Dr. Shreya Agarwal's Journey To IIM Kozhikode, Class Of 2022

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Please tell us about your academic profile and CAT percentiles.

10^th: 10 CGPA | 12^th: 83 percent. AIR 544 in NEET-UG 2013. | Grad: 69 percent

CAT 2018: 87 percentile | CAT2019: 97.4 percentile (96/95/96 percentile)

When did you decide to go for an MBA? What triggered the decision?

My choice of medicine as a career stems from the fact that both my parents are doctors, and hence I came into this field in the flow. During my course at the Grant Medical College, I realized that the management of the hospitals enthused me as much as the clinical part. As the course continued, I started taking more interest in managing events of the college, being the coordinator of committees and taking part in the competitions being organized on the campus. I believe that hospitals in India today face management issues because they are headed by doctors themselves with no or low management exposure. I feel someone with a background of medical and business management sense would be better equipped to manage the hospitals as compared to doctors. Since I didn’t have much prior knowledge about the business and management world, I considered taking CAT a try and pursue a management degree to be able to explore the field.

Why do you think doctors should go for an MBA?

The medical sector has always focused on the skills and talent a doctor carries. It surely has neglected one important thing which is required in every field on the top of the core talent which is Management. Healthcare sector is booming as a business sector in India. It ranges from dispensaries with less than one doctor for 10,000 patients to well-equipped multi-speciality hospitals with people coming from different countries to get treated. It is expected to increase three-fold to 377 billion dollars with rising incomes, increased awareness, lifestyle diseases and increased access to health insurance. The government is also planning to increase the expenditure in healthcare from 1 percent to 2.5 percent by the year 2023. This is a period when we need doctors with management skills to drive the sector in the right direction.

I believe that at least ten percent of doctors should do an MBA because this is the sector which can’t be left unmanaged.

How did you build your basics in each of the sections? Did you join any coaching? When did you start preparing for CAT?

So, having not studied mathematics since the last 7 years, it was really difficult to train my mind to think about calculations as soon as I saw a problem even though I was very good at it in my 10^th standard. Initially, to prepare myself, I had to consciously work on simple additions and subtractions. I eventually started liking it. Mostly, the maths problems that are asked in CAT are the easy ones and only a few require extra formulas. The key to conquer quants section for a non- engineer is time management and right question selection. I did zero negatives in my quants section in CAT 2019 which actually helped me a lot in gaining the required percentile.

For basics, I practised T.I.M.E. modules. I found the content to be really helpful.

I was quite good with logical reasoning and therefore gave very few hours to that section as a part of my preparations. I struggled with data interpretation a little but that got sorted after getting my mind trained for simple calculations.

Verbal section was always a challenge for me. I just couldn’t arrive at the right option. I always got confused in two options and marked the wrong answers in mocks initially. Then I joined online classes of Career Launcher. Gejo sir is awesome at VARC. My score in VA started to get better after following his lectures. And guess what, I did just one negative in CAT. Accuracy is the key in VARC. This year CAT had a really tough VARC section.

I started preparing for CAT2019 in June. I gave CAT 2018 as well and prepared for that for some 3 months or so.

What approach did you follow while taking and analysing mocks?

Whenever I approached anyone with my low CAT score, everyone said, analyse it properly and I just didn’t know what to do in analysis. It was quite in a later stage that I got it figured.

Analysing mocks is not just solving the questions you weren’t able to solve during the exam, but to go through the topic of that question again. Just give that topic a quick revision and also think that why weren’t you able to solve that in exam. Most of the times, we do silly mistakes under exam pressure, like, some calculation mistake or not reading the question properly. If you are doing such mistakes, then I would recommend you to concentrate first on accuracy and then on speed. Don’t let the marks in your initial mocks affect you. The marks only in the last few weeks matter.

A decent mock analysis takes approximately 5 to 6 hours. The more the merrier.

What tips would you like to give to future aspirants?

Be confident
Don’t panic too much. It’s just an exam and your life doesn’t depend on it.
Read an article daily. It can be about anything. Try reading about uninteresting topics.
Concentrate on accuracy.