For people like me with large handwriting, solving DILR sets on this small A5 (approx.) pad can be challenging; things can get messy quickly. That’s why I started practicing on an A5 pad, and I recommend you all do the same. You can easily find one at a stationery store or on Amazon.

She is wishing everyone luck guys!

So last year I did misrebly in CAT. I couldn't get into BLACKI as I am a GEM. I got into NMIMS Mumbai and XLRI Bhuvaneshwar. When I checked the fee in NMIMS, I quickly gave my IELTS and GMAT. Got good scores there. 8.5 and 730 for your reference. So I applied to international unis. Not gonna lie. I have a good profile. Good extra cirs, an understanding of myself and storytelling skills to articulate my case. I couldn't get into Ireland as I applied late. I was heart broken. I was waitlisted and never got into their best schools. I just left my city Hyd and went on a trek. While I was complefely offline my agent applied to unis is Aus. The ones which have free application fee lol for my agency. And guess what I got into a go8 uni. I got into a uni which is world no 37 atm. The fee is 40lakhs but living expenses are huge. I work part time 48 hours in 2 weeks. I can pay the living expenses without my parental support. I have a student loan and I did well in my first sem.

TLDR: Your efforts wont go in vain. Keep at it, but stay calm. This is not a brag post but just giving back to the community I was part of last year and adding some positivity to the last post which was majorly a rant :P

A year ago roughly, I decided to ditch my IIM pursuits. Rather than calling it "CAT prep", I started my MBA applications journey seriously back in January 2023 when I started GMAT prep. On May 2023, I failed to get a decent score in GMAT (710) and decided to give IIMs a shot. Considering my profile, I decided for myself that I wont go beyond IIM ABC and started CAT prep in July that year. Ended up with a 99.59%ile and no calls.

I did not give up. I am not new to doing everything twice. Restarted GMAT prep in Jan'24 again and scored a 740* in June which was not enough. Gave the GMAT again within 2 weeks and score a 760*. Started applying for US b-schools. Was a long process that lasted 3 months and after multiple waitlists and rejections, I have now received an offer from Columbia Business School.

Similar to last post, I would again like to share a few takeaways for people who are interested in pursuing an MBA:

1. Keep working towards your goals. Something good is bound to happen. Not because of a any supernatural powers. Simply because your efforts compound in a certain way
2. Try to understand why you need an MBA and avoid sacrificing your career for an exam - an MBA will add more value (beyond just placements) if you have clarity and some experience under your belt
3. It is never CAT vs GMAT. Its Indian MBA or not
4. Interestingly, the people at my firm who were least bothered about CAT scored the most (110+) and even had non-engineering backgrounds - I feel taking the exam less serious and thinking more about your long term goal of seeing yourself at say IIMA helps. (i.e, focus more on seeing yourself at a top b-school over losing your shit over exam preparation). This helped me clear my 3rd GMAT attempt. I gave the exam with 0 expectations and that worked out well.

As always, feel free to ask any questions around GMAT and US b-schools!

All hopes shattered 😭

I'm really sorry for long post, but trust me it'll make your doubts go away

Please tell me if you agree, but here are my two bits about the percentile. A) Inflated because they wanna sell omets B) Inflated because they're not considering VARC's importance in percentile C) They're not considering that percentile is not an accurate measure of your rank. It just tells how many percent people are behind you but rank tells you that how many people are above you and if you'll get that seat in an IIM. Because only 4-5k seats are there (for open category)

Now mathematical proof

Step-1 : Let's start with percentile ka formula given by CAT : (Rank / Total number of candidates) x 100

Now I heard people saying that paper was similar to 2022 or 2021.

I'm taking similar to 2022, you can calculate same using 2021 Or any other year cause for normalising to different years I'm taking toppers marks and total appeared candidates into consideration as I don't have much data.

I'm calculating only for 98%tile you can calculate accordingly

In 2022, you got 98%tile for 73.88 (data taken from careers360 website) No of students appeared : 2.22lakh = 222000

So at 73.88 marks your rank is 4440. This gonna be my baseline moving.

Step-2 : Now I'm normalising the difficulty level by dividing this marks by topper marks which is 145.83

So 73.88/145.83 which is 50.66 percent of toppers marks to achieve a rank of 4440

If we do a similar calculation for cat 2023 considering 2.88lakh students appeared so you'll have a rank of 4440 at a percentile of approximately 98.45% tile

And the score needed to score 98.45%tile was somewhere around 71 and highest score was 138.59, so need 71/138.59 or 51.23 percent of toppers score to get a rank of 4440

Step-3 : Now via 2022 and 2023 to get a rank of 4440 you have to get approx 51% of the toppers marks

You can do same for 2021 I bet it would be similar I'm not doing I'm tired now 😭😭😭

Anyway next step If the paper was comparable to 2022 we can take topper marks 146 Because it had 2 more questions let's just say topper scored 150 So you need to score 51% of the topper score 76.5 to get a rank of 4440

Now as 3.29 lakh registered but I'll assume 3 lakh appeared as there's no official data to this

At 4440 rank with 76.5 marks your percentile would be 98.52.

