How Ritika Scored 99.11%ile In CAT While Working At Tata Steel And Joined ISB Young Leaders Programme

Ritika scored 99.11 percentile in CAT while working full-time at Tata Steel and has chosen to join the ISB Young Leaders Programme (ISB-YL), Hyderabad.

A Mechanical Engineering graduate from Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), Mesra, with a Minor in Business Management, Ritika graduated with a CGPA of 8.8/10. She scored 91% in Class X and 89.6% in Class XII. Before her MBA journey, she worked for over two years as Manager – Mechanical Maintenance at Tata Steel's Khondbond Plant in the Raw Materials Division.

During her time at BIT Mesra, she was actively involved in extracurricular activities as a member of 180 Degrees Consulting, the Placement Cell, Team Firebolt Racing, and the BIT Welfare Society. Outside work, she enjoys reading and painting.

How Did Ritika Prepare For CAT?

Ritika began her CAT preparation in May 2025 while managing a full-time job. Instead of focusing on long study hours, she prioritized consistency and building a sustainable routine.

She started by strengthening her Quantitative Aptitude fundamentals using Takshzila, ensuring that her concepts were clear before moving on to advanced questions.

For DILR, she solved sets on alternate days to improve pattern recognition and maintain regular practice.

Since she was working full-time, she made productive use of her daily commute. She regularly read articles from Finshots, Aeon, and DOT to improve both her reading comprehension and awareness of current affairs. She also made it a habit to speed-read at least one book every Sunday.

During the final three weeks before CAT, her focus shifted from learning new concepts to improving execution. She attempted a large number of sectional tests and mock exams, analyzed each one in detail, and maintained a notebook of recurring mistakes and important learnings. Rather than solving more questions, she concentrated on avoiding repeated errors, which helped improve both her accuracy and confidence.

What Was The Most Important Aspect Of Her Preparation?

According to Ritika, the most important part of CAT preparation is believing in yourself and trusting the process.

She recalls several mocks where she could barely solve one DILR set and others where she scored in single digits in VARC. Instead of allowing these scores to affect her confidence, she treated every mock as a diagnostic tool.

Rather than focusing on the score, she focused on identifying what had gone wrong and improving one mistake at a time.

She also believes that mindset on the exam day plays a significant role. CAT tests composure as much as aptitude, and remaining calm when a section feels difficult can often make the difference.

Her advice is simple—don't let one bad mock or one poor week define your preparation. Stay consistent and trust the process.

Which Section Was Her Achilles' Heel?

Although she comes from an engineering background, Quantitative Aptitude was her weakest section.

In her previous CAT attempt, she had scored only 60 percentile in QA, which made her realize that she had lost touch with the fundamentals.

Instead of relying on shortcuts, she went back to the basics and rebuilt her concepts from scratch through consistent practice.

According to her, keeping her ego aside and starting over made the biggest difference.

How Important Were Mock Tests?

Mock tests played an important role in Ritika's preparation.

She attempted around 20 full-length mock tests and more than 60 sectional tests.

These helped her develop her test-taking strategy, particularly for DILR and QA, by improving question selection and time management.

However, she believes that the biggest benefit came from mock analysis.

After every mock, she carefully reviewed her performance and maintained a notebook of recurring mistakes. By ensuring that she didn't repeat the same errors, she gradually became more confident.

By the time CAT arrived, the actual exam felt familiar.

CAT 2025 Performance

Ritika secured an overall score of 86.12 and an overall percentile of 99.11.

Her sectional performance was:

• VARC: 43.62 marks | 99.02 percentile
• DILR: 21.16 marks | 94.87 percentile
• QA: 21.33 marks | 96.91 percentile

How Did She Prepare For Interviews?

For interview preparation, Ritika took mentorship from Shahrukh Moin Sir at 7 Lakes Consulting.

She credits the guidance of the mentorship team in helping her refine her SOPs, structure her answers, prepare through multiple mock personal interviews and group interviews, and improve through detailed feedback after every session.

Alongside mentorship, she referred to B-school interview compendiums, the DOT Current Affairs book, and Finshots to stay updated.

She also practiced guesstimates using casebooks, revised her mechanical engineering fundamentals through YouTube, and used AI extensively to prepare for current affairs, general knowledge (especially for FMS), and to structure and refine her interview responses.

Which Interview Calls Did She Receive?

Ritika received interview calls from:

• IIM Kozhikode
• IIM Indore
• IIM Mumbai
• FMS Delhi
• ISB Young Leaders Programme (ISB-YL)
• SPJIMR

She converted all of them except IIM Kozhikode, where she was waitlisted.

She has decided to join ISB Young Leaders Programme (ISB-YL), Hyderabad.

What Was Her Interview Experience Like?

Ritika says she genuinely enjoyed every interview she attended.

Before each interview, she reminded herself to be grateful for the opportunity to be there.

Her first interview at SPJIMR (GI-1) helped build her confidence because the panel was warm and encouraging.

Across most interviews, discussions revolved around her work experience at Tata Steel, her college experiences, and the leadership roles she had undertaken.

Some interviews also included extempore and situational questions to assess her ability to think on her feet.

Interestingly, her FMS interview focused heavily on her work experience, contrary to what she had expected.

At ISB, the discussion centred around her career goals, motivations, and how her experiences aligned with her long-term aspirations.

In contrast, the IIM Kozhikode and IIM Indore interviews placed greater emphasis on her undergraduate mechanical engineering concepts.

Her biggest takeaway was that every interview is different. While broad preparation is important, she believes that knowing your own story well and being able to explain your decisions honestly makes interviews much more natural.

Ritika's Advice To Future CAT Aspirants

Ritika believes that CAT preparation does not require multiple resources or constantly changing strategies.

She recommends sticking to one good resource and completing it thoroughly, analyzing every mock carefully, mastering concepts instead of chasing too many topics, and reading for understanding in VARC.

She also emphasizes the importance of leaning on family, friends, or colleagues whenever preparation becomes difficult.

At the same time, she advises aspirants not to compare mock scores with others, keep changing strategies, follow every piece of advice they hear, or depend on shortcuts instead of building strong fundamentals.

For her, consistency, self-belief, and learning from mistakes were the biggest contributors to her 99.11 percentile and admission to ISB's Young Leaders Programme.