I am a current 1st year MBA student at IIM Rohtak. I would like to share my journey from scoring very low marks in my 10th, 12th, and graduation to my CAT preparation and getting into an IIM. I belong to a small city in Maharashtra. I did my schooling and graduation in Maharashtra itself. I scored 79% in Xth class and 54% in XIIth class with a science background. I was not interested to continue with the science field after XIIth so I shifted to commerce. I enrolled myself in Chartered Accountancy (CA) course. It took me many attempts to write the CPT exam which is the foundation exam of the CA course but was in vain. I didn't clear the CPT itself. I successfully wasted my 3 years over that. Till then I had not taken admission into B.COM. I took admission into B.COM 3 years after passing the XIIth class. Till then I dropped out of the CA course and started focussing on completing my graduation. after completing 1st year of B.COM, there was a gap year before 2nd year due to personal reasons. So, I finally completed 3 years of B.COM in 4 years. So, it can be seen that I completed my graduation 7 years after passing the XIIth class. During my graduation, I developed an interest in equity investments and trading. I am doing it still now.
Now I would like to share my CAT journey. I started preparing for CAT in February 2018 for the CAT 2019 attempt. My quant section was weak so I mainly focussed on the arithmetic part. I was good with DI but was struggling in LR. for that I practiced more problems on LR and tried solving more sectional mocks for LRDI. VARC was my strong section. I have a daily newspaper reading habit since childhood. For the VARC section, my main preparation involved reading daily 5 editorials from 'The Hindu' or 'The Indian Express', adding 20 words daily to my vocabulary and try solving as many RC's and VA questions as I can. I gave the 2018 CAT just for an experience and I scored 52%ile overall. After that, I started preparing seriously for the 2019 attempt. I gave as many mocks as I can. finally, I gave the CAT 2019 attempt and scored an 87%ile overall. I received calls from all the New IIMs and some Baby IIM's. My interviews went well. I converted 3 IIMs as a fresher and finally joined IIM Rohtak.
To the aspirants who are preparing for CAT 2020 and CAT 2021, I would like to say that it is not impossible to get into an IIM even if you are having a poor academic profile. If you are preparing sincerely for the CAT and perform well in the WAT-PI, your past performance cannot stop you from getting into a top b school.
That's all from my end, I wish All the best to the future CAT aspirants.
