Hi, I'm Prafull Anand and I believe everyone's journey to his dreamland is unique in itself but we call can learn something from other's journey. Getting into BLACKIS was my dream and this is my journey. During my 3rd year in B.Tech. I understood that engineering could not be my career path for long so I started looking for other options and as everyone in one’s neighbourhood say
‘Beta engineering kar lo bahut scope hai' (Son, do engineering there are a lot of opportunities)’ I started searching these opportunities.
Like thousands of other engineers, I decided to do an MBA. So, I started preparing for CAT 2018 being an engineering student, I was comfortable with DILR and QA. But since “Myself coming from village area” just as Arjun Kapoor in Half Girlfriend I was pathetic at VARC. I joined a coaching institute only to learn that nothing other than self-study and practice will help you to excel in VARC. Then my quest to learn English started and I can proudly say a lot changed in the coming months.
Then came the placement session(2 months before CAT 2018), now I was travelling on two boats, I decided to get a placement offer first, as any IIM-K student would understand that deadlines are sacrosanct and so are the placements, which meant a month or two of rigorous technical study I left CAT on sidelines. I did succeed in placements and landed with an offer from TCS. Now came the D-Day CAT 2018, I did good enough in VARC but the other two sections were devastating, I scored 93.85 percentile with no interview calls from old or new IIMs.
I joined TCS after my college but my hunger to go to an IIM only grew stronger than last year, I knew what mistakes I made and I was ready to tackle it now head-on. Preparing with a job I got to know it's way difficult than preparing with college, but thanks to some close friends who kept me motivated and I consistently put my effort in preparation. I made sure that whatever be my performance I will take mocks every week and analyze thoroughly, by the month of November I was taking mock twice a week. Here comes the last Sunday of November 2019, the exceptional VARC section reminded me again that “Myself coming from village area” in the exam hall but I kept my patience and fortunately did well in CAT’19 and got percentile sufficient enough to get calls from old IIMs, which I received.
I started preparing for interviews and essays just after the results. First few interviews were just like ‘roasting’ for me. Fortunately, all my good interviews were scheduled toward the end where I started performing well. IIM Kozhikode was the 1st college to release the shortlist among the calls I received, I was elated to know that I have been selected in an old IIM, I really screamed in happiness, it was really a dream come true moment after months of hard work. I also converted the calls from IIM-Indore, DMS IITD, and some other colleges.
Not to give any ‘gyan’ but some of the learning I would like to share which might help some aspiring candidates are:
- Consistency is the key, not just for a quote as phone wallpaper but for your dream.
- As deadlines are sacrosanct in IIM-k so are the mocks for CAT. For any average candidate like me who wants to score good, one should give at least 20 mocks at periodic intervals and analyze it.
- Preparations for interviews are equally important than that for CAT.
Once my mentor said “Good things happen to those who give their best” so we should just keep giving our best and results will follow.
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