In the previous post, we discussed the mindset with which one should approach a CAT retake; in this post, we shall look at a few more aspects with respect to a successful CAT retake. Since each one of you readers will have a different back story with respect to your first attempt and there will also be some non-IMS students among you as well, the focus of this post will be a bit wider.
Most of the institutes have given out their calls (or at least most of you know your chances) and many of you might be planning to retake the CAT. For some of you, it might be a case of almost getting there but missing out because of one poor section or just missing out on the overall percentile. For others, the CAT-day might have been a bad day at the office and you knew straight away that nothing much was going to happen. On my first attempt, I fell into the latter group — I knew I was out of my depth when I saw the Quant paper, there was no way I was going to clear the cut-offs. This despite consistently doing very well in the Sims leading up to the test. I decided to take another shot since I was very clear that it was not out of my league. This post, in three parts, is for all those re-takers who are NOT hoping to get lucky next time around but want to ensure that …
Every year a lot of young men and women toil away at this thing called CAT preparation. The most sincere and determined ones, come in full of energy and enthusiasm to do whatever it takes to ace this test and get into the hallowed portals of an IIM. But do they come in with a blank mind ready to understand what this test is all about and attune themselves to it? The answer as we all know is, NO. A CAT aspirant beginning his prep will be at the least 20 years old, long enough to start the test with a sizeable psychological baggage — a mental make up that stems from one’s experiences and successes with education & tests throughout school & college.
The response to the first SIMCAT was great and it was nice to see so many students jump into the fray from the word go. But the plunge as most of you would know is similar to jumping off a diving board for the first time — the moment of impact, the bewilderment when you are […]
We are on the eve of SimCAT 1 and a lot of students (mostly first-time CAT-takers) are apprehensive, understandably so, about taking it. Over the years we have found the self-same reasons that induce this fear, and this post is geared towards addressing them.
The results of quite a few top b-schools are out and even now I get a lot of queries that revolve around specializations — which specializations should I choose, I do not have any idea what my area of interest and so and so forth. This is not surprising since in India our strategy is simple — first crack the test, then see what is the best college your percentiles can get you and then finally start thinking about specializations! The funny part is that we do not seem to learn from our mistakes since this is the same policy we followed for our graduation as well and now want to do an MBA so that we can undo the mistakes of our graduation but without having changed our standard operating procedure!
As soon as the lockdown began, the idea that I should do a piece on how to use the lockdown entered my mind and I began writing it as well but somehow I lost interest mid-way. Something inside me told me that I will be doing a post just for the sake of doing a post, I will not be solving any problem since as far as CAT Prep goes there is no problem. If anything most CAT aspirants should have it better since you have at the least been saving the time it takes to commute. I can only hope the real problem — the loss of livelihood — which affects unorganized workers (who constitute 80% of our workforce of 470 million) — is something the readers of this blog and other CAT aspirants have not had to face. So I thought the best thing to do would be to stay silent and let everyone, including myself, respond to these ten days and in the process learn a bit about themselves. Some of you …
Every year in the March-May period, a lot of CAT aspirants contemplate quitting their jobs to prepare for the CAT, this post is outlines the things that you need to consider before taking that call.
This is a question that I get asked often by students and a very important one at that — how do I build my profile? So before we get on to the answer, let us evaluate what elements of a profile are.
The CAT Writer 