From 70.67%ile In QA To 95.47%ile – My Gap Year Helped Me Secure An Admit At IIM Lucknow | Gokul Hari Nair, CAT 99.2%ile, IIM L'27

I’m thankful for where I am in life now. A year ago, I thought this feeling would be impossible.

2023 was the year I decided to go for an MBA. My main motivation was to continue a career in consulting (I had been working with Deloitte USI for a year then), but switch to management consulting- owing to greater opportunities in understanding different industries with a faster (and steeper) learning curve, which can be overwhelming for some, but exciting for others (like me!).

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I took the exam with little preparation—just 8-10 mocks scoring in the range of 78-92 percentile—but felt confident that I could do well. My D-Day performance was, well, not what I expected – an overall percentile of 96.2, but completely tanking QA with a 70.6%ile, despite a decent background in Math and an attempt of 14 questions that year. Though disappointed, I managed to get into the PGDM (IB) program at MDI Gurgaon in 2024. This outcome motivated me to take a step back, analyse my strengths and weaknesses, and give my absolute best the following year.

After speaking with some of my friends and seniors, I decided to take a drop in 2024. In hindsight, this was a very risky decision as it would have greatly affected my mental state had I screwed up CAT this time around. With a 9/9/8 profile and 2 years of work experience backing me, and having converted my only B-school call despite bombing QA, I felt it was worth the gamble!

The CAT preparation group on Reddit was a gamechanger, helping me find some real high quality prep resources. I started with QA in early May through Takshzila Academy's QA course, focusing heavily on Algebra and Arithmetic since I figured out that most QA questions come from these 2 sections alone. For DILR, I relied solely on past year papers to develop my own problem-solving approach. For VARC, I used only Gejo Sir's VARC1000 course materials. I found his questions to be of a higher difficulty than actual CAT VARC questions, which proved invaluable for my preparation.

Note: These were my mock scores in the one week prior to D-Day. And yes, I had scores of -2 and 5 in DILR in the penultimate phase.

I started giving mocks around July end, enrolling in the mocks offered by IMS, T.I.M.E and Career Launcher. Start with mocks at least by June or July, and don’t give much attention to your mock scores early on. There were days where I scored in the 50-60%ile range and days where I scored a 99%ile as well. Here the important step is to analyse your mock performance and trusting the process irrespective of your result. In my case I found out that I used to score less in QA whenever I attempted more than 10 questions, so I focused on spending more time in finding the 10 easiest questions and solving them, which reduced my attempt rate but improved my accuracy rate. I also found out that in VARC, I tend to score more in RC section than VA, so I focused on solving all RCs first and then move to VA section. This analysis was of real importance in defining my attempt strategy and solidifying it as I approached the D-day. I also started Pranayama sessions for about 1-2 minutes before starting with my mock as it helped to reduce my anxiety (thank you for this tip, Maruti Sir (Cracku)).

These strategies helped in boosting my scores to a great extent on the D-Day with 99.2%ile overall, a 99.87%ile in VARC and a highly improved 95.47%ile in QA.

I secured interview calls from IIM Lucknow, SPJIMR, MDI, IIFT, IIM Shillong, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi and CAP colleges, which required a lot of travel, leaving very little time for my GDPI prep. Fortunately, Theomi’s Telegram group came to the rescue and it was crucial in my GDPI prep phase, offering current and past year interview transcripts and materials based on my undergrad and work experience, all free of cost. Their group mentors would also provide 1-on-1 mock interview sessions with students (personally did not find enough time to do this, but highly recommended).

I had my IIM Lucknow interview on February 25th, 2025 at ITC Kakatiya, Hyderabad— being my best call, I wanted to give it everything. Things started well until I panicked during the WAT, realizing I wouldn't finish on time. Being called first for the interview added to my nerves, but I managed to compose myself. They asked me to answer three questions (TMAY, Why MBA, Why IIM Lucknow) in a single response, followed by two math questions (I solved one) and a question about engineering qualities in MBA. The 10-12 minute interview felt cold—the panel seemed unimpressed and I didn’t get a toffee too, and I left feeling like I'd ruined my best opportunity.

The results came out on the 5th of May, 2025. By then I had received an admit at SPJIMR and made up my mind that I wouldn’t convert IIM Lucknow, but things took a different turn. I found that I had a sure shot at a seat with a convertible waitlist number of 22! I was slightly happy, but restless, waiting for my seat confirmation message. At last, on the 14th of May, 2025, my dream turned into reality – I had indeed converted IIM Lucknow!

Takeaways for Future CAT Aspirants:

1. Be realistic about college choices based on your complete profile: academic performance from 10th through graduation, extracurriculars, and work experience. A candidate with lower academic scores, minimal work experience or a weak overall profile will struggle to get shortlisted at India’s top MBA colleges unless they score an extremely high percentile (>99.8%ile) which in itself is a herculean task (and may still not guarantee an interview call).
2. Only consider a gap year after taking at least one CAT exam at a proper test centre to feel the real exam pressure. Factor in your family's financial needs, work-life balance, and any time constraints - like in my case, where my dad's upcoming retirement pushed me to fast-track my MBA plans.
3. Enroll for Online / Offline coaching only after going through reviews provided by peers and seniors in the /CATPrep reddit group. Personal recommendations – VARC1000 (For VARC), Takshzila (For QA), Previous Year Papers (For DILR), T.I.M.E AIMCAT Enhanced + Career Launcher + IMS (For Mocks) 
4. Start mocks at least by June / July, even if your entire portion is not yet completed. Give less focus to your percentiles here – focus more on analysing them, and improving your raw score.
5. Make sure you don’t panic in the last phase leading up to the D-day. Focus on boosting your self-confidence and staying calm by playing a sport, going for a walk, listening to music, or getting a hold of any 1 breath control technique.
6. Start your GDPI prep as soon as you get to know your CAT raw score. You are good to use any free resources (THEOMI recommended) or even a paid one (I’ve heard Btribe is pretty good as well).
7. Fixing your sleep schedule will help you both during the CAT prep phase and interview rounds (7-8 hours of sleep recommended).