decent interview. Now the dilemma ,whether to take up what am offered or write the CAT again??No way am I going to settle for anything other than BLACKI (despite rebukes from my friends).

Season 3:

Certainly, I felt I was under bad spell of luck. I then went to an astrologer."Yes indeed, you are under "elarai",a period of dullness and misfortune. Your health and luck will certainly improve. Be patient" these were his words. I got back to routine, this time I stayed near my office so as to cut down on travel time and utilize it effectively. I told myself " this is your last attempt, do well..come what may be cool".My outlook started changing to positive,I became more relaxed and started enjoying my preparation. Joined CL mocks and started working on quants zealously. I realized I was good at Verbal and I don't need any preparation whatsoever. Had a decent mock season. Applied to various colleges for backup..I didn't want to continue in the job either, so backup was mandatory this time.CAT 2011 did well, but attempts were comparatively less as I was cautious.
Then came the results: 99.20 with balanced sectionals. Got call from A,I,new iims and host of other colleges.
Converts: Indore (joining),New IIMs,MDI,NITIE
So, thus ended my CAT journey and my health has also returned to almost normalcy.

Final word:

*First, stop giving too much importance to CAT. You are any day bigger than a single event in your life.
*Relax, be cool. More often than not, one who enjoys doing what he does and one who is not too bothered about the outcome emerges victorious.
*Be patient, you will in the end get whatever you are destined for. Famous dialogue that applies to life:"No force on earth can stop what is destined to be yours and no force on earth can give you what is not yours".
*What the CAT journey has given me is more than an admit to an IIM.It has taught me the virtue of patience, positive thinking and a changed outlook towards living life King Size.

Cheers

I will write my experience in short.....
During my last year at IIT Bombay, i started preparation for cat, why, because my batch mates were doing so. joined ims and gave cat first time in 2008 (at that time it was paper based test). The results were disastrous only 80% scored. But through campus placement, got placed in one of the reputed steel company.
2009: First time online CAT. 2 months preparation. 85%.
2010: 1 week preparation. 78%
2011: No preparation at all. Just revised some mathematics formula. 97.5%. converted IIMK

I would say that to get success in CAT, u must have good preparation and lots of luck !!!!
The margin of error is very small.
Finally, every dog has its day !!!!!!

I have been visiting PG often and was always the one who was benefiting from the immense source of knowledge PG is. Finally today I have got the opportunity to share my MBA journey and what all I put into it and what I got. I passed out of school in year 2004, then dropped a year for IIT preparation. Couldn't get into a good college but met with a major accident. Went into a coma and had multiple fractures. I am sharing this for a reason which I will share later. Obviously the year went for a toss and I had to settle with a college I never thought that I would ever be joining. College started and the motive was clear from the first day that I need to go to a college of my choice which will give me the kind of education I deserve. The feeling of getting full one year got wasted hit me the most. I appeared for management entrance exams in the year 2008, 2010 and 2011. The first time I gave the CAT I got 78 and this year I got 97. During all this course of time I had joined TIME test series during '08 season and '11 season.



Season '08: This time I was in college. Result 78%ile. Got BITS Pilani convert but could not join because my University were late with their results and I was the one who had to face the brunt of this.
Why less CAT score? Possibly because I had bitten off more than I can chew. I referred too many resources than I could handle. And in the end everything messed up.


Season '10: I was in Infosys, Pune by this time. There were times when there was loads of work and then there were times when it was all a cake walk. But yes, for an average mind like me the preparation demanded some sacrifices. I managed get a SCMHRD call and Infrastructure management course convert this time. Later I decided not to join the course.
Why no success this time too? I had put all my eggs in one basket. Had thought that some particular exams and a particular format only suits me and hence didn't even tried for those papers.


Season '11: Now or never was the mantra this time. Had put all my efforts in whatsoever way possible. Be it studying till late and sleeping on the couch to get up early or leaving office early on pretext of going home and instead heading towards to library. I missed Diwali also that year so that I can stay back and prepare well for the last leap. Eventually I scored 97 in CAT with 99.6 in QA and 62.9 in VA. This skewed combination made me a reject piece for many colleges who were going for sectionals. In XAT I scored 95. But I had applied for almost all of the decent colleges and got around 5 calls.

Last word: Finally I got a convert to 1 year PGP course in Great Lakes, Chennai. I will not go for any surrogate brand building of my college on behalf of my experience but honestly will say that after coming here I realized that I have made a correct decision of joining Great Lakes. The itch of missing 1 year and quality teachers is no more because of my diverse peer group and superb faculty. So in the end everything turns out for the best is what I could understand. That accident made me a much stronger person and also much patient one. I deliberately chose not to discuss what all I referred for my preparation because every person have its own set of requirements and level of competence. On a broader level, I followed Arun Sharma books and some PG threads. I scored around 50-60 % in TIME and no where could relate myself to the difficulty level of tests. Actual papers are a lot easier than what comes there. One PG thread on tips and tricks of Quant helped me immensely. Just be creative in your preparation and devise new ways on how you can exert yourself more and more. Being always positive and hopeful for the future helped me digest that kind of highly unexpected VA score... I cannot miss but to mention one of the biggest motivator for me throughout my journey and that is Love. Yes... this emotion when implied constructively can bring miracles to lives. Though that particular person will not be my life partner but as my favorite quote says:
"Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart".


PagalGuy family a big thanks to you for all you kind support and making me reach the place where I am today.


Please feel free to contact me if I can be of any help to the fellow junta.


Best
Gajendra


Home | Soka Gakkai International (SGI) : My biggest source of inspiration

On facebook : gajendra.singh

Hi Guys ....
Have been reading all posts on this thread for the past one week ...
The stories here are truly inspirational to say the least, So, I sincerely thank all of you for sharing your stories on this thread ...
After reading the posts, I was in two minds, whether to post on this thread or not !! ...
Does my Story even qualify to be called a success story ?? Wouldn't my post look silly among all these stories of IIM converts & other top notch B School converts ??
Bt finally, I thought : "Cat isn't only about IIMs or the ones who converted it, Its also about those who didn't .... Their experiences, Their stories, Their journeys are equally important "... :p
SO, Here it is : "All I wanted to Speak about CAT & My Life"....
A few pointers :
1. I did not make it to a top B School .. :banghead:
2. I Did not even get an awesome percentile in CAT ..
3. My story is not for those who believe in themselves, Its for those, who don't ... (If I can make it, ANYONE can)

Phase 1 : The BEGINING ...
In School, I was among those students who are always among the Top 10 in the class, but never in the Top 3..
To be Honest, I hated studies, bt used to get by, so I was quite satisfied with my performance ...
For all of us, School life Culminates into the Board Exams, So Am jumping to that part :

RESULTS DAY :
My Expectations : Exams were decent, So expecting around 80% (I was in WB board)
Other's Expectations : He will get around 80 % ..
Result : 70.25 % :banghead:
My Reaction : How can this happen ?? I cant believe it ... :banghead::banghead:
Other's Reaction : Don't lose heart, many students from your school have scored below expectations... Maybe its not your fault, try harder nxt time ...

Phase 2 : Downfall ...
According to me, the next two years after class 10 are the most crucial phase in a students life, its a phase that can either make or break your career .. Unfortunately for me, it did the latter .. It was a dark phase in which everything that could go wrong, went wrong .. I had no focus, no aim, no ambition.. So it was No Study, No preps & no planning .. The future wasnt looking bright at all... :sneaky:

RESULTS DAY :
My Expectations : GOD, pls give me 60 % .. They ask for 60 % everywhere ...
Other's Expectations : Dont know what to expect :w00t:
Result : 59.6 % :banghead:
My Reaction : I AM SCREWED ... :banghead:
Other's Reaction : HE IS SCREWED ....

One more point, my brother had studied Btech from a local clg & was placed as software engg in an IT major .
So, a career in IT (which u guys whole heartedly detest) was my dream ...
Bt one needs to be an ENGINEER for that ..

WBJEE RESULTS : NO RANK ...
AIEEE : Scored -16 (negative) (dont remember the rank thankfully)

IT dream will remain a DREAM forever .... :w00t:

PHASE 3 : The TUNNEL ..
As I had anticipated, everywhere I went for admission, they wanted atleast 60 % ... So, dreams were shattered, Ego was crushed & depression set in ...
Finally, I got admission in a C-Grade college affiliated to a B-Grade university (Quoting NAAC ratings here) in a stream I had no interest in .. Basically, I had no interest left for anything .. I had given up hopes of a good career .. I had given up hopes of redeeming myself .. I HAD ACCEPTED DEFEAT ...
I was never interested in my subject & never tried to do something amazing in that, Surprisingly enough, the results were not bad ...
PART 1 RESULTS :
My Expectations : I Dont Care anymore
Other's Expectations : We should not expect anything from him .. :p
Result : 66.6 % overall .. 70% in Honours (In my university that is nothing short of excellent... For the first time, I was among the TOP 3 of my class)
My Reaction : I still Dont care ...
Other's Reaction : Hmmmmmmmm ... :w00t:

PHASE 4 : The LIGHT (or the CAT)
While I was in college, I came to know about the CAT, the IIMs, the pattern of exam, blah blah ...
The eligibility was 50% in Grad, so, I was eligible .. I saw it as the LIGHT at the end of the TUNNEL .. I had to reach the light somehow ... The TUNNEL was too dark for me ... I wanted to redeem myself .. I wanted to FIGHT BACK ... So, the CAT journey began ...

I enrolled with CL in classroom program...
Learnt the concepts (I think self study helped more than classroom)
The MOCK season was about to start, I thought that it would provide me a parameter to judge myself, how good i am .. Can I make it somewhere .. etc...

MOCK 1 : 98.23 %ile
I started to believe in myself ... bt was this a fluke ??
MOCK 2 : 96.xx %ile
The belief was strengthened .. I felt that I do BELONG ..
MOCK 3 : 97.xx %ile
IIMs, here I come ...

Bt after the initial hurrah .. MOCK scores decreased a bit, bt I was generally in the 90-96 zone.. with the occasional 98s.. or the occasional 80s ... :sneaky:
Seeing my performance, i was confident of making it to a B School (I was not aiming for only the top, any clg in the top 50 will do jst fine)
I knew that VA was my strength(I never scored below 95).. QA was my weakness ... So, worked on it .. Wanted to keep QA over 85-90 ... VA was my strength, so 95 %ile overall did not seem a distant dream ..

C - DAY (November 13, 2011)

My target was to score half of the total marks, in the mocks, it generally fetched above 95 .. 98+ sometimes ..
I was quite happy with my performance ... Was confident of crossing the halfway mark (90/180)
Later on, came to know that paper was much easier than previous years, so the percentile at my score may be much lower than expected ... Was kicking myself for not attempting more questions .. :banghead:

RESULTS DAY : (LIGHT or DARKNESS ??)
My Expectations : Pls GOD, give me 95 %ile ... with my profile its tough to convert a colg at below 95 .. Pls GOD ... PLS
Other's Expectations : He might just make it :w00t:
Result : 89.83 %ile (QA-85.85 .. VA- 89.97 ... Verbal betrayed me when it mattered the most) :banghead:
My Reaction :
Other's Reaction : Not bad (for him atleast)

PHASE 5 : Will I make it ?? (anywhere)
Despite the below expectation percentile, I got a few calls ...
Calls : SCMHRD, XIMB(HR), TAPMI, NIRMA, MICA ...
Near misses : IIFT (41.xx) .. NMAT (206 .. sectionals cleared)

Was very underconfident during the GDPI preps ...
My profile is nothing special .. NO CLARITY OF GOALS ... Achievements in life ...
Had mixed bag of experiences ...
The reject at MICA hurt the most (I wanted it badly) :banghead:
The XIMB profs were not at all interested (3 min interview) :sneaky:

Among all the rejects, I managed to Convert NIRMA & got waitlisted at TAPMI (expect a convert later) ...
After all this, I thought long & hard about the course of action I should follow ..
Should I try CAT 2012 ?? Should I join NIRMA/TAPMI ?? (Is it really the light that I was looking for ??)
Finally, I have decided to join NIRMA ...
Maybe its not a TOP college ... Maybe , its not my DREAM college either ... Bt nevertheless ... Its not bad either .. I believe that if you have it in you, you will succeed & it dosent matter whether u go to IIM or some unknown clg ... Lets see what the future holds ...

The NIRMA phase : (yet to come)
My Expectations : To Build the base for a good career ...
Other's Expectations : Who Cares !!
Result : (Space Reserved)
My Reaction : hopefully
Other's Reaction :

Finally :
I would like to end my post with a quote from someone else's status update on FB (I copied it) ....

"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity."
p.s: i still want my fairy tale ;)

Cheers Guys ... ATB ...

This comes, not when I am about to join a college but when I have passed out of one. There is a particular reason why I am posting it in this thread, and I would specifically come to it in the end. CAT and further performance in personality rounds will give one the choices, an important aspect of the CAT would also be the choices one makes from the various options that one has managed with these performances. These views of mine are mostly addressed to various people in a position to make these choices, though most B-school students and alumni would relate to it.

A good MBA experience is about a lot of things. A lot of things apart from the XY.Z figure where X,Y and Z are numbers in our immediate placement stat. (any case, most people end up with the same X from a good Indian b-school, and there is way too much worry about the Y and Z).

A good MBA experience is about the things we will read or the films we watch in our evenings when we come back from work. It is about the way we will spend our weekends and if things like helping out a NGO and visiting old age homes seem boring in comparison to parties at pub. MBA experience is about the way we will react to things happening around us. It is about the challenge to stop being ordinary, to stop being a conformist, to stop being a person whose choices were determined by society. It is about being a person who had individual choices, passions and a life of his/her own.

A good MBA experience is about the atmosphere in which our children will tomorrow grow. It is about the importance we will give to the career of our better half. It is even about the kind of things we would choose to do once we retire from a professional life. It is about the respect of education and its role in creating out an individual who will be an asset to the society. It is about the general satisfaction and happiness of living a life you are proud of, a feeling which numbers do not capture, a feeling which has a great value, probably the greatest value for those who realize it.

Of course, not denying that it is also about performing well in the office, and getting well rewarded for that. This point may not have come in the end, I do not wish to under emphasize the importance of this aspect. But for too long, this 'one' point has been seen as the heart and soul of MBA-output. For our own good, wish we saw things from a broader perspective.

This is a time when so many people make choices about the place of education that they would want to choose from the available options (read converts). Having been very active on PG for a over two years, and having interacted with many such people for the past 2 years, I have found it immensely frustrating how very few people show a keen interest in knowing about the overall experience that a college can possibly offer. Having completed the course, I feel that the parameters of choice by majority are not enough. Think broad, think deep

A good MBA experience is about a good life, a truly good life. It is about several things that I mentioned above because:
It will affect all these things in the future, for several decades that most of us are likely to live. Never under estimate the power of a 'good MBA experience'. I know this sounds filmy, but then the experience can often be as exciting as the most exciting of the films. Go ahead and experience it!

P.S: Like several others, I do realize that I owe a lot to the college that offered me my MBA education. On this note, would express my humble thanks to it

I guess it's pretty much already too late and I have been dormant on Pagalguy.

Anyways, I'll share my interview for IIM C here:
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=412521885444653

My Cat Journey:
Title is under consideration

Finally, posting on the sacred thread which has inspired many and will keep inspiring. . .

I am writing the post as I sail through my summer internship in a German company and wait for my mentor to come.

What a journey it has been. I wind the clock one year back and see myself overjoyed by my converts. Sacrificing the last 1.5 years of fun filled graduation had finally paid off. I was not joining an IT mass recruiter and was going to pursue MBA. . . .

I was sitting on 5 converts out of 14 calls. I still feel that a better profile would have improved my number of converts. But, one thing was sure, I was going for MBA this year and was not going to allow IT companies to put a stamp on my head stating "IT work ex". I was never an IT guy and more of a field person. Roaming in streets on my bike was my favourite time-pass. Had I not decided to give CAT in my final year, I would have been a "Biker" (feels like Steve McQueen while saying this)!!!

Anyways, what kept me going was the urge to stay away from IT jobs. . .:sneaky:

So here is the flashback. . . . .

"Dad, get me a bike. I want to do MBA." This sentence indicated that I am going to sacrifice my guitar, movies, bike trips and potential girlfriends. My college would have got a rockstar if I would not have been preparing for CAT. :drinking::drinking::splat::splat:

My friends noticed the change only one month after I stopped hanging out often with them. My best ones remained with me and others also remained with me :). I am good at Public Relations . . . !!

So, I joined Endeavor Coaching Classes as it had 24x7 open reading room (that is what I said to my Dad). Highly inspired by Parasharan Chari, I started preparing for CAT rigorously. Started skipping college and featured in the "Not-A-Good-Student" list of college faculties. It did matter a lot as my final exam results would depend on them. My priority would be concentrating on CAT and interviews as I had already assigned the responsibility of passing me to my faculties . . .

Preparing for Mock exams and solving the bulky material provided me confidence that the first Mock test out of 25/30 tests will fetch me not less than 95%. Without even giving the mock test, I started dreaming (ya, I day dream sometimes). First mock 95%, slow improvement will fetch me 99.xx% in CAT. No one can stop me from being a part of those coveted colleges.

But, alas !! 63.17% was the score displayed after I completed my Mock 1 . Yes, I still remember my score. Devastated, I ran to the center head. "Sir, raita fail gaya score pe !!". He told me to take a chill pill and go watch a movie, this is just a beginning.

I did not listen to him. Did not sleep and bunked the college next day. I realized that I was over-reacting. I should actually watch a movie.

I felt relaxed and started preparing for other three scheduled Mock tests. yeah, keeping your head cool helps a lot !! The results were 95%, 98% and 96% respectively in the next three mock tests. Did it make me happy? No, but indeed satisfied. The only aim now was to maintain the score till the D-day.

With fluctuating scores, I indeed managed to the upward side of 90% more often. Mock SNAP, XAT, JMET, IIFT, FMS etc went good if not great.

_______________________EXAM Time______________________________

As far as I remember, my first exam was IIFT. Screwed up royally.

Second exam, FMS. Same thing. Managed to clear cut-offs according to previous years but was damn sure that this year cut-offs would go high. So, another gate slammed in my face.

Considering IIFT and FMS as dry run, the following exams went decent and was expecting many calls out of it. In CAT, my Quant and DI section went good, but was not sure of verbal.

Finally verbal proved to be the villain and I was left with CAT percentile which would fetch me tier 3 colleges calls. JMET fetched me 3 IITs calls and SNAP fetched me 4 calls including SIBM Pune and SCMHRD. NMIMS also called me after I was able to smash the cut-offs in both the attempts.

The shock of my life came when I missed XLRI pathetically by 0.05%. The sad thing was that XAT 2011 was so tough, that I was not expecting anything out of it. But when I got good percentile, XLRI was just a whisker away, but out of reach. .

I missed IRMA cut-off by 0.046%. Life could not have been more cruel. Trust me missing by 4-5% is much more preferred than missing by 0.046-0.05%.

My journey towards transforming from 'an MBA aspirant' to 'an MBA' started.

___________________GD/PI______________________

So, I had a total of 14 calls. The interviews ranged from being advised to "come back next year" and also "we will see you in the batch". I was also accused of supporting a murderer when I appreciated work of CM Narendra Modi in Gujarat .

I had prepared rigorously for the group discussions and interviews. But, my profile was average. Finally, I had 3 direct converts and 2 wait-listed which eventually converted. Out of the 3 direct converts, one was "Goa Institute of Management" which I eventually decided upon to join.

I did not join the IT mass recruiter and as I write this, I feel a sense of relief when I imagine myself tangled in codes and jostling with repetitive programs. .

As I sit in the marketing department of a manufacturing company (non-IT :)) pursuing my summer internship, I am filled with enthusiasm. The profile which I have got as a summer trainee, would be my dream job profile.

I will never join an IT firm. This post will be a testimonial to my stand. But, God forbid I get an IT job, please pray my Boss does not read this Post :biggrin::biggrin:. . !!!

At the end, I would like to say that 'expect the unexpected'. After the toughest XAT examination of all the times, I never, even in my day dreams, expected a convert in a B-School through XAT.

PaGaLGuY has been and still is a vast source of inspiration and motivation for me. PaGaLGuY for me is not just a website, but a community. .

Signing off . . !! Wishing best of luck to all the aspirants. May you get what you want. . .

This is probably the most inspiring thread on PG. I have read this thread for days and months and got more and more inspired each time. I always thought of writing on this thread once I become eligible. Now, that the moment has arrived, let me begin with my story. This might not be as good as some of the experiences on this thread, but still worth sharing. :)

The humble Beginings:
I am born and brought up in Ahmedabad. Right from school, I was above average in studies, never the extra-ordinary kinds. I used to be around 10th in class size of 40 students. But I had particular interest in maths and used to do well in it.
In around 7th standard (2001), I came to know that someone from our society cleared CAT and he became the talk of the town. I was told that speed and accuracy in Maths is extremely important to crack it. And there was the start of a dream that I would one day crack CAT and go into IIMs. In the next 2-3 years, while interacting with some MBA grads, they seemed very smart and this reinforced the dream to get into IIMs. (Yeah, they now seem crazy reasons to do an MBA). Living 2 kms away from IIM-A and passing by it many times made the feeling much more stronger.
At that time, I believed taking up commerce would be good after 10th, as it will help in MBA. But then I read a article in a newspaper which suggested most of the IIM grads are IITians. And so, I decided to study for JEE ( Yeah, that was probably the most stupid reason, one could study for JEE. 8 years later, I think how immature, I was then. :grin:)

The Kota and IIT-JEE AND AIEEE
Even though, I had a stupid reason to study for JEE, It was strong enough. I enrolled into Bansal Classes, Kota and moved away from my hometown. Ofcourse, I realized in kota that people can crack CAT even without getting into IITs. But now that I had spent so much time and money, I worked hard. After slogging hard for 2 years, The D-Day came. The JEE was completely objective this year for first time (2006). I screwed it up completely. 20 days later, AIEEE was there, it went well. So, as expected, I secured a very good rank in AIEEE(1703) and failed in JEE. I got admission into IIIT-Hyderabad. :)
And now, that I realized that my notion that "getting into IITs would help me getting a seat at IIMs in future" was absolutely absurd, I was not at all disappointed with JEE result and took up engineering in IIIT-Hyderabad.

Engineering and CAT-2009 Prep
I always knew that I wasn't really made for the technical stuff. I didn't like them very much. At the end of 2nd year, I decided to start prep for CAT. I knew that was early to begin but I really wanted to get into IIM, and in particular IIM-A. I used to dream every single day, that during my stay at IIM-A, I would have home-cooked food at weekends (campus being just 2kms away from my home). I worked very hard, took such electives which required little effort, so that I could spend more and more time in preparation. My mocks used to vary from 95-99.5. In the last few days, mocks percentile went down. I was worried, but not disheartened. I knew all that matters was the final performance.

CAT 2009 D-Day
It was the first time, it went online. So, there were quite many issues sorrounding it. Thankfully, my experience was pretty good. I started with Quant, did well, DI was very easy, English was very confusing and I was not confident while marking the answers.
Since this was online, there was no way of knowing/guessing the scores before the official results.

The CAT-2009 results and Aftermath
After a long wait, results were out.
I scored: QA: 99.9 DI: 99.4 VA: 86.1 OA: 99.72
I was actually not so dissapointed seeing the low verbal score. I knew there would be no A and C calls, but I expected calls from other IIMs seeing the last year's trend. But alas, destiny had some other plans. None of the IIMs called me, because of my not so extra-ordinary academics/ no work-ex and I got calls only from MDI-Gurgaon and SP Jain.
I was rejected from SP Jain in the first round after horrible interview, but managed to get selected into MDI-Gurgaon.
At that time, I had got a job at Factset Systems. So, it was a choice between MDI-G and Factset.
Finally, some thought, I decided, I won't let go of my dream to get into IIM. I wanted to have one more chance. And I joined Factset Systems as a software engineer. This was probably one of the best decisions of my life.
( This does not mean that I consider MDI any lesser college. Infact MDI-G is one of the best colleges you can do an MBA from. One of my friends did it and his job profile in marketing is similar to what top guys at IIMs get. It was just I wanted IIMs badly)

2010-2011
Seeing the last year's results, I had decided to work for atleast 2 years before going for MBA as I wanted to get some points for work-ex in selection criteria. So, I decided to skip CAT-2010 and directly appear for CAT-2011. Experience at Factset was really good. I started liking the technical stuff and there was good work-life balance. I did lot of other stuff. I got associated with Art of living, volunteered for a lot of courses there, volunteered with NGO "Ashray Akruti", led a group in hyderabad "We-the-Change", read a lot of books and worked over a B-plan simultaneously. This 1 year was extremely good and I learnt a lot during it. It all gave me a much more insight of myself and what I really want to do in life. I was now much more clear on why I want to do MBA.

CAT 2011- Prep
So, After enjoying for a whole 1 year, I started the prep again as planned in May 2011. Giving CAT once before helped. I remembered most of the stuff and did well in most of the mocks (>99). I worked hard in English, started reading a lot of stuff, improved on grammar. During the last 2 months, suddenly the mock scores dipped. I decided, it was now or never. I took last 3 weeks holiday from office before CAT and worked very hard, used to solve a mock daily. I was much more confident now.

D-Day
Again, Quant and Logic were pretty easy and english was a bit dicey. I was more prepared this time but still found english confusing. I attempted 59 out of 60 questions. The overall feeling after it was if I manage to clear English cut off, I would be able to get some calls.

Results - CAT 2011
Finally, results came. The scorecard read
Section1( QA+DI) : 99.75
Section2 ( VA +LR) : 97.3
OA: 99.78
And I was dumbstruck for a moment. The efforts paid off and to my delight got calls from A,C, L, I and FMS.

Interview Preps
This time, I didn't want to miss the bus. I prepared hard. I worked on acads, which I hated even during college times, I read a lot on interests and hobbies, read about a lot of current affairs. Filled up the forms very diligently, at times drafting the answers multiple times before writing in final form.

Interviews
The first was L. I forgot to carry a watch. And completely mismanaged the time in essay, couldn't conclude the essay. GD was pretty okaish and in PI, I was grilled on technology and some international economics, of which I had no idea about. When I came out of PI, I knew this was a sure reject.

One month later, it was IIM-C. I was much more prepared now. Essay and GD were average. Interview experience was horrible, I somehow managed to fumble in all questions they asked, about hobbies, acads and work-ex. I got extremely tense during the interview and that affected the whole interview very negatively. I was completely dejected after the interview. Next day, It was Ahmedabad interview.

With the 2 extremely bad interviews and iim-A interview the very next day, I started loosing confidence. But soon, I thought, that if I do well in Ahmedabad, nothing else will matter. I got the confidence again. I wrote down the important questions and their answers in a notebook, so that I don't fumble in the interview.

Next day, just before leaving for IIMA interview, one of my friends at IIM-B advised me to revise the personal questions just before the interview. I kept the notebook( in which I had written answers last night) hurriedly.

Process started. The essay was bad. Just before the interview, I went through the notes in my notebook. I was called in for PI. The panel was extremely chilled out, I was somehow very confident today and PI was awesome. The best, I have ever given. 15 of 20 mins concentrated on the business plan that I worked on, and I explained every answer in detail using block diagrams on paper. After the interview, I realized that most of the stuff that I talked about in the interview was in my notes. That was probably, what made the difference in the experience. So, overall, it was bad essay, but good PI.

Results
The first to come out was C on 11th April. I was rejected. I expected this, but still I was a bit sad. Increasingly, I was getting anxious about Ahmedabad result, which was to be announced on 16th April. I was getting more and more pessimistic each passing day.
In anxiety, I couldn't sleep on 15th night. Finally slept at around 6 in the morning. After some time, I recieved a call with my flatmate from office on other side "Bhai Badhaai ho.... Ho gaya tera Ahmedabad mein". I woke up like a spring. I didn't believe him. Opened laptop as fast as I could, logged in and got the message
"Congratulations. You have been selected for PGP in IIMA ". I was stunned. I just looked at the message for some time before coming back to my senses. And finally, the dream that I saw from last 12 years came true..
And it all made sense to me finally. Everything happens for a reason. Right from CAT 2009, when I didn't get call from L/I/K, to when I chose not to appear for CAT 2010 and work on B-Plan, to the bad interviews of IIM-C and IIM-L, all of which helped me to get into my dream college IIM-A.

That reminds me the line from Om Shanti Om "kehte hai agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho toh poori kaynath tumhein usse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai " ( It is said, that if you a love something very much, the whole world conspires to get that to you ). That is so apt over here.

As I write this, I just saw that I have got a reject from IIM-L PGP but convert from IIM-L ABM. And I have my IIM-I and FMS interviews scheduled later this month. But it hardly matters now. :biggrin:

So, I am all set for spending next 2 years at WIMWI, the icing on the cake being the proximity of campus to my home(2 km). My brother says "it as an epic homecoming after 8 years ". And ofcourse, my parents are extremely happy:grin:

This brings the end to my tryst with CAT but a beginning of a new phase of life. The journey has taught me a lot of things but the biggest thing that I leant was to "Dream Big" and just go for it madly. Sooner or Later, you will definitely achieve it.

Contd.....
The Resurrection
In everyone's life there comes a point when you stop to reflect back on your life. I realized that I had no career in IT, my friend's business had failed. It was high time that I took control of my life and follow my dream of doing an MBA. So I started preparing for CAT again. This time CAT was going to be conducted online. So I used to solve papers in the office. Even on weekends I used to go to office to take mock tests. I was back on track and was confident that I could crack it this time. I did pretty well on the D-Day and was hoping for a few calls. The results were declared on 28th Feb and I got 98.5% with decent sectional scores. But no IIM calls. Ohh no wait.. Just when I had given hopes of any IIM call, Indore realesed its list. My name was there. I was delighted, elated, excited (can't think of any more adjectives). I called my parents and my brother (gudakesh) to give them the good news. And yes.. I got calls from MDI and SPJain again.
The Interview
The essay part was easy and I guess I wrote a prety good essay. Then came the PI. My desparation to convert my lone IIM call, fuelled my nervousness. To worsen the situation, the panelists asked questions related to my acads, and I either answered "I don't know" or "I don't remember". It was not as if I hadn't prepared the acads, but the kind of questions they asked were very strange and I had no answer for them. They asked a few more questions and then gave up. Towards the end of the interview I felt like crying. I wanted to beg them to leave me. It was a very short interview and I came out knowing that I had blown away, the one chance to get into an IIM. I did perform well in the SJPain interview, but was not selected and MDI again gave me a long W/L.
IIFM or RGIPT??
While the regular preparation for CAT was going on , I came to know about RGIPT and the placements it had for its maiden batch. Most of the companies which had turned up were OIL PSUs. I found it interesting mainly because by this time I was fed up of the private job and wanted the peaceful life of a PSU. Moreover by this time I was put under a different manager (still on bench though) and boy he was a true a**hole. An M.Tech from some XYZ college, he was Hitler's re-incarnation. He was the kind of person whom you would never ever want to meet or associate yourself to in your life. I had some altercations with him and I knew that I would be asked to put down my papers during the next review. This plus the fact that I saw no future in IT, made me apply for IIFM and RGIPT. Oh, I forgot to mention that I was selected for the MBA programme at IIFM in 2008, but didn't have the courage to take the bold step. I have always been fascinated by wildlife and nature. Probably I hould have joined back then.
"Whether to join IIFM or RGIPT ?", was the next big question which I had to face. Finally on the D-day I decided to take the safer option and joined RGIPT. Meanwhile during the annual review at the office, my manager asked me to put down my papers, which I readily did . I was more than happy to get out of the boring IT job and the dreaded place (Gurgaon :sneaky:) , which had sucked life out of me.
Meanwhile in August, while I was at RGIPT, IIM Raipur came out with their notification for the commencement of their first batch. I thought that maybe God had given me a second chance to get an IIM tag. I prepared well for the interview but as usual was rejected.
A lottery
Life was going smoothly and peacefully at RGIPT. I had managed to make some very good friends and everything was on track. But then old habits die hard. There were a couple of friends at RGIPT who were going on the yearly ritual (called HAJ-Cat) and I decided to join them. So on the last day of the sale of CAT form I asked my dad to buy a form for me. I managed to get my voucher a day before the test date. A night before the exam I just revised some quant formulaes.
I was very calm before and during the exam. I had no pressure to perform and probably this worked in my favor. I treated it just like another aptitude test. This test marked the end of my CAT journey. It didn't matter to me whether I got any calls or not. I was pretty satisfied with my life and was at peace with myself.
On the morning of Jan 12th, I got a call from my brother. I was half asleep when he said that the results were out and I had scored 99.05%. I said 'ok'. It didn't matter anyways. At max I would get a call from IIM I, which I was not very interested in joining any more. I was more excited for my brother who had got 99.44%. At around 11 am, my brother called again to say that I had a call from wiMwi. "What the f**k", I said. How on earth can I get a call at 99.05 when the past cutoffs have been 99.3+?
To top it all I also got calls from L and I. I was the talk of the town once again, with everyone congratulating me and asking me the dates of my interview. I devoted a lot of time to prepare my acads this time. I revised my engineering subjects along with the subjects that I had studied at RGIPT.
The D-Day
I had my first interview of the season on March 13, (not a Friday) and it was the biggest one:A. I was undecided whether to tell the panelists that I had quit my job last year to prepare for CAT or to tell them the truth. I decided to be truthful. Needless to say that I was very nervous and as a result the interview didn't go very well (yet again ).The panelists asked me some tricky question from Eco and Accounting. I managed to answer very few of them. At the end I asked them to see a portfolio of pictures which I had clicked. They glanced through the pics and said 'Nice' :). It was a desparate effort on my part to leave a good impression.
Thus ended the most important interview of my life till date. When I came out from the room, I knew that I stood no chance and that I had somehow managed to blow away the last chance to realize my dream of studying at WIMWI.
I had no hopes of making it to either A or L (it didn't go well either), and so I went back to focus on my MBA courses.
April 18, 2011
It was around 10 am and I was writing my end term paper, when my phone rang. I knew that the results were going to be out today (courtesy my brother) and at best I was hoping for a W/L. Since I was in an exam hall, I couldn't pick up the phone. Then an SMS came. My heart beat increased. I figured out that it must be my brother who has seen the result and is anxious to tell me. I couldn't resist the temptation to read the SMS and took out the phone with the invigilator standing next to me. I opened the message and it read "Pack your bags to go to the dry state J. It was infact from my brother. I felt numb and sat there for a few minutes motionless. I took permission from the invigilator to go to the washroom and from there I called my brother and my parents who were more delighted than me.
Thus ended my CAT journey which was marred with lots of failures but thankfully it ended on the right note. I dont want to preach anything except that work hard and leave the rest to luck.

