"Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did." - Newt Gingrich
Rishikesh Verma, hailing from a middle-class family, has always wanted to live up to his dream on his terms, whatever may come his way. He has come from a place where you get bare minimum exposure and people’s expectation from a male is very high. He had always been a person who was good at academics, so the expectations only added to the mounting pressure. After getting 10 CGPA in 10th board he wanted to do NDA for which he prepared well and gave the exam but unfortunately, he didn’t qualify. His expectations were further lowered when after working hard he was able to get only 85% in the 12th board. It made him disheartened, and he started having self-doubt which made him take admission to a random college in Patna, where the exposure was very limited. In this phase of his life, his morale plummeted, and he suffered from a bout of depression. “Then around February-March, I got to know that Delhi University also takes admission through entrance tests. I wanted to get there anyhow as it was my last chance to change my college in the first year, otherwise, my year would be wasted. It felt like my last opportunity to come out of the conservative society and prove myself.” Pursuing his classes in Patna’s college he prepared for the DU entrance and managed to get a decent score, but the struggle did not end there as he faced difficulty in getting into a good DU college. His luck was favoured, and he got shortlisted after waiting so long and received an admission. “I was not 100% happy with the college I got into, but my mother motivated me and told me that you can excel there also by giving your best. It would be a stepping stone for the rest of my career, one I am responsible for shaping.”
After joining DU, he had to manage his classes and coped with daily chores in PG, all on a very limited budget. During the 2nd year of his college, Rishikesh began planning for the future. He felt that for more exposure he should do an MBA. But due to financial constraints, his relatives and family members warned against it, encouraging him to pursue an MA in Economics as just preparing and applying to an MBA program cost a huge amount of money. However, he was determined and had made up his mind that he will prepare for it and do an MBA.
Because of his background, he filled only the CAT form and no other entrance exam. So, this was his one shot to prove himself, and he began the journey to prepare. He took help from his friends, and they provided him with study materials. He started preparing for CAT by watching videos on YouTube, through online free sources and began giving mocks and analyzing them thoroughly. “I was dedicated, and nothing could stop me then. One person that was constantly helping me to prepare was my friend Aarushi. She helped me to be motivated and always supported me, and I am glad that I have a friend like her.” He used to study by himself together with managing his classes and cooking food. Sometimes he used to get stuck while solving but by re-analyzing, again and again, he got through the solution. “Even after giving several mocks my VARC section was not improving, and that’s when my friend helped me in improving this section a lot. A philosophy I stuck with was that it does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”
While preparing for CAT he never let his grades get affected by this. For 2 consecutive years in college, he topped his batch. He even topped in 5 out of 6 semesters in DU and became the overall batch topper with the highest percentage and acquired Gold Medal in Business Economics. “As I was preparing by myself there were instances when in many mocks, I was not able to score good, sometimes my percentile used to go below 60, which made me upset and brought my morale down. I even used to think that maybe MBA is not for me, but my friend motivated me and helped me in coming out of this state of mind.” Just 2 weeks before CAT his health condition deteriorated which affected his mocks, but he did not lose hope and thoroughly analyzed all the previous tests to see where he went wrong.
“On the exam day, I was very positive about myself and gave the exam with full motivation. I managed to get a 94.77 percentile in CAT in my first attempt, and I was filled with joy when I saw the result; it was one of the best moments that I had.” He was also very anxious, as this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and he did not want to ruin it. He put his heart and soul into preparing for WAT-PI by practising and giving mock interviews online. “My friends became mentors and helped me a lot in preparing for interviews.” He had other interviews along with IIM Rohtak which was scheduled for 12th February. “I did pretty well in the interview at Rohtak and was confident about its result.” Though he prepared well and gave his 100% in all the interviews, he had to face lots of rejection and was waitlisted as well. “It made me highly disheartened and was feeling bad as all the hard work would go in vain.”
But a little ray of hope was still there as the result for IIM Rohtak was awaited. It was the 22nd of May when the good news came, “I got the offer letter from IIM Rohtak. When I saw the result my whole world changed, I was not able to voice my feelings, the tears of happiness just rolled down my face. When I saw the proud feeling in the eyes of my mother and sister, it justified all my hardships which I had put through in these months.” Looking back on my life, I see that every time I believed I was being rejected from something, I was being redirected to something better.