AIWTSAC
Profile: 9.8CGPA(10th CBSE) , 87%(12th CBSE) , 79% (Old IIT ,2020 batch) GEM
My CAT journey began when I was in my third of engineering; like many students, I was confused ki aage kya karna hai, I was not interested in coding, MS seemed quite expensive, and core companies didn't use to come for placements, so the only option left for me was CAT . During my preparation I focused only on DILR & QA, and my devotion towards VARC was minimal because I thought that VARC doesn't require practise.
CAT 2019 D day: I got the morning slot, the mind was not fully awake during the VARC section, and I didn't understand most of the passages. DILR and QA went well.
Result : OA 97.5( 78.01/ 95.68/ 99.5)
I didn't get any call, and now my focus shifted to getting a job from campus placements; as my QA and DILR were good by now, I was easily able to sail through the tests of companies offering Business Analyst and Data Analyst profiles. I was eligible for interviews with many companies but was not able to clear the interviews for the first three days of placement; after many rejects, my confidence was shattered. Somehow I cleared the interview round on Day 4 of placement and got a Business Analyst job. I was very happy and thought that I would work for two years, gain some experience and then appear for CAT.
After six months, I started my job(from home). Even though I was not serious about giving CAT this year, I started the preparation again. Two months into the job, I realise that I don't want this; I don't want to work as a business analyst. Now I was confused about what should I do, whether I should leave the job and get fully dedicated to CAT preparation or should I continue in this job(without enjoying it) and reap the benefits of work experience points after two years. After pondering over it for a long time, I decided that I would leave the job and get fully dedicated to CAT preparation; one reason that led to this decision was that even if I were to continue in this job I wouldn't get the benefit of work experience in CAT'20 as my workex was less than 12 months. So I left my job in August end and started my self-preparation for CAT. I knew that for getting BLACKI calls, I would need more than 99.8+ and for that, I would need approximately 180 marks . I started giving mocks, but my scores initially fluctuated between 120 and 140, I started questioning my decision. Around this time, I came to know about pagalguy , people here were posting score of upwards of 200, this further demotivated me, and I decided that I won't be opening pagalguy to see others score. I continued my preparation, this time keeping my main focus on VARC. I studied for approximately 7 hours daily, out of which 4-5 hours were dedicated to VARC and 2 hours to DILR & QA. Slowly and slowly, my VARC got strong, and after some time, my score in VARC exceeded my score in the other two sections. I gave a lot of mocks, around 60 full-lengths and 90 sectionals. All was going well, and then the news came that the duration of CAT is changed to 2 hours; I didn't panic from the news just changed my target from 180 to 120. In the second last mock (SIMCAT), I got 134, but in the last mock(AIMCAT), I got 100; again I was not panicked because there was a trend in my mock scores, low-high-low-high...., I hoped that following this trend I should get a high score in the real exam.
CAT'20 D Day: I got slot 3(was lucky not to get the morning slot), attempted maximum number of questions, made no fuckup, overall felt that it was my best test.
Result: OA 99.94 ( 99.58 /99.55 /99.68)
I was very happy; I thought that I would get all the BLACKI calls. Ahmedabad was the first to give out call letters; I was selected; this further strengthened my belief of all BLACKI calls, kyunki A ne bula liya to baaki sab bhi bula hi lenge.In the next few days, I got rejects from BLKI(got L ABM call) and calls from C and FMS, I felt really bad that after scoring such high also I was not called for an Interview. I also got the SPJIMR profile call, I booked the interview date very early as I thought that I would have many interviews to give, and even if this one doesn't go well, it wouldn't be much of an issue.
SPJIMR interview came by, and I was not prepared. I was not able to answer my basic engineering questions and was also not able to justify my specialisation (marketing). I was rejected in the first round, anxiety started creeping in, the next interview was of Ahmedabad, and I didn't want to flunk it. So I started giving mock interviews, I gave five mock interviews with different people, and all of them said the same thing, "You are not smiling enough, you are coming out as rude, you are not able to have a lively conversation, if you give interviews like this you won't be selected ." At this same time, I came across the group THEOMI created by @Arsene96 , in that group, three seniors were selflessly conducting interviews for candidates; also the recordings of these interviews were available in the group, @Arsene96 had labelled the best mocks in the groups and recommended us to watch them. I watched all of them, and all these students were having a lively conversation, were telling answers in a story form, were smiling continuously(they had all the traits that I lacked). After watching all these interviews, I felt demotivated; I thought, why would anyone select me? People like these would only get selected. I realised that if I have to get selected, my interview needs to be more like them, lively. I started practising fake smiling and having a lively conversation, applied all of this in the next ten mock interviews(Alongside I also prepared for GK, UG and HR question), by the last interview, I was pretty confident and was able to have a lively interview.
Interview Experiences :
A/C/FMS : Good
NITIE/SJSOM : Okayish
MDI/IIMS/IIML ABM : Bad
Results: NITIE and SJSOM were the first to declare the results; I thought that they should be easy converts but was rejected by both of them. Self-doubt and anxiety started kicking in.IIM took a lot of time to release the results, and till then, my anxiety got very high. IIM Ahmedabad was the next to release, I had shared my interview experience with my parents, and they and I were pretty confident that I would get in, result: rejected. By this time, I was completely shattered; I was not at all excited about Calcutta's result; I knew that it would be a rejection; I just hoped that I would convert FMS and wouldn't need to go for CAT'21.
Result:
Calcutta: Waitlist(Converted)
IIML ABM/IIMS/FMS: Waitlist(That would eventually convert)
MDI: Converted
After the conversion from IIMC, I was more relieved than happy.
I would request every GEM who is thinking of leaving his job not to take that decision, this system is designed to fail GEMs, and most of us will fail, and in that case, it's better to have a backup option.