How I Made It To SPJIMR & 15 Other Top B-Schools In My First CAT Attempt | Ft. Aditya Neelakantam

I believe this article should provide some insight into what the Hustle Phase of a typical Indian MBA aspirant looks like and I feel many fellow B-School candidates and aspirants can relate to it.

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1)  The START

It All Started With A Dream, A Dream To Transcend The Ordinary

I've always been a self-made and proactive person in life, and have consciously led myself towards a Growth Mindset.

I started making my life better by involving myself with self-help books and later in life transcended to business books.
I was a core team member of various clubs & committees at college and I totally loved organizing and managing things. The exposure to the Entrepreneurship Cell at my college and its boot camps also sparked a genuine interest in me towards acquiring a management education.

Post graduation, I joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to acquire work experience and even there my interactions with business leaders made me aspire for a role closer to business, and further intensified my desire to pursue management education.

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2)  MAKING UP MY MIND

Ignore the Naysayers. Limits only exist in the mind!

CAT is apparently considered one of the toughest exams in India and Since hardly anyone around me had ever achieved a feat like this, making up my mind was the hardest part. I took 3 complete weeks, and carefully thought about all the Ifs and Buts.

I had numerous people around, telling me that CAT is not for me, it's impossible to crack it in the first attempt, don't waste your time, and whatnot.
There have been naysayers all around. But I only listened to the voice in my head.

I've always been someone, who couldn't settle for the Mediocre and wanted to do something Big in life. So, I finally made my decision to take the Leap of Faith.

I still feel this was the hardest and the most essential part of the journey, after which I never looked back.

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3)  The HUSTLE!

If your 'WHY' is strong enough, you'll figure out 'HOW'!

I was a couple of months into work when I decided to pursue CAT, and Work From Home was a boon to me as it saved me a lot of time and energy.

I started my preparation around May. And since I was giving CAT for the first time, I wanted a defined schedule, syllabus, and good guidance - Hence, after doing quite some research, I took up Weekend Online Coaching from T.I.M.E (It was the most comfortable option for me since I was also working)

The only tough part was getting myself comfortable with a monotonous schedule for the many months to come, which seemed something like this -

• Every evening - I used to close my office laptop, run to the gym, do my workout, run back home, open my personal laptop, and continue CAT prep till late in the night.
• And during weekends, I used to attend live classes, give mocks, make strategies, explore different perspectives, and plan my week ahead.

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4)  The SACRIFICE

Every next level of life, asks for a sacrifice of something that you greatly admire!

Fast-forward to August, the volume of work at my firm increased and I had to put in additional hours.

I decided to sacrifice my passion and stopped going to the gym. I had even drastically cut down on my sleep, and started pulling all-nighters on Fridays and Saturdays.

I stopped Hanging out, Canceled all Trips with friends, Eliminated Screentime, Avoided all Possible Distractions, and almost went into Exile for 4 months.

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5)  The D-DAY

Believe you can and you're halfway there!

And the day arrived. I was for some reason very excited. But, destiny decided to put me to the test.

My exam center happened to be alongside the main road, and during the final section of the exam, the QA, all of a sudden, intense noises of honking, yelling, and sirens began as the parents who came to pick up their children created traffic jams and chaos.

With the commencement of the supposedly toughest section, and all these external uncontrollable factors - Everyone in the exam hall was extremely annoyed and frustrated and many had even given up on the exam.

I somehow managed to keep myself calm and solely focused my attention on the Screen and worked my way out.

(All thanks to the meditation I practiced to tackle stress during the exam)

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6)  The RESULT

Nobody who gave his best, ever regretted

This was my first ever CAT attempt, I scored a 95.5 percentile, comfortably clearing all the sectional cutoffs with a decent margin.

Despite the external challenges during QA, I ended up scoring the highest percentile in that section as compared to the other two sections.

I was satisfied and was sure that I would be getting into a decent B-School this year given my 9/9/9 Academic Profile, Extracurriculars, and Decent Work-Experience.

[I also gave numerous other exams like NMAT, SNAP, XAT, IIFT, TISSNET, etc. But keeping the article relevant to CAT here, because I did well in it and didn't have to look towards the backup options]

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7)  The SHORTLISTS

The B-Schools started releasing their shortlists based on CAT score, Work-Experience, Past Academics, and numerous other factors.

I managed to secure interview calls from IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore, All 9 CAP IIMs, and other new IIMs like - IIM Nagpur, IIM Visakhapatnam, IIM Amritsar, etc.

I also received shortlists from numerous IITs and other premier B-Schools such as SPJIMR, MDI Gurgaon, NITIE Mumbai, XIMB, IMT Ghaziabad, etc

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8)  The GWPI Season & The SPJIMR Experience

The GWPI (Group Discussion/Analytical Writing/Personal Interview) Season kicked off and I had to hop between multiple cities for offline and online interviews alongside managing work. One such offline experience was of SPJIMR's.

SPJIMR is the only premier B-School in India that -

• Has the most unique questions in its application form
• Conducted 2 rounds of interviews for selection
• Conducts Group Interviews, unlike the traditional Personal Interviews
• Puts immense emphasis on ethics, values, and behavioral traits in the selection process

All these factors established a sense of belongingness in me at SPJIMR right from the day I filled out its Application Form.

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9)  The TIME TO REAP THE FRUIT

The bridge between Reality and a Dream is - WORK

And there came the time when The Ardent Dream finally transformed into Reality!

I still remember the day when the results were out - I was on an office call, working from home and I saw the below email notification on my personal laptop;

 

My heart started racing instantly - I was super excited, yet also nervous, I told my buddy on the office call that I'll connect back in some time and I quickly logged into the SPJIMR's application dashboard - to look at the below MasterPiece!

 

 

I couldn't believe my eyes, I was in complete shock - Overwhelmed with immense joy and a Sense of Accomplishment & Triumph.

I ran to my parents and showed them the result, they got super ecstatic and also emotional. We hugged each other and my dad said - "Son, you did it! You said you'd achieve it and you truly did"

It was a moment of pride a lot more to them than it was to me!

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My OTHER CONVERTS

I further went on to receive final admission offers from -

IIM-Indore, MDI Gurgaon, NITIE Mumbai, All 9 CAP IIMs, IIM-Nagpur & Visakhapatnam, Multiple IITs, and other private B-Schools like IMT Ghaziabad, IMI Delhi, XIMB, etc.

I feel truly grateful for all the privileges I've had in life, for all the mentors who guided me through this journey, for having super supportive parents & friends, and to the almighty for always driving me Towards Growth.

All I would say is - "The Best is Yet to Come!"