My story is a bit different from the ones you had read on this forum (it's a clich told by every story teller ;)).
Early Days
I was never a topper during my school days, even though I used to put in a lot of hard work. Maybe I was never a topper material. Class X results were below my expectations with English playing the spoilsport. The IIT bug had bitten me while I was in class X and so I didn't pay serious attention to the subjects taught in Class XI and XII. I used to bunk classes in order to study JEE level phyics, chemistry and maths in the library. Somehow I managed to get a decent score (78% by 2001 ISC standards) in my Class XII exams despite getting 59% in English. There were rumors that the English paper had been checked by teachers at La Martinere:sneaky: and hence the scores were so low.
IIT JEEs
I managed to clear the screening (AIR 3000), but faltered in the mains (AIR 5200). I guess it was chemistry that played the devil's role. The next one year was spent brushing up the knowledge. I got enrolled in the one year programme at FIITJEE, Delhi , but had to leave the programme midway because of severe health problems. I sailed through the screening and was on cource to get a good rank in mains. But then fate had other plans in store. A couple of weeks before the mains I got severe eye infection. The infection was so severe that I could barely open my eyes. They were bloody red with frequent discharges of pus from my eyes. My dad took me to the best eye specialists in town, but the infection didn't go away. I took the mains exam with very low vision and a severe headache (due to the infection). During those days the mains exam was comprised of three papers (Physics, Chemistry and maths) of two hours duration each. I managed to score well in Chemistry and Maths, but during the Physics paper, the headache was at its peak and I barely managed to cross the cutoff.
The results were decleared in a week's time and I managed to scrape through with an AIR of 3782. I was happy but not delighted, because I knew that with three years of hard work, I deserved a much better rank. Anyways, I took admission in ISM and then later joined IIIT A (in second counseling).
The CAT bug
I wasn't always inclined to do an MBA. When I joined IIITA, I wanted to do an MS from some good university abroad. When I was in the second semester the results of CAT 2004 were declared and one of our seniors who was a 100%iler became the talk of the town. I said to myself "I also want to be famous like him". That is when I decided to crack CAT. Thus began my quest to conquer CAT in 2004. I bought WPME (word power made easy) and memorized it by heart. I bought a few other books and solved them. I didn't attend any classroom programme coz I felt that the classes won't be of much help.
Mocks and Mockery
By the time the mock tests for the finale started, I had mastered VA and DI. I was a bit slow in QA which brought down my overall percentile in the mocks. I managed to hover around the 95-99.xx mark in the mocks. I was stated to be the next one headed to IIMA from our college. Everyone around me was confident that I would crack CAT. Somewhere deep inside I knew that I could do it. Hence I took my placements very lightly, thinking that I anyways would be going to an IIM. I did not study a word for the placements (played AOE and CS) while other students revised DS and OS. Somehow after a few rejects I managed to get selected into Patni and Flextronics. I probably got selected because they asked very basic questions and for the tricky ones I confidently said "I haven't revised it". Anyways placements came and went away. I didn't sit for big firms like Google and Yahoo (I wouldn't have got selected given my level of preparation). Then came the D-day, I guess it was Nov 15/16 2006. I tried to get a good night sleep, but kept rolling over from one side to the other. With every passing minute, I became impatient to try and get some sleep. There are times when you feel sleepy but just can't sleep (it is very frustrating). Somehow I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep in the morning. I took a bath and left for the centre with my friends. I was quite confident that I would crack it. Then came the paper. I used to start with VA, my stronghold and boy it was one of the hardest VA section in CAT's history. There wasn't a single easy question in the section. I devoted a good amount of time in the section, dealing every question with great detail. Then I moved to the DI section, my second strongest section. DI seemed very easy and straight-forward. I did it quite easily. QA was the easiest of the lot and the questions again were very simple.
After the exam I knew that if I cleared VA cutoff, I stood a very good chance of getting calls from IIMs. The keys came out in the evening. There was a buzz around the campus with everyone comparing their answers with different keys. Most of my batch mates were missing the cutoff in VA. I started, said a small prayer and sat down to compare my keys. I started with VA and managed to get 28, which was well above the predicted cutoff. Then I moved to DI and a lightning struck me. I was getting only 32 while the predicted cut-off was 40+. I was dumbstruck, speechless . It seemed like a joke. "It can't be true", I said to myself. I somehow composed myself to check my QA section and it turned out that I had performed the best in my weakest section.
Days went by and I was hoping that somehow I would get two more questions right in DI so that I would clear the cutoff. I was hoping that the CAT guys would allow me to shift my extra marks from QA to DI (crazy idea). Meanwhile IIFT came and went and in December I completed my B.Tech (ours was a .5 batch). On 2nd jan, the CAT results were declared. My heart was thumping at the rates of knots when I entered my registration no. I will never forget what i saw. VA - 98.8 QA - 99.7 DI -71.6 OA -98.89
I sat in front on the computer screen, not knowing what had happened. My hopes of getting into the IIMs had dashed. Luck had betrayed me at the most important juncture. I could sense the grief in my parent's voice. Even they were hopeful that I would bell the CAT. XAT was on 4th Jan and I somehow managed to sit through the exam. Somehow I faltered in the VA section and missed the sectional cutoff by 1-2%. FMS came and went by. Meanwhile I joined Flextronics in Gurgaon as a S/w professional. Though I am an IT engineer, I never liked coding or any other similar geeky stuffs. I had no plans or interest in becoming a coder or a tester or whatever they call it.
Love Pangs and CAT 2008
During the training at Flextronics, I got into a one-sided affair with a girl. I kept CAT on the back-burner and took a deep plunge into the ocean of love:nono:. But then the ocean suddenly dried and I fell on my face. Apparently she had mastered in handling boys and was handling many other affairs simultaneously . I was just her object for fun at the office. Anyways, I went through a lot of pain, sorrow and grief. I somehow composed myself in October, but it was too late. I took a few mock tets , but I knew that my mind was not in the right place. I managed to get 98.2% with all sectionals >90%, which fetched me a call from MDI, which I royally screwed and got a very late W/L. Meanwhile I also gave XAT, FMS and IIFT but didn't get any call. Ohh , I also had a call from SP Jain for Marketing profile. I did very well in the interview and was confident of getting a final convert, but it never came.
Entrepreneurial bug and CAT 09
After two CAT failures, I realized that it was not in my destiny to study in an IIM. Meanwhile to take my mind away from the girl at my office (the one who was a multi-tasker ), I started concentrating on my friend's startup. Since I had no work to do in office (I was not interested either) I used to travel to Delhi during working hours to help my friend. Cat was out of the window. That year I just filled the form because of my parent's pressure. It turned out to be a disaster. I barely managed to cross the 90% mark. But due to my decent score in XAT (some 97%), I got a call from SPJain again. Only to be kicked out in round I of the interview. Thus my third season of CAT also ended on a sad note .

Contd....

"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain...."

Golden quote form 'Bladerunner (1982)', something that gave me strength throughout my journey to CAT and beyond.


CAT O'09 : The Pehla nasha

My first stint with CAT started out in my last year of graduation, when I saw people cramming packages and discussing the AIM CATs. Though, being a CSE student I was deeply into the technical aspect of IT and ITeS, the number of 00000's behind the packages of IIM grads published boldly in news daily caught my eye.( Also a lot of prodding from parents left me with little option than to go for CAT.) Come September 2009 and I had jumped on the CAT bandwagon. Joined the nearest coaching center's weekend classes and was bombarded with assignments. Life became a never-ending routine involving long hours of metro rail travel and sitting in 4 hour long sessions. College exams went from good to okay to barely passed as I found an excuse to not to study.

I always felt that it's when you decide to win you actually win. In 2009 I had not and I did not. The mocks I gave reflected the dismal situation I was in. CL mock results came with a graphical analysis and a smilie representing your score and mood. My smilie was always sitting sad at 70 -80 %ile . And as it happened frequently, I stopped seeing my scores and gave mock just for the heck of it. I registered to PG but never logged in twice that year.

The day arrived, I gave the exam and to no surprise I was again at meager 89%ile. Though I was happy that I scored better than mocks but in fact it was a lie to me. There are no 80%ilers in CAT. Not expecting anything and being at onset of placement season in college I resigned the MBA Idea. Converted a job offer and went to Goa for a fortnight of beach and booze :cheers:. I was living life of a typical Indian c-u-m-pooter engineer. Work on weekdays and booze on weekends :drinking:, life was easy until there were talks of fresher's being laid off due to coming recession. Insecurity started digging in and further education started to look like the only way out. GATE was too tough and GRE was uneasy. It was early October when again the CAT insect started buzzing in my head.


CAT O'10: The fluke

Got myself engaged into the hectic schedule of packages and mocks scoring lowest ever. I could barely manage 70 %iles. Life was coming to a halt. I remember the words of a guy who was in Board of Directors of some Top notch college, "Life mein mediocre ki jagah nahin hai, ya to Daud bano ya phir Kalaam!" and I was at that time another IT guy with nothing new to offer. It was the time of depression, peer pressure at the highest (my cousin getting shortlisted for IAS twice:sneaky:) and me searching for Govt. jobs in Employment news:nono:. Every Monday I'd be standing in some queue of bank depositing fees for a job offering as low as 12K in some cases.

I had spent no time for preparation and CAT was becoming a forgotten dream. The Day of CAT arrived and I chickened out. Yes, I forgo CAT 2010 just because I thought I can't take another low score. I went for XAT, SNAP and other low graded colleges. I got scores all averaging around 80-90%ile but never took interest in these colleges. My parents too resigned to my idea and we all thought its job for me for the next 2-3 years more. CAT 2010 ended and left me in shambles when I heard many of my colleagues had made the cut to IIMs and other colleges. Even more depressed and tired I had turned to frequent use of toxics to get high.


CAT O'11: The reconnaissance

It was June 2011 and the work of IT industry slowly seeped in. I was doing the same non-technical thing day after day. Though pocketing a good salary but the work satisfaction was into negative. Meanwhile, I saw how experienced and good natured employees get treated like rugs when they don't go bootlicking their managers. That was the wake up time for me. It was then where I decided to take control of my life. I stopped going out with my colleagues. No movies, no lunches and no weekend trips = no friends. I was now the most asocial person on the entire floor. People started ignoring me and I wasn't called for birthday parties and movies.

This time too CAT seemed to be a tough nut to crack and with better sense prevailing I checked for other options. Regular MBA after 2 years in IT will add me to the pool of crowd so I searched for other avenues. IRMA and a couple of other institutes popped up in search in pagalguy.com. A bit of research on PG left me wanting more of such institutes.

I asked for 15-20 days off prior to MBA 2011 season since it takes 4 hrs to travel to office and leaves me 2 hrs / day to study. Initially my manager agreed on the condition that I take up graveyard shift and I did. I spent 3 hrs in morning solving previous year material that I had for the next 3 months. A month prior to CAT 2011, I was ditched and my leaves were denied. I was told I could get at max 10 days leave from office. I still remember the conversation with the manager and how he indirectly told me to f*ck off if I had any problems. Nevertheless, I made full use of night shift, which includes from solving packages and reading novels to getting a nap. CAT 2011 arrived and I gave it a good shot, did well in LR, VA but missed a couple in QA, DI. As for the results, I had crossed the 90%ile barrier but was lagging at 92%ile. CAT dreams had ended for me that day.


Post CAT'11 : The awakening

With other results pouring in, I had plenty of options to go for(SNAP, XAT and others). With GD PI's lined up I took up night shifts voluntarily. Worked in night and gave GD/PI's in the day. Also,I went for IRMA, a college with a different perspective for MBA and I loved it. Did well in GD but PI was average. The serene and calm campus swept me off and I decided if not in IRMA its no MBA for me this year. For the next 2 months I ate, sleep, dream IRMA. (Watch the movie 'The Secret' and you'll know what I mean.) My chances of getting to IRMA were meager since I belong to Delhi and being from IT background, offer no mix in the quality of students. The results were announced and I had 'won'. I just read "Congratulations " and went blank. First time ever, I had achieved in life what I wanted not what fate got me. I'd be joining IRMA this year and hope to do well and do something for the society.

As for office, I resigned few days back to the shock of manager and that too before my bond period expires. Though I have lost many friends in the course and been named 'the-nightshift-guy' I take it as a reward for my efforts.
As SRK had said "agar kisi bhi cheez ko dil se chaho to puri ki puri qayanaat tumhe use milaane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai." I had asked for MBA with a difference and I got one.

The journey of CAT showed me that to achieve what you can and want to, you have to give 'everything'. I let go friends, relatives, day-shifts, movies (no movies since last 4 months), parties and not one but 2 prospective girlfriends. But, believe me the journey is all the fun, results will be forgotten but not how you achieved it. All those moments would be lost, like tears in rain but not the feeling of what made them special.
Not the end.. but a life with a meaning begins from here. I hope to post life@IRMA and life after IRMA too. Best of luck to all the aspirants.

ALL I wanted to Speak about CAT:

Opening this thread after almost 3 years gives me goosebumps. I have read every heart touching story out here. The most famous ones, and the ones hardly read but I have read them all and motivated myself in some way or the other convincing myself that I was born to do this.
A brief Intro: I come from a typical Indian middle class family trying to make ends meet every month. Seeing the lack of money maybe burned a desire right from my childhood to make it big. IIT was the key to this lock. As confident as I was, I overlooked things and failed to qualify for screening. My parents didn't have the money or patience to fund for another year of my education. I just went for the best college I could get in my own state. But the dream of entering an IIT had gotten to me so badly that I thought I wouldn't mind if it was for B.Tech or M.Tech. So instead of going for CAT in final year I rolled over it for M. Tech., Wasted 2 valuable years but in the end realized this was not what I wanted to do after getting 98 perentile. Yeah, I was THAT stupid (a lot more to come in this area). But after joing the scammed company (Satyam) and without appraisal for 2 years. I decided it wasn't fair. So CAT it was.

CAT-2008:
It started out as an experiment in 2008 with my girl friend. Maybe you give your best shot when she is trying to put your aptitude to the test, I don't know, but I got a percentile of 98.9% without any preparation whatsoever. TIME offered a discount for class room coaching. Discounts always catch the eye of an Indian. So I went for classes. And then it started, the magical world of CAT preparation. The AIM CATs on Sundays, the cross checks with the Key and the flauntings of the percentile on Pagal Guy. Was part of the toppers counseling that TIME conducted in Hyderabad with special focus on city toppers . I just LOVED all this. I didn't really have a weak section as such. I always chose which section I wanted to nail. The only regret I had though that I got into CAT very late. It is hard to focus on studies when your friends are getting married/engaged/having babies. But nevertheless I was doing quite well and the applications opened one after the other.
Now this part of my life is called being stupid, I was so damn confident that I didn't have a plan-B in place. Infact I was stupid enough to check only IIMs A/B/C in the application form and leaving out I/K/L ,and filled out XAT too. I was sure I would bell and nail the CAT :-D. All I wanted was the D Day to come before I got too old. And so it came. It was tricky mainly because there were 40 questions in verbal and only 25 each in QA and DI. But I wanted to remain unpeturbed. This was too big an occasion for freaking out. With butterlies in stomach I breezed through VA and DI and also QA in no time. I just couldn't wait to know how others did(afterall that is what matters right). Watching the faces in exam hall and seeing the people discuss outside how tough it was, I smiled to myself. But I had to check the key before I acted a jackass. With hands shaking and mind bursting I sat down to check answers with TIME, CL and IMS. All the of them read the same QA-42, DI-42, VA- 57/62/52. I was to get a projected percentile of 97 and above in every section and an over all of 99.6. Is this THE dream score or what. Blimey, these were moments where I dreamed nothing short of IIM As hallowed portals every night before going to bed. I went to the old shops of hyderabad and bought magazines like TIME, India today, the week and what not of past 2 years . I wanted to EVERYTHING and nothing short of it. I remember taking the magazines in a big heap in a gunny bag home. :-D
I was so happy doing all this that I skipped writing XAT and was partying with my girl friend in Mangalore. (Talk about being a moron)
The F-Day:
It was actually the day before the results were to be announced. But as my fate would have it, I got to know my results that very day. I was working in night shifts and was all alone in the building with the security. I opened pagalguy as usual. To my utter surprise I saw people posting hall ticket numbers and others responding with their results. I checked the calender, thinking maybe I over slept a day, but no, I was right, the results werent supposed to come that day. But I couldn't help but post my hall ticket number on the forum. Then in a minute came someones reply. It read QA- 42, DI- 19 , VA-57. OA- 118 a percentile of 97.89. A cold piece of ice was jammed right into my heart and twisted and turned. I could feel it contracting into a ball and failing to give me energy. Some part of me said the guy who posted is a farce, this cannot happen. Some part of me said, well the QA and VA scores are mine and my full name is displayed, this had to be true. It was only when I saw this with my own eyes that I believed even this could happen. I was supposed to get a score of 42 in DI but got 19. Period. Did I miss the order of marking the answers in he OMR, Did the system not scan some of my answers? Did the IIM people saw my jackass attitude on the application form (filling only A/B/C) and decide to ditch me? I have no clue to this day. But all I knew was that I couldn't change a thing. I remember crying on the floor of the office that day. I didn't know what to do. I didn't take XAT. Didn't apply for MDI, IIFT nothing. There in a flash of a moment my whole year of hard work had evaporated into nothing.
I used my connections in TIME to get in touch with some people and the best advice they gave me: Accept it and move on. I felt cheated and violated and utterly helpless. I remember my beautiful parents telling my relatives proudly that I had gotten 97.8 percentile in CAT in my first attempt. I just didn't want to show my disappointment to them for they would feel worse and it was likewise for them. They wouldn't tell me how badly hurt they were. It was the most unusual 10 days for me. Some times I opened books but with memories as fresh as that, it was impossible to concentrate. TIME came up with another discount this year. Albeit small, still enough to make me enroll. AIM CATS didn't start until April and it wasn't fun any more. And with CAT going online in 2009, I started cribbing more and more. Who knows if my only chance had passed away.
CAT 2009:
This year I didn't open pagalguy, I didn't want to see all those calls people got and all those converts. I just wanted to stay away from everything that reminded me of CAT 2008. But AIMCATs were average, effort was not upto the mark. Having denied an offer to work from London office (where I could save a lakh per month) just to prepare for CAT didn't help the cause either. It was more like I denied to go to London to make a point than to actually prepare for CAT. But after a few set backs, I got back where I was. Riding the tide of toppers in AIM CATS and being one of the city toppers. The same toppers counseling and all. It felt nice. Except this time I didn't try to be a jerk and applied to ALL the top 10 colleges including IIFT and MDI and a few IITs. IIFT was the first. Did ok, but definitely not good enough. It was one of those bad days. CAT went very good. 20 questions in each section. It was a litle too easy, but so would it be for others. I remember solving 19/20 in quant, 20 in DI and ofcourse 20 in VA. Fingers crossed. I remember writing JMET well too, got a rank of 500 I guess just missing cut offs for IIT mumbai and Delhi. Same was with IIFT, missed cut offs by fraction of a mark.

Then came CAT. To be honest I was hoping I would get my own marks atleast, didn't matter if it was 99 or 90. The result read: QA: 83%, DI: 99+, VA: 99+ OA: 99 exact. No way in hell I could get 83%. I was in doubt for one question and 18/19 were correct for sure. This time I could not even verify. Wonderful aint it?
Hmm. Where did I stand? A big boot from all the IIMs obviously. So 3 results out and I was close to where I was after CAT 2008. :-D. XAT was the thin ray of hope. I got a percentile of 98.92 in XAT but in one section I had a percentile of 90 something and I missed cut off for BM by .5 percentile(WTF!!%). So all I had was good old MDI. Yeah I got a call, converted it and didn't want to wait until I have kids to join a B-school.
Life @ MDI and after: Here I did something unusual. I applied for internships in the most unique ways. I mailed CEOs of boutique IBs with exceptionally drafted cover letters all over Europe and US. I got 2 offers, both competitors. One based in US, Silicon valley (who asked me to come on a tourist visa and work illegally) and the other based in Munich, germany (who promised a job after the internship ended and legal documentation support). It wasn't a hard choice after all. I worked my ass off. With no difference between a week day and weekend. It was M&A; and I got to talk with some of the most inspiring CEOs. As inspiring as they were, their companies wouldn't sell for nothing. So my boss thought, when you don't have work why hire a new employee (although I have to tell you, my salary was like peanuts for him). He was more focussed that his associates shouldn't get free time at all (which they would if he hired me). But anyway I finished the internship In a bad and abrupt manner. But I had the experience which was priceless.
Placements @ MDI: When I say this, I guess I say this on behalf of every B-school student in the country. Placement time is the most depressing time in life at a B-school. Atleast for people from a middle class family who have education loans to pay off and have parents to support. I was no where making progress with my work search outside. As I understand looking for an internship is easy and less complicated than looking for a job. I bet you wont get a single response for a full time job even if you send 500 applications in Europe. That is the ugly truth of it. So MDI was the one and only hope for me. Right from the beginning it was made clear that placements would be worse this year. (recession ofcourse!). This combining with the fact that MDI is known more for marketing than Finance made it a cat fight for people who specialized in finance. Having 50% people specialize in finance and chasing a handful jobs, my odds were sucky even before it started. Add to that a full time work experience of 3 years in IT. The IT companies came first and it was the same question everywhere. You did your internship in Investment Banking, The role our company is offering is too low profile for you. It was as if I was being penalized. Although I convinced myself and others that I wanted to work in IT, things didn't pan out. I couldn't get placed in 3 whole of weeks of IT and consulting companies. Finally SBI CAPS announced its short list. I was there, so were 13 other people. SBI planned to take 2 people.. and I was one..

Will be an M&A; analyst at SBI Caps very soon..
With a thousand smiles,
Siva

Disclaimer: This is going to be a pretty long post that might test your patience.

Season 1:

Cut to Dec 2007: Joined Wipro Technologies in Bangalore through campus placement after graduating in Electronics and Instrumentation engg. Was happy to have landed a coveted job and was already dreaming about onsite opportunities.

Transferred to Chennai after training at Bangalore in March 2008. Things started to go downhill from here. Was put into a project with odd working hours and an odd manager to top it.
Slogged everyday and even weekends were spent in office cubicles.
Later, I realized that I had started to take my job very seriously which my manager exploited.
My Take: There are other things in life apart from slogging at work. Do not take it too seriously like I did that you cant focus on other activities. :)

In the meantime, thought of writing CAT and joined AIMCAT series of Time. Mock scores were always in the range of 60-90%ile. CAT 2008 was going to be the last paper based CAT and I wanted to crack it as I was nervous about the online pattern.

Jan 2009: CAT results out 94.68%ile. Damn.. most of the decent colleges like IMT and IMI set 95%ile as their cutoffs. Thoroughly disappointed that I missed them by a whisker. Got calls from IMI(HR), KJSOM and MICA.

Mar 2009: At work, had a tiff with my manager and was shifted to a different project for another client.
Was happy that I finally got into a decent project under a helpful manager. :)

Apr 2009: Rejected by KJSOM and MICA. Had disastrous interviews in both.
Converted IMI(HR) though.
Paid the initial sum and reserved my seat. Here, my mind started to play games.

Somehow, got convinced that I deserved something better and plus my current project was interesting. Also got caught up thinking that a minimum of two year work experience is needed for lateral placements in B-schools. So, having completed 17 months why not wait and gain some more experience.
So, I withdrew the amount I had paid a month before the course started and started preparation for CAT 2010 the first online CAT.

My Take : I was wrong. Two years is the criteria for laterals but if you are opting for a completely different sector post-MBA, then it will not be of much use.

Season 2:

Joined TIME AIMCAT series again as I was quite apprehensive about CAT going online. And again my scores were always in the range of 30 90%ile. Never crossed 90 despite working hard.

Nov 2009: Wrote CAT with about 44 attempts and was not sure what to make of it.

Jan 2010: Results out.. 94.30 %ile overall with my strength VA proving to be spoilsport. Great.. so what next was the question on my mind.

Deeply frustrated I told myself to work hard at office and at least get an Onsite role that all my friends had already got.
Felt like a loser seeing all my peers who had moved ahead in life. :banghead:

Season 3:
June 2010: Transferred to Bangalore to work directly at client office. Was convinced by my manager that I would be sent abroad after completing 6 months at the client place.
Little did I realize what I was heading into.. Worked as a contractor at client place and was loaded with work right from day one.
Too much of pressure at work meant that I spent long hours again at office like my first project. But, convinced myself that it was a question of six months.

Nov 2010: Wrote CAT 2010 just for the heck of it. Had got used to it now.

Dec 2010: My manager who had promised to send me abroad had resigned and joined another company.
With Wipro offering virtually no salary hike over 3 years of service, put in my papers at office. :D
Ah.. The satisfaction on putting your papers felt unbelievable.

Jan 2011: CAT 2011 results out.. 96.30%ile overall with DI at 58.xx%ile. Whoa.. That was a surprise..:o Had absolutely no expectations. Anyways, DI had killed all hopes.

Season 4:
Feb 2011: Joined new company in Bangalore. Was happy with salary raise (>90%). :D

Apr 2011: In a couple of months, realized that though I was getting paid well there was hardly any challenging work. Maintenance projects, I understood, were always like that.
Back to square one.. what was I doing with my life was the biggest question staring at me. :banghead::banghead:

Jun 2011: Finally, made up my mind to write GMAT and try for B-schools abroad.

Jul 2011: GMAT day - I realized that I had misplaced my passport. Had my DL and Voter ID cards as proof and thought it should be enough. But , at GMAT testing centre, was told that only passports are considered as proofs recognized by GMAC for South Asian nations.
11000 rupees gone down the drain.. Himmat nahi hui phir se 11000 kharch karne ki.. Sadme se bahar aane me waqt to lagta hai boss :banghead::banghead:

Aug 2011: Joined the last weekend classroom batch for CAT 2011 at TIME, Bangalore as was offered a huge discount based on previous scores. Thought it would also help for GMAT which I was anyways going to write. Also joined IMS SIMCAT who also offered huge discount. Scores varied from 50 to 99%ile in both of these.
My Take : TIME AIMCATS , I believe, were of a little higher level than what is asked in CAT especially in QA section. Felt IMS SIMCAT papers were much closer to actual exam especially the VA section.

Oct 2011: Resigned at work after lot of thought.. Had to serve three months notice period though.

Nov 2011: Wrote CAT for one last final time.. Final I repeated this to myself umpteen times before the examination.

Jan 2012: Finished serving my notice period at office.
11 Jan 2012: 98.99%ile in CAT 2011 with 90+ in both sections.. Refreshed page many times to confirm the score.

Got calls from six new IIMs, MDI, NITIE, IITB, IITD, XIMB,GL till now. Was happy and sad sad to miss out on all the old IIMs, happy to have made it at least to the others. But also understood that making it to the hallowed old timers would always be tough irrespective ofmy CAT score because of my acads at school. (80 and 72)

Am still hoping for an FMS call which is a dream college for me am an eternal optimist you see.. :)

Summary: 4 attempts it has taken me to get a decent score my only advice is to think hard before taking any decision rather than regret it later.

With 4 yrs of total experience in IT, am still faced with the dilemma if I should join any of these if I get through or should I look at GMAT (ISB etc.) which I am writing in April. Any pointers and suggestions will be appreciated. But, we will keep that to a later date as I still need to convert these calls.

ATB

Hi All,

Unlike most of the posts on this sacred thread pf pg, my story is that of an aspirant, who has been running after cat for past two years, preparing for past three years, and now looking forward to season 2012.

It all started with season 2009, when I was third year student at NSIT, Delhi. I had joined coaching for Cat at cl cp center, solved most of the course material, finished the SIS tests by July, took all the mocks religiously, scored a maximum score of 97 98 in a few of them, fell down to 60s in few mocks too. But nevermind, decided not to give up. Came the season 2010, had an average Cat, expected somewhere b/w 95-96 after writing cat, only to be unaware what Normalization or wrong questions in a set can do to you ( I took exam on 31st oct, 2012 in morning slot, in case any of you remembers, this paper had three straight wrong/incomplete questions in DI).

Then came IIFT, and I scored a negative in gk, with an overall shameful score of 22-24. The next sunday was fms, the last fms exam conducted in its history. Managed a score of 385-390, was sure I had done above average, if not good enough for a call, only to be later realize people had actually raped the paper, with lots of them scoring in 420s.

Cat results were leaked on Jan 2, 2011 and I was one among the people who checked their results beforehand. BTW, i had managed only a meager 90.29 with a shocking 49 percentile in DI.

After all this, I finished with my college, had a decent placement in electronics domain, and joined the company same year in June, and have been working for same since last seven months.

In meanwhile, I had always thought of finishing my unfinished business with Cat in 2011. Started with preparation from scratch, enrolled with Aimcats, started taking aimcats. Scored 98 and 97 consistently in few mocks in beginning. Then came the shocker, suddenly with increasing pressure from office, my scores started to fall. Was managing 80-85 in mocks, and even scored in 60 in one of the aimcats. But throughout all this, I knew that what matters was my performance in cat, and not mocks (biggest illusion I was in).

Throughout the mock season, my scores oscillated, with 98 being my highest score in any aimcat (99.6 in quant in same).

Then came the big day, Nov 6, 2011. I had hoped everything would go as per my plan, I would do super good in my cat. Started with Cat, somehow felt the quant + di part was a bit difficult when compared to whatever inputs I had for previous slots. Tried my best to escalate my attempts maintaining accuracy. During the last minute I realized I had missed a percentage sitter which was ques 30 in my set. Nevermind, I had managed 23 attempts, and I knew they were reasonably accurate.
Then came the paper 2, English for sure was on easy side, with some confusing LR, and a wrong set again. Finally I was done with Cat 2011. Came back home, knew I had done an ok job in a relatively tough exam.

After Cat, i took IIFT and XAT, scored 37 in iift, not to mention could not get a call. XAT results are awaited. I have applied only for XLRI BM, and not expecting a score above 27 and ofcourse no call.

BTW cat results were declared last week. I have scored 96.80 with 94.xx in VA/LR and 95.xx in QA/DI.

And after all this hard work, and struggle, I am awaiting my first B-School call, which seems difficult this year too, may be I ll get an MDI call, but to convert it would be very very difficult at 96.80. So, I have decided to chase my dreams again in 2012 season, and return even better prepared.

Lessons Learnt :

1. Sometimes hard work isn't what you need, luck matters.

2. Do not stop chasing your dreams, I may have lost twice, but I am ready to put in all the efforts again, as someone at pg said ( and I ofcourse read ) "Burn yourself for an year, and you will be the king for your rest of life.

3. No matter how good you are in a particular section, it will be difficult to nail it on real Cat day ( happened twice with me, scored 95.xx in QA in both 2010 and 2011).

4. There will be ups and downs during your cat journey, never let the down phase impact your confidence.

Having said all this, I end my post, with a hope of apending this post next year after Cat 2012 results.

Thanks for bearing all this, and apologies for those who had expected a success story.

All the best puys , for whatever you aspire for.

Best Regards

"Life is stranger than fiction", I believe each word of this line after a forgetful and horrible 2011 on every front...and yet the year when I got...oops clinched admission in one of my dream B-schools. Grit!! :biggrin:
Here goes my entry for this sacred thread...hopefully my story do some justice to it...