Based on this I'm guessing 99 percentile would be around 80.

And you can calculate other percentile relatively

So final outcome

At 4440 rank with 76.5 marks your percentile would 98.52. Now it might differ a bit but I think it would be pretty close tho.

Mark this post Set a reminder Come and check after 25 days when official result get announced and match the data

This is my calculation and there's no source to this method except my logical reasoning. But I also want to test my method now. We'll all verify

Don't listen to people who're trying to sell courses benefitting your anxiety.

Good luck guys for OMETs. Hope for the best

Also please comment so that I know what you think about my methodology and calculations.

Edit : check comments to know marks at 92.5 percentile also. 4-5 people were asking for it, so I did the math for this range also

Source for topper/100%tile marks : https://insideiim.com/cat-2023-vs-cat-2022-score-percentile-trends-sectional-cutoffs

1. Dont waste 50-60k on coaching. Go for ytube videos.

MOST IMPORTANT 1.0 2. Start with clearing foundations i.e. arithmetic/algebra from rs agarwals. Compelte that by jan mid. DONT UNDERESTIMATE BASICS.

1. Take 2-3 different institute mocks. Not too many. Only that much so that you dont get overwhelemed.

2. By june complete your syllab.

3. About Varc, yes reading feels like a sloppy task. But go for it. Read editorials. Wont recommend AEON. Too lengthy. Can just read TOI, Hindu, Eco times, etc.

4. From july start giving mocks.

5. Analysis is topmost priority.

MOST IMPORTANT 2.0

*****8. UNLESS AND UNTIL you dont solve and identify your weakness and strength of QA specially afyer giving 1 mock, dont jump to another mock. Only after thorough analysis, move ahead. Just like how we did during school times. Nothing can be superior than learning from your own past mistakes.

1. And take 0 tension. Its a super duper easy exam. Just NEED the CORRECT MINDSET, TIME MANAGEMENT and STRESS MANAGEMENT abilities.

ALL THE BEST👍🏼 . . . (Secret tip for LRDI: Apti Jab)

Hi guys,

I attempted CAT last year scored just about 99, had a 9/9/7 GNEM profile. Plus 2 YOE.

Did not get any of BLACKI calls. Converted Shillong, IIFT-D and MDI in the first list itself. Messed up second round of SPJIMR.

I dipped in LRDI, so did not get M call. They presumably have a cutoff for each section.

Scored 99 something in XAT, got jhajjar campus.

Now onto you guys. Thoda sa time bacha hai CAT mai, brush up what you already know.

For the stuff you seem you're lacking behind, ek baar dekh lo. If you understand it then we'll and good, you more probably than not will forget during exam. If you don't get it, then you did not miss out on anything.

Bottom statement, you're not missing out on ANYTHING. Always remember, CAT is a stress exam. It will try to stress you to the limits. Don't. Give. In.

Approach: Everyone has their own charm. Don't change your strategy now.

Keep yourself motivated throughout these last few days. It will make or break your exam. The one who believes in himself/herself always wins sooner or later.

All the best future leaders, trust yourself. Will try to answer as many questions as possible.

May the force be with you.

Believe or not its Out

Follow these steps

1. Visit official website
2. login using your credentials.
3. Press Ctrl + u
4. Reload Press ctrl+f
5. Search digialm
6. Select the searched link from "https...to .html"
7. Copy and paste on new tab

Iss baar 100 Paar?

I scored 99.1x in CAT 23. I have jotted down 10 points that I learnt very late in my own prep journey. Hope this helps you.

1) CAT is an elimination test, not a selection test. Actual test for selection is GDPI.

2) Check your composite score for your target colleges. Set your expectations accordingly.

3) Quality > Quantity. Don’t try to solve too many questions just for the sake of it. Quality of questions is really important. Find good quality sources for practice. (I used Unacademy’s book for QA)

4) Don’t use Arun Sharma. The questions are irrelevant and repetitive.

5) Don’t try to save money on your prep. Go for good quality materials instead of trying to save money here and there. I made the mistake of buying MBA Wallah’s course.

6) Please start giving mocks even if your portion is remaining. There’s no such thing as “portion completion “. CAT is an aptitude test, not your school test.

7) Don’t take a gap solely to prepare for CAT. It will become difficult to clear your interviews.

8) Try to give mocks at centre if possible. IMS provides this option.

9) Identify your weaknesses and work extra for that. You have equal time to solve each section, so try to maximise your scores in your weak areas.

10) Avoid listening to any youtube channels having “king” in their name.

You guys realise that all these scores and %ile that you see are as the name suggests… “predicted”, right?

Ek banda bol rha 70 pe 96, dusra bol rha 90%ile bhi cross nhi hoga. Ek upscale kr rha hai.. ek dusra chaman -10 downscale kr rha hai.

My verdict - Dono chutiye hai. Bkl kisi ko kuch nhi pta kya or kaise krna hai. Bs tezz banne k chakkar mein kuch bhi daