I am a 23-year-old male. I scored 70% in the 10th (State Board of Maharashtra), 80% in the 12th (State Board of Maharashtra), and 62% in my graduation (B.Com). I graduated in May 2021. I wasted one year preparing for the CAT exam. My overall percentile was 30. In DILR, my scaled score was -0.99, i.e., 24th percentile. In Quants, my scaled score was -0.15, i.e., 20th percentile. In VARC, my scaled score was 3, i.e., 25th percentile. Even though I joined coaching, it didn’t help that much. I couldn’t do much during this time.
I couldn’t do much during this time because my coaching center was far, and it took more than 3.5 hours of my travel time. The good thing was that I chose a weekend batch. During the weekdays, I was trying hard to understand everything that was taught on weekends. To put things into perspective, for quants/maths, I didn’t even know what natural numbers and whole numbers were, etc. I knew nothing about math; I had forgotten everything I once knew. Not to mention, I grew up hating it for years. However, after reading somewhere on the internet that I should first clear my basics through NCERT, it was a game-changer. Everything started making sense. But I could only read up to the 8th standard. I didn’t solve any questions; I didn’t have that much time, so I just read the chapters and skipped the exercises.
For DILR, it was a completely new subject for me, so you can understand the situation I was in. I couldn’t solve basic arrangement questions. In VARC, my situation was only a little better compared to other sections. So my focus was more on quants and DILR. I couldn’t prepare for the exams because I was busy trying to understand everything that was taught during the weekends. I was doing this for the past seven months, and it was already September, so I started giving mocks irrespective of my preparation level. Eventually, the D-Day came, and you know my results.
One more thing is that my profile is not strong; I don’t even have a profile. I don’t have any extracurricular activities to show, no internships, work experience, projects, certificates, or courses. I don’t have anything besides my below-average marks. Although I joined Indian Oil as an apprentice this year in March, which is going to end after completing one year.
So, my question is, should I prepare for NMIMS Mumbai and/or SIBM Pune? I am willing to do whatever it takes to get into these colleges. If not, which colleges/exams should I prepare for? I know I would have to start from scratch. Please help!"