CAT 2009...The Beginning of my Dream

Started CAT preparation with only one college in mind, IIM-A, way back in 2009. Took CAT 2009 in much venerable 6th December slot. My strength VA screwed me, as for the first time I saw a VA %ile less than 97. Missed IIM-A by 0.3%ile in VA, 1 mark in scaled score (Cut-off 73, my score 72). Was too disappointed but still thought of waiting for other IIM's to come out with their list. And to my amazement, not only CAT has changed from pen-paper to computer based test, but the belief of the very institutions conducting the exam was wavered in the authenticity of CAT. Every IIM came up with a weird criteria: gender diversity, cultural diversity, professional diversity, work-ex (at the time of call itself, previously work-ex used to be considered at interview stage by most of the IIMs), or what not. Anyways, got a call from IIM-K, IMT-G, and MDI on CAT based score. Moreover, since I had missed my FMS DI cutoff by 1 mark (I know some sheer stupidity did me in), that despite scoring 370 in FMS Jan 2010, I missed on my other dream college FMS. XL score 98.22%ile, same story, missed LR cutoff by 0.15%ile. JMET, took with a very casual attitude, reached centre late, rank 192. But didn't go for any IIT interview. After missing the cut-offs by slimmest possible margins, first time I felt depressed in my life. Didn't prepare for GD-PI, converted IMT-G, MDI WL (later converted I guess, never tracked the WL actually), IIM-K reject.

CAT 2010...Collecting shattered pieces
Joined a company fresh out of college. With a 14 hour schedule (5 hrs of travelling), didn't get much time to study. But strangely mock scores were simply refusing to go below 99.8%ile in CL and 99.5%ile in TIME mocks, mainly riding on VA scores. Brushed up some concepts in last few weeks. Again took the CAT, this time weekday slot thinking it may change something. But comes the CAT result, and if I was shocked to see my VA score last time, I simply smiled at the score of 79.9%ile. Again, couldn't figure out how I messed up VA. And look at the irony, had it been 80%ile, would have got 3 more IIM calls. But that's how the life has been. Got IIM-K call, SP Jain profile based call, thrashed FMS with 508 (never did any previous year paper, though every time I plan to do). Decided ki FMS to nikaalna hi hai. Prepared v well for GD/PI. May be best preparation for anything post my 10th class boards. Mock Interviews seemed all cakewalks with very kind and encouraging feedbacks, but may be in my zest to leave no stone unturned I took too many of them...But if there were more tests awaiting on personal front...I had a fight with my best friend...it broke my heart...and also at the same time...I was suspected of typhoid with recurring fevers...but the steeper the climb becomes, my determination gets even stronger...and so I continued...Took IIM-K interview in jolly spirits, went v well...but D-day was still to come..

Came the FMS D-day, I did a fine GD, controlled my desire to control the GD and walked away with a decent score. Thought now I will nail it. After all, interview and extempore were my forte. But what happened in those five minutes, I still feel that's the most unjust interview I've ever faced in my life, notwithstanding results. IIM-K's rejection was not a surprise as ratio for a general boy is too skewed, and tilted too much in favour of fairer sex (not cribbing, simply stating a fact. By the way, SPJain interview mein kis level ka discrimination hota hai wo maine suna tha, but first time dekh bhi liya). Anyways, even after screwing up FMS interview, I thought I will get at least 15 marks out of 30 and would sail through. But 18th March came as the worst dreams coming alive all together. WL 46. So frustrated, that when I went for MDI GDPI, dominated the GD in a brutal fashion from the word go. And started the interview in an argument fashion. Wait listed again. And, it got cleared again.

CAT 2011/GMAT/GRE...Life is strange and full of surprises
Moved on. Season 3. More importantly GMAT. Booked a slot for August end. But if fate hasn't enervated me enough, for worst I cleared FMS waitlist in 7th movement. Resigned from my company, when my appraisal was due. Went to take admission, submitted my certis, and was just submitting the fee, that a newspaper clipping comes about supreme court order - Stop the admissions for general candidates in UG courses. I tried telling them, this is not a UG course. But to no avail. Next 20 days were unimaginable. Managers asking daily whether you are going or not. And colleagues coming to congratulate you. Seems like fate is laughing on me. The days were spent understanding legal terminologies, reading previous SC and HC orders. But lost respect for slow judicial process as well as an incompetent FMS administration (reminds me of the admin of my alma mater, another DU college). When I realised that little enthu has left to do my MBA frm FMS, I collected back my certis. An admin staff member said sorry to me. As if it's going to change anything. Also, had to move the GMAT slot to January as I wasn't able to focus on anything...Leave aside taking the GMAT

I started again. Felt really difficult to keep my self motivated. Had no scope to study on weekdays. And on weekends, I felt like taking rest from such a hectic schedule. But I knew I will come back, not with a vengeance, but with a calmness. It had to be a top B-school, and if not older IIMs, XL, or FMS ( was still in two minds whether to fill its form or not), then after some more work-ex it would be ISB and other Ivy league colleges. I believed in myself, but more importantly I believed in my dreams. As someone said:

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die,
Life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly".

And just the day I filled CAT 2011 form, a week later, HC awarded me the admission in FMS. But it was already so late that I didn't know whether to be happy or sad. Confused whether to join or not. Had this strong gut feeling that I would do well in GMAT. Also, CAT 2011 was going to be a 2 section paper with Verbal clubbed with LR, so Verbal fears allayed then and there. Finally, after lot of thinking, talking to my best buddies, talking to my mentors in TIME and CL and Malay Ray sir, I decided to join FMS. :)

Btw...funny thing is the two tests I booked (GRE and GMAT) when I was wait listed in FMS...I scored well in both of them with out taking even one single mock or any study watsoever. Also aced the Verbal of both Prometric and Pearson.


Season 2011: GMAT 770/800 (QA 51, VA 42), AWA 5; GRE Revised 329/340 (QA 168, VA 161), AWA 5; CAT 2011: 99.87 (QA-DI: 99.92, VA-LR: 96.25)...
Hopefully, GMAT score would be used in application for some advanced courses later on...
Season 2010: CAT (98.23%ile, VA joke), XAT (94.67%ile, couldn't comprehend), FMS: 508
Calls 2010: SPJain (Reject), IIMK (Reject), MDI (Didn't Join), FMS (WL Converted, FMS admin backtracked, Legal Recourse gave me admission...Wat a ride)
Season 2009: CAT (99.22%ile), XAT (98.22%ile), FMS: 371, JMET (Rank: 192)
Calls 2009: IMT (Convert), IIT-B (didn't attend), MDI and IIMK: (Attended half heartedly)

Btw...one tip to all CAT aspirants: Believe in that stupid line in Alchemist, "When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true"
May be I wanted an MBA like one wants air to breathe...I "was" just way too crazy about it... :)

P.S. Updating the post...Got 99.87 in CAT...this is freaking awesome...finally it's proven again: "Hard work doesn't go unrewarded forever". And frankly, this happiness is billion times more than 770 of GMAT...

It has been a long time since I decided to write on this holy thread. In view of the CAT 2011 results coming up, I finally decided it is time

It all starts with my school. Throughout my life I have been an underdog. Right from my school days I was the 'dark horse'. That always kind of fuelled my inner desire to give my best. In the run up to the standard X exams, I was among the top 5-10 students in our school. But I was overlooked in favour of others. (I love my school though, without it would not have been even half the person that I am ). Finally I managed to shake off that dark horse tag and stood second in our school. An achievement for me not because of the numbers, but because of the effort and the satisfaction involved in doing so.

This continued in my XII days. I was nowhere near the top. I was going all out for the medical entrances (science still interests me ). To everyone`s surprise I stood 164th in Medical CET. Guess being a dark horse suits me

Fast forward to medicine. To be honest, I liked medicine. But I wanted to do something which would challenge my grey cells and involve application. I gave it a bit of thought and after consultation with parents, seniors and industry people decided to give MBA a shot.

Season-1
This was a disaster. My fault. Not enough preparation coupled with bad luck.
Near misses XL, FMS. Some OMR marking errors in IIFT.
CAT was a disaster. Somewhere else in my nomination for MMDT I might have mentioned this. I do not want to talk about it because I do not want to sound like a sore loser. Anyway it does not matter, I got better testing conditions next season.

Season-2
I began taking mocks on a regular basis. I enrolled for TF, then TIME IMS and CL. I had a dilemma which i have mentioned here
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/17842-is-dropping-for-cat-justified-26.html#post2684127

I had decent mock scores, instilling in me the confidence of scoring well in CAT. On the C-Day I just did not think about what if this does not go well or anything like that, Just another exam. period. overhyped.
I think this helped me a lot. Whatever nerves I had disappeared in the first 10 mins. I solved close to 46 questions. I was quite sure that some of the QA questions were wrong. Later I cross checked it with my quant expert friend. (not sure what Prometric did with those )

I also did well in other exams. Got a nice feeling about SNAP. XAT was not good at all. But then came the biggest day. C Results Day. Saw a 99...then 99.23..Mixed bag? But I was happy as hell, coz I knew what can happen with normalisation (tried not to discuss this, but it came up anyway). Got calls from IIM L, I, A(ABM) and later Ka. Got a host of good scores in other exams. Best call was lined up on 23rd of Feb. Opening day. First day first show feeling. Opening batsman feeling.
Interview was again a mixed bag..did not know what to make of it.
http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/cat-and-related-discussion/63188-2011-2013-iiml-essay-gd-8.html

However I had other calls apart from the IIMs like IIFT, MDI ,FMS, TISS, SIBM and NMIMS and MAH MBA CET to go. So a lot of optimism was still intact.

In the meantime INDIA won the WORLD CUP 2011. I thought IIM L ho jaega INDIA jeeta isliye(superstition anyone?).
11 Apr: 99.95 in Mah MBA CET. Thought of JBIMS as a backup if IIM L bombed. Safety net
18 Apr: ABC results were out.
18-onwards: Anxious wait. Was refreshing IIM L website and PG like a man possessed.

Finally, 21 Apr 2011. IIM L result link was on the page. Checked it. Read Congratulations.. Did not read anything after that, just shouted. Neighbours thought house was on fire and came rushing :biggrin:. Unforgettable moment to say the least. Immense pleasure in converting the best call I had.

2 years on, I had got what I had set out to. A real nice feeling.
I realised that the real fighter is the one who can get up even after being hit repeatedly. 'Never give up' is the way to go.
Life is not just about achievements or self glory, but it is more about making others happy.

Regards,
Dr Sushrut
PGP27- IIM Lucknow

Hi,
Well, i was in the same place many of the readers are exactly one year ago... Seems like it has been not a long time since then that I am sitting at the other end penning down my experience. A brief profile of mine,
10th and 12th %age : 93+
Dual degree in CSE in IIT Kharagpur
IIM A

I`d like to touch upon two things, very important things, which will help and according to me, the only ones which will to bell the CAT. - Practice and Confidence

I decided to take CAT in my 4th year (A dual degree is a 5 yr course). So, had lots of time to prepare. There was a series of mock tests going on in our campus by various coaching institutes to admit students at various discount offers. One friend of mine pushed me into attending one of these and I thought instead of wasting time in front of my laptop in my room, why not give an aptitude test. It proved to be very challenging and then I started noticing the CAT fever slowly gripping the campus. Till then, I ignored it, but since the test, I somehow took it a bit seriously. Summers came and went with the usual project work and internships. By the time the announcement of vouchers came for CAT in my final year, I already gave some 50+ mock tests offered by various institutes. However, i realized that I was lagging behind in certain areas. This was the time when I took things more seriously and strictly followed a test a day (Practice guys). I tried to cover all the models, kept working on and the final d-day came out. I had to give my test in Calcutta and picked a center near to IIM C campus with the idea that i can see the campus and also talk to some people already inside. I stayed with a friend in his room. I met a senior there, who told me that given enough practice, the only thing necessary on the day is Confidence. His words still ring in my ears. I couldn't sleep all night with all the anxiety. However, i managed to grab some sleep in the early hours, only to be waken up around 1 hr before the test by my friend. I rushed out, reached the center when 15 mins are left for the start of the test. They made me run through the entire formalities very quickly and was infront of the desk 2 minutes before the test. Be confident was the only thing which i kept repeating to myself. I thought DI and Quant went very good. However, i was not satisfied with my performance in verbal(Later came to know after talking to a few friends who gave CAT the same day that the verbal paper that day was pretty tough and I was actually in a better position). I took the train back to Kharagpur a bit disappointed and left everything into the hands of the almighty. Placement season came and went.. Got a good offer and accepted it. The day of results gave a sweet news to me with 99.6%ile. Shortlists and calls followed, and I got all 6 lists I wanted .. I earned the distinguished honor of being a BLACKI in the campus.

About the interviews, later sometime when the process starts.

Again, I would like to point out only 2 things.. Practice and Confidence. With these two arrows with you, CAT will not be as tough as it might sound.

Key Takeaways -
Well I'm in no stage to preach to people. I still have a long way to go in my life and a lot to achieve. For one I've done everything till now in my life for myself. I want to reach a stage where I can give back to the society. I also am very new to my industry and have a LOT to learn here. Its very competitive, and either you are good or you are out. I also broke up a few months back and I guess an immdiate goal is to find a soulmate. So a lot of stuff still pending to do, But I still feel I have more experience than I had say 10 years ago, when I started off on this journey. So I can give a few takeaways I have from this journey.
A) Never EVER .. EVER.. give up on your dreams - However stupid you feel they are. Its only over when YOU feel its over. Till you don't give up, things do work out. Watch the movie - "The secret". In a nutshell that movie can be summarized in SRKs dialogue in Om Shanti Om. "Agar kisi cheez ko poori shiddat se chaaho, to saari qayanaat tumhe usse milaane ki saazish me jut jaati hai", i.e. If you love something with all your heart, the Universe conspires to give it to you. There are a lot of times during the whole fiasco called life mentioned above, when I almost felt like givng up. There were a lot of failures, a lot of Nadirs.. But I'm so thankful I did not. So don't ever give up on your dreams. Even if you are the underdog!
B) wake up.. as soon as you can - I don't know in what stage of life you are, but some people, like me, need a wake up call at times. My Wake up call was around the area where I flunked CAT the 2nd time. The realization was , I had wasted my IIT degree. Ofcourse the knowledge was there beforehand, but it sank in then, when I saw 1.5 yrs of a mediocre job in front of me. I mean, I had invested 2 extra years of my life to get into that place, and that place did give sufficient opportunities, but I blew them away by not being focussed enough. I did not know what I wanted to do, I did not even have a well prepared CV in placements, I didn't have a good CG to show and a couple of flunked courses. I had wasted a golden opportunity. Investment banks hired from IIT too, though in much smaller numbers than IIM. But the absolute best guys there made the cut. I know of people who were my batchmates at IIT, who are now 4.5 years into the industry I'm 6 months into. I'm essentially 4 years behind them in my career. OFcourse, you always compare yourself to your peers wherever you are, and this is not to say that I'm unsatisfied with my station in life. But still, I wish I had got the wake up call I got much later, at an earlier point. Once I did get the wake up call, I fought hard. For example, I sweated hard in IIMC against odds, be it academics or placements, because I did not want to waste my IIM degree like I did my IIT. The days after IIT were like a social stigma. I was in a very average job, whereas people I chilled out with in hostels, went to movies with, attended classes with and had dinner with were earning 3 times as much money as I was, handling much more responsibility. I even didn't want to talk to such people because it made me feel insignificant and an underachiever. I did not want to make a similar mess at IIM, so I woke up then, thankfully. If you are still in the unawoken stage, and chances are, many of you reading this have just entered/are yet to enter IIM, you can still make a difference. Just remember, getting into a good Bschool is not the End of your struggle. It is the beginning. Once you are in, sweat harder than ever, because your competition is top class. You might still land up pretty average on a comparitive basis if you just stop working hard after entering a Bschool.

C) Be honest. Be it an interview, an essay.. anywhere. If you have a story, be honest about it. If you make stuff up, they would catch you and it wouldn't be appreciated. But most of all, be honest to yourself. A lot of time we lie to ourselves. We actually manage to convince ourselves of things which aren't true, by repeating those things to a 100 people and to ourselves. We start living an alternate reality, a make up truth. We justify our failures to ourselves, putting the blame on external factors rather than ourselves. Never blame others for what's wrong in your life. Take ownership, responsibility, be honest to yourself about it, face it and Fight it!
Godspeed!

Day Zero..
As we filed into the audi, there was a hush in the air. Today the batch of 2011, IIMC would have its first real test. Summer placements were extremely important, especially for I-banking aspirants, for these companies largely hired through PPOs or Pre PLacement offers. Very few of these visited the campus for Final placements. So if you had to become a banker, this was your best shot. The process started with the first lot of names being called out. I wasn't in it. IT was a little disappointing as this meant that I wasn't on any company's 'Hotlist'. Moreover, within the first 10 minutes, IB1 had already made 2 offers. They had mentioned in the interactions that they were looking to hire 4-5. The numbers were rarely fixed, because they could recruit more or less depending on the quality of students they met. A B and C schedule their summers to being on alternate days, for example Monday Wednesday and Friday in the same week, so that the panels flying from Foreign countries can finish their recruitments in one visit to the country. So if they didn't fill their Quota from one campus, the excess seats rolled on to the next. So with 2/5 of their seats gone, I felt I had done the right choice by preferring IB2. However, I still felt a sort of closeness to IB1, since they had been my first shortlist and had brought me back from the verge of hopelessness.
The second lot had my name in it and I was directed to IB2. The same gentlemen interviewed me, but unfortunately had made the one offer on his desk to the guy who had gone before me in lot 1. He said that he had no way to know if I would turn up or be lapped up by another IB. Now the thing with day0 is, there are some amazing CVs on campus, people who every bank wants. Banks typically want to go through their processes as soon as possible, making the first few offers in the minimal time, lest these 'superstars' get lapped up by their competitors. The banks are as tense as the candidates. They want their next crop of outperformers, and missing out on good people on day 0 might leave them at a long term disadvantage. As a result, most banks started their process in the morning and finished it way before lunchtime. And by lunch All banks recruiting teams and recruited candidates were at the Taj Bengal on adjacant tables.
The gentlemen said he felt truly bad for not having an offer left for me, and redirected me to a colleague of his interviewing for a different desk. I was a little perturbed, and the interview did not go too well. For one, it was not for markets but for IBD, which I wasn't interested in. I wanted to be a trader. Anyway, the interview didn't last too long. The Gentlemen again met me outside the interview room and said he would give HK a call and see if he could hire another intern. He asked me if I could wait for an hour. I obviously couldn't wait, as I would miss out on my other shortlists too. Time was a critical resource on day 0. I told him my problem very politely, and requested him to inform the placecom in case they wanted to make me an offer. In case I was still in the process I would accept it.
It was disappointing, to say the least. I saw day 0 evaporating in front of my eyes. I never had much of a chance anyway. I was redirected to IB1, and I thought I'd just go there and give it my best and leave the rest to god. When I reached IB1, I saw the batch topper coming out, shaking hands with the interviewer. He had been made an offer. The Company volunteer from 2nd year told me that 4 offers had been given till now, and they just might take one more. Now, they had around 10 people on their shortlist they hadn't interviewed, and they had one slot left. Ofcourse, the wouldn't interview everyone, but it was still a far shot. The company HR came to the company volunteer with a list, asking for a particular guy. That guy was more interested in consults and was interviewing with them. However, he was still in the process. IB1 badly wanted that guy, he was on their hotlist. The company volunteer handled the situation gracefully, telling them that he was busy with other processes, and asked them to interview me instead, telling them that I had a good reputation on campus. The HR looked at me and recognized me from the previous day. He seemed indifferent, and then, I think just for the heck of passing time, he said, fine we'll interview him till the other guy comes around. So basically, they had 1 slot left, had a guy in mind. What was I doing here, I asked myself. But I decided to try my luck nonetheless. The other options I had, well, would have been compromises really.
So I go into this room to the India head of the firm. His very presence was Awe inspiring. He started off very politely, making some light talk and asking my view on the market. The interview was more like a conversation and I felt very comfortable. Then came the expected Question. "So N*, what went wrong in 2001?" . I knew this was coming. This had haunted me from the very start. This was the question which made me uncomfortable and made me jittery whenever it came forth. And yet, it always came forth. I had paid a price for that bad score at various stages in the last 10 years. ENOUGH! I said to myself. I will not let this ghost haunt me anymore. I had to exorcise it. It was a now or never moment. Everything I had worked for the last 3 years.. THe CAT mocks, the CFAs, the GDPI Prep, the pain of failure, the ecstasy of success, the anxious on hold moments, the sweat and blood since coming to Joka, everything narrowed down to this moment. I just wanted to sign on that offer acceptance sheet lying in front of me on the table. So I decided to, for the first time in my life, be completely honest about what happened. I remember the interview clearly in my head.
Me (M) : Sir, I was in love with a girl. And my family came apart. A lot of problems you see.
IB : looking at me intently. Tell me more.
Me - Told whole story. as it happened. not sparing any details. And then I continuned
M : .. so you see sir, that's what happened, and inspite of that, the fact is that I'm sitting across from you on this interview table. The fact that I made it from that place to this table, I feel, says a lot about my character. I am resilient. I am persistent for achieving my goals. And that's why sir, I feel I would make a good trader. For nothing can knock me down. I can take a huge loss, and still come to office the next day and try to make a profit. I know I've not seen the worst in life yet. Maybe a lot more can happen in the future. But what I know is, I'd be man enough to face it. I'll not get bogged down in the face of failure. I'll never give up. I will always rise back again after I fall, I know this about myself. And Sir, I promise you, as much as I know myself, even if todays interview does not go as I hope it would, I promise you I will still enter the industry, some day or the other, for this is what I want to do.
IB : Giving me a nod. I like you N*. I really like your fighting attitude towards life. I feel it that you will make a good trader someday. Let me talk to my colleagues. He left me in the room alone. I felt extremely light. I actually felt nice. It was as if a huge load had been lifted off my shoulders. Even if I failed this interview, I felt I had exorcised the ghosts of my past.
He came in again after sometime. "N*, As you know, we were very impressed by this one person's CV, and the other 2 of my colleagues still want to interview him. As far as I'm concerned, I definitely want to hire you, but they feel its fair if we interview the other guy too. In the meantime, I'd suggest you interview with both of my colleagues just so that you could probably impress them too. I agreed, though I knew the other 2 interviews were just because they wanted to bide time till their hotlisted guy came over. I went through the motions, the interviews were more of Maths and Market talk than anything personal, so there were no awe-inspiring moments. Finally, when they got tired of asking me questions, they left me in the room and went outside and gathered. Now I could have probably left for my next interview with IB3, but I had seen a small ray of hope here and didn't want to leave it. THey had been my dream. So I decided to take a risk. I decided to go out and outrightly pitch myself. I approached them, and all 3 of them looked at me. I was very candid. "Sir, I know you are waiting for a certain candidate. But sir, as far as I know him, he is more interested in consulting firms. Whereas I, I have lived breathed and slept your bank for the last 1 month since you shortlisted me. Since I got to know about the world of Investment banking, I have wanted to be a part of it. Now this candidate you are waiting for might have better credentials than me academics wise. But even if he comes to you right now and accepts your offer, it would be because Consulting firms did not work out for him. Its because he got rejected there. You would be his second choice. Whereas I have been waiting here from the past one hour, ignoring my other 3 shortlists, because I so badly want to join you. However, I feel that its not prudent of me to wait any longer, so please tell me your decision. They looked at me shocked. They then asked me to go inside the room and wait for another 2 minutes while they discussed it. A few minutes later, the gentlemen who interviewed me the first, came in and said, "So N*, would you like Mumbai or Singapore?"
Epilogue..
The story ofcourse, continues. But at that point I finally got over the shadow of my class 12th. Ofcourse, a PPO had to be secured. It was a tough ask, given the Situation in Greece during my internship, and the fact that 3 of the other guys of 5 that were hired from my campus by my IB were rank 1, 2 and 6 of our batch. I, during my internship time, was rank 25. HOwever, It so turned out that I worked really hard during my internship, and on my penultimate day, my boss took me for review, and told me he felt I would make a good trader, and offered me a Full time role. It was unprecedented, as typically PPOs were given in Early September, when all the internship cycles for the year were over. However, my desk felt I had done exceedingly well and were in no doubt they wanted to hire me, and thus the HR formalities were ignored and I signed the contract with them on the last day of my internship, thus fulfilling a dream.

"June me hum.. JOka aaye" .
The first few days at Joka were the absolute most fun I've had. Meeting new people, making new friends, new classes, new hopes, new dreams.. no more going to the office every morning, Awesome conversations on the dinner table at the mess.. the confidence, that I was amongst Achievers..
But soon, we ran into the the fundamental truth every Bschooler has to face in term 1. Summers is just a tad bit away. With all my enthusiasm I set about preparing my CV, and studying for summers. I also did quite well in term 1, given that I had already covered Accounting, economics and Statistics in my CFA. The other courses, BS and Marketing were more Theoritical in nature, and because I didn't have to study the other three, I could give them more time. Anyway, so I did really well in term 1 and got the 20th Rank in my batch. I also did a good job of preparing my CV. Not that I could improve on the points I had, the verification process at college was very strict and not a single made up point could go through. But I did my best to show the points I had in the best way possible. there was no way I could cover up the obvious gaps in my CV though. I have to thank the seniors who spent hours with me trying to ,make my CV look better. I must have met like 50 seniors and they were always selflessly helpful.
Placement season came nearer, and most free time was spent in the library studying for the interview. CFA 2 on my CV was like a double edged sword. I would be expected to know more than the average 1st year MBA student. That was something that could go in my favour if I answered the questions correctly, but which would go against me if I did not.So I revised the syllabus all over again just so that I don't mess up. I read other stuff more pertinent to markets, like Hull, Vault guides and what not. I also kept a daily track of news, read in depth blogs to the pertinent financial issues. Prepared personals. Did everything I possibly could. I would again reiterate, that The best thing about IIMC was, the senior junior bonding, and that helped a lot. You could literally approach any senior any time, to understand something, take their advice, or a mock interview.
THen the shortlsits started pouring in. Day 0 shortlists came before the process. day 0.5 onwards,the shortlists came during the process. The consults came first. I did not get a single day 0 consulting shortlist. People who got shortlists had huge grins on their faces, and were not trying to conceal it at all. They were the stars of the campus. Yes. It was always that way in the first half of first year. People had come in all charged up and with high hopes. Every single person on campus was an achiever in their own right. And the time before placements had been full of pressure. People spent nights preparing for it. Making their CVs, preparing for interviews, Attending company PPTs, all of this apart from regular classes, term projects, quizzes, assignments and exams! People were always short of time. As far as I look at my IIMC life wholistically, real friendships were forged only after summers. Till summers, everyone was competition.
So after my consult dream (not that it was a dream, it was always banks, but still, who doesn't like getting shortlists?) was shattered, I was despondent, but my friends boosted my morale was saying, that when the banks shortlists come out, I'll be the star. That did not turn out so when the first bank shortlist came out. I was shocked. BUt I thought well, maybe an exception. After that, as the bank shortlists started coming in, one every 2-3 days, I did not have any shortlist. 6-7 banks passed that way, and I was in disbelief. I even contacted the placecom to confirm if it was my correct CV going to the banks (as we had diff CVs for diff sectors, and I hadn't highlighted finance as much in the marketing CV, I began wondering if my Marketing CV was reaching the banks!) But it wasn't so. The correct CV was being sent. I almost gave up on preparation. I contacted a few seniors from IIT who were working in Banks, and they told me the reason was that banks looked at the 10th and 12th scores too. There was very little to choose from between candidates at summers time. Especially as our CVs were made before the First term result and therefore did not have term 1 scores/ranks.
So essentially, it meant the ghost of my 68% hadn't left me even though I had conquered the CAT and got into one of the top Bschools in the country. It was a mistake made in the past I just couldn't do anything about, and yet every step of the way, I kept paying the price for it. Be it IIT placements, IIM calls, IIM interviews, or now IIM placements. I was always left shortchanged because of that one mistake. Or rather, that one circumstantial result. I wanted to askthe banks the same question I asked IIMA. If I got 68% in class 12th, does it really matter, given that I cleared JEE and CAT and CFA2. But apparantly, everyone on my campus had cleared CAT, and a lot of them had cleared JEE too. I heard banks make excel sheets inputting 10th, 12th, and graduation marks, sorted them, and then eliminated the bottom few, thus making a sort of cutoff. Probably no one was even looking at my CV. I just got deleted on an Excel sheet.
Finally, when I had given up hope, as was the normal pattern in my life, a good news came calling. A certain top investment bank had shortlisted me. Moreover, they had a small shortlist, of just 20, whereas most shortlists were around 60-70. That just meant a better shot at selection. I was elated. I spent the entire night reading up about the bank. I wanted to ace this interview. It just might be the most important interview in my life. I wanted to be the best informed about their bank among their 20 candidates. The other 19 had multiple shortlists already. THey wouldn't be as focussed on this particular bank. I didn't bother that the 2-3 other banks after this one did not shortlist me. I was in love with this one. I did get 4 more shortlists, but 3 of them were from what were considered lower rung IBs on campus. 1 was from a good one, almost equal to the one I had. Lets call them IB1 and IB2 in the order that I got the shortlists.
So, placement day came, and till then, I was almost sure to prefer IB1 over IB2. Ofcourse it would also depend on who the banks wanted to interview (as in their 'hotlist' . Yes. just a shortlist wasn't enough) , but we had to fill a preference list too. The schedulers tried to optimize the process as much as possible so that the candidates and companies preference were both considered as much as possible. Anyway, so the day before day 0, we had an interaction session with the banks, each lasting approximately an hour, after which another one started, but the candidates who didn't have the next shortlist could further interact with the bank they were shortlisted with after the time slot. Here is where i Decided to make a difference. Those with multiple shortlists would have to move from Interaction to Interaction. I just had 5, and 2 which I was really keen on. So in the interaction of IB2, I created very positive vibes with the gentleman from HK who was to interview me the next day. We had an in depth discussion on some nuances of markets, which I was able to carry on very well with thanks to my good preparation. He was sufficiently impressed, and indicated that if I go to him tomorrow morning he just might give me an offer. IB1 interaction was later, and more informal in nature, but I impressed the gentlemen there too. Only, no hint was given as to the following day. So late in the night, I re-edited my preference to fill IB2 above IB1. I rolled around restlessly in my bed all night, and then the clock struck 6, and I had to get up for another extremely important day in my life.

On HOLD...

And the best happened. On the result day, I had cleared all 4 of my calls. CLIK final callgetter. Maybe it was the 99.92 that put me in thru C inspite of the horrible GDPI. I was happy. I called my office, took the day off. I spent the day talking to atleast 10 different knowledgable people, including Alumni from IIMC and ISB, some cousins of mine well placed in the industry, other couple of people I could bounce thoughts of, and Decided on IIMC. To this day, I love and respect ISB a lot, but basically the factors which made my decision were - Better Ibank placements at IIMC, Better profile fit (I thot I had less workex, and of a lower quality, for ISB), Lesser fee at IIM, more recognized brandname, and the jingle to the term 'IIT-IIM Grad'. Having made my decision, I threw a party in the evening for friends, spent a good half month's salary on the bill, had some emotional farewell speeches given by drunk close friends, danced, slept at 4. I got up with a bad hangover in the morning, but I was still happy and smiling. I logged into my Gtalk, and I got a message from a friend saying that IIMC results had been withdrawn and would be put up after revision. I felt like someone had just kicked me where it hurt the most. I spent an Anxious day, and the results came back on. My result said 'You are on Hold'. Now I wasn't really on a Telephone that I would be put on hold. This was the most awkward situation to be in. I didn't know if I was in or not. I had announced to the whole world I was in (Obviously! I saw it on their website). I had told my boss I was going to resign. Thankfully I hadn't actually resigned. The calls made to IIMC admissions office remianed unanswered. It was a Saturday afterall. and it was status quo for 2 days. The 2 complete days were literally spent on PG, Possibly on one of the threads which was to gather the most posts in the shortest times among all threads I had seen on PG. People came up with their own theories, some comforting some distressing.
Finally on Monday, the Admissions office gave the answer. On hold was a sort of a waitlist. which had a priority over the other waitlist they had announced on the result day. What had happened was this - IIMs, and many other institute, typically give out more admits than the seats, based on Historical data about the number of candidates accepting their offers out of offers made. IIM-C, in previous years, had had a massive overlap with IIM-A, because both had the same criteria for shortlisting - CAT scores, and most students back then chose IIM-A. Thus C gave out more admits than seats. Now this year, that pattern suddenly changed as A introduced Academic criteria for shortlisting. The overlap between A and C was much lesser than expected. Therefore, C realized after giving out the results, that they had made a faux pas. They had probably given out too many offers, and there might be a scenario where acceptances might be more than the number of seats. Increasing seats was not an option - For one, the seats had been increased to 408 in view of the Reservation coming in and institute responding by increasing total seats. The facilities on campus were already under a lot of stress. New hostels were under construction but would take time to build. In the meantime, the 408 would be accomodated with some trouble, with some people having to live in dorms. Therefore increasing seats wasn't an option.

