Swanky apartments, luxury cars and a pretty secretary in the office of a multi million company, this is what comes to your mind when you imagine your life post MBA. I started my CAT preparation with similar thoughts, investing two years of my life in an MBA courses and reaping the benefits for the rest of my life. But believe me, MBA is more than just the seven digit salary number. Returns are important but so is the decision of investing the efforts and time is. Through this post, I will walk you through my journey from preparing for CAT to landing up in IIM Indore or the planet-I as it is called.
Being an average performer in Quant and below average in VA & DI, CAT was a real struggle for me. I decided to benchmark myself by taking mock tests. My mock test scores cycle started with a pathetically low score of 50%ile and ended with the highest of 98%ile in the last test. The last test score appeared on screen on the day of CAT Results as well. I managed to get a decent score in CAT and got calls from the prestigious IIMs. After weeks of speculation of IIM calls, the actual shortlist started to come. I got calls from all IIMs other than the holy trinity IIM A, B, C. Then began the phase of preparation for interviews. To my surprise, the most difficult part was still impending CAT seemed a cakewalk. You are expected to know everything under the sun and it is actually true. Anything that is even slightly related to you can be asked. Brushing up on the undergrad concepts really was a good move. Being a fresher most of the questions asked were centred around the concepts learnt in Undergrad. The next thing you are expected to know is the current affairs. I was never interested in the news and current state of affairs in the world so really had a hard time preparing for it but the habit of reading the newspaper daily while preparation came in handy. After you are done with entire procedure of admissions which is spread across 5 to 6 months all you can do is just sit back and relax? No, just sit back and pray especially if you are a General Male engineer or an engineer for that matter. Nobody can actually predict their selection given the number of permutations and combination and calculations that go into the composite score calculation. The scores of selected candidates might vary from each other by a minimal 0.01% in some cases.
The entire process is like a roller coaster there will be highs and lows but the end result is you find a discover a better version of you. More than knowledge this process tests your aptitude and ability to learn, prepares you for the coming two years as well. The admission process is a trailer of the two-year movie at the b-school you prefer to join. I had always been curious to know from my seniors about the life at IIMs and to my surprise really got crisp and formal answers now I realise why. Because there is always a clock ticking. There is always an impending deadline and lots of processes in the pipeline. The fun part is you end up pushing your limits each day and discover the new degrees of perseverance that lie within you. With this, I end as I might miss a deadline while writing.
I wish all the aspirants Good Luck!