Ofcourse, we candidates who had first got the admit and then were put on hold had our own point of view. For many of us, most of us who didn't have A/B admits, rather, this was probably the biggest achievement of our lifetimes. Getting an IIMC Admit. As a natural reaction, people had told all and sundry about the admit when they got it. Their parents had boasted about it to their neighbours, distant relatives had called to congratulate, they had thrown parties for their friends, got a celebratory kiss from their girlfriends, told their office guys they are going to resign etc. Thus they felt shortchanged that such a thing should be dangled in front of them for a day and taken away. They say its better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. Well it definitely wasn't the same for clearing IIMC. And thus the reactions were filled with anger, frustration, helplessness. Things were getting tougher at work too, where the boss was saying that if u got to resign, do it. And I just couldn't I don't know how others handled it, I lied about being confused between ISB and IIMC and wanting to delay my decision. Every week he said that resign.. or else u wud have a problem with the notice period. everytime I somehow talked my way out of it. That IIMC admissions office wasn't professional enough to face the issue didn't make it any easier. We recieved no answers to questions we had. Like when would the On hold fate become clearer, how many total admits were given, how many on hold candidates were there.. In fact we asked for our on hold number - waitlist number, if u will, for there had to be a waitlist number if it was a waitlist- and we weren't given any.
The Then current students of IIMC and even some Alums though, tried their best to soothe nerves, and be apologetic on behalf of the institute. At this point, all we needed was someone to tell us they understood, and these guys did that job well. Ofcourse, even they didn't have the power to change anything, and none of them was at campus since it was vacation time, so they couldn't provide us any information either, but they did our best to keep us calm.

A week later, the admissions office started giving out the on-hold numbers. Mine was 31. From PG, it became clear that the total onhold candidates were 65. The people who had been given waitlist initially lost hope at this point, as the guy with waitlist #1 was now effectively #66. The focus shifted to the onhold guys. Various spreadsheets and mathematical models made their appearance on PG everyday. It was as if everything in the world became irrelevant. All that mattered were those seats being given to us. There were google spreadsheets doing the rounds, and onholders were in constant touch , accessing PG from their dorm rooms or offices all day. We found out people who had A-C and B-C admits and were chosing the other college over C. A list of such people was compiled and the longer this list became, the more the hopes were raised. Infact, the seniors from IIMC stopped pitching IIMC on forums and to their GDPI Mentees. Infact if someone had an admit from A/B, they actually asked them to choose that. Even they wanted that all the on hold guys would be in, just so that no one is left feeling shortchanged.

Most people already with admits also supported us, but soon they wanted to do away with the discussion and focus on their upcoming Joka life. Therefore a separate thread for onholders was constituted. Anyway, days passed slowly. The Admissions office gave us a date. Nothing happened on that date, but a second date was given. And on that one, a third. Sunny deol's dialogue from Damini comes to Mind. 'Tareeq pe tareeq tareeq pe tareeq.. insaaf nahi milta, milti hai to bas tareeq'.. Finally, around a month after the reverted result, they announced that the first 20 on hold ranks had final admits, and that no more shall be converted. I felt horrible. I had come so close to my dream, even touched it for a day. The last 3 years flashed before my eyes, the 2 unsuccessful CATtempts, the final successful one, the GDPI prep, all those hours of dreams, the last 30 strenous days hoping against hope that I'll make it. I was too shattered to even talk to anyone. And the reality that I would have to pass another year working my job before I joined ISB. And ofcourse, to face the public ignominy- "tera to IIMC clear ho gaya tha na. Fir kya hua".

Redemption..(and CFA2)

Another 10 days passed. I had stopped accessing PG. I went through my days at office like a Zombie. I had killed my social life. It was almost like facing a break up. Then suddenly, once when I was in office, I got a call. "IIM-C admissions office - the lady said. We want to congratulate you on being admitted to the PGDM program at our institute. We have mailed you the....." I didn't listen ahead for I was jumping up and down in Joy in the middle of my cubicle. Everyone was looking at me shocked. I just ran outside to continue the conversation. Ofcourse I did not resign this time till I got the actualy documents via courier the next day. Once bitten twice shy I guess. But I forgave IIMC for everything. And to my delight, the On hold had cleared till 40, and another 10 days later, it cleared till 54. (All of the on hold guys had got so close that we actually prayed for the ones still to get an admit, and thankfully, a week after we entered, the last bunch of onholders also got through. The last guy completed our batch of 408. Destiny..)
Anyway, I somehow fought my way through my resignation. Interesting story there but its off topic and this post is getting too long. So I had 20 days to go before I had to go to Cal, and I had my CFA level 2 just 3 days before I had to join Joka. tHe devil in me said, screw it, lets not take the exam, lets have fun. we've cleared IIMC! .. but the sane me said, your CV could use that, for you hve a lot of holes. Thankfully Sanity prevailed. I thought fun could wait. My last day of office was 29th May, and I partied like crazy after leaving work that day. The next day was spent nursing the hangover, but 31st May to 6th June, for 7 days, I did nothing but study. I hadn't studied much during thewhole On Hold fiasco, and CFA 2 isn't easy. So for 7 days and 7 nights, I ate, drank and slept CFA. I locked myself up in my house and just studied. Went to Mumbai on the 7th, took the exam on the 8th. (I cleared it ) . And then came back, packed my stuff up in a day, and took the Train for Joka.

Part 3
ISB....
Around mid september, a friend told me that ISB admissions had opened up. The website said they needed a minimum of 2 years workex. But my friend asked me to go ahead with it anyway. He suggested that if nothing else, going through the whole admission procedure would give me experience, which would help me with my application the next year to ISB and foreign Bschools. It wasn't too costly either. So I decided to give it a shot.
I wrote the essays really well, but didn't take any professional help. I was just honest. Just wrote my life's story. Wrote what I really felt. I never thought I had a chance anyway, so I did not indulge in any decorations, or revising, rereading, sending it out to people, institutes etc. I just wrote what came to my heart, just like I'm writing this post.
I pretty much forgot the application after I had filled it, but a month later, I was sitting and drinking at my friends place after work and randomly opened my Gmail, and to my surprise I found an EMail from ISB stating that my interview was a week later. It was a shocker, give that I was short of workex. I thought well, so much for experience. I prepared hard for the next one week, going through the PG thread and looking at past years interview experiences. I made a list of the FAQs that applied to me, thought of impressive answers to them and made notes. I rehearsed answering the few expected opening questions in front of the mirror. I got a new suit. On the interview day, I was calm and composed, especially because I did not consider this a make or break interview of my life, but rather went in with the mindset of gaining experience. The interviewers were very nice to me. They didn't touch upon the topic of my 12th score or 2 years gap. They just quizzed me on my future aspirations and goals which is the way it should be. They found me to be a good communicator with clear ideas on what I wanted to do in life in the future.
At the end of the interview, they said, that they don't have a policy of spot offers but they would definitely say I did exceedingly well, and asked me that just in case they were to offer me a deferred admit for the following, since I did not have sufficient workex to be admitted to this year's batch, would I be okay with it. I said ofcourse, yes. A bird in hand is better than N in the bush. And ISB was doing well in all those FT rankings anyway. It couldn't be so bad, I thought.
CAT Take 3.
CAT came closer, but I was hardly bothered. Well, the weekend before CAT I did take a couple of mocks I had kept with me from last year. I guess, it was just human. The eve before CAT I just looked at the maths formlae for a few hours. I had no high hopes. If I couldn't get through with hardcore prep the last two years, I definitely didn't stand a chance when my total prep this year was around 10 hours.
As soon as I saw the paper, and realized they had made the English section 160/360 and the remaining two 100 each, therefore increasing the weightage of English more than before, I lost all hope. I thought I'd just go to the English section first, see how it was, and then if it was as bad as before, probably not waste a lot of time getting another heartbreaking 100%ile in DI. I went through the first passage, and looked at the questions, and to my surprise they were straightforward. Ditto the second paassage, and ditto the third. My confidence was back. This was like a mock. I realized, English was actually teh section I could maximise my score in.. I was confident of clearinng the cut off for the first time in 3 years. I rushed to the DI, and did a few caselets. Enough to make sure I waas beyond the cutoff. All my previous skill in assessing how much the cutoff should be for what level of toughness was coming back. It comes with practice, its not an exact science, but once you take enough mocks, you just know how much you need to do to be able to clear the cutoff by a decently safe margin, and then you know what section to do to maximise your score. For me, surprisingly, English was the section. I went to maths, and because I was out of practice, I was cautious to not touch the topics I wasn't very well versed in. I only took the more generic topics, with easier questions. I went home and calculated the score. Now I know, CAT these days is online and all, but trust me, the Paper based format had a certain romanticism to it. For one, entire India took the same exam. The questions were discussed for days after the exam. All the coaching institutes came up with Answer keys a few hours after the exam, and then expected cutoffs after assessing a good number of data points provided by their students. You could never forget the evening following the CAT. I went to a friends place and we all aclculated our scores based on the various coaching institues keys. Because English section was straightforward, The answer keys weren't too different. I was getting a great score by any standards.
I enjoyed the next 2 months tremendously, for I had an ISB admit and was expecting BLACKI calls. I was on top of the world. My hatred for IIMs had evaporated away. I think it had been a case of sour grapes anyway. Finally, the result came, and apparantly people at Deloitte were able to see it a day before everyone else could. Somehow. I have no clue. I messaged a friend of mine at Deloitte and she gave me back a screenshot on email of my result page. It was the most beautiful webpage I had ever seen. Except for on exception. The scores were quite good. 99.92 Total... English and DI 99.96 and 99.90 respectively (English 99.96! After the HUMILIATION. It was a just redemption). Quant was 96.02, I think as a result of too few mocks and a little butterflies in the exam. But the shocking part was, the IIM Calls I had. It said CLIK.
For one day I was in Denial, that probably, since the offical result day hadnt come through, The call list was not complete. But when the actual result came out the next day, the page looked exactly the same. CLIK.No A. No B. Period. I couldn;t believe it. I thought well, maybe it was Quant, but calls to a few friends with slightly lower quant percentiles confirmed that it wasn't Quant.
I could understand why B wouldn't give me a call. With a 68% in class 12th, I did not stand a chance based on their 'Academic' criteria. And to be honest, I didn't mind much. B was never my dream college. But I was hurt about A. A had always given calls based on purely CAT scores. True, I would have had a hard time explaining the holes in my CV in the interview, but ISB interview had prepared me well for that.
BUt I did realize, that the exact year that I cleared CAT, was the exact year IIMA decided to apply the past-perfect Criteria. Giving very high weightage to 10th and 12th scores. Now I couldn't explain that I was in love. I coildn't explain that my parents were going through a divorce during my 12th boards. I couldn't explain that I did go on to Clear JEE after the hole I was in where I was almost going to Kill myself. I could have explained it had they given me a chance. Atleast had called me for an interview, after I had finally managed to clear the reckless barrier after 3 trials. It was as if destiny did not want me to go to a dry state. What else could explain this. that first I couldn't clear English, A language I am not so bad at, and then A changes its criteria without any pre-warnings. I wanted to sue the Gujjus. aRgghhh.
Well, I hated A and all the snootyness it stood for (at that point, Don't feel so now) . So I started worshipping C and all that it stood for instead. Not that C was by any means second to A. But I guess its just the rankings and the reputation , that in general aspirants at that time considered A better. But I spoke to some seniors, and looked at the placement figures, and realized, that while A was good, undoubtedly, C was no lesser. C had the exact same firms visiting it for placements, and had instead been tiptoeing slightly ahead of A in placement figures the past few years. Moreover, the reverrent Investment banks, which I wanted to go to, actually somewhat preferred C. It was considered the place to be to enter the BFSI.
GDPI
So I set about preparing for the GDPI, with complete fervour. JOined coaching classes, entered the Rat race again. I wasn't so sure what I would choose between IIMC and ISB. It would be a tough decision, because I had already associated myself with ISB and had attended meets, met their alumni and people who made it that year. I had read about the place, vouched for it on forums, spread more awareness about it to people who thought there was no school parallel to IIMs in India. I had read blogs by ISBians, read about their swimming pool dunkings, the parties, the kind of professors coming, the batch profile, the 25% women in the batch, all those things. Anyway, I wasn't really sure, But i thought I'd atleast have a crown of converting one of the Big 3, wouldn't be bad for my 2 CAT smashed ego. I thought I would cross the bridge of what to choose what I came to it. I wasn't going to count my chickens before they hatched. A problem of plenty isn't such a bad problem.
So I went regularly to classes, and I actually did well in the Mock GDPIs. I did have the problem of talking a lot, as u can make out from my long winded post. That was corrected in the first few sessions and then I was good to go. Thankfully the order was IKLC, so that I could treat IKL as Net practice. I was quite sure I wouldn't join these 3 schools, as amazing as they are, but I just thought I'd prefer ISB. My I, K and L GDPIs were amazingly smooth. I was able to lead the GDs, yet maintain the right balance and not overdominate them. PIs I impressed my interviewers like anything. Maybe it was because I was under 0 performance pressure. It was like India playing a league match in the world cup after having already qualified for the next stage.
However, C was completely different. For one, the GD had 11 people, one of the largest groups I saw in an IIM GD. THe GD was 10 minutes, towards the shorter end. All of them were men (a single lady in a GD can infuse peace, order and good behavior), and the topic was abstract. Artists should learn mathematics. Everyone has something to say about such an extract topic. Everyone wanted to take the lead as the stakes were very high. People wanted to be heard. People wanted to change the direction of the GD all the time. It became a fish market in no time. And then the confusion ensued for a full 10 minutes, and then abruptly we were stopped. The moderator then asked people to summarize the GD, and I was asked to do it in the end. Now even though I had not heard much in the GD, busy trying to make my own point, I had definitely heard the 10 people summarize before me. BUt I thought I'd just not repeat their points and sound like a parrot. I tried to give a different angle to the summary trying to cover points that had not been covered by others. This probably didn't go too well with the moderators, who were none too happy with the GD fallout anyway.
And therefore, what followed in the PI, can only be described as waht happened to Mithunda's on-screen sister in most of his movies. They started by literally scolding me for the chaotic GD, and when I proclaimed that there was nothing I could have done, they told me I could have infused order by asking people to calm down. arghhh! And then they went on to serially accuse me of not hearing as shown by my way-off summary, and then followed on to rag me about my past academics, my 'average' IIT CGPA, the other holes .. And also new ones I had never realized. I tried to wriggle out of the 12th question by saying I was ill. Obviously I did not want to mention the family problems and the break up. But I guess when you are dishonest, these people can see right through it, and it further ruined my impression. Infact the immidiate retort was - 'Fine you were ill in 12th. Were you ill in your whole graduation too?'. Then followed weird Questions. Let me give an example - P: What are your hobbies.. M : Sir I love to Travel, write.. P (Cutting me short) : Where have u travelled? M: Sir In India I have been to Kashmir, Himachal (I thot I'd go north to south, then Europe etc) P (Cutting me short) : Where in Himachal? M: Sir Shimla, Kullu-Manali, Kufri P: (cutting me short) : Tell me something about Kufri. M: (thinking-WTF! I had gone there when I was like .. Sir.. Kufri.. umm.. Sir apples are grown there. P: That is true for Entire Himachal pradesh. TEll me about kufri. M: (remembering that I had a pic of me sitting on a Yak.. only memory I had of Kufri) - Sir There is Yak Farming in Kufri. P(looking at me amazed) : What? M: Yes Sir. THey breed yaks and then sell them to toher parts of the state. P: (Looking at me in disbelief): Are u sure? M: Yes sir. P: I don't think so. I was already low on confidence and thus fumbled with even simple CFA questions they asked me on seeing CFA L1 on my CV. They got into FSA, Differences between GAAP and IFRS. I fumbled badly and answered the complete opposite of what I was going to say. It was a Stress Interview, and I was totally stressed out, for this was the one important interview I had after a long time!
Anyway, the Interview ended on a bad note.. with two of the profs making this verbatim conversation: "Sir Economics ka kuch poochna hai? isne college me elective liya tha" "Chhodo, isko basic accounting to yaad nahi, economics kya hi yaad hoga. chhodo sir, why waste our time" "OKay N***, thank you. All the best for your other interviews, prepare better for them. Do u have any other interviews left" "No sir already done with my other calls". "Oh.. well, all the best" (I think he meant to say - God save you). So well, My confidence was rattled. But I kept hoping for the best.

Part 2..


A New Direction...
Yes.. It was an open mock test. I was lazing about on a Sunday, when some of my friends woke me up and asked me to get ready. I asked them what it was for, and they said it was a CAT mock in the city. I said I didn't even know what sections CAT had. I could sure as hell not do much in the mock. They said it was free, and I should come along as they planned a movie and dinner after the mock. Now we were always short of Cash and IIT was far off from the movie theater etc, so if I did not go with them I would have to go alone later, or miss the fun. If I went alone, the Auto would have cost me a 100 Rs one way, which was really costly by my standards coz I got limited cash from home. So I decided to go with them. I thought , how bad could sitting 2.5 hrs thru an exam could be. It was definitely worth saving the 100 bucks.

The exam started, and I decided to solve it, just to make the 2.5 hrs go by faster. I didn't even have a pencil, I borrowed it from the center. I had no clue what the fullform of DI was, trust me, but I still managed to do the questions as they were mostly common sense. English I was already good at coz of my GRE prep, and Maths.. well I had cleared JEE. I found myself flowing freely through the exam. I thought maybe everyone would have done well. But when the result came out around a week later, to my utter surprise, I had scored a scintillating 99.3%ile. I got a lot of taunts like 'chupa rustam', 'kitne time se prep kar raha hai' etc, and my friends wouldn't believe for the life of me that much less prepare, I hadn't even known much about the exam till then. That was when I looked at IIM placements and what they entailed. I thought if I could get a 99.3 in a mock without prep, I had a good shot to score a good percentile if I prepared. Moreover, the coaching institute called me and offered me a really discounted price for their test series. I took it.

I started doing really well mock after mock. Success begets success, it is true, for when a reputation started forming around campus that I was one of the guys to watch out for as far as CAT was concerned, I put in even more effort to prove myself. I was consistently in All India top 100 of TIME. I found the preparation actually interesting, as opposed to JEE prep which I found almost put me o sleep, esp Chemistry. The problems were shorter, mocks were more about strategy, and right choices of which questions to attempt, how much time to devote to which section, how to make sure you cleared sectional cutoffs as well as maximized overall score. Preparation was more about fine tuning certain skills than learning new stuff from thick books. It was probably the first exam I put in effort for in my life. I was so confident that I'd clear it that I did not apply to any foreign schools for MS/PhD. My friends said why are u wasting ur GRE/TOEFL, i said well I think i've finally found something I've good at. I hate biotechnology. I'd much rather pursue the post MBA careers. Moreover, I might get to stay in India!..

CAT Take 1

CAT though, was a disaster. While I aced the Maths and DI sections, the English section in that year was horrible. No offence to anyone setting/clearing/managing the exam, but I personally thought that the options in the English passages were so close together that in the 'what is the author most likely to think' question after the passages, even the author would probably be confused as to what he was most likely to think. Anyway, I got a mere 13/100 in English, nowhere near the cutoff. So inspite of an overall 99+ score, I didn't get any IIM calls, and hadn't filled any other forms.
I sat in campus placements at IIT, and I didn't even have a shot in the first 2-3 days of placements when the top consults and banks (Lehman, Mckinsey) etc visited. Even when i started getting shortlisted (The Deloittes and ITC phase - which again was limited for me because Biotech wasn't really a preferred branch by most) I didn't make the cut, coz in the last round, invariably questions arose about my class 12th score. and 2 years of gap in education (Arghhh). I managed to get an averagish job on the 12th day of placements (the later the day, the worse the job, although the placecom would never admit it). I decided to take it and take a shot again at CAT. After all, things couldn't go wrong twice in a row. I was good, I knew it.

CAT Take 2
I managed to get past IIT with some more adventures, like getting a Project extension etc, and moved to DElhi. I started working, and before I knew it, it was mock season again. I did extremely well in mocks this time around (was a regular in All India TOp 10 in CL, and even got All India Rank 1 in 2 of the 8 mocks) and they offered me classroom coaching even though I was just a test series student. They took me to a boot camp, asked me to attend any classes of any topic i was uncomfortable in, in any batch. I was given VIP treatment. I was quite confident of clearing CAT. I remember it as clear as crystal. Coming back from a mock, calculating the score, discussing the mock on PG and other forums, and then the result coming out midweek, getting a good rank, and then dreaming about being in an IIM. Dreaming about my friends and family congratulating me, that dude, despite what happened till now, you finally made it. The toppers of my IIT branch calling me from their good universities in US and congratulating me, saying that dude, u got the best crack. The feeling when other mock takers in my office asked about my result the next day, and I proudly told them, and then they were like, this dude is going to IIMs for sure. It felt wonderful. And it gave more fuel to my passion and I put in even more effort.

Meanwhile, this was 2007, and the economy was at the peak of boom, and many of the IIT grads who had joined my firm with me, moved to much juicier jobs within just 3-4 months of us joining. I had the same options too, and infact was called by a few recruiters, but all the offers I got required me to move to Bombay or Bangalore, and I did not want to disrupt my CAT prep. So I gave up on those jobs, and decided to just stick it and keep preparing. IIMs were calling out to me, after all.

come C-day though, and English was like a bouncer. And this time around, even the answer keys of institutes did not match. I was getting a score between 12 (min) - 44 (max) in english. I started praying real hard. The cutoff was expected to be low. The result came out a month later. I sstill remember it reading on my cellphone. Got it through SMS. Don't remember the scores, but I remember the percentiles. Overall 99.35%ile. DI 100%ile, QA 99.88%ile, English 31%ile. ENGLISH 31%ile!! It went through me like a hot iron. I had 4/100 in English. THat was lesser than the minimum possible score I had expected. The IIM Key had answeres different in even questions that all institutes agreed on. I was in a shock. It was as if my dream had finally been shattered. Failing twice, was something I wasn't prepared for. I could be unlucky once. Not twice!! I had topped the entire country in DI/LR but still couldn't get a single IIM call.

CAT No More....
For the first time.. I was faced by the reality, that I would have to work in a job that wasn't really my first choice. I mean, till that point, it was a whirlwind. I had moved to a new city, and the initial few days of the job were a honeymoon, with Training going on which was only for a few hours a day. I had made a lot of new friends with like minded people, had a lot of fun.. partying after work and on weekends. And then the mocks began so they took much of the focus. So I hadn't really got time to stand back and evaluate life till then. I treated my job as a place which gave me money to spend some time at while I prepared for CAT. I never took it seriously, never tried to learn anything there. But It hit me then that I had 1.5 yrs at the very minimum I had to spend at that place. And that was a really sad thought.
I somehow scraped through my time. I began hating the IIMs and the godforsaken CAT. I hated them that they set papers which were so unreasonable. If I had topped Mocks, not once, but consistently over two years, I definitely deserved to atleast had a shot at the GDPI. I knew people who I thought to be much less deserving, who never crossed 95%ile in mocks, and had still got calls. That made me feel much worse. I was in no mood to take the exam again actually. I decided I had wasted too many hopes on it.
GMAT & CFA..
I started thinking of other venues. I dared to think beyond the IIMs (no no.. not abt THAT! ). I decided to take the GMAT. but CAT had shattered my confidence so badly that I didn't know if I could do well in that. I bought Princeton review and the OG and started preparing, and within a week I took my first mock and got 780/800. But by this point, I had stopped trusting mocks. It seemed that they were mocking me, nothing more. I continued with prep, for another 3 weeks, just studying over weekends.
I didn't have a lot of hopes when I went to the exam center, I didn't have a score in mind. I had done exceedingly well on the mocks, but like I said, that didn't mean anything to me. The exam started, and ended, and my score came up on the screen. 760/800. I was in the top 1%ile of test takers. Just like that. I hadn't even have to put in a total of 40 hrs of effort. Some of my much needed confidence came back. It was like redemption. I wasn't so bad after all. The mocks did not lie. CAT did. I hated CAT all the more. I decided to apply to foreign schools, and forget about IIMs.
But I found to my chagrin, that most of them required a minimum of 2 years of work ex at the time of application, and I wouldn't have that before all the application deadlines were well over for this year. So if I went the GMAT way I'd have to slog for another 2.5 yrs at this place at the minimum. Ofcourse I could take another job, but the thing with me was, if I knew that what I was doing wasn't what I was going to do my whole life, I wouldn't excel at it. I was atleast comfortable in my current job. It required minimal effort from my side, (not that I was unprofessional, the expectations themselves were pretty low, and I just met them, rather than trying to do my best and take more responsibility). To take my mind of things and keep myself busy, I decided to take the CFA exam and learn a lil bit about finance. I was in IT for an investment bank anyway, and the company had a policy of reimbursing ur CFA fee if you cleared the exam. I studied hard for CFA level 1, and managed to clear it. I also found myself taking an active interest in the content. I liked finance. And more than anything else, I decided I wanted to be an investment banker. Not only did it pay the most, It also was something I found interesting.

CAT forms came out, and I decided to just go ahead and buy it, because a few friends were going to buy it. For most people fresh into the IT Industry, CAT was like an annual festival for the first 3-4 years anyway, till they gave up on it. It was just a ritual people went through. Like buying a lottery ticket. If u got it, great, if not, life's okay anyway. I procastinated filling up the form and filled it quite late, just in time rather. I did not want to attach any emotions with CAT. It had bitten me twice. I was definitely shy.

Prologue
This has been due from the last two years. When I was preparing for CAT this used to be my favourite thread. I drew inspiration from many success stories here. THe best and most inspiring ones were where people achieved success after facing failure.
I haven't read this thread since 2009, i.e. after I got into IIM. I wanted to post this story, but just never sat down to write it. I don't know how the format is these days. I'll just post best according to how it used to be 2-3 years back. I hope someone can take away something from the story which inspires him/her, just like the stories on this forum at my prep time inspired me. Its not just a story about CAT. Its a life story. It starts from school, JEE prep, and goes on to CAT prep, and even beyond that, up untill I got my dream job!! so not just CAT aspirants, but even most people posting on this thread can probably take something away from it, assuming that most people coming to post would be the ones who are in some Bschool.

So I'll start my story from when I was back in school.
I was a good student till class 10th. That doesn't mean I sat on the front bench and was a teacher's pet. On the contrary, I was always notorious, used to play pranks in the class, always got complaints sent home about my being talkative and disturbing the class. But I managed to study regularly at home, studied hard during the exams and scored good marks.

JEE Take 1

I topped my school in class 10th, and like all good students, started dreaming about the IIT. Little did I know, it was going to be a much more turbulent path than I had imagined.
Come class 11th, I fell in love with a girl. Actually, I had a crush on her since 8th, but in 11th, we started talking. Life for the next 2 years was a roller coaster. I doubt many people have a love story like that in class 11th-12th. We became best friends, I eventually proposed, she rejected, mainly because her best friend had a crush on me. I set her best friend up with my friend, and she said yes to me after that. We had a very fulfilling affair that lasted for a year, but met turbulent weather when her parents got wind of it. We belonged to different communities, her parents were conservative, and were dead against anything intercaste. Moreover, it was Indore, in 1999... and we were in school. In short, nothing was in our favour. We couldn't fight back. I did try, but she gave up, and I can't really blame her.
Anyway, in the midst of all of this, studies had taken a backseat. Due to some bit of common sense , luck, and intelligence, I managed to clear JEE screening. But after that, there was not just the pressure of the break up, and a lot of crying, but also my parents got separated the same year.
I , ofcourse, flunked JEE mains, and I managed a meagure 68% in my class 12th (I hadn't ever scored below 90% before 11th). I didn't get any admissions of note, even through AIEEE, MPPET, and a bunch of other engineering entrances I had taken.
JEE Take 2
My parents, flustered by my tanking stock, sent me to Kota, in the hope that maybe away from the girl who had been the object of my attention the last couple of years, I'd pay attention and study. BUt I was still not over my break up. I got to know about her hanging out with other guys from her college, back in Indore, and I travelled twice in train toilets from Kota to Indore (coz I did not have money to buy tickets) just to meet her. She refused to meet me both the times, but the second time her brother did find out and met me with his friends, with hockey sticks. They Didn't touch me thankfully, they just wanted to scare me. And I did get scared.
My parents got to know of my trips, and I was given a lot of grief and final warning that if I don't change my ways they would just disenroll me and admit me to some BSc course. I had given up on my girl anwyay, given that she hadn't bothered/dared to meet me after such effort filled trips. But it wasn't all that easy. I couldn't bring myself to study, I was heartbroken. I had a void to fill, I wanted to forget her, get over her. To distract myself, I made some friends, started smoking and Drinking. I used to get away from the pain of my heartbreak by sitting in cybercafes and watching movies, spending whole nights at the chaiwala having chai and sutta and chatting with friends. I did clear screening again, and I did manage to study a lil bit towards the end, and cleared mains but with a 4018 rank which didn't fetch me anything but NIFFT ranchi which was affiliated with JEE for just that one year. I managed VIT vellore comp sci through AIEEE, and that was the option I chose.
JEE Take 3...
I was all set to leave, but the day before I was to take the train southwards, my father intervened, and said that he believed if I studied hard, like really put in effort whole heartedly, I could improve my rank. I believed so too. But everyone else in our family was against it. I had already wasted one year to no avail, they said. But my father stood by me, we stood our ground and I took the huge risk of dropping a second year. It was a huge gamble. If I managed to make it to IIT, it would indeed pay off, but if I did not, I would be so low on confidence, and so outdone by life that I would probably consider myself a loser forever. I would go to a college I could have made it to the previous year, and forever in Life I would face tough questions of why I wasted my time. It was a big risk to take, but I took it anyway. So for that one year, I stayed at home, Studied hard. I hardly spoke to anyone but my family for that one year. I didn't call anyone (all my school friends were in 2nd year college and I hadn't even entered. It was weird to talk to anyone anyway. I had lost my own respect in my eyes actually.) . But finally the one year of hermitage paid off and I cleared JEE with an improved rank of 1585. To keep me away from distractions (read more access to girls) cities like Delhi and Mumbai would offer, my dad insisted I go to IIT Madras, and this time I took his advice. {Disclaimer - This is Not to say that Chennai doesn't have any women, I still think Shruti Hassan is one of the prettiest girls in the country, but well lets just say Delhi/Mumbai girls were more my type, and my parents knew that too}
IIT dayz
I was never fond of studying and took it a little light at IIT too. I actually thought that now that I was in IIT, the world was my oyster and I did not need to work hard now, life would sort itself out anyway. I performed well in subjects that interested me, not so well in subjects that did not. I was doing okay till term 4, with an average CGPA of 7.8 . but term 4, I flunked two courses. It wasa a wake up call, and thankfully I didn't snooze the alarm. I recovered from the damage in term 5, and even got a foreign internship after 3rd year etc. I was in Biotechnology, and like most people in my branch, and as per the precedent set by my seniors, thought the easiest career option was the do an MS-PhD in the US(which was not too tough to get given that we had a lot of IIT-M alumnus as professor/PhD candidates there). I took my GRE and TOEFL and did well in them (300/300 and 1500/1600) . I was all set to start applying and get the hell out of IIT. But then , I took an exam which changed my life.

To be contd..

wanted to post but could not...today let me do it...

school life:
...so, story starts long back from school dayz...when i was an average student who studied a day before exams and was happy with 60-65% marks...then came boards and pattern of studies changed, i started taking studies seriously...consequently % increased to 85 in 10th and 81 in 12th(though average now but it was considered good in 99' and 01')...i was not sure as what to do in future and also i belonged to an average middle class family so i could not afford the luxury of having FIITJEE or Kota coaching advantage...so i din take any coaching..my target was some average engg college...then results came JEE screening cleared with a gud rank..around 7000 in AIEEE and ard 3000 in UPSEAT...i thought WOW i can crack that..and decided to take one more chance...which was a common trend that time...next year i took some local coaching but it was not a difference maker and i left it few months later..again prepared by self...results were...JEE screening cleared, but not mains...AIEEE around 4000 state rank of 686...UPSEAT 1100...this time i had to take admission so took MNNIT allahabad...as allahabad was also my home town..

life in college:
well i was a dayscholar,(actually they had a policy of not giving hostels to local students as the intake increased and there were not enough rooms...this remained a pain in my ass for remaining 4 years...as my home was around 15 km from the college...)...
first year: it was chill...never bothered much about getting good grades...got something around 7.4 and 7.5 as cgpa...got into one-sided affair..which was disastrous...lost my focus and it costed me a lot of pain...
second year: again it was a recovery phase....(which was very) difficult...i managed 7.3 and 7.4 cgpa...one more thing was that my branch was a sub branch of mechanical with only 25 students and came under mechanical department...and consequently we were given leftover grades...there was a stigma associated with the branch...and profs also looked at cgpa before giving grades and gave similar grades..in other words there was no level playing ground...on the day of result of 4th sem...i wept...and promised my self that it'll never happen again...nd my target was to get overall cgp of more than 8 before i pass out...
third year:i started working hard...did some strategic changes in my approach...started focusing more on prof notes and less on reference books...and made sure that whatever is circulated in hostels...i also get a copy...results came...8.3 and 9.00...and boy i was happy...
fourth year:that was placement year...again my branch was a disadvantage...as very few companies allowed it...i cleared all written tests and all GDs but cud not convert interview...ultimately i decided to sit for TCS and to wait for better company in second round(fatal mistake)...got through it...nd started waiting....but it never happened...companies like DRDO, NTPC, IOCL, ONGC & EIL and lot many other companies came but we were not allowed...i felt ghetto-ed...and desperate...meanwhile i scored 9.36 in 7th term...and my overall cgpa crossed 8...last sem...not even a single company came for us..consequently i had to stick with TCS when even most stupidest of guy in mech got tata motors...last sem i really din bothered about the college i.e i din go for farewell and not even group pic...then i applied off-campus to SAIL and NTPC...ironically they allowed our branch off-campus...ultimately i had a good knowledge base and cleared SAIL exam(which most of the toppers could not..!)..din write NTPC as my SAIL interview was scheduled on same day..finally got selected in SAIL.....and in 8th sem i was expecting a perfect 10 but again some mech-prod issues occurred and i managed 8.4...never mind... i attained my goal of 8+...
work life @ SAIL:i joined SAIL as a management trainee...i had plans of going for MBA 2 years down the line so i was more than happy to get a management profile...first year was chill...but later it became tough...work conditions were xtremely tough...sound levels of 400db+...and average temperature of 55+...and no limit to work...i mean i was responsible for 24 hours...any problem and they would call u...moreover the work was not at all intellectual...well i will restrict my self here and talk about CAT part...
cat 2008: first attempt without much prep...managed 90+ with english 94.4% quant 91% and DI 30%..:shocked:....actually i got stucked in DI..and i was literally shaking in that section...my confidence touched a nadir in that section...the moment i got out i knew that it's over...never mind it was my first attempt...
cat 2009:i maintained a tight schedule sleeping just 4-5 hours a day after exhausting work...joined ims test series and started getting 95+ consistently...i got engaged also but just before the exam a disaster happened in my family...my elder brother expired...it was so unexpected and so painful...we were completely broken...no words can describe the loss and pain which i suffered...i tried to get out of it and do well in exam so that my parents may get some diversion....but again i am just a human...managed 97.1%...no calls...got spjain and IMT(which i filled after results..)..spjain i had most fantastic interview...still i was rejected...IMT i cleared...but decided not to join...
cat 2010:this time i was very much focused...i cut short any and every not effective activity...with zero social life...meanwhile my marriage was also slated for november...but i believed that i can do it...and final results are given in my signature...


---
key takeaways:don't compromise and don't give up...work hard...believe in your abilities...fight situations...life is not predictable...do anything and everything for your close ones...even in the most darkest hour don't lose hope...
All the best...

---

Finally i get to speak on this thread......and i feel very gratified in doing so...

Hi everyone,

I am Gaureesh from Mumbai...and here is my story.

Well....the journey started way back in December 2009 when i was in the 3rd year of engineering...I enrolled for a coaching class...things began slowly..and i was very optimistic and goal oriented.
Target : A top 10 b-school convert...
So i started learning concepts from scratch although i knew many of them before.VA was my forte as i had given GRE as well.....then QA..as i was in engineering. So i was really sincere as in doing things on time..revising etc...But 1 thing...i never slogged..as i always had a plan to go about things...i always knew how much is to be done each day..and there was no time limit like do 3 hrs and all...each day i had a target of doing something and i met my targets...i actually used to study just 1.5-2 hrs daily..i started reading ET in train..but eventually got bored..:shocked:..my journey was not at all smooth if you are thinking that way...there were multiple shocking events...here i list those.
1)May 2010...i got a backlog in sem 6...was shattered..:shocked:..coz it was an additional burden..i was doing an internship...i still continued my CAT preparation...as i decided not to deviate from my plan A(many people quit in case such a thing happens...)..i had plan B of MS...but still i continued and eventually backlog got cleared.

2)July-October 2010...Time for placements(as safety i decided to appear)..got rejected by 7-8 companies..left it mid way..as CAT 2010 was approaching...i knew that i had lost steam coz of personal reasons...bt was still giving mocks, practising problems..i had notes of another class as well..was enrolled in 2 test series..so did around 25+ mocks...not all were good...bt i improved with each mock...there is a huge pressure when u see the scores of others in mocks...bt i survived that as i believed in raising my level with each mock...i devised many strategies...as to improve attempts,accuracy...by CAT 2010 i was attempting atleast 50...

3)CAT 2010...CAT was good...although i was not sure of my performance...then came other exams...my college sem 7 exam...then IIFT...IIFT i screwed coz i didnt carry a watch..(that is the only reason.. )...then SNAP..did below par coz of lil complacency.. ..then NMAT...this was a good attempt...by now i had become sane.....then FMS. and XAT...were on the tougher side...

Exams given(2010) : CAT,XAT,FMS,SNAP,IIFT,NMAT,CET(2011)

4)During CAT...October-Dec 2010...Well...got a placement @ TCS...:)...bt a week later...got a backlog in Sem 7...:shocked::shocked:...a day later..got placed at accenture..:w00t:...was goin thru a roller coaster...i know life has ups and downs..bt so quickly..:w00t:...i still did not lose hope..plan A was still on..

5)Results :..CAT 98.3.(VA 93.7, QA : 93.3 DI : 97....IIM calls : 0..:shocked:...coz of mebbe average acads...
IIFT,FMS : no calls
SNAP : 113.5...SCMHRD call..phew...1st call..:D
NMAT : NMIMS call...:D
XAT : 96 percentile...no XLRI call
Others : MDI call, SPJIMR no call...
Didnt apply : IMT, Tapmi, NITIE(a blunder...:banghead:), XIMB
Didn' give exam : TISS, JMET, IRMA , MICAT

6)GD/PI :..well..by now..sem 7 backlog was cleared..:D...
SCMHRD : decent GDPI..no convert
NMIMS : Good GD...average PI..converted NM banking and NM Capital markets(didn't take)
MDI : Fish market GD..:biggrin:...average PI...got MDI-HR..(didn't take)

7)A new story..CET..:D...Well..CET happens in Feb...this year it happend just 3 days before NM GD/PI...:D...i started preparing around December 2010...again enrolled in 2 test series...gave around 35+ mocks...i was damn good at these mocks...just revising concepts and thoroughly analysing the answers...i had reached a stage where i could attempt all 200 questions in 150 mins..and score 160+..the minimum requirement for JBIMS...:D..i focussed only on scores and not percentiles(this is true even for CAT..well..sorry bt my approach is bit different from others..:D)...

8 )CET blooper : i was brimming with confidence of slaughtering the paper....bt on the D -day...ridiculous things happened..i was robbed of my precious cell phone on the way to the exam..:shocked:....my Mom was hospitalised for a back operation...and i cudnt attend to her.....i was obviously disturbed...and forgot my strategies..bt nevertheless was still confident and focused...the CET for 2011...turned out to be the most difficult one till date...i found myself struggling to be fast...questions were FMS level.....i eventually reached 170 attempt bt was shocked to the core..coz i thought the only dream convert which seemed possible was gone...and my target was fading in front of me...students at my centre were crying...a very ghastly sight...

9)The CET GDPI...well...CET results came..i got 99.90...but except for me...everyone else was celebrating...:shocked:...coz 99.90 does not guarantee JBIMS...i lived the next week in shock...thinking where could i have done better...bt i enrolled fr a GDPI coaching...again started ET..:biggrin:...was slowly reaching perfection...i always kept my other converts as back up...another back up were my placements...and a remote back up was MS...the final option was an attempt next yr...so u can imagine i was mentally ill...was going thru an extremely tense period.

10)The final shock and the journey after that...

I got a backlog in sem 8...:|...just 2 weeks b4 the most imp GD/PI of my life...bt this was the time that i decided to CONTINUE..not quit...coz i had worked 1.5 yrs to reach this stage...i could not quit now...:shocked:..with a great effort i consoled my mind...although mentally i was very stunned...i still remained optimistic...the GDPI happened...GD was good..PI was excellent..even the interviewers lauded me...:D..so i was happy for my performance..bt things were still uncertain...as in where would i go...would i get JBims?...would i clear the backlog?...would i be denied admission coz of that?...my TCS joining in early July...uska kya?...

11)CET result....The most tense moment of my life...i asked my dad to see result as i was too tensed...my mind could not take any more pressure...i was leaping in the air...when my dad told me result
GDPI score 29/34...:p
State rank : 34....(OPEN)
University rank :30.....(Mumbai University OPEN)
and i knew i was almost there....the final list came...then the CAP rounds...where i saw
Institute alloted :JBIMS...
bt the backlog is still there...i had a re exam on July 22(july 21st is my b'day.....)...gave re xam...i cleared it......so now...as things stand...i wanted a top 10 b-school..in the IVY league...so TARGET ACHIEVED........
the journey ends here...this was my first and only attempt...:)..i was saved of a second attempt...:)

Few tips : 1)Keep achievable targets
2)Plan your things as per your ability
3)This is for those who want to have a chilled out life along with their preparation...but it involves lot of planning and scheduling of activities on a daily basis...so be careful...dont think that you can achive things by being just chilled out...it's that you can achieve things and still be chilled out...:)..i used to have many activities...swimming,football,gym,facebook..:oops:...then college,assignments...then occasionally partying...hang outs...:biggrin:..i know you won't believe it...bt why wud i lie??..;)

P.S...i used to always have a party..:drinking: a day before major exams to relax..(CAT,CET etc..)...others are advised not to follow me on this.....:biggrin:...bt try not to study anything on the previous day...else your brain will be fatigued on D-Day and you won't be at your best...I don't advise yoga and meditation coz i didnt do it.....

P.S.S..there come times when you compare people and tend to get bogged down...even i had such times...i did engineering @ VJTI,mumbai...(Mumbaikars know it for sure....)...people getting stupendous placements compared with my average ones...people racing ahead each day...someone getting IIM A convert...someone with 95 in CAT got SPJIMR convert...:w00t:...i didnt get even a call @ 98.3..:w00t:..both being freshers.!!...:w00t:..such ridiculous things do happen in life..:biggrin:..:shocked:...:biggrin:...bt it depends whether you get bogged down...sometimes you start losing self-belief and motivation...for me everything was going against.....but i did keep fighting...till the end..:p..and this is the only thing what makes the achievement special!!...:)..:)..so keep going no matter what!!..:)

And finally...i would like to say...the saying..."QUITTERS don't WIN and WINNERS don't quit"...is true..atleast for my case...many people who get KTs do take the decision to quit...so be prepared for bloopers...include back up plans...your plan should not be hunky-dory...include all possibilities...FAILURES and bloopers as well..:)..failures should be a part of your plan..so that u won't get too much disturbed in case you flunk...you may say.."it was part of my plan"...:biggrin:...;)

Sorry for the long post...:)

Good Luck People...:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Regards,
Gaureesh(JBIMS MMS 2011-13)

Hey guys... I have penned down my whole story of the last two years in detail in a blog...and that is all i want to speak about CAT...
do read it once you have free time as its quiet lengthy...
here is the link to my blog

First Express............

chapter 4 - Resurrection

There comes a time in our life when we do not have anything to lose. This was that time for me. With no option left, I came back home and rejoined the coaching institute. I started taking each day at a time building my broken self. Soliloquies became a part of my late night walks. It's a manner of recuperating and staying calm which really brought me at peace with myself. Inside my heart I knew that I had it in me to do better than what I had done. Although after having lost almost everything (including a part of myself) my expectations weren't high anymore.

In spite of all that had transpired between us the diehard romantic in me didn't want to give up. I was under the delusion that if my career got back on track may be I stood a chance. Studying, teaching and writing poems (mostly for her) became my usual routine. Couple of the writes from that phase:-

I trust you with my happiness
for a chance at the last turn.
In spite of knowing all the odds
to live and love I still yearn..
If faith could move a mountain
then it might just save a soul
So i have great faith in my love
that's life's sweetest gift and goal...


Became quite active on PG (especially the RC thread). A few puys (especially nitin aka rahicecream) were really helpful and supportive. Time went by and the exam season started nearing. Having already appeared in CAT twice I knew that I could manage my timings. Before the D day I took just one mock test and scored 99.05 Exam Day : I did the mistake of selecting a morning slot for CAT. A history of irregular bowel movements on important occasions coupled with a routine of waking up late ensured that my dreaded tummy trouble came back to haunt me yet again. The first 15 minutes got wasted with an irresistible urge to run to the bathroom. To quite a few of you who are reading this it might sound funny, but for me it was as if all my hard work was getting drained away. Somehow after half an hour the ache subsided. But the damage was done as I had attempted just 15 questions in QA. JMET was next and I literally murdered the paper. NMAT was easy comparatively.

But before XAT on the eve of Christmas the final nail in the coffin was hit. She finally requested me not to contact her anymore in any manner. She had made up her mind and I was making it difficult for her to move on. When it comes to love, there is a thin line between delusion and hope, and I realized that I had crossed on to the wrong side. Somewhere deep inside I had seen this coming. By now 'comfortably numb' is what I had become.

I don't know what happened with XAT. Maybe I was in limbo. The paper caught me totally off guard and I ended up with a lot of flukes in QA. Results started pouring in. I missed the IIFT bus by 4 marks as calculated. JMET came in next. This was probably the one result after so many failures that brought a smile on my face. 91.25/120 is what my score stood at. CAT came in next - the lost time proved costly as I got just 92.31 in QA. Although the OA of 99.44 meant that I had finally crossed the revered 99 mark! NMAT gave me 227 and 251 in the two attempts that I took. If CAT was something beyond my control, XAT was all my doing. The flukes along with my surrogate fate ensured that I ended up with a paltry 48.xx in QA DI with 94.xx in VA and 96.xx in ARDM.

Chapter 5 - calls and interviews

BLACKIS along with RRRT ditched me which was a setback because my academic record is decent. Anyways this is a list of my calls and subsequent converts:

Calls - All IITs . MDI , NITIE , GIM , NIRMA , MBE , NMIMS , IIM Ka , IIM Ud , XIMB (HR) , BIM , IMI

Skipped - GIM , NIRMA , MBE , XIMB(HR) , BIM , IMI

Converts - IIT M , IIT R , MDI , NMIMS , IIM Ka , IIM Ud

The factors which led to my rejection varied. Sometimes it was the lack of in depth knowledge of my trade i.e. civil engg. On other occasions probably my profile didn't seem good enough to the interviewers. Whatever the reason might have been I still have and will always have faith in myself. A rejection or a selection isn't a true portrayal of who we are. A befitting example is my bhaiya who had got rejected thrice by SP JAIN only to get into IIMA this year! As for me, after almost a month of confusion and dilemma IIM Udaipur is what I have opted for. So this is my final result.

Thanks for your patience for going through my long story. Before I wrap up here is some 'gyaan' that I would like to share:

1. Do not make CAT or any other B school entrance exam larger than life. There is a lot more to life than just an MBA

2. Do not give up your job just for CAT. It's okay to quit if there are some other pressing concerns.

3. Do not blatantly idolize anyone. It's good if you draw inspiration from someone, but do not at any point consider yourself as inferior. Every person is unique and has a certain set of qualities that he/she in endowed with. Treasure and respect who you are. So what if you can't be a 99 percentiler! There is definitely something that you can do better than him. Maybe you can play music, write poems or have an awesome bunch of friends the way he can't!

4. Love those who stand by you in times of adversity. This is why it is a boon to have a closely knit group of selfless friends. Not to forget the pillar i.e. your family.

5. Last but not the least I want to extend my sincere thanks to PG and TEST FUNDA (for the amazing material). I've almost always got a lot of help and love from my fellow puys and will continue extending the same. I finally end my story with a couple of poems meant for you puys :

I'll forever share this spark
of what is light to me
to see you through the dark
for whatever thou wish to be..
Believe in what you feel inside
as you begin to get into your stride
giving thine dreams the wings to fly
for all that thou desire, underneath the blue sky...

So here I am, finally ready to post on this thread which is revered by most of the puys. But before I start I would like to tell you that there aren't any CAT cracking tips or mantras for me to share. Everyone has his/her own way that suits them the best. This write is just a synopsis of my life's journey till now.

Chapter 1 - The early days

I was always a studious guy and for almost the entire school life stood first in the class. It was not under some duress but rather the feeling of being praised which made me happy. Moving on Std. X saw a lot of changes in me as I became the target of some bullies. My choice of friends also led to my downfall. My studies were seriously hampered and I ended up with 89%. For someone who was touted as the topper, to fall down to such level was a huge failure. My confidence took a heavy beating and for the next two years I couldn't recover. That ensured that I couldn't clear even the IIT screening exam. I decided to drop a year and prepare again. Meanwhile I got through the state CET exam and secured a seat in BIT Sindri. But as it is the fire and urge never subsides. The preparation was on track and my teachers were hopeful of success for me. Although destiny had some other plans for I was struck down with serious health ailments. The medicines ensured that I felt lethargic and slept for more than 12 hours a day. The desperation that sets in when you do want to study but just can't is indescribable. I failed once again (though by a close margin). With no other option in hand I carried on with the studies at BIT. My first years marks took a heavy plunge since I had hardly attended any lectures (which explains my average graduation percentage).
Chapter 2 - first Love, first Job and first CAT

I had my bhaiya who was preparing for CAT and he used to tell me about the good life which awaits one in the IIMs. Having failed once I knew I had to take CAT and prove to myself that I could still do it. Anyways my college band and club activities kept me hooked and I somehow kept procrastinating my preparations. Love happened too! Though It was a long distance relationship (with someone whom I had known from my physics tuitions), it thrived. Things went off pretty well but then the issues of marriage and future plans just turned everything ugly. She didn't want to commit and somehow it ended. It took me a lot of spirit and a few months to recover. Fortunately (or should I say unfortunately) I landed a job with Infosys through campus placement and after a sneak peak of mysore dc , I started having thoughts of postponing my MBA plans. CAT '09 arrived and it made me realize the importance of practice (the CL tests that I had appeared for hardly benefited me). XAT '09 was marred because of my irregular bowel movements. The last 30 minutes that I had left for VA were totally wasted as I tried to grapple with the tremendous ache that ensued. The results followed shortly:-

CAT - 91.89 with 95.xx in QA
XAT - 90.xx with 92+ in QA DI and AR DM but a paltry 36.xx in VA

Infosys Mysore dc truly made me feel as a resource. It seemed absurd when even the watchman directed or sweared at us (yes it did happen). It was no doubt a beautiful place but I felt caged in a golden palace. I left within one month. I know many of you will disagree with me but in my opinion it's better to quit rather than force yourself into something if the situation allows.

Chapter 3 - the struggle begins

Came back home and took a job in a coaching institute. Preparation was in full swing till the month of September. During the Puja vacations I met her again and the feeling that had been buried for so long sprung back to life. Distractions galore my focus unwillingly shifted away from CAT. I tried to balance the two but couldn't manage to. The end results were -

CAT - 95.15 with 82.xx in VA
XAT - 92.xx with 58.xx in ARDM
JMET- 2049 AIR

Got calls from IIT M , IMT G , IIFM and RGIPT. Went to my brother's place in gurgaon to prepare for the GD/PI . I was sure of converting at least one of the calls. But then as fate would have it, a couple of days before the IIT M interview she called me to apologize, for according to her - "we just can't be together anymore as my parents won't agree." The jolt was too much for me to bear. As expected I bombed all the interviews. There I was, staring at my end. Even in the darkest of dreams I hadn't imagined such a day for myself. I still remember the horrid feeling when I just stood numb in the cyber caf (after the RGIPT results). I didn't have the courage to face anyone anymore. At times the thoughts of ending it all crossed my end. Some of my darkest poems are a reflection of those days. Here is one of them:-

Is this what they term as life?
a treacherous path , full of strife .

Pushed to the shove, i know not what to do
Guess my nemesis is what i should pursue.

There is a limit to a person's suffering is what they say
if it's true then why do you twist me beyond limits as if i am just a toy made of clay ?

Distraught thoughts, disturbing memories; what else is to follow?
a dead man walking , i am already rendered completely hollow ...


continued..

So fellow puys, if we brothers can manage to achieve this type of job/degree/success with a slightest of resources then you can achieve an IIMs or any top-notch degree or let me say anything you want in your life.. I know it's not easy.. And I know that these institutes are the best in India/world and its not going to be a cakewalk. But don't ever lose HOPE.. Try next year or year after that if you miss by a whisker or by a large extent.. But never think that you can't do it.

And if you are not getting selected to a college u whished after 4-5 attempts depending open the situation you are in at that moment ,then just forget about it .. I may seem harsh or ignorant here puys and some of you may think that I am writing this bcoz here " ANGOOR is KHATTE HAIN for me" ..but puys if GRAPES are SWEET then there are MANGOES ,BANANAS,STRAWBERRY, and JALEBI,RASGULLA ,GULAB-JAMMUN ,KAJU-KATLI, etc, which are more sweeter than Grapes.


Life is not about getting a MBA degree but it is made up of tiny moments which an investment banker or hedge fund manager or even a normal school teacher will think with tears filled in his eyes when he will be lying in a Hospital bed and who knows that he is going to die in a matter of days....

( 2 days before CAT ,my girlfriend was receiving 2nd stage skin-grafting for her 40% burns she got while we were in class 10th and I was crying for not being able to be by her side when this was happening. I'll regret it every day of my life and if something of this nature is happening with any of u puys then what is the point of earning 10-20-30 lakhs of Rupees. But now I am going to marry my childhood girlfriend in coming dec. or feb. and will enjoy my life to the fullest. )


LET ME END MY POST-
Puys ,I was thinking that I will grab a good job and will settle down and my journey will end but now I promise you that I'll start a new life from now on and will never look back and will do whatever is needed for living a life that I'll not regret when it ends..

(well my story is happy ending or not ..i left it for you to decide..)


regards

anupam mishra
ps- no offense meant to anyone

cont.. .

i got rejected in ICFAI Hyderabads interview and BIMM also and the reasons were my below avg. and poor English speaking .. I was not given a single chance not bcoz of whether I was a deserving candidate or not or do I have that skills what it takes to be good manager. . I s being a good manger somehow is related to your fluency in speaking English? I admire the peoples of China very much in one prospect..they value there tradition very much , I mean .. even the President of America has to keep a translator when the Premier of China speaks in Chinese and look at the puppets here in India ,if China can progress without adopting English as official language then why cant us (lets forget it) .
after the rejections and humility which I received at the interviews, i lost my confidence in such an extent that i decided to never ever take this exams and Ill not be in a part of system where your Acads and your fluency in English is a fixed parameter to get a seat in a Good college.

Whether you score 99.9 percentile in CAT , XAT,SNAP or whatever ..u will not be selected if you dont have the above said prerequisite .they will not think about how this kid has managed to score 65% in +2 exam where a student tops the STATE if he is able to get 75-80% marks ..how difficult it is to study in kerosene oil lighted lamp with 4-5 brothers and sisters in room with temperature as high as 42-45 degree.. were the school teachers didnt teach you enough so that youll take home tuitions from them and were even in the home tuitions ,you study some part of 8th grade some part of 10th grade and some part of your own grade and in the process of all these ,you can even get wounded ( imagine a student getting wounded so that he can study ) and all these continues year on year basis ; that these kids are doing their best where a DPS RK Puram, Doon School, etc kids will piss in their pants after only seeing the conditions there..
But these so called TOP B-SCHOOLS IN INDIA board/interview panel members will ignore them in such a manner like they never ever have existed .they will shatter there confidence in pieces .

And after the rejections in the interviews i lost all the hopes that what will I do with my life ( after spending 60-70 thousand rupee for coaching for CAT in CL and not even getting a single convert from a good college, it forced me to think.) I remained out of touch with all the modes of communication, friends, career reminding things and stayed with my grandmother for about 4 months in my native village.

Finally I started preparing for Bank PO exams when I heard about good no. of vacancies are coming in PSU banks through an ALL INDIA RADIO broadcasted news (was still in my village at that time ) and thought about giving it a try as the fee was only of Rs. 300 . and for the first time in 4 months I moved out of my village and from that time i never thought about my past and never looked back. I failed in the written test in almost 10-12 different Banks exam but I remained in the battle thinking I must have been lagging somewhere and also to compete among lakhs of candidates for 400 -500 seats is not going to be cake walk. But today i saw the tiny name of mine in the selected candidates list for Final Selection of Allahabad Bank and I started to cry and cried for more than an hour or so. Its the moment of PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS for me. It has given me a new meaning to my existence. And whether Ill join the oldest joint stock bank in India is a matter of time but Ill never ever forget the humility which I have faced bcoz of this TOP B-SCHOOLS OF INDIA..

I was crying in the night around 3 am on the date of my interview remembering my past experience in interviews of B-schools and was unable to get a sleep for even 5 minutes and my eyes were red like a vampire.. I was shaking outside the door of interview board waiting to get screwed again, and after my introduction only, the AGM asked the question which I was not prepared to answer in English at that time I closed my eyes for 4-5 seconds and felt my eyes getting moist but as a man without any option, I asked the panel that sir can I answer this in Hindi as I am not very much comfortable with English and to my surprise the AGM said why not Mr. Anupam and at that time I knew that this is the chance I cannot miss and I answered every question asked In Hindi and English mixed..and as the result has been declared today ,I am going to be asst. manager in the oldest joint-stock bank of India.. the bank has kept faith in a candidate like me bcoz they know the actual situation in our country and bcoz they care that why this candidate is asking the permission to answer in Hindi
I respect the IIMs and other inst. Very much but what about candidates like me .. I have read or heard in news about a girls suicide in Mumbai or Delhi (I cant remember exactly) ,the reason was not passing with good marks in his +2 exam. And I was shocked to see her marks in 80 + percent. How can be this happening to students? I think if this case get normalized then ALL THE STUDENTS OF MY STATE HAVE TO COMMIT SUICIDE..

NOW THE PART HOW HARD WORKING WE WERE :-
1.) Eldest bro after doing MBA from Singhad coll. Pune ,is working right now as TL in a FMCG company.
2.) Sister did English hons. And is happily married and going to US with my Jiju (SDBA in Wipro) on H1B visa in the end of this year .
3.) Elder bro. failed in his +2 exam and in second attempt passed with 47% marks in science stream. But he is a God gifted painter/sculpture, won almost all the competition in my DAV school and 8-10 State level prizes in painting . Gave the exam of NIFT, got selected but not joined bcoz he wanted only to do his UG from NID, Ahmedabad. well in his 2nd attempt cleared the 6 stage process of selection in NID and yes HIS INTERVIEW WAS IN HINDI . ( this is called the respect of talent ). Currently pursuing Graphics design and is in 3rd year.
4.) My maternal cousin did his BCA from IGNOUE patna and MCA from BMS ,Bangalore ,securing 10th rank in Karnataka combined. Currently working in Aricent and is Cambridge, London right now for software testing for 4G techn. for AT&T.;
5.) My paternal cousin did his B.TECH from a college under VTU and has joined a company last month.
6.) And lastly me a clerks son is going to join as an Asst. Manager in a PSU bank. (That doesnt sound very bad to me .lol. )

:-As advised by Raghav sir to write my story about my experience of life (till now) and my struggle for MBA :-
(And puys ,you may or may not find it as inspiring as the_hate or sumitrocks or Raghav sirs or Spurthis story but at least Its my story so plz dont laugh on it.)

And plz , dont think that I have personality disorder as my PG id may force u to think so. Actually the title Mishra is my surname and Singh is the surname of my best friend whom I lost when we were in class 10th .i miss him so much that I dont wanted to forget him in any single day of my life.so the id mishrasingh (and many other things) .will always miss you my friend..

Now my story:

as i am one of the those guys who come from remotest parts of the country [ me from Dist. Bhojpur of Bihar which is infamous for mass murders aka narsanhars, I have seen 25-26 beheaded bodies at one place (started imagining dont do that, I mean, u cant imagine a 2 yr old baby sitting btwn dead bodies of his/her whole family members ) ] and who find themselves in such a miserable position when they come to know about these IIMs-CAT thing in such a period of life when there is no way to prepare for this THINGS bcoz of there avg Academics ,not so fluent in English ,no good work- ex, etc that they lose hope and confidence that they will not get a good and reputed job in any MNCs or other Big companies.

Ill tell you firstly about my school, +2 and my Grad. college experience :- i have done my schooling( 1st standard onward) from the best school of my town a DAV but the school was like this; our English subject teacher used to teach us English in Hindi ( I hope you all understand what i m saying) and other teachers dont teach us enough or WHOLLY so that they can get enough students for their HOME TUTIONS. Now about my family background ; My father (manager in PNB was on a post above clerk back then) is the sole earning source of my family but the burden on his shoulder included my grandpa & grandma living in my village ,my mother, 3 brothers(incl. myself) and 1 sister and my two cousin brothers . My home was a rented 2BHK. Now again on my studies me and my elder brother were in DAV, my Eldest bro and Sister in a Mission School and my 2 cousins in a Govt. school. so bcoz of quality of our school ,my father provided us the luxurious SEPARATE home tuitions .separate not in the sense each student one teacher but in the sense 2 teacher for 2 subject ( maths & Science, the most CAREER oriented subjects). We all ,6 brother and sisters, have to study, ask our doubts ,of different Standards, from the same teacher, and that too in one hour .The same teacher remained till we all passed our 10th Board exam. So Dear Puys, as u can understand what was the Quality of education we have got till our 10th Board exam. The results was except me and my elder brother (not eldest) ,who passed with 1st div, we all passed with 2nd Division or below 60 % marks. Dont think that we werent hard working. (How hard working students we were actually, Ill tell this in the last.)

I have seen kids/students of class 9th or 10th or +2 in Delhi,Mumbai, etc ,fighting/arguing with their parents for X-Box ,PSP and for High End mobiles and I used to remember our days when we brothers fight for who will fill the oil in our Kerosene oil Lamp today ,wholl clear the glass of that lamp with ash so that it can sine properly ,wholl go to the market to bring Vegetables and wholl wash the terrace with hand-pump water to study in the evenings and nights of summer. I still have cut marks in my hand which I got while clearing the Glasses. (Fights to choose the easiest of the above said tasks!!)

We often have to study in our room bcoz on terrace the Insects of the entire world used to rover around our lamp and bite us and if we kill them, they smell like Dirtiest Male goats or Bucks can smell. Have any of u have traveled through a pack DTC bus or Mumbai Local trains , the fresh air through the windows used to be the only relief for the people packed inside .true na. Now Imagine 6 kids in a small room, with a Kerosene lamp and that too in a temperature as high as 42-45 degree and those kids have to study for their exams sweating, suffocating and studying hard for 60% marks so that their Maa and papa can feel proud of their Kids. Why 60 % , bcoz a school can be declared the best School if 30 or 40 % of its student gets 60% or more . Such was the marking system of Bihar Board School back then. ( X-Box 360 ,Sony PS .. hahaha , I could have demanded a separate English teacher for myself. Lol.)

After my Board exam, I opted for commerce for +2 as my marks in Maths and Science were below avg and I also got the option of commerce, a totally different subject from subjects till board exams. In short I wanted to run away from my past failures and start afresh. And to my surprise, the commerce was not an option available in all the CBSE board schools in my District. So at last I have to get Admission in a Bihar board college. Taken. I and three more students were the only English medium student in approx. 400 students.so no college for me as could not understand the terms in HINDI ( MY PROBLEM WITH ENGLISH IS THAT ,I CAN COMPREHEND ENGLISH VERY WELL BUT I CAN NOT SPEAK ENGLISH FLUENTLY.) The subject of account suited me like designer suits fit on any person. My best years of study till date, those two years I studied like any IAS aspirant study.. 12+ hours almost every day. joined a STARTUP coaching with only 6 batch mates for Accounts only ,but i have to study 8 more subjects .i was such a good student in Accounts that I finished 2years syllabus in 4 months . my teacher used to left the batch to me to teach when some visitors come. but poor me ,I have to manage others 8 subj. so 12+ hour of study. The result , I got 66 % percent (hurray) my college toper 71 % and the State toper 76% .i got distinction in 3 subjects but I got 67 in Accounts and 60 in English ,why, bcoz they do Average marking meaning allocating numbers to students in a RANGE in some subjects ..the benefit goes to weak students. (The student whom I used to help got 69 in Accounts.)
The same story goes with my Graduation.. I tried everything to get a seat in DU and few other Universities, but (technically) my state topper cant take admission in commerce stream in DU so how could I ? Did Graduation from the same college and got 70 % mark, missed the rank with 4 % . Got into C.A. and cleared the 1st level in 2nd attempt and that too without any coaching. Managed the Graduation final year exam and side by side handled my Sisters wedding all on my own. Lucky me, got 74 % in Final year exams.
Now came the hardest part, WHAT TO DO NOW? Doing C.A. will take at least 4 years more and I was not in the situation to wait for 4 years. So I decided that I will DO MBA.. My fathers friends son was doing MBA from IMT Ghaziabad and my Father also wanted me to go for MBA. Came to Delhi with my Father and Joined CL on advice of my Uncle. The fee was around Rs. 40,000 and the monthly expenses were around Rs. 7,000. (The coaching at CL was meant for those guys who were prepared beforehand to an extent.) First time in my life Ive spoken in English in introducing myself to the Batch. I fumbled and stuttered and all the batch mates burst into laughter. And When I said I am from Bhojpur, Bihar the reaction was something like I was the most unwanted thing on this planet. Coaching was just like, I prayed every day that teachers dont ask me to answer any Questions; I didnt want to get humiliated again. Well the mocks started and the first mock exam shocked not only me but other students also when i told our English mam that i got 94 percentile in English and this continues till the main CAT where i got 98.8 %tile in English. the two guys from St. Stephenss English (Hons) got something in 70s %tile and they used to ask me that how i got such good %ile in Eng. and i used to joke " how you managed to get in ST. STEPHEN'S ", "you are currently in the "position" to help me."
(and i got only 60 % marks in English in my +2 exam.)

I managed to clear some exams ( Not CAT though, got poor to Avg. %ile bcoz frankly speaking, my Maths is not of CAT level, why, start reading from top again . lol. ) .i cleared the written of ICFAI and SNAP and got calls from BIMM and one college in Bangalore(cant recall it now) through MAT score. I prepared very well for GD ,covered almost 60-70 topics of that time and for Personal Interview ,I prepared almost 250+ questions covering all the areas told by our CL teachers bcoz I wanted to not to reveal my level of English Speaking and got humiliated again and most of all ,to waste my fathers hard earned money. I was good in the GD round of BIMM. But when the interview of BIMM happened and the first ques. asked was why do you have such a poor marks in 10th exam? and I replied my well-rehearsed answer that included was very unfocused and used to take studies not seriously but realized my mistake and got more serious with studies later as my 12th and graduation marks can show. and after 5th successful answers ,I was asked a question of which the answer Ive known but was not able to speak it in English .. The panel members said that how come youve scored 70% mark in B.COM and you are unable to answer this question and then I replied the complete answer in HINDI .and as expected they started to laugh when I had tears in my eyes.. They asked that why you replied in Hindi, then I said that, sir Im not good with Speaking English. And after some unusual Qs. they said thank u and have a great future ahead and told me to leave..

In ICFAI, i managed to clear the presentation on topics given in the Kit and answered 3 ques. asked on it as I was well prepared for it. And then came the PI Round and I was nervous bcoz of the BIMM interview .i was only able to reply 3 questions before that ques. which put the STOP sign to my further interview. . i left the room before there telling me to leave and wishing me a GREAT FUTURE. I cried for about 30 minutes or so on that greenish lawn of the Campus and cursed my fate.. I cant forget that day and I Dont want to forget that day ever in my life.. and I decided to not to attend my last interviews of SIIB and that Bangalore based college.

While preparing for CAT, like any other aspirant, I also wanted to write on this thread as an IIM student. But things didn't work out as expected. Still I would fulfill my dream and write here as I have been able to get into a decent b-school. This is not to inspire anyone because my story is not worthy of that. Rather I just want to look back on my journey to relive and share some moments. It has not been a very long journey with no major setbacks. Rather it was a journey full of anxiety, with feelings of satisfaction and uncertainity playing a game of musical chairs in my mind every other day.

Right from my childhood I have been able to secure the top rank in my class. Everyone around me considered me as the next big thing. Their expectations from me rose sky-high. But I remained down to earth, knowing that all these achievements do not matter much in the long run. I believed that until and unless I don't get into a decent grad college, these scores are useless. While I was in class 10, I wanted to be an engineer. At those times, an engineer for me was the one who wore helmets and build roads. That was the kind of knowledge that I had about engineering and still I went for it and took science in class 11. But then I don't know what happened, my focus started shifting from studies. I wasted my 2 years, which could have been the 2 most important years of my life had I prepared for IIT-JEE. I just joined a crash course of 2 months for the entrance exams preparation. No wonder, I could not get into any of the IIT's, NIT's or DCE. But still managed to get into IP University with Computer Science stream.

Life went on the same way like it did in school- scoring high marks and still knowing nothing about what was being taught. 2.5 years just went by with no value addition. One day I was sitting with one of my friends in college. He was preparing for CAT for 6 months. That day, we talked about CAT for about 3-4 hours. He told me about everything- entrance exams, gdpi's, IIM's, FMS, XAT, and of course the salaries earned after a MBA degree. When I returned home that day, I was all pumped up and ready to jump into the madness of CAT. One thought that pushed me was that I didn't want to regret again for not preparing for the entrance exams.

I enrolled for the Career Launcher's One Year Classroom Program the very next day. I enjoyed all the classes because everything seemed quite doable. I also enrolled for the TIME test series. I had the feeling that I can crack CAT at the very first go. But all my over confidence started to shatter once the mocks started. In the initial few mocks, I was not even able to cross 85 percentile mark. There were mocks which broke me completely. I used to get shattered and even thoughts of quitting came across my mind a few times. But I kept working hard. I worked on my weakness, which was 'Verbal' section. I was still scoring decent in Quant and LRDI sections, but in verbal my scores even dipped to single digits. I decided to completely focus on the section and I spent the next 15 days just solving verbal questions. Gradually the improvement started to show. I started getting percentiles in the range of 92-95. By the end of the mock season, I even got a 98.5 percentile. I knew on a given day, I can very well secure all the IIM calls.

But the destiny had something else planned for me. I got 4 wrong Quant questions in the 18th Nov, morning slot. That wasted my crucial LRDI section time, due to which I got screwed.

After CAT, the next 5 exams came and went like a breeze. Scored decent enough in NMAT, IIFT, FMS, JMET and SNAP. But the luck again ditched me in XAT. So the final report Card was like-

CAT - 95.31 percentile(with 78.xx in LRDI)
NMAT - 259
IIFT - 43.69
FMS - 437
JMET - AIR 252
SNAP - 130.25
XAT - 95.51 percentile(with 65.xx in ARDM)

And the calls that I got were-

NMIMS, IIFT, FMS, IIT-D, IIT-B, SIBM-P, SCMHRD, IMT, IMI, FORE

Now came the most dreaded part for me- GDPI'S. I have always been kind of an introvert person. I had not spoken in public very often. Also I don't have a strong voice. I started attending CL Group Discussion classes. In the initial few classes, I could not speak much. But the FMS call kept pushing me to keep trying. I badly wanted to convert this call. For the interviews, I knew I must have something to talk about and indulge the panelists. So I decided to make 'Current Affairs' as my strong point. I used to read newspaper for about 2-3 hours daily. I used to read the news, and then analyze it from different perspective. This helped me in bringing new points in the Group Discussion too.

The series of GDPI started. First it was the SIBM-P and SCMHRD one. They went below average for me and I didn't had much expectations from them. But I didn't get de-motivated as I had my eyes set on FMS whose process was still a month away. I kept preparing and in the meanwhile, kept giving other college's GDPI's. In the IIFT interview, whole discussion just went about the prime minister's press conference that happened just a day before. And my strategy to keep my current affairs updated worked there. But my GD didn't go too well in IIFT. So it was just a wait and watch situation. Meanwhile, I was rejected by SIBM-P and SCMHRD.

Then came the day for which I was waiting for. It was 16th March. But the day wasn't mine and I screwed up my FMS process. Was really down after coming back. But the very next day, IIFT came up with their final merit list and I was selected for the Delhi campus. I was ecstatic to see all the hard work finally paying off. But FMS was due to come up with its list the next day. Though I had very little hope there, but still I hoped for a miracle to take place. Obviously that didn't happen. Results kept pouring, converts and rejects kept knocking at the door.

Coverts- IIFT, NMIMS, IIT-D, IMT, FORE

It is going to be IIFT-D for me. Though it was my second best call(according to me), the pain of not been able to get into FMS was still there a few days back.

But now I have decided to let it go and do my best as I have got the opportunity to get into one of the best b-school of the country. Because at the end of the day, it is us who can make or break our career, not our college. Even an IIM degree doesn't guarantee you a flawless career.

Campus Life of IIFT - here I come!!!:D:D

I never ever imagined that someday I'll be writing in this thread. Not because i didn't believe in myself but because i was unsure of treading the path of the corporate world in the first place. I did my 5yr integrated MS in chemistry from IISER kol (one in a set of 5 new institutes established by MHRD to promote science in India), and a research based job or a P.hD. would have been a natural extension. I was planning to take GRE and go abroad for a PhD at one stage. But there were few factors which changed the course of my career and as it turned out, my life.

During my 3rd yr at college, I met a beautiful girl and in 3 months we fell in love. As we got serious into our relationship, I realized I need to stay in India and get myself a settled and successful career. MBA was always in the back of my mind because I felt MBA as a course suits my character and personality, but i never gave serious thought about it. But then during the spring of 2010, i made up my mind to go for an MBA. My father didn't like my decision; he wanted me to go for PhD. But i was adamant.

I joined AIMCAT and started studying. I did not study for hours but I was regular. Though my initial percentiles were disappointing, i was gradually improving with every test. I hit 97 percentile once but mostly my scores were in the range of 85-90. In the meantime, I kept in touch with vocab for GRE till June, which was in October, thinking of it as a backup. But after June, I focussed fully on CAT. 'She' always motivated me, supported me and even discussed with me about my preparation and studies. I even once hit a terrible bad patch but she took my studies out of that shit.

I took GRE and TOEFL and scored reasonably well (1390/1600 and 109/120) considering my lack of preparation. On the D-day, i was satisfied with my exams but a bit worried about DI sectional as i only attempted 12/20. I spent too much time on quant(attempted all). After CAT, i screwed up IIFT (coz of GK section). FMS and XAT were not satisfactory either (96 and 94 %iles respectively). So, finally all my hopes were pinned on CAT results. I was expecting 99+ but i knew CAT can be a bitch sometimes. In the meantime, I applied to 2 universities abroad for PhD, coz of my father's pressure.

Finally the night came when results were declared. My friend came and told results are out and he got 98.75. I almost ran to his laptop and entered my SR number with 5 people behind my back, all gazing at the screen. I saw, 99.71 it was, with 99.86 in quant, 98.49 in verbal and 93.36 in DI. Everyone picked me up and after 5 mins, I realised I could barely walk because of the pain ...

In few days time, i received the following calls- C, I, Ranchi, MDI and ABM calls from A and L. So it was now down to GDPI. I joined TIME GDPI classes but the pressure of thesis submission was enormous at college. It became tough for me to manage the two things at one time. But I tried my best to take as many GD and PI sessions as possible. At this time, I got an offer for PhD at National University of Singapore with a handsome stipend. But my eyes were stuck on IIM. I had two advantages prior to the GDPI stage- the advantage of having a different background (pure science graduates are not many in any campus) and the advantage of being from an Institute like IISER (I came to know it was very famous among professors)

After the marathon GDPI season in which i had 7 interviews, it was the time for final results. Though initially wait-listed in few, I converted all finally (except C where I was wait-listed at 24). It was like a dream come true. Everyone was so ecstatic. Even though I feel I had blessings from my elders but I have no hesitation in saying that without my girlfriend, IIM would only have remained a dream for me. She has the biggest hand in my success and I can never forget that. I can also never forget my friends who have supported me throughout the preparation period.

From my experience, i can tell u one thing for sure. Success is nothing if u don't have someone to celebrate it with- Friends or family who care about your success. Therein lies the joy of success. So don't get yourself so much involved in studies that you miss out on the real charm of life. CAT doesn't need that, study smartly and enjoy relationships, parties and above all, the Life.

Its amazing to be writing on this thread. I have found great inspiration from the stories told here and it is time I thank all puys who helped me thus far to be able to share my experience here.

I
It started, as it always does, during the engineering days. My wing-mates and I, as early enthusiasts, joined the coaching classes for CAT 2008 in the 3rd year. After attending a few classes and although I found them useful, I decided to discontinue the classes as I figured it interfered with my Sunday morning sleep. The only section, I learned, that needed more preparation for me was English and I quietly started preparing for it by improving my reading speed, enhancing my vocabulary etc.

It was not until later next year when the AIMCAT season started in July that I really got into CAT preparation. I was scoring around 95 percentile in these tests and had a fair amount of confidence early on. I took a lot of tests and did some analysing and found my skills in VA were poor. My DI was no good either and I had developed a fear of DI in my mind. I continued my CAT preparation along with regular college work, but as the AIMCAT season progressed my performance didnt improve much and my scores never crossed 98 pc. Still I was under some sort of delusion that I would crack CAT. On the C-Day, 16 Nov, I messed up a little by spending a lot of time in VA, as the test format was 40-25-25 questions in favour of VA rather than the normal 25-25-25 distribution. Otherwise I thought I had done decently.

Soon I was to discover that it was not good enough. On the day of the results, 9th Jan, I was extremely disappointed to see a 98.53 percentile score and no calls. Many of my friends from college got admits in IIMs the same year which only reinforced my wish to appear for CAT next year.

II
This time I thought I will do everything it takes. I started my preparations early. I practised a lot; my VA improved considerably and reading became lightning fast. But still the improvement was not as much visible in the mock test scores as I expected. The test was online this time around, though this fact didnt bother me. On the day of the exam, I found the paper to be quite easy. I had attempted a decent number of questions and thought I may get a few calls. This time I wrote XAT as well and scored a very good 99.83 which I thought was a good prelude to a similarly high score in CAT. Due to CAT fiasco that year, results were declared quite late. To my utter dismay, the result was a mere 98.01 percentile. Boy, was that frustrating. Even lesser than my previous CAT score and all the hours of preparation seemed a waste. I had an interview call from XLRI and although I wasnt very keen on it, I decided to appear for the interview. The interview was quite a routine one I thought and I did decently. As a relief, after the miserable performance in CAT, I found that Id converted my XLRI call.

III
I disappointed a lot of folks, especially my family, by not joining XLRI. The stakes were higher this time and the pressure was enormous. I was tired of getting the shorter end of the stick all the time and I really wanted a win. Only the odds were stacked against me.

I had been in the job for quite a while now, and the work load was slowly increasing. I was doing well there, in fact I was enjoying what I was doing at work so that part was good. There were days during my CAT prep when I felt low and it seemed like dj vu but I kept my morale up. I scored quite a few 99+ percentiles in the mock tests which cheered me up. Also I ensured not to feel down by the occasional low scores.

On the C-Day, I noticed that I was particularly calm. The paper was easy and I attempted all the questions except a couple of them. The feeling I had after the exam was a good one but that is the same feeling I had after my previous CATs too. Meanwhile, I won a few rewards at work which was a good diversion after long months of CAT preparation and I let myself to some enjoyment.

Come the day of the result- 12th Jan, I could scarcely believe what I saw in my laptop screen when I entered my CAT registration number- a 99.99 pc overall with 99.97-QA, 99.85-DI, 98.75-VA. It was a dream come true. I dont think I had tears of happiness ever before in my life. Later in the day the shortlists started to come out, and as I had known by then, they always come together- happiness and sadness. I didnt get calls from IIM A and B. After the initial disappointment (of not getting a call from the dream b-school IIMA) passed I didnt worry as much as there wasnt anything I couldve done about it.

I focused my energies to convert the calls I had. I had a great time preparing for the GD-PI phase. Be it attending mock GDs, interacting with old pals for advice, or the actuals, I learned a lot from the experience. Although by the time of the first couple of interviews, I was not completely prepared, it got better with time, ending with the final interview for IIMC. I have briefly shared the GDPI experience in my other post.

On the day the final results came out, 18th April, I was ecstatic to get the final admit call from IIMC. It was one of the best feelings you ever had. I had waited for so long for it and imagined in my head endless times how it would feel, yet the feeling at that time couldnt have been better. It also felt like the end of an era in my life and a beginning of a new one.

Unless you are a born-intelligent types guy or girl, it takes a lot of hard work to crack CAT and an inspiration. For me it was about living a dream, or maybe impressing a girl who used to sit next to me, but more than anything it was about keeping a promise I made to a very special person. If you look around you will find your inspiration too. And as the saying goes, It aint over until you win.

All the best!

Cheers
Yash

Part 3

So here I was sitting with all these rejects. Also, my ego used to get badly hurt. Most of my friends had made it big to a top B-School. Some made it to IIFT, some to NM. They were all celeberating while I was just attending them, not having a single worthwhile convert in my hand. Initially I had made up my mind to go to ICFAI Hyderabad, but I remember on the bus trip of MICA when I met fellow puy akshay.vannery. He told me to try hard for next year & that ICFAI does not justify my abilities. I took his advice



To be conitnued..........................

The purpose of this post is not to motivate people but to warn them what never to do while preparing for CAT. My experience with Indian MBA industry (Yes it is an industry going by the money making) has not been pleasant at all and all I wish is that others do take the precautions I never took.
Declaration: It would be my conscious effort not to reveal names and places. As my intention is not to degrade any region people or place but just to warn others.

It all started in 2007 when the economy was gung ho and things were rosy in IT industry. I was an average engineer in an average college where the Infy, TCS and the likes recruited regularly. Got a decent job but dad was adamant on me being an MBA. (yes I come from a small town where parents reign supreme). So started the MBA dream. Joined CL and was a sincere with an on and off note.
Things started rolling to 2008, where I tool CAT, JMET, XAT and what not. In those weekly tests I was usually not the brightest bulb but many times was in 96-97%ile.
With this kinda performance CAT was a dream but still with full gusto went ahead and got 80%ile.
Here I would like to make a special mention to all those administrators in B-Schools who keep the last date of form submission just a day before the actual exam to cash in on the rat race frenzy. Hats Off to them as they amply demonstrate Nobility and Profitability are opposing ends.
Anyways continued with the razzmatazz and gave XAT and NMIMS. Funny, thing about NMIMS missed the cut off by a narrow margin. (But did not blame the luck even once, I blamed my performance).
Then came XAT, where I without any hopes (Legend has it, its tougher than CAT) went ahead. Expected a good performance, and pleasantly shocked I got 97%ile , I don't know how,but now started a bigger pain. All venerable names had closed submission a day before exam (included GIM, XIMB etc.) and I was left standing with filling up XLRI- which had been filled much earlier due to dad's insistence.
People ask me why fill XLRI and not GIM at-least , and I tell them logic is not available when you need it most.
So found out this supposedly great institution accepting XAT score. Made big promises and showed high ethical standards like not disclosing average packages and all that.
Managed by an ex-IIM director it looked to be on the path of becoming great soon. So, without wasting a moment did the due-diligence on:
1. Contacted seniors.
2. Checked out companies coming for recruitment.
3. Unofficial data on Average package in past.
4. and some other thing....

It shone bright and as soon as I cleared GD, PI decided to join it up. This was 2008.
To my horror it became clear the very first day that the ex-IIM dude who was the president was an autocrat leading the entire gamut to naught. The college prided itself to be the fairest of all in selection and having no quotas yet I found more than 40% of students from a particular state. Almost all seniors rued theri decision to come but I foolishly concluded that it was too late to change course.
The college had a disproportionately high no. of non-hindus (I put on record that my intention is not to offend anyone) and hence, holi, diwali celebrations were not permitted in open even though some of the Sunday mornings the rule was forgotten. What was even more shocking was the pure lies in hostel accommodation. We were shoved in small rooms in numbers higher than what was promised in the brochure. And the cherry on the cake people getting high not on alcohol but cannabis. The allegations of bungling with answer sheets to favor a few were always present too. Most profs had little industry experience with the exception of a few highly talented ones. And the kind of personal control exerted there on every part of life reminded me of the Orwellian 1984 horror.
Placement season 2010 came and me being an engineer tried in IT. To my horror only one of then came and that I could not get through.

So, was left jobless. But thanks to a banking giant went in sales. Things have been just a little less than OK ever since. I am paid less than industry average. Get abused regularly by boss (Everyone is the target so its a part of life now.) Lot of field work is there so have lost a lot of weight in this north-Indian heat.
Someone might ask why wait 1 year and post, the reason is now I find my engineering buddies earning almost equal or more than me being only graduates. THey work in plush iT offices while scrounge the roads for leads and a question keeps popping up in my head "What if?????"

My advise to all aspirants:
1. Take CAT if you want to be an MBA not because somebody wants you to. I was not even aware that Sales and Marketing are different functions uptill the course beginning.
2. Be resourceful and summon all your energy to find about the college you intend to join. Use PG contact seniors etc.
3. Don;t rush into this decision it can make or break your life.
4. Losing the first time is not the end of life.
5. But most importantly if at any point you feel you won't get what you want, cut your losses and move. Chuck the course for a better opportunity or trying to create one, because sentimental remorse and guilt take you nowhere.

I have a lot of other complaints and a lot more advise but I think this would do good to forewarn others and i don't want to dirty this sacred thread as people refer to it with my litany of woes.

However, what I can say every morning I dread the heat work and abuse and just wonder "What If???"

P.S.: The college I am talking is not **** kinda college. It is well respected and if I remember correctly PG had its first perception based rankings in 2008. Its rank was in double digits and a good one. On a healthy side.

This is a very sacred thread, which I only read till now, and never dared to post . Before I proceed, let me tell you folks that I'm not a CAT Cracker till now and won't ever be one, but nevertheless, I'm happy with season 2011 and wanted to share my MBA journey.

Background:
I landed up in engg(in 2005), like many the others - just another degree with no particular love for the subject. Passed time in the 1st and 2nd year with not much of serious prep stuff but occasional fiction and non-ficition books.
2007:
I enrolled in CAT coaching in IMS, during my engg.2nd year and took the classes. Back in those days, I was in Bhubaneswar and used to juggle between engg, college placements prep and CAT Prep(which wasnt very tough!).
2008:
In Feb, Infosys had come to our college and I was selected in its placement drive. I was taking mocks and was preparing for OMETs as well. However, the preps were lacking the heat required to crack CAT. I could hardly touch 90 percentiles. Towards sept, I had completely lost heat and wasn't sure If I should continue with preps or not. In between, semester exams came and went and I was still clueless. Finally, the C-Day was on 16th Nov, the last pen and paper CAT was held. I gave couple of other exams as well.
2009:
The results came one after the other. Little did I know that 2009 was the worst ever year in my CAT Journey. FIrst came JMET - AIR 2118(not enough for any call). CAT was a fiasco with no IIM Calls. Didnt apply other Non CAT instis(didnt wanna waste money seeing my performance in mocks!) .
IRMA gave me a call with 99.5 pcntile and NMAT also gave me one with my initial rank before GD-PI being around 1800.
I wasn't really sure about IRMA and the rural mgmt thing and I was also fighting NMAT with a low score and no work-ex. After thousands of debates over whether I should attend IRMA and NMIMS GD-PIs, I decided to attend.
I converted IRMA and was offered a Management quota seat in NM. I never wanted to join Infy in the first place and Infy had offered a Date of Joining in Nov 2009. So I was weighing my options of should I or shouldn't I join IRMA. It was the most difficult and most changing decision I've ever made. I consulted many many folks from IMS, other seniors, PG etc, and finally made up my mind to join IRMA .
IRMA started college from June 8th 2009 and before that I had taken a loan for 1 lakh for the first year fee. I started attending college and the classes. Went to the initial field work and induction stuff. I was never however convinced that rural mgmt was my calling (I've highest regards to IRMA and nowhere do I intend to question its quality. It is just that I run after certain different things in life, which the institute was not offering).
I was confused as to what should I be doing. I had a loan riding on me and the prospect of going back home and waiting to join Infy till Nov and then work in Infy was very intimidating. But rural mgmt was clearly not in my mind . I discussed matters with my folks, and close friends but was still very very confused.
Finally on arnd July 17th, after some 1 month of classes, I made my decision to quit IRMA, and came back to home in bhubaneswar.
July - Nov 2009:
When I look back, this was one such phase which I never ever wanna recall.Everything bad that could possibly happen, heppened. The loan was no longer classified as a study loan, and so the interest rates shot up to 16%. My decision was not an economical one. Folks were visibly freaked out and there was a lot of depression. The fact of joining Infy again with college folks was insulting. People mostly never understood my reason for coming back and everyone thoguht there would be somethign more to it.
I kind of shut myself out from all friends except for few close ones and wiled time doing all the paperwork for joining Infy and stuff. I wanted to take up some job before I joined in Infy, but got stiff resistance from folks. Dropped the idea of everything. Didnt feel like preparing for CATor OMETs again and was worried about the 1.2 lakh loan even before having a job.
Nov-Dec 2009:
Joined Infy much to my chagrin and disappointment and went through their training. People claimed it to be tough and stuff but honestly speaking I used to wind up everyday by 5.30 and used to read the tonnes of non-fiction books in the Mysore lib. I was still in refusal of society and friends.
In the the Mysore Library,I read a couple of very good biographies and books which inspired a lot!1 Looking back I must say good books and good friends have a lot of importance in life! Am really thankful for getting hold of such a good library .
2010:
I got posted to Pune in May 2010 and worked there for 3 weeks. For some urgent project requirement, I was transferred from Pune to Bangalore permanently and joined Bang in June. Life was changing quite rapidly and I still had no plans of giving CAT or OMETs. My managment dream was almost over and parents were insiting on marriage plans.
It was my bnglr roomie and another close friend of mine who spoke to me to take up preps once more. I clearly lacked a goal/purpose in life, back then. I gave it a thought initially but wan'st much inclined. However, I used to get a lot of free time. In spite of being in a full time project I managed to wind up by 5.30 and was getting bored already. My friend again spoke to me about having a purpose in life and realizing dreams.
So, I finally decided to take up prep again and by 15th june, was searching all coaching instis again. I joined TIME test series and started taking tests seriously. I scored much better in this season with averaging around 95pcntile. I never touched the coveted 99 pcntile though :shocked:. I gave other OMETs as well.
It was tough to prepare this time around without the comforts of home. The office pressure, and other pressures were there and it was tough to study everyday after winding up in offyc. Literally all weekends were hectic. It was a tough saying no to friends when they insisted for movies, eating out etc . Had to control .
Finally the C-Day arrived and I gave CAT. I walked out quite confidently, and this time around I applied to other Non-Cat exams keeping in mind my good performance in mocks. But destiny had other plans for me.
In OMETs I gave NMAT, FMS, and JMET.
2011:
The first result of the season was again JMET. I got an AIR of 1359 this time around. It wasn't what I was expecting, but who said u get what u expect in MBA results . I knew that IIT B,D and KGP are chucked with this rank. But I was okay to consider IITM,K and R as well. The congrats calls started coming and folks were happy, but I was waiting for 11th. Then came 5th Jan with FMS results and I was elated to see my name in the list. My close friends, roomies and folks were happy for FMS and I was truly ecstatic. Then came CAT. Now this was the disaster of all results and again I got no call from any IIM. I dunno the vague normalization ka jhol, but then losers cant complain :splat:!
Finally NMAT came with the result and I was called for the GD-PI.
So much for the calls. Then came the frantic 2 months of GD-PI preps and workshops and newspaper reading and opinion forming and knowing-anything-under-the-sun quest!
My GD-PI season started with IIT R , followed my NMIMS, IITK, FMS and IIT KGP. I wasnt very much worried about this stage coz of the relatively okish feedback that I used to get in the gd-pi workshops etc.
Then came the time for results, starting first with FMS! The day was 18th of March and the next day was Holi. It was a convert and my first and most coveted convert!! All the results came after FMS and I converted all the 5 calls I had for the season .
Folks were and are still very very happy! It has been celebration since then.
My Learnings:

Not being philosophical but life has its share of ups and downs. The ups teach you many good things, but the downs show who really matter to you the most!!

Also, I'm indebted to PG for all the gyaan and prep tips that I got from this wonderful site.

Regards,
Divya.

Part 2

So here I was. My life was in a total standstill. I was not sure, what I wanted to do with my life. Then, one day my sister came from Pune (she was studying there). She told me she was going to have a crack @ cat 2008. She had come with her IMS study material, so that she could be regular with her studies. I glanced a look @ the books.Saw that there were questions on a topic called para jumbles. Solved, 25 questions from that particular exercise. MY sister came & asked me what am I doing. I showed her what I was doing. Then she started to check how many I had got correct. With a jaw-dropped look she came back to me & told me it was a Level-2 exercise of the workbook. I had cracked 25 correct out of 25. She told me to give it a shot at MBA this year. However, I ignored her advice, probably I was still in love with medicine. At this moment the CAT notification was out. My friends in college had bought the form, they were very keen on MBA. Seeing them, I decided to buy the Application form. Then, one friend told me to enroll in CL's Test Series, did so. Then one by one the mocks went by. The scores were usually pathetic, from as low as 34%ile to occasionally getting 80's. However, in 1 mock I was able to manage a 93 %ile.

However, my prep was very poor. Never really worked hard to deserve even an 80 %ile. Hence, when the results came out for CAT 2008, I was actually satisfied to see my score @ 80.56 %ile. It was the only exam in which I had appeared in that year. Considering, that my preparation was of zero level I had made up my kind. I was going to appear again for Cat 2009.An endeavour had begun.

Joined full time class room coaching @ CL. Initially, getting on equal terms with engineers particularly in QA was a real challenge. There were classes when when I would just have no clue, as to what was going on. However, slowly I was able to make myself comfortable with the classes. Then came the mocks, this time my performance was much better. Quite a few mocks, my %ile was in high ninties, with highest in Proc Mock5, scoring 96.78%ile.
Then came the exam season, I gave only CAT,XAT,NMAT,SNAP. The last exam was XAT on 3rd of Jan. Then, the results started to pour in. Initially, expected things to turn out good. The first result was ICFAI, I got a call from it. Then, came SNAP in which I got a score of 98.75. Seeing it @ first I was very happy, I thought I have sureshot call from SIBM-Pune. Filled forms of SIIB, SCMHRD as well. First out was SIBM-Pune, did not get the call. Still, I was not disheartened I thought that still SIIB, SCMHRD shortlist was remaining. However, I will never forget that particular day of 22nd January, 2010. This is how it went, morning SCMHRD came out with the results. Status read "not selected for 2nd phase."
Still i try to calm myself, hoping for the best in SIIB. However in the evening the same results are out.I do not make it again. And just when I thought, this the worst that can happen XAT results come out. A measly 83.45 %ile. I tell myself that this is all over, sad & dejected I start to work for my NMAT exam, only 7 days away.Gave my NMAT on 2nd Feb.After, recieving so many shocks I decided to change my strategy, now I would go all out over the paper & leave my conservative approach aside. The paper went well, then the CAT results were out on 28th Feb. Came another shocker 80.88 %ile.:shocked:

And then the very next day, came out NMAT. Initially, I did not even bother to look at the score, I thought that one more reject is on it's way. Then, my friend called me up to tell me what I had done, scored a shocking 268 (99%ile). Managed to get 91 correct out of 96 attempts.

Then that confidence acted as a boost for MICAT. Got a call from MICA too. However, all that good work was undone by my lack of prep for interviews got rejects from both NMIMS & MICA. At NMIMS I was told by d interviewer I was not fit for MBA.:shocked: Hence, a frustrating season came to an end.


End of part 2

When i started preparing for MBA , I was in my 2nd year Engg . I was told by my faculties that you are here to learn skills which would help you to get a seat in the best B-Schools of the Country . Throughout my student life i was an above average student who always wanted to find some shortcuts to success because of laziness . My Parents wanted me to take up Science and i agreed for them . Did quite well in boards 2006 . But I was never hopeful to get through a good engineering college in my first attempt so took admission for Eco( Hons) in Kirori Mal College , DU . Luckily i got call from VIT, Vellore and changed my plan again because my parents wanted me to do that . I could never figure out what i wanted to do so i stuck with my parents decision . The day i took admission in engineering my father told me ' Beta , This is just the first step of your career . MBA is the next thing we want from you . Start preparing for atleast 1 hour from today ' .
I was confused whether i was doing Engineering or an MBA . I started my Engineering journey on 29th july 2006 and cleared all my exams in 1st attempt with a CGPA - 8.86 in 2010 .
Never wanted to do Science ; Got a good %age in boards for Eco(Hons) in DU .
Never wanted to do Engineering ; Got a core engineering job ( TVS Motors ) .
Not interested in MBA ; But wanted to do that for future growth ( yeh meine 1st cheez seekhi thi life mein). tab tak meri life clay jaisi thi ki kaise bhi Mold kardo .. .
Prepared well for MBA as saw many serious aspirants preparing around me . Some of them didn't even sit for placements . I took help from my friends around me and prepared well for the exams . My first exam was JMET and did quite well in that . Then came CAT , XAT and FMS . All were fine . Happily i waited for results . 1st came JMET and i got a dream rank - 122 . Would have got all the calls but opted for only B and D . Well , this was the only call this season . Only IMT-G was my call through CAT . No XAT , No FMS . Cleared IMT -G of those 3 and planned to drop an year . chalo bhai tab tak naukri karte hai.. thode paise kama ke bhi toh dekh le.. ... I was in my training period where i was made to take various tests so that HR can come to know our strengths and weaknesses . People with good technical skills got Rnd , Operations and people with good analytical skills got Quality , production . And the left outs whom they thought are useless in terms of Engineering were put into marketing . I was one of them. Then i realised that Engineering was not my cup of tea . Chalo bhai Marketing karenge .. Sales badhayenge.. . Then came an another surprise 4 were put into Sales and 1 in Service . I was the odd man out . I fought with HR as to why Service and not sales ? I have not come here to wash bikes .. After all these fights they gave me Sales and Service and i walked out happily .
I would never forget what that lady in HR told me ' You are good with people and so you can handle our customers and dealers ' .
Thought a lot after that . Made a thought for HR as my company took 4 months to know our strengths and weaknesses and hence i respected its decision . 2010-11 Planned to appear for CAT , XAT , FMS , TISS . 1st 3 were horrible scores would be posted later on . Got a call from TISS and was happy for something in this season . Gave its interview and was confident for a convert . Then came results and i got a WL-6 and going by last year trend my dream was shattered as last year only 3 students cleared . I had made up my mind for HR in october'10 when that lady told me . And finally after 23 years i could realize my goals .
On 4th May , 2011 my dream turned into reality and i cleared my Dream college - TATA INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES - HRM & LR .

People would be thinking that this persons ID reads IIM-A but his dream college is TISS . Strange ?
I would just like to share my learnings which most of you must be knowing . Its not about doing something which gives you success but its about doing something which gives you satisfaction and even a small success would mean a lot then . You will feel much more happier if you do what you want to do and that would give you a complete feeling of satisfaction . Just remember one thing " Life is long -one college, one exam, one degree, one accident or one misfortune can't define it -one always gets a chance to prove his worth, provided he carries on . "
These lines have changed the way i looked at my life . These lines are by the famous aka The Bmr ( Ranjeet Pratap Singh) . Wishing all of you the best in life . Hope you all do well in your future endeavors .
Never Give up ! Either you achieve what you want or you try till the date you change your mind .
PG has helped me a lot in my preparation . Lots of material is available here . I have always loved posting on pursuit of happiness . Paagalguy rocks ! Really happy to have such a forum and would love to be a part of it throughout .
I am soooo happy today that i could be the part of this thread .
Thats all i wanted to speak about CAT . Phewwww !!!! I am sorry if some bragging was there but thats my life on page . Few more things are there but that would make it too lengthy . Abhi MBA college mein bhi jaake sheets bharni hai.. :lookround: .

Season'09 - JMET -83( Rank -122) Season' 10- TISS -(53.2 Written)
CAT -95.4 CAT - 96.xx ( DI-60.xx)
XAT - 99.2 ( VA-7


Regards ,
Jatin Gulabani
Tata Institute of Social Science
HRM & LR - Class of 2011-13

So the time has come for me to write on AIWTSAC. Not the story of a guy who made it big, getting into IIM's, XLRI et al. This is a story of a guy who is trying to learn from his past mistakes, & is still in the process of learning. Here is how it goes.
Was an average kid in my days at school. People around me always said that you have amazing potential. However, throughout my school life was a rank average performer. Never very serious about my acads. Then came the big turnaround, lost my beloved uncle in the beginning of 2005. I was going into my standard 12th, suddenly a huge change took over me. Became very serious about my studies. Tried hard to prepare for CBSE-PMT, however it was always a race against time. Did not make it. Thought about taking a drop, however the conditions in my family forced me to go against it. Joined a local college, enrolled in B.Sc course in Biotechnology there.When I came into the college, I was like a highflying hotshot. Excelled in everything from acads to sports. Fell for someone & got into a relationship, life was going on so happy. However towards the end of my 1st year in college this confidence became arrogance. Basically stopped working hard & wasted all my time hanging out with friends. In the meanwhile, gave my second attempt to clear the medical exams. Cleared CBSE Preliminary, however again in overconfidence relaxed a bit too much before the Mains paper.The result was expected, non selection in Mains. Then few of my classmates told me to prepare for MBA. Completely ignored their advice & prepared again. However,just 2 months before my entrance, there was my sister's marriage . Tried in vain, but again the same fate awaited me. So my dreams of becoming a doctor were over.
So, here I was sitting with my scorecard, knowing there was no chance for me to get into medicine. But I thought that I still have my love to count on. I went out for a vacation for 2 weeks to get over the hangover of not being able to make it.I happily returned from my vacation, just to get the rudest shock of my life. She had dumped me & started going out with my classmate. And just to make sure I was screwed, the results of 4th sem were out. My personal life was wrecked, my professional aspirations were wrecked & my graduation was wrecked. Now,I did not know what to do

End of Part 1

Section 3:
My tryst with CAT

I am a kind of person who works very hard and fail big time during exams and my exam scores were never a mirror of neither my hard work nor to my satisfaction. I had been trying for CAT for the past 5 years and hence got so much to write.


CAT 2006:
Everybody in my hostel wing gives GRE or CAT. Why not me? Planned a trip to Ooty and gave CAT' 06 in Coimbatore(on the way to Ooty) just like that. I saw many beautiful girls and we friends were discussing the same before the exam. The exam was more of another semester exam. The noteworthy things about CAT'06 are the shift from 4 options to 5, reduction in the no: of questions and extension of exam duration to 2.5 hrs. But I was unaware about all these. People said the English section was the toughest in the history of CAT. (English section was framed by an economics professor rather an English professor in CAT'06-this is what I heard).Again for a guy who have not read anything will never be able to guess whether the paper is tough or not (Like some college sem exams). Missed my hall ticket. Checked the result through the score card kept in our indoor letter bag kept unopened till March 2006 and it was around 82% with 45% in verbal.

CAT 2007:
I liked my R&D; job very much. Faced with numerous challenges and was totally obsessed with it. Gave CAT'07 just to maintain the repo with my friends and relatives that I am there for the CAT hunt. Ended up with 70% with negative scoring in English. The mere negative marks in English instilled a bothering-Am I actually capable for clearing the verbal section?


CAT 2008:
Started the preparation for CAT 08 with my friends, a group of 6. We all joined TIME Aimcat series. I used to get around 90% in quant and DI but in verbal never crossed 80% even once. I made the biggest mistake of competing with my friends just in overall by which I spend less time in verbal (around 20 min) with the notion that even if I spend 50 min I will not cross 80%. This is the first time I am appearing for CAT with so called serious preparation. I did not sleep the night before CAT. The wrong things started just with this.



During the exam I made all the possible goof ups. Attempted all the wrong questions, did not go through the questions first before answering, and made a whole lot of careless mistakes. I knew that the game is over the moment I stepped out of the exam hall. 3 of my friends got into IIMs.


CAT 2009:
I just need to answer this one question: What am I actually doing? I was way low in morale and was having the lowest confidence possible in me. I spoke to my company seniors who are pass outs from IIMs and understood the actual roles and responsibilities of an MBA and collected the needed words from them. I was outright told by my parents that this is going to be my last attempt and words got spread to all of my close relatives thereby adding a lot of emotional tension to my preparation. One of my remaining 3 friends got married and gave up and now the league started with just me and my friend. We joined full time weekend classes and enrolled for mock exams. I started reading economist, editorials, novels and whatever my hands get on. This time focus was only on clearing the verbal. I completed all the 20 novels by Sidney in this year alone including "The Other Side Of Me" thinking that it will help me. I enrolled for the first day, first slot in the new avatar of CAT 09.I received calls (phone calls) from almost all my close relatives and friends wishing all the best days before my CAT which aggravated the fear "What If I don't clear".



Totally fumbled on the exam and did not know which section is Quant and which is DI since there were no sectional de limiters and to add to this there were more Data sufficiency questions in both the sections. The mere thought of the poor decision to book the first day first slot brought down the confidence during the exam itself. Ended up with 88% but with 96% in English but an all time low of 60.xx% in quant. Was openly humiliated by my friends and relatives and I was left with only one option - Accept that I am not worth for IIMs. Told to my parents that I am done with the exams and they can continue with what they want. My friend joined ISB with his GMAT score.


CAT 2010:
It was around May I thought why not one more time with not even mentioning to friends, parents and relatives. This mere feeling that nobody will know my failure gave me the comfort to prepare for this. But in what way I can prepare? I still remember that I almost cried on the day when I opened my quant material and this time I was the only one left. I slowly increased my preparation hours. Moved from few minutes to few hours and then to 4-5 hours regularly. I always liked preparing for the competitive exams. The exam went and came. In our slot quant was the toughest and I attempted just 9 questions and was quite contended that I need not wait for my result and nobody will know my failure this time.


I checked my result and you know what- I obtained a 98.16% with 91.16% in quant and instantly had a feeling that I am going to get calls from BLIK since I had already done the permutation and combination in 2009 itself based my acads and profile. As expected got calls from BLIK along with Rohtak, Raipur and Trichy. Now I know that I am going to make it up. Did not join any coaching institutes for I just want to present me as an individual without any bias. Gave the interviews and the result came one after the other. As expected converted BLIK and Rohtak,Trichy,Raipur.


The damn feeling of not achieving something which you truly want will haunt you throughout your life. Never ever give up. Perseverance is more important than anything for cracking the CAT. Just focus on the controllables.

Section 2:
About CAT as such as an exam?

A junk exam where a group of guys make it without any preparation whereas another group, despite having good aptitude, fail to make it.
A funny exam where throughout the mock CATs you score way better(around 95%).But on that day things do not work for you and end up for one more attempt.
A stupid exam where your sectionals (after exam being computerized ) go down by around 20% for a single question mistake and end up missing the sectionals.
A weird exam where different yard sticks are used (based on the slot) yet they say 99.xx % above are only eligible. How in this world it is possible for them to eliminate a person with 99.58% and accept a 99.59% despite two taking their exams on different slots?
The supposedly perceived as ridiculous criteria of some IIMs - Heavy weightage to academics, treating CAT score near to naught, belying the requirement of CAT to perform well across all the sectionals(some IIMs had sectional criteria of 55%) etc.


Some of these thoughts were running in me for the past 4 years which is one of the reasons for me not clearing CAT earlier.
Please have the trust in the exam. I have given CAT 2006,2007,2008,2009,2010. I have seen all that the deserving candidates always get selected, may be with some delay. Don't even have a speck of doubt about the integrity of this exam. This exam is devised with the best possible. Can you do anything to change it? Not at all.

All I wanted to speak about CAT
This writing consists of three sections


Why MBA?
About CAT as such as an exam?
My tryst with CAT.


There are 4-5 paragraphs in each section. There is no time limit to complete the reading.Each section can be done independently. In distributing your interest over the three sections, please bear in mind that you need not read each and every section. If you lose interest and it makes you feel soporific you can skip.


Section 1 :
I want to do MBA from IIMs. Why?

I do not like the current job I am doing.
The word "Management" sounds majestic.
Girls will be spellbound behind me if I am a MBA from IIM?
The media reveres the MBA degree.
Fat packages.
I can make my whole relative and friends' agape with envy at me!!!!


Believe me if you are pursuing CAT for any one of the above reasons, I feel extremely sorry for you. You may still succeed but it will be without purpose. Please speak to as many RELEVANT persons ,with the required credentials, as possible to understand what an MBA means and check whether this is what you really want to do in life.


Among the factors aforementioned let me elaborate only the package part. Most of the IIMs do not disclose the median of the salary offered to their students. This clearly indicates that some few students influence heavily on the average package. I have come across many of my colleagues and friends mentioning that they might have earned more if they had continued in the technical domain itself rather the managerial one.



Many studies have pointed out that the 2nd and 3rd grade jobs in engineering (I am an engineer) have better quality index than their counterparts in management and some students even from IIMs end up in 2nd and 3rd grade jobs in management.

Pursue an MBA with an intention that it will bring in the needed satisfaction in both your work life and personal life. Do it for a cause.

......cntd

I didn't stretch myself in terms of preps and kept the weekend-mocks-followed-by-outings-in-the-evenings strategy intactI believe it's extremely important not to cut yourself off from your normal activitiesas it is, CAT has a lot of pressure associated with itso enjoying the preparation phase is very essentialat the same time, I wanted to leave no stone unturned in terms of being prepared for any unpredictable conditions I might encounter during the test..so at times, I simulated crazy situationstook mocks with reduced timings, did RCs when I was extremely sleepy and could hardly comprehend anything, wasted 15-20 mins intentionally during a mock and let the pressure mount, read articles while listening to my i-pod so that noises ceased to be a distraction, took 2/3 mocks back to backthe percentiles definitely reduced in these cases, but that didn't matter, the exposure to these situations didI was never a believer in too much of strategy, strict time distributions, categorizing questions, buffer times et alI used to keep things simple and solved questions as they came and hence often during the test, things didn't go as expectedtherefore, my aim was to simulate such situations during prep stage so that the pressure did not end up spoiling my C-day

Office was becoming more hectic and there were a couple of occasions when I attended for an hour PG meets held near my workplace and as everybody else left, I went back inside office at 9:30 in the night to finish off pending workmy project was having delivery scheduled two days prior to my CAT slot and I could barely touch any papers during this periodbut somehow, this did not bother me at all..I had the experience of scoring well after being through a much worse prior-to-CAT period last year and when I ran a slight temperature the night before CAT, I almost looked upon it as a good omen!


A fight to the finish

3rd Novemberthe test started well, first I tackled QA- in which I usually used to do well and was confident about clearing cutoffsnext up was DI which had been my weak point, especially calculation-intensive questions, and I took a longer time in it, crosschecking answersI usually used to do VA in the end and finish off the entire section in 30-35 minutes and it had more often than not provided me maximum returns in minimum timehere also, I had around 32-33 minutes for my VA sectioncompleted all standalone questions and had 21 minutes left for the 3 RCsah, it was going to be so comfortable!I started off with one RC, couldn't make head or tail out of it, reread it many times and the next moment I saw the timer on the screen12 minutes left and not a single RC question answered yet!for a moment I panicked, one slip in the sectionals and the C call would be out of the pictureI knew it was make or break time, the negative thoughts could wait..and this is where the crazy practice schedules came to the rescue..I could absorb the pressure and use it to concentrate more..everything fell in place and just before the timer ran out, I had completed what I had to..Prem had told me after last year that I tend to perform well under pressurewell, if someone had said that to me after my first CAT, I would've reacted ROFLafter this performance, I felt he might just have had a valid point


Results once moreGame Over or Game On?

3rd Janwas in office when I received a call from Sharmaji that CAT results were out..I couldn't believe that it would be out so much earlier than the scheduled datemoreover, I heard the results of some of the most consistent performers, including him, and they had got nowhere near what was expected..this surely couldn't be itnevertheless, I needed to check my resultbut for me, far too much depended on this one resultand I decided to wait till I return home..unfortunately, by then the 'leaked' link had disappeared and 12th had been put as the official results day, as initially scheduled...the next 9 days were simply agonizing..all the effort, all the sacrifices, all that I dreamt of depended on this one scorecardadded to this was the apprehension from the shockingly low scores seen by so many who deserved morewere the percentiles for real?...if yes, there was every reason I might also become a victim of normalizationdid I have it in me to fight another season?

12th midnight and the results were outthe servers crashed as usual and it was more than 2 hours before I finally managed to get throughfirst attempt-timed outsecond attempt-loading, loading

99.88 overall with good balance across all sectionsYES!..I had cracked CAT once again and had managed to justify the faith reposed on meheck, I had even managed to improve my percentile, by whatever margin it might be..so, that small challenge had also been wonI was elated and there was also a feeling of relief at the results...last time, I was a relative newbie and nobody had expected much from me.this time, the expectations had been enormous and it felt good to live upto themone minor slip and the knives would have been out from all sides..plus it would have been termed a case of misplaced overconfidence.however, only the battle was over..the GD/PI war still had to be won..and I knew the difference between calls and converts far too well!

The most important part of the results was that for the second year in a row, I had managed the call I wantedI had a few other IIM calls, but somehow, the others didn't matterI had a gut feeling that nothing was going to stop me from getting into Joka this time around!


The lull before the stormor maybe, the other way round!

Preparations started in earnestI attended a couple of bootcamps and achievers' workshops but other than that, decided on self-preparationI didn't want stereotyped answers and also did not have enough time to attend classesby now, I had been posted to another office in the outskirts of the city..it was 25 Kms from my place and poorly connectedthe long hours in office, coupled with the 3 to 4 hours of travelling time daily made it extremely difficultI concentrated on utilizing the smallest of times I managed to eke out in reading whatever I could in current affairs, from different sources, and also preparing all kinds of questions on my personals

Meanwhile, my managers had come to know about my results before I had told them anything (I wonder how!) and called me over to know about my plansI talked about the upcoming GD/PI stage and that I would be requiring a few leaves in between during the prep phasethey readily agreed, a little to my surprisea few days later, during the very the first leave I had takenI got a call from office in the morning, followed by many more during the day from my vertical manager, allocation manager, supervisor, where the tone of the conversations was harsh, to say the least, and the content unmentionable.bottomline, I could hardly study anythingI went back to office and decided to take no more leaves in return for a one week leave just before and during my interviewsthis was agreed over mailthe workload continued to increase..a resizing of the team was done in which another person willing to work was released and sent to bench whereas I was chosen to continuea few days before the planned leave, suddenly I was told that no leaves could be sanctioned and I had to report to work even on my interview datesand if I had to attend PIs, I needed to travel 25 Kms to reach office in the mornings, travel 50 Kms to reach the interview centre in the afternoon and after completing it, return to the office to stay back till late nightall this despite having informed two months back, having ensured all upcoming deliverables and identified who all was to look after my workwhen senior managers in an organization expect you to actually skip your IIM interviews and stay in office, you don't see any point in arguingthe next couple of days were disastrousthey employed all kinds of tactics to pressurize me, including personal attacks over phone, escalations to the HR and almost forcing me to resignthis undoubtedly was the toughest phase for me, it really became a test of how much I could take and still have the courage to keep fightingI could've taken the easy way out and resignedit might sound silly, but once again, what held me back was my egoI had promised to myself that I will quit only on my own terms..it was the will to win and prove others wrong which kept me going

What I read and studied in the the last 5 days was probably more than what I had during the last few years combinedit had become an obsessive desire to succeedI had one chanceit was all or nothingI had no backup plans, in MBA or professional lifeI hadn't applied to any other institute under CAT and with the condition in office, continuation for another year had become almost impossibleit was absolute stupidity but I only was responsible for getting myself into this situationthankfully, getting out of it was also entirely in my handsit was a simple equation-perform or perishand I had to succeed at any cost


A date with destiny

24th Marchmy IIMC interview..a second date with my dream, a second chance to convince the Joka panel about my worth as a candidate and about my passion for C.the pressure was immense but one stroll around the campus soothed methat is the beauty of Joka..some institutes intimidate you, Joka welcomes you into its armsthe process started.there was a 5 minutes essay, I was happy with what I wrotethis was followed by the best GD I've ever hadthe ghosts of last year had been exorcised, the PI was the final barrier which needed to be overcomeand I wasn't going to miss this chance for anythingthe interview was a breeze..I felt in a different zone altogether, and was actually surprised later at some of the answers I had managed to come up with on-spotloved the entire process and came out satisfied that I had given my best-a feeling which I didn't have after my last year's PIbut experience had taught me that interviews are highly unpredictable and nothing was certain till the final result comes out


The final countdown

Again it was a long waitC had come up with its results around the 10th of April for the last few yearsthis increased the anticipation with periodic F5s but nothing materialisedA and B had mentioned 18th as their results day and since C hadn't come out earlier, that had to be the dayit was a sleepless night on the 18th..results were expected anytimeit was the most anxious and tense few hours I've ever experiencedthis was the moment of reckoning..will I finally get to achieve the dream?..will all the pain, suffering and hardships finally bear fruit?what if I miss out again?...a thousand doubts and as many dreams it was afternoon when I received a call saying results were outI checked for my name and voila!..I had a straight convert and was finally going to my dream instituteI was elated, ecstatic, overjoyedbut more than anything else, it was the satisfaction of proving to myself what I always believed in, despite all the odds and against almost everyone's advicefor me, it had always been C the dream, C the destinyafter missing it by a whisker last year, finally it was going to be C the destinationI would be a Jokar from June!..the feeling was sheer bliss!


Parting words

This story is not about heroicsrather, it has problems a lot of people have faced and will face during their preparation phaseand I have seen many deserving people give up and settle for much less than what they are capable offor me also, some of these issues tested my limits of endurancebut I persevered and stuck to my dreammy passion for CAT and IIMC and desire to prove myself helped me overcome all the obstaclesand if I could do it, anybody canso, never ever compromisenever settle for anything less than what you feel you deserve..you can't be denied every timeand believe me, success after having experienced failure feels so much better!

Amidst all the ups and downs of the journey, Pagalguy has been the one source of constant support and motivation for mewhen mock scores plummeted, the AIWTSAC posts reenergised mewhen I did well, the mind-boggling scores by puys reminded me of the competition and how much better I needed to becomewhen I felt totally down, the encouraging PMs from puys I had never interacted with provided solace..that is the magic of Pagalguyand of course, being a part of UDT, I had to do justice to its spirit.. huge thanks to UDT, KDT and all puys from the bottom of my heartwithout you all, I would never have managed to reach here todayand even after entering IIMC, I shall try my best to repay the help and support I obtained herelast but not the least, I would like to thank my parents for supporting me despite not approving of my choices..and the special person in my life who has been there by my side through all the zeniths and nadirs and who believed, trusted and showed faith in me all through

A simple advicedon't stop enjoying life because of CATCAT does not require slogging..and never look upon it as some exam to be crackedfor me, CAT was far from being the most important thing in life, but it had surely become a part of my life!...there will be setbacks, there will be failuresbut don't lose the self-belief, the will to fight and never let anybody else tell you what you can or cannot doyou haven't lost anything till you actually quit..persevere, make some great friends in the process and just give your best without putting unnecessary pressure on yourselfbe passionate about your goal, chillax, enjoy the journeyand nothing can stop you from achieving your dream..because CAT is a different game altogether, a game where passion has a strange way of trumping logicit's won in the mind!

ATB!

......cntd

An alternative link put up in PG helped me access my scorecard.I typed in my credentials and was overjoyed to see my results99.83 overall with balanced sectionalsI jumped in joy that I would finally manage the C call and with C and A in the bag, I expected a few others too

Sadly, as the shortlists came out one by one with increased weightage on profile(read: past marks) every other IIM didn't even find my score worthy of a shortlist and I ended up with only C and A callsyes, MDI was also there but I never wanted to pick up that form and had done it only on my parents' insistence...nevertheless, I had big calls and my entire focus was on converting themonly problem was I had not done a single GD/PI in my life till then and I had less than 3 weeks to the two most important interviews in my life, scheduled on back to back days


Counting my chickens before they hatched

I attended two workshops where I got the basic idea of how to proceed with my prepsincidentally, my study partner during this stage turned out to be Prem bhai, who himself had bagged C,A,L calls..every evening, we had long conversations over phone where we discussed current affairs, ways to tackle PI questions and planned about what all to do when we would get into Cwe became good friends and the philosophical conversations with a drunk prem_ravi are certainly memorable!it was an enjoyable preparation phaseand it gave me a wonderful mentor and friend, who has been a constant source of support and motivation since then

Two days before my A interview, I got a shocker from office.I had been allocated to another project and had to report to Chennai the very next dayI looked at all possible ways to defer it a bit but nothing worked and I had no other choice than to inform my manager about my upcoming interviews and stating that immediate relocation won't be possible for me at that pointthis worked in the sense that they sent someone else in my place..but though I had worked diligently throughout the year, this one incident ensured that I became marked!

22nd March was my A interviewit hardly gets bigger than this as your first PI ever!....the essay went decent which was followed by an absolutely dream-like interviewI could answer virtually everything they asked meI came out of the room smiling and was almost sure of a convert..the next 24 hours defined my seasonfor the only time in these two years, I turned complacentfirst ever interview, that too in WIMWI and I was sure of a convert..this feeling got to mefor the only time during my entire preparation period I had a feeling that next day's C interview could be taken lightly since I already had A in the bag23rd was C GD/PI date..I hardly managed to speak in the GD and couldn't come out with any new point due to my lack of focusno sooner had I exited from the GD room that I came back to my sensesI was letting my dream call slip away due to my stupiditytried making it up in the interview which went much better but since the PI was short, the GD impression must have got carried over and once more, I returned with a feeling of not having given my best

Just before results were to come out, another announcement made the headlinesfor the first time in the history of the institute, seats in IIMC-which were supposed to go up-were to be reduced for the season due to accommodation issueswith my performance and after this new development, I expected at best a waitlist

C was out with its results soon and as expected, I had been waitlistedI had nobody else to blame but myself for the resultthough all was not lost yet, the chances were quite slimhowever, since a decent performance got me a waitlist I became more sure about my A convertI felt really bad about missing C but gradually reconciled myself to the fact that A will be my destination for the next two years and waited eagerly for the A final results

It was a long wait and I was in office when it was finally declared on a Monday eveningI couldn't wait to return home and decided to check then and therewith eager anticipation I typed in my Reg No. and was greeted with the message:

"Your name does not figure in the list of selected or waitlisted candidates for admission into IIMA PGP 2010-12"
The end?or a new beginning?

I was shellshocked...this was a devastating blowhowever hard I tried, I couldn't come up with a reason for a straight reject..no matter how many times I relived the PI in my head, I doubted whether I could've given a better interviewbut here I was..rejected outright, not even a waitlist!

Suddenly everything had turned upside downit was a feeling of utter hopelessness...having the two most coveted IIM calls, I had never considered this scenario where I wouldn't be able to convert even one..was I really that bad?..whereas I had planned to celebrate my A convert, the next morning I reported to work in the same office..everybody knew about my CAT preps and my percentile and wanted to know which IIM converts I eventually hadquite embarrassingly, I had none to show for

MDI came out two days later and I saw my name 75th on the merit listbut instead of feeling happy about the convert and high rank, I was engulfed with sadness thinking about the fact that even a part of this performance in the places that mattered could've made my current situation so very differentI knew right there what my decision should bePrem called up and the first thing I told him was "I am not joining MDIit's either IIMC this year or CAT '10"...we had a long conversation in which he rebuked me for being silly and emotionalhere was a person who had seen it all about CAT and hence his advice had a different weight compared to others'but I had already made up my mind and hence was adamant..I still remember the part when he advised me not to take so big a risk since I couldn't better my written percentile and I contradicted himfor me, it was an additional challenge to live upto now

Amidst all this, I and DON (who, due to the vagaries of 'normalization', had got a percentile much less than what he deserved and did not have IIM calls but had converted MDI) met one day and had a long discussion, he trying to convince me to join MDI and I trying to convince him about another attemptit was a tug-of-war between dreams and practicality..heart and mindnaturally, no logical conclusion could be reached and neither of us managed to convince the other and went away with what each of us had decided earlierwhen someone of his calibre wasn't risking another attempt, what was I thinking of myself?
It was ironic that I was waitlisted in the institute I most wanted, was rejected in the one I most expected and converted the one I was least interested in...the previous year's trends showed that I still had a chance at IIMC but I somehow had the feeling that it would be a very borderline caseI prepared myself for the worst...pressure was also mounting on me from different sources to take up MDI, considering the uncertainties associated with online CATpeople tried to coax, cajole and make me see reason.. but comments like ".stupid mistake", "..you'll regret the enormity of your blunder later", "..you're missing the chance of a lifetime" only helped strengthen my resolve people called it foolishness, arrogance, obstinacy and what not...all I had against it was my self-belief...this phase also showed me how the reaction of people changes-both in positive/negative sense-based on your successes/failures

When all was said and done, my waitlist had not converteda season which promised so much had ultimately ended in major disappointment..there was no point discussing what if seats had not been reduced, what if results for all IIMs had come out together as always, what if waitlist movement trends had been followed...there was no place for ifs and buts...the bottomline was I could not convert and that was the only thing that mattered...I realised that nobody remembers what percentile or calls you had...the only thing that counts is where you ended up..I had no regrets about not joining MDI but felt gutted about getting calls from arguably the two best MBA institutes in our country and converting neithermost worrying part was the feasibility of another attempt..the only reason for the A reject could've been my past profile and I couldn't change that nowwith the increasing weightage on past acads, other calls were virtually out of considerationmy only option was C, and with high sectional and overall cutoffs, one minor slip and I might end up with zero calls, however high the overall percentile...was all the risk worth it only for one institutebut then, hadn't that institute been the dream all along?

I will admit though that what sealed it for me at this stage was my egonot ego in terms of boasting or looking down upon others..I believe anyone who has interacted with me will agree with thatbut ego in terms of the expectations I have from myself...I hate to lose and never give up when faced with a challenge, especially when others think I cannot do itthere were certain personal issues..plus the reactions and comments from my managers in office when they learnt about my results were pricking to say the least and they gave me the example of another girl from the dept who had scored a "great percentile while also doing her work sincerely" and was going to pursue her MBA from *** B-school she was a "role model" whereas I "had not been serious in my work", "showed inflexibility by not deputing to another city when there was urgent project requirements" and despite this, had not managed to convert my callincidentally that "role model" had a percentile in lower nineties and was a reserved category candidate, which I got to know only by checking the final results PDF of that instituteI had nothing against her, but the comparison hurt badI chose not to reply anythingand though I knew that things were going to get worse from then on, I vowed to myself that I would not quit..I will fight once more and if I had to leave, I will convert IIMC and then leave on my own terms

The season was over but the dream was still unfulfilled...I had a lot to prove, to myself and to certain others and signed off with a promise that I shall be back!


The season of reckoningredemption or downfall?

Season '10 startedand it was a feeling of dj-vu..same routine of mocks, analysis , percentiles began all over againthe toughest part about this period was getting last season out of my mindevery mock I took, the thoughts about the same one in the previous season resurfacedwith every percentile, comparisons with what I had got in that mock one year back came up subconsciouslyI knew however that I'll never be able to replicate last year's prep schedule againthe basic knowledge was already there and I needed practice to keep in touch but much more important would be the mental aspectthis time it was all in the mind!

As expected, I was allocated to a project with far too much of work and extended timelines12-14 hours in office became the normthis left hardly any time for preparations..I solved a few puzzles sent via chain mails in office, read articles online whenever I had the time and reduced duration of lunch to accommodate reading the daily newspaperat times, I wondered whether all this was worth it, but then the desire to prove myself and the dream of 'the land of the seven lakes' kept me going..one good thing about my company was some stalwarts in PG also worked here, albeit in different citiesI had the privilege to have periodic group chats over office communicator with legendary puys like Naga and sarcastix

I also started attending PG meets regularlymet some amazing people like first_timer, ashish13dec, Leonayas, AnandJJ, subhakimi, abhishek_sharma, 2010target, pk_gt1 and others and this is where I realized the reason behind so much hoopla about peer-groups in MBA and life in generalsome of the brightest minds in the country helping you, inspiring you and motivating you to better yourself while sharing great friendships all along makes the journey so much more specialgot selected as a PG Madcapz and then was chosen to lead UDTlittle more than a year back, I used to look at this team in aweand now I had been chosen as its captainlife does come full circle!...but then, the responsibility had also increased manifoldthis had to be the season

cntd......

AIWTSACwell, this sacred thread has been an inspiration for me all along..over two seasons, I've read and reread the stories with awe and admiration and finally, I feel that I've earned the right to post here.this one is likely to be really long, so kindly bear with meit's a story of being deeply passionate about something, daring to follow your heart over practical difficulties and justifying the risks taken in the processit's a story of how dreams do turn into reality


Early days

CATI don't remember when was the first time I came across the term but during my engineering days I kept hearing about the reverence associated with IIMs and the people who manage to crack CAT and get into the hallowed portals (after going through the process, I feel that CAT is a simple examit's the hype around it which makes it so complicated)somewhere down the line I had decided that MBA is what I wanted to dohowever, I was under the impression that CAT is just another exam which had to be cracked for a nice comfy futurehad also heard from some 'wise' souls that it's more beneficial to do your MBA after working for a whiletook their advice a bit too seriously and whiled away my time while most of my batchmates were preparing and appearing for CAT in the final year of college..I couldn't see the point in trying to prepare for an exam I had decided to appear for two years laterI'll enrol in an institute and prepare the year I take CAT-was my nave thinkinglittle did I know then that CAT ain't just an exam, one doesn't mug up for it before taking it..it's a journey which changes one's life!


Background

I was always a good student in terms of results, consistently being among the rankers in a reputed school which churns out toppers year after yearbut for whatever reason, my performance in Boards as well as engineering entrance was good, but certainly not upto expectations-mine or others'...in the process of thinking about the future, I had probably not paid proper attention to the present..when you get less in Boards than in Selections ( the other way being the standard practice out here) and when after your entrance results friends who've known you for long come and tell you "We just can't believe your rank..we were sure you'll get much better"-you can't but help feel that you've messed it up where it really mattered..but more than anything else, I knew myself that I had not performed to my potential..there was a sense of dissatisfaction and unfulfilment..


The journey begins

Fast forward to July '08completed my graduation..but joining was deferred and I had lots of free time in my handswas getting tired of the extended break..had a change of mind and decided to enrol in an institute for some preparation, more to kill boredom than anything elsebut I fell in love with the type of questions, the pattern and the materials from the very beginning and decided to appear for CAT '08 itself.. had very little time in handstill, preparation was quite decent, took a few mocks, where I was scoring well, and went to the centre on C-day feeling goodalas! the next 2.5 hours showed me what CAT was all abouta tweak in the paper pattern immediately swept away my comfort level and provided the initial jittersI couldn't solve the first few questions and here panic began to set inas time passed and I could see the sectional cutoffs slipping away, I couldn't solve the easiest of questionsscrewed up royally in time management between sections and had to leave the sitters, darkened wrong bubbles and made a total hash of things..came out of the exam hall not knowing what hit me

Was disappointed with my performance but deep down I loved the challenge and had decided that this is what I wanted in life and will not rest till I get itas Prem bhai (prem_ravi , for the uninitiated) had once said- "give CAT to feel it"..one couldn't have put it better!

Looking back, I realize where I really faltered in '08 were lack of exposure to different problems one might face, inadequate practice as well as not knowing what my strengths and weaknesses werethe results came out and though I had no IIM calls, I scored a respectable 97.3%ilehaving prepared for only a couple of months and not having been able to give my best in the exam, it was a decent score and gave me confidence that with preparation, I was capable of doing much better next year


Imbibing the essence of CAT

My company joining date came soon and among the people joining with me was rik_12we had been classmates in schoolI knew he had given up Shillong last year for another shot at the biggiesbut it was during this training period that I really saw his passion for CAT and determination for the IIMs..I observed from very close quarters the dedication he put in during his GD/PI preparationsand incidentally, I could see that his entire preps revolved around a certain website called PaGaLGuY.com! this was my introduction to the forumgradually I started browsing through the threads and came across loads of interesting stuff and some amazing peopleso many 100 percentilers, BLACKI call getters at the same place, was simply awe-inspiring..in no time, I was hooked

Meanwhile, rik_12 converted and joined IIMCtill then, I had never researched about the individual IIMs but now I heard and read about the culture in different institutes, the opportunities an MBA degree provides, the specializations, the campus lifes and the parameters which characterize a particular institutethe more I learnt things, the more I was thankful that I had messed up my first attemptthere was so much to learn just by being in the process and I virtually knew nothing the previous yearstories about life @IIMC fascinated me and the first time I saw some official pics and videos of the Joka campus, I decided that this was the place I wanted to beby now, the CAT and IIMC bug had well and truly bitten me


The Game Changes

Just as I was planning about ways to leverage last year's experience and kickstart my preps, came the sudden unexpected announcement that paper-pencil days were over and CAT '09 was going online!

Though this change had been supposed to kick in over the next couple of years, nobody expected it to be so soonall past strategies were to be thrown out of the windowrepeaters had lost any advantage they had since it would be a whole new ballgame for everybodyalso, what will the pattern be, how will questions vary across slots, how to practice RCs on screen, how to take down DI sets from the monitor, whether tests will be adaptivethere were so many questions and hardly any answers

It was disappointing initially but I felt that this was also an opportunityif I could attune my preparation to the new requirements, I'll have a great chance since all past advantages would be nullified by the online CAT...I decided to look at the positive side of things and promised to bell the CAT with the mouse!


Season # 2

I jumped into preparations with full enthusiasmit was around this time that I met DON@IIM... it's hard to find someone more devoted and committed towards the IIMs...this was his second season too and interacting with him, whatever little doubts I had about postponing my attempt to next year was resolvedthis guy was a stud in both QA and DIand he could blast any mock to shredsincidentally, we had our respective offices in the same buildingwe started discussing regularly and made it a routine to find some time out and meet everyday afternoon in the ground floor lobby where we discussed quant problems, strategies and any new tips or tricks we had come acrossI fondly remember those stimulating discussions and the way we collaborated over cups of tea to find out innovative solutions to so called "tough" quant problems are still etched in my memory

Things were going wellthe mocks started and I was doing decentlyI had made two simple promises to myself, first was to try and improve a little every mock from the previous one and the second was not to repeat the same mistakesin office, I made it a habit of delving into the Quant, DI and Verbal threads in PG whenever I had time and understanding any shortcuts or easier solutions I came acrossMoreover, I had shifted my entire preparation online since I felt that familiarity with solving questions online as well as staring long hours into the monitor will only help me condition myself to the new formatI even read story books in PDF just to improve my reading speed onlinealso, I tried to take even the unproctored mocks in the centres to simulate test conditions betterthere were days when I reached the centre by 7:30..took a mock, reached office by 10:30worked for a while , browsed the quant thread, did a bit of analysis and then finished off the remaining work and returned after 10 at night..I knew that once the work pressure increased, I would hardly find time and hence I had to develop a strong base soon which would hold me in good stead in the future

Meanwhile, DON could no longer stand the stupid work assigned to him and quit his job to join TIME as a faculty.this meant an end to our regular meetings and in my office, I didn't find anyone who shared my interest in CAT..so then onwards, it turned into a lone battleI was doing well in mocks but the office work was gradually increasing and I was losing the zeal at timesI badly needed some kind of a boost..luckily, I got twoit was around this time that CL came up with its percentile predictor and in the very next mock, I had scored a 99.99 percentile with projected CAT '09 percentile as 100!...well, I knew better than to attach too much importance to the prediction but the 99.99 obtained was my first really high score and it strengthened my belief that on my day, I had it in me to compete with the very bestthis was followed by selection to the UDT, the team I always identified with and aspired to be a part of but with the quality of people around, never really thought I had a chance..this was a huge confidence-boosterI now felt that I belonged to this stage and at the same time was motivated to justify my selection through my performances

Mock scores improved considerably after this with a string of 99sone thing I decided to do during this time was not take too much stressI had read many stories of burnouts and did not want that to happen to meI took one or two mocks on weekends, always choosing the afternoon slots and spending the evening in outings with friendsthe weekdays were spent in analyzing the mocks in detailI was confident about my preps and was looking forward to my CAT slot on the 2nd of December


An unforeseen roadblockwill it play spoilsport?

Two weeks before the test and I suddenly felt a terrible pain in my lower backwhen the pain did not subside, the doctor was consulted and he said it was a case of sciatica which required complete bed rest for some days this was a real setback since I had booked the slot for the last 2/3 mocks during this period and now I would be missing out on the final thrust in my prepsplus there would be no reading on the computer since I was told that sitting on the chair might aggravate the problemI was apprehensive that not practising for 2 weeks will affect my performanceso I decided that I'll maybe look through a few formulae, do a few sums and puzzles while lying downnext morning I woke up with viral fever, and of a very bad kind.I had temperatures of 104-105 and even with strong antibiotics, it didn't come down below 102I felt very weak and any kind of studying was out of question since I was having a dreadful headache even if I tried reading just the newspaper headlinesmy parents asked me to forget CAT for the time being since travelling to a centre and spending 4/5 hours there wasn't feasible at all when I could hardly sit up in bedbut I was adamant that whatever happens, I would not miss my CAT slotstill the thought about the entire year's preparation going to waste was a real dampenerall the effort that I had put in over the past year flashed before my eyes and though I was sure I would appear for CAT, I wasn't at all confident about how my performance would bewith 3 days left for CAT, I received a phone call one evening

" Hello, am I talking to skr?"

"Yes"

"This is prem_ravi calling from Pagalguy............"

The next 5 minutes passed by with an absolute motivational monologue..all I could do was nod in approvalhe had heard about my illness from rik_12 and called me up to boost my confidencethat was the first time I was interacting with such an iconic figure in PG whereas I was little more than a newbieit was a heart-to-heart conversation and by the end of it, I felt renewed vigour within meall I did the day before CAT was solve 3 sectional tests back to back despite still being in painI knew that I had prepared well and at that point of time, the fact that I hadn't done anything for the last two weeks was irrelevantonly the performance in those 2 hours 15 mins would matter and I felt confident about doing wellI was absolutely calm during the test despite a few wrong questions and invalid options and came out of the centre knowing I had done decentlybut with so many slots and 'normalization' coming in, nobody could predict the resultsall one could do was wait and watch


Results timeelation or desolation?

All the chaos of servers crashing, questions not loading and CAT retests taking place for some meant that the results were delayed indefinitelyfinally they were scheduled to come out on the 28th of Feb, more than a month after the initial scheduled datethe results came out in the afternoon and as usual, all sites crashed soonbut A had come out with a PDF of shortlisted candidates and I could see my Reg No. in itI was extremely happy and felt that whatever their criteria was, an A shortlist meant I had definitely done wellonly question was whether it was good enough for the high sectional and overall cutoffs in C-the call I always wantedfor people finding this strange, let me provide you with an insight- I had been so enamoured by C over the course of the season that at times I visualized the C auditorium to calm myself down before a mock and to remind me of what I was targetingI respected A, but I desperately wanted C

cntd......

If I can do this, anyone can. Its just the question of having the right Attitude and not hesitating to take that one last step.

Till my seventh standard, i struggled to pass. I failed in almost all the exams, sneaked through in the annual alone. I started improving myself and entered a decent college if not a IIT or NIT. Various reasons tempted me to prepare and write CAT 2009. The journey began.

College was not very intensive, i got time to prepare, but i didn't make use of it. I didn't prepare well enough and it showed in the results. My CAT 2009 score was way below par. A 88.01 percentile with 79.xx in DI, 83.xx in Quant and 87.xx in Verbal. Ofcourse, the examination wasn't an ideal one. I did not get the timer properly in the screen for almost an hour, after which i was provided a watch. It was too late by then. But, I didn't deserve more. My mock test scores were way below par. To be very specific, i cleared the Verbal cutoff on only 2 occasions out of the 23 mock tests that i attended (TIME mock test series). I was never among the top 500 in any mock. I never saw a 99.xx. The best percentile i had scored was 93.xx. I was as ordinary as you could get. CAT 2009 was done and dusted. Failure. I failed in almost all management entrance test. JMET i had got a rank of somewhere around 1200. FMS, XAT, SNAP, IIFT were all failures. I was stuck. Such a majestic failure meant i was not given any clue how to proceed further.

It was also the final few months in college. Time passed away just like that. Eventually it was over. I had got offer from a good company, took it. Shifted to bangalore. I knew it had to be CAT.

This is when i did a lot of introspection. This is where it all started. I got to know the importance of having the right attitude. I had to learn dedicatedly. I had to enjoy learning. More importantly, I decided on something like this. "I will give my hundred percent while preparing for CAT 2010. If i still can't crack it, it's not the end of the door". Now, how do i develop these inside me? For that, I defined the purpose of my MBA. I imagined what i wanted to do. Etched it deep inside. That gave me this much required Attitude, which i believe, took me all the way.

Strategies changed, preparation was lively, learned to exhibit discipline while attempting a mock. Mocks were enriching. But CAT 2010 was fast approaching. After 4 months of prep, i gave CAT 2010. Started with VA. Did 18. Moved on to QA. Couldn't do the first couple of questions. Tension. Then there was that golden 30 mins. Did 16 of the remaining 18. Then DI. Did 16. I thought i had done okay, but wasn't satisfied especially with QA. Then there were other exams, everything went okay.

Results. JMET rank 298. All IITs call. CAT 99.70 (QA-96.66, DI-98.54, VA-98.99). Call from all IIMs except K. FMS no call. IIFT no call. XLRI BM call.

I was still the same person who gave CAT 2009. The difference was my attitude. I was willing to face failure this time. A failure in mock made me more serious rather than De-motivating me. I was more focussed.

Interviews. There were good ones as well as Bad ones. In interviews, you need luck to be on your side (At least for ordinary people like me).

Converted IIM-A. :)

According to me, CAT is more of a mental thing. You just need to be mentally prepared. It will threaten you. But it cannot eat you. Only you can crack it.

PS : Last year, i was here, searching for some inspiration after so many failures. Will be very happy if the post helps a couple of people.

Ok. Here goes mine...

First of all I don't believe I have cracked CAT(Rito's same). Failed to convert the 7 calls I had over 2 years.

With that stated let's begin...

School
I was one of those guys who used to believe in "study well to succeed" motto. And that's what I did from school days. After Xth the obvious path before me was Engineering - something I took up just because everyone said its good to do engineering.
So it was mad behind IIT for 2 years. But my preparation fizzled out by the time I came to XII. Finally when the results came I had got a decent rank in AIEEE. So I was NIT bound -> but the biggest mistake I made was taking Biotechnology.
Again this was based on my rank (No CSE, EEE, ECE or MECH) and some opinions...

College
At college I decided to follow the same motto since that has always helped me. After first year, I started my tryst with Biotechnology. In second year it looked like I liked it. And thoughts of MS filled my mind.
So in the vacation took up a project at IISC. 2.5 months of research made me realize that MS means lotts hard work and research - something I did not like. I did not find the excitement in research, moreover I found it to be a lazy activity.
3rd year in college the subjects also became boring and I was thinking why study now. All I was doing was talking to seniors, reading lotta arbit stuff and trying to figure out something interesting. Thats when newspapers carried a lotta news about recession, I-Banks and whole lot of Management related stuff. I thought this seems to be interesting, at least reading this made me feel I was gaining something.
So after talking with parents I decided to take up CAT in my final year. In my 3rd vacation I went for a crash course at TIME.

CAT 2009
To be frank when I started preparation, I felt that CAT was actually nothing since the questions were 10th class level. With this in mind, I decided I wouldn't prepare as advised by TIME but let me wait for a mock or 2 and then decide. The first AIMCAT I scored 93.xx and the 2nd one 88.9x. It looked decent but it was not enough. I observed that one major missing in me was proper time management. Other than this I had forgotten quite a lot of mathematics. So the preparation agenda was somewhat clear.
I joined PG in May of 2009. Initially though I found it plain boring, but gradually I started liking it.
The highlight of the season was scoring 98.91(AIR 1xx) in the last mock. This was my highest and a week before CAT. I was pretty confident.

CAT - Cat went pretty fine for me. Attempted 52/53 questions confidently. Finally when the results came I had 97.xx with an 83.xx in VA, 90.xx in QA and 99.x in DI. I was sad, very sad. But when the calls came I had a call from IIM K, in addition to SPJAIN and MDI. Boy I was over the moon. XAT, IIFT were bad.

Interviews - The interview stage was surprisingly good considering the preparation I had done. K interview was the best. SPJain though I had qualified for GI-2, I knew it was not impressive enough. MDI I had skipped.

Results - A reject from both places. I was really devastated. Specially after a wonderful process at K.

Meanwhile at college I had got 2 job offers - both IT. So I had something to look forward to.

CAT 2010
This time I knew I did not have to prepare like last time and it was more of fine tuning my skills. So I took up CL and TIME mocks. The mocks started well with a couple of 98.xx and other 95+ scores. After 4/5 mocks things took a beating. I was scoring 84.xx, 88.xx etc and confidence was low. Also I had to take a call on joining the job. I declined the first offer since I did not want IT. The second offer gave me more time.
In between I took up a part time teaching offer at CL. It helped me brush up topics and make some cash as well.
By October my second company was not calling and I was getting bogged down at home. The teaching was only part time and only few hours. I was feeling really bored at home.
Job finally - In October beginning, I attended the off campus interview process for Mu Sigma and got through that. It came as a huge step forward for me since it was Analytics - a field somewhat related to business.

So I come to Bangalore
I joined by October end - a week before CAT on 7th Nov. Mocks was going good for me. I had an AIR-56 this time as my best score.

CAT - I found CAT to be tougher than last time. I could attempt only 13 in QA and 16 each in DI n VA. But I was confident about the attempts. XAT was one hell of a paper. JMET was pretty easy and FMS too went fine for me.

Results - JMET I had a rank of 169. FMS I was shortlisted. CAT 98.20 with QA spoiling it for me - 86.xx in QA, 97.xx in DI and 96.xx in VA. And XAT 96.50 - VA doing the honors. Surprisingly when the calls came I had a host of calls. In fact had a call from all the exams I gave.


Interviews - This time I was slightly over confident. It was maybe because I believed an interview is where they test how much you know yourselves. But after my 1st interview (IIM -S) I knew I had to brush up lot many things(B.tech and some general gyaan). Interviews weren't as easy as I expected. Though I did not join any coaching I was reading stuff. Interviews were spread over more than a month and I was traveling places. Most of them went okayish. SpJain was easily the best.

Results - First was FMS -> Reject. As expected converted SPJAIN which came next. Next came XL and was WL 62. I was happy since my interview was poor. Then the IIMs came. I had rejects from everywhere. Not even one convert or WL. IIT-B was also WL at 89.




I still dream of getting an IIM convert but I know at times you gotta be practical too. I know now that I want to move to finance. Spending more time in the current industry is not really going to help plus the fact that SPJAIN is a great college.

First thing's first : I don't believe I have cracked CAT.

With that out of the way, here's the story of my journey, which completed one of its phases a few days back.

I was never extra-ordinary in anything, and I don't think I'll ever be. Just an average Joe with an above-average ability to cope with the education system that I faced during my school days. Never ambitious, I didn't give much of a thought to crack IIT-JEE and was more or less satisfied with what I got as my graduation college.

4 years went like a breeze where I never studied much, never tried to improve my grades. I had just one aim, to keep that grade point above 7 so that I could sit for placements. Succeeded in getting into one of the "fastest growing" IT companies and thought this would be "the job". I saw a few batchmates of mine studying for CAT and I felt like "Lol, look at these people. Can't they have some fun rather than doing some stupid maths problems?"
CL came to our college for some promotion, took an MCQ test, wrote the test for fun and got a bag as a prize.

But to study for CAT ? No way!

Fast forward a year. I still remember that evening. The first match of IPL1 between KKR and RCB was going on, McCullum was on his way to 158*. I got plenty of calls from my friends about the match to which I had one answer:
"I am in the office,don't bother me". Stayed till 10:30 that night, cleaned up all the mess that my TL from onsite had created, and still received an escalation about this incident the next day.
I made up my mind.

"Screw this, I am getting outta here".

So what were the opions ?

GRE ? Nah, too costly and I didn't have enough information, plus the additional burden of visa and all.
GMAT ? Impossible. Don't have the money.
GATE ? Not possible to study subjects whch I couldn't study in 4 years.

So the only option was CAT.

CAT 2008 : Started looking here and there. Made a profile in Pagalguy, got some info. Enrolled in TIME for the mocks. Classroom coaching was never my cup of tea, cos I always had the confidence (maybe overconfidence) that
I could do it myself. 2 of my friends (same project) joined the bandwagon and we found a new direction in life. My initial target was quite modest : to get into a decent B-school. I didn't dream of IIMs, XLRI etc. I got a
pm from rik_12 to nominate myself in KDT '08 which I found it pretty amusing, and of course i didn't apply.

I had mock scores ranging from 92.xx to 96.xx. Didn't study much, didn't have any strategy. I found that TIME DI is impossible for me, VA I can manage well and in QA I had good days and bad days.Didn't analyse the mocks,
didn't have any idea about basic number system concepts. Basically it was almost "nothing" preperation. I saw the godly scores of DT members in the mock test threads, the 99+ scores flying around, but that didn't inspire
me to study hard. CAT 2008 came and went. It had 40 questions in english. Any sane person who knew that VA was his strength would have jumped up in delight and maximise. But not me. I attempted only 21 , and for some
reason, tried to do qa and di where I couldn't do much. Actually I didn't even know my strengths and weaknesses!

The results came out. I was playing a game online, where one of my friends pm-ed me that results were out.I told I would check it the next morning, let me finish the game first.
Result : 93.xx with a 93/87/79 in VA/QA/DI.
CAT 2009 : This time I was serious. Now I shifted my focus from a decent insti to the top instis. Conditions at the office got out of hand, and I chose to confront my superiors (thats an epic story) and clearly told them my
commitment towards CAT and made it clear that office priority came after that.Started to prepare hard. Used to rush back from office to home, and impatiently waited for each and every red signal to turn green, so that i can save that precious few seconds to prepare more. 3-4 hours of journey for work didn't help much,but I desperately tried to make it up by doing quants and VA at office. We had this mail chain going among us "Did you know?" where we shared concepts. Actively participated in PG forums this time, followed the quant thread and made some contributions also.Attended quite a few PG meets, made some great friends.Though sometimes I felt, was this all worth it ? But anyway, continued like this. Mock scores were good this time, with mostly 97.5+ and a few 99+, with the occassional drops. Felt confident and felt this would be my year.

The first day in the first online CAT went bizarre to say the least. Problems, confusions everywhere. I booked my slot in the last day. That turned out to be a mistake.I lost my focus and when I went to write CAT, i was almost
sure that this test would get scrapped. Wrote the test, made a good number of attempts but somehow I felt I had screwed it up. XAT went okay, and I thought I had a serious chance at XLRI. In SNAP, looking at the keys I was
certain I would get an SIBM-P call.

The blows came one after the other. Missed SIBM-P by half-a-mark. But the crushing blow was the XAT result.My beloved VA section ditched me and I ended up with a 95.4 (or 94.5, didnt check the result more than once)
overall. I was crushed. I sent a sms to my two comrades that "It is over. I don't deserve anything. I am a complete loser". The next day we had a family picnic. I had to tag along, play with my cousins, but with a heart as heavy
as a mountain.One question was eating up my mind " Is this a true indication of my ability. Is this all that I can achieve" ? CAT results came. I didnt expect anything great, and it wasn't. With all the preparations this year
I had managed to get a lower percentile (93.xx again) with 95+ in QA/VA but with a 58 in DI. I didn't react,the XAT result made me immune. It's almost certain I would have never wrtiiten CAT/XAT again except for a very
special person, Prem bhai. We had all kinds of talks after CAT, we discussed all 20 questions on QA(we shared the same slot), we discussed on cat getting scrapped, etc etc. I had a tremendous respect for him beforehand, that increased many folds after direct interaction.Was really happy for his IIM-L convert, and then the miraculous IIM-C convert. He told me a few simple things about CAT which made sense to me. In short,I decided to write CAT again.

CAT 2010 : I made a switch before preparation. Anyways, didn't prepare much this time. Mocks came and went. Some pretty inconsistent scores. Got into UDT, KDT. Again met some fantastic guys.The same cycle of mocks, results,analysis, discussions on strategies followed. But this time I was kinda indifferent. Just went along with the flow, but wasn't perturbed if the mock scores went low. 2009 had taught me that mock scores mean nothing.
I didn't do things much different, and I didn't go for trying to learn new concepts, cos my thinking was : "if I couldn't learn that in 2009, when I gave it all, most probably I won't learn that this year also." CAT vouchers came out. Like last year, people hurried and scurried to get "that precious slot". I waited for a couple of days and finally bought it. This time I booked my slot in the first weekend(sunday) itself. Went to the exam hall with a cool mind, remembered Ravi's advice that there's always a next year, and started with the QA secion. To my initial horror, I saw a lot of tough geometry problems (tough for me) and could attempt only 6-7 in the first go. This was a bit
shocking cos I always managed to attempt at least 14-15 in the mocks. I made up my mind that whatever happened, I would stick to the 45-45-45 time strategy. This actually helped cos I found enough time to do the VA questions (my strength). After getting out, I realised I had an average outing in QA and DI (I never had much trust on normalisation anyway)compared to people writing in other slots, and if I had any hope of getting the overall beyond 99, I had to score heavily in VA. Wrote JMET/XAT and FMS along with CAT. In JMET I thought I would get a decent enough rank for IIT-B.But XAT made a mockery out of me. Acc. to the keys I was getting 2.5-3.5 in LR, so I thought that was the end of that.

Results : Started with JMET. Got another taste of the competition in India, compounded with my bad luck. I got the lowest possible among all the keys and a rank outside 600. It was another mini shock. But it was just the beginning. Results leaked out on that day itself. I didn't have the nerve to get it checked. My fellow comrades gave me their ids and I got their numbers from another friend of mine (Kaushal). Then, unable to bear the pressure I gave Kaushal my id to check it. Just as I thought, I had an imbalanced score card with 83.13 in DI, 93.38 in QA and 99.86 in VA, overall 98.96. First thought that came up my mind was "what's the sectional for L?"cos I already knew I had missed A and C. Anyways, L ditched me also but managed a B call. That was a sweet surprise.

But bigger surprise awaited. XAT results came out. My friend had a great chance for XLRI call. I rushed home to check his result, and saw the congrats on the screen. Called him up and gave him the good news. Then suddenly I remembered that I didnt even put his id, and just filled the box with the id that was saved in Chrome.I realised i have managed an XLRI HRM call.It almost felt like my destiny. Last year, this result crushed me, destroyed me and made me depressed for the first time in my life. This year, XAT gave me a joy that knew no bounds.

GD-PI : I participated in 5-6 mock GDs in total, out of which in 3 I didn't speak at all. I'll be honest.I found no point in arguing with a bunch of people about union budget or supreme court's ruling on Euthanasia or capital punishment. I felt bored, and felt quite amused looking at people providing outrageous solutions in case studies, and people actually buying them. Maybe I don't have that kind of creativity. In short, I lost interest and gave up.
For PI, I attended just 4 mock interviews, all to the same person. Somehow I always felt I could manage inteviews, this was my forte. I got the feedback that mostly my interviews went okay, though I have to build on the contents. I didn't buy suggestions like " You have to give unique answers", cos my own understanding is honesty is the best policy to pursue in interviews. Attended IIT-KGP GD/PI process, and was surprised to see myself talking quite a lot during the case study analysis. Interview was a breeze. Next up was a big one.I had already heard many stories about the XLRI interviews (specially the PMIR ones).I was eagerly looking forward to that process and it didnt disappoint.GD topic was on budget on which I had a nice discussion on that very morning itself(destiny, again?) with my comrade who had his interview the next day.GD went decent while the interview was a dream. My only concern was my low XAT score which might play a spoilsport. After that attended interviews at NITIE,MDI,IIM-B and IIM-RRT. Was disappointed with IIM-B cos they made up their mind to reject me beforehand. Maybe my profile wasn't suitable for them. I thought I did a decent job in others.

Final Results : Started with NITIE when I got a schock of my life. A 122 WL. The very confidence in me came crashing down. One of my comrades made a direct convert here, so at least some good news for the group. The long wait began for the other results. B's result was scheduled on april 18th and I was sure I would get a reject. On 17th night, while I was browsing through the TV , I got a short message : "XL?". Almost fell off the chair. Called up my friend and I asked him to check his result. A 77 waitlist for him, with a good interview and a 4-percentile-point difference with me. I didn't want him to check my result. On his insistence, I told him my id and silently waited for the verdict. He simply read out the message "Congratulations.You have been........". I didn't feel much joy. The mountain just came off my heart which haunted me for the past 1 year. After a full circle, XAT came to my rescue. My dream has finally started taking its shape.

IIM-B ditched me as expected, but converted MDI, IIM-RRT and got an WL in IIT-KGP. After a bit of pondering (nothing much though) I have decided to pursue HRM from XLRI.



To all the puys, who directly and indirectly inspired me to reach till here,"Thank you all". I don't think it would have been possible for me to go alone. I will continue to follow PG and try to contribute in future. (I am not naming anyone in particular, cos there will be another post in the "Puy Testimonials" thread)

A special mention of two of my comrades, Sayan and Kaushik (leonayas and great_timer respectively). We were like the "The three muskateers" in my previous organisation. We used to walk for hours in the company premises regarding CAT,MBA and life in general. Extremely happy for them that they are going to top institutes this year. Hope the coming hectic B-school schedules don't compromise the hour-long call confernces that we used to have.

There you have it.


This is my story, both humble and true
Take it to pieces, and mend it with glue.(John Lennon)

So after numerous visits to thsi wonderful thread , I finally get to put my post
in here as well..

My story begins in Lucknow where I studied at one the city's n probably the country's well known n prestigious school: La Martiniere College.
When I was in std 3rd , I vividly remember one fine morning we got a call..Dad
answered it ..and he almost jumped wid joy at what he heard from the other end..he jus said "Vikas ne dil khush kar dia"...
( Vikas is my cousing bro , 10 yrs elder to me)
Vikasda ( as i fondly call him ) had cracked JEE and secured a seat at the prestigious IIT-Delhi.I can still remember the joy on my dad's face as my uncle
broke the news to him. Its not dat I had decided from that day that i would pursue
engg, its jus that moment had a big impact on me. I was quite average at studies
and never made any attempt to do well. Got a 78% in 10th and was
dissapointed.Still remenber dat Dad took me to school dat day and he was not very
happy at the result..not dat he said anythng but the feeling of joy was not
there.My uncle even suggested dat i consider taking accounts as it was not
compulsary dat i take science.
I took up Science and in std 12th n again dint bother to study..result..another 76%..
Whereas a lot of my frnds cracked IIT or RECs...I jus gave JEE and dint even clear
the screening. I was so very lost at that time..
I decided to take a drop and prepare for IIT, got enrolled in a few coaching
institues and again my life started to drift. I would relegiously attend all
classes but beyond dat i did not put much effort. Once in a while i did some
studies but not much.
During this period once my uncle visited me and he observed my routine n told my
dad that" he has not yet realised the imp of this period".
I was pretty upset wid my Uncle and dint take it seriously.Now I look back and
realise how careless I have been .

The exams came and they went...I knew IIT was
out of question had faith on AIEEE..but I got a rude shock wen the rank against my
name read 17597...all hopes of a decent engg college vanished. Moreover in the
State level engg exam (UPSEAT) I had got a 7xxx rank which again was quite
pathetic. In AIEEE i got SASTRA Tanjore , a deemed university and Biotechnology
as the stream. However , at UPSEAT i got a hitherto unknown college : Inderprastha Engg College...Got into Elec n Comm n thot I will work hard and get a good position. I had no faith in the college as it was just in its 4th year , but I had
no other options.I was again lagging at studies in college where after 2 bad years
I gave up on studies. Since the placement scene was terrible I had decided to take
a shot at the CAT n go for MBA, From the third year I started my prep n wud go
for weekend classes of TIME. I used to to take the local train (EMU) and reach Connought Place for the clases... I was pathetic in the beginning but moved to 90.xx percentiles later on.However at the end of my third year of engg, I got placed in Birlasoft . It was one of the happiest days of my life. I felt so relieved..but with that I lost the fire for CAT and stopped studying at all..what a fool I was CAT 07 came n I got a dismal percentile..something in the sixties..I wasnt bothered..had dreams coz of the job in hand :). In d frst year at job I partied wid frnds , travelled n jus wasted tym....just kept drifting with time..

In 2008 when I thought of giving CAT ..again I did not prepare but some
good fortune saw me switch to JP Morgan Chase, Mumbai.
Next year was very tough as I had loads n loads to do..So 2009 also went by..no CAT again.

2010:
This year the work load was less and one day I was browsing through you tube where I came upon a video of "Life at IIM A"(YouTube - Life at IIM A) . I was spellbound by that video and my desire to crack the CAT was rekindled. I started using the QA thread in PG and got study material from TIME . Thru PG I made frnds like Sara,Atin ,Manoj n Sai at the Mumbai study grp thread. We met every weekend and wud solve 2-3 AIMCATS. I did not want to leave anything, so I joined Byju for QA n DI. I used to be up late at nights practicing and solving AIMCATs n would go groggy eyed to office. I started carrying my material to office and soon everyone in my team came to know about it.But most of them supported me in my endeavour.I downloaded the audio word list and wud listen to it while going to sleep.Months went by and every weekend without fail we used to meet and solve papers...crack jokes..have food together...It was one of the most enjoyable phases of my life..felt as if I was in college again..:)
I took two test series ..CL n tIME. I was miserable in CL but slightly better in
TIME. Normally scored 88-92 range but on six occasions I got a 95 plus percentile
n 4 times inexcess of 98. These scores kept my morale up.I gave CAT,FMS,XAT and JMET. Chose a middle slot for CAT n took a week off before my date. I kept getting reviews from my frnds n it was evident dat as days were passing the level of paper was increasing becoming diff specially the DI section.I deliberately chose th eevening slot so as to avoid any issues..I could hardly sleep during the prior night.reached the centre way too early and went for walk.
The paper started with me going for the VA section first. I chose an RC and started
reading it..halfway through I remembered to check the number of ques and to my
horror there were jus 2 for this RC. I kept my cool and went ahead wid the RC and
the section. Moved to DI then..DI was very tricy and I cud jus about answer 13-14
ques wid a few guess thrown in as well. Next up was QA again went decent 15-16
attempts.Overall I felt I cud have done a little better. Then the results got leaked in an bizzare manner nd i had secured 99.27 percentile wid the follwing break up
QA:97.45
VA:98.45
DI:94.65
I waited for the results but something within me said it was going to remain d same. Was dissapointed as IIMs cvhanged their criterai again nd I managed gd pi calls from IIM Lucknow, MDI and NITIE, with final converts from MDI and NITIE . In the end I would like to dedicate my admission and results to my dad and was so proud d day when I called him and told him about my score...my entire family was so happy for me ..
I owe a lot to PG and the various friends I made here..PG rocks !!!
Puys put your 100% in your effort and I am sure you will get the desired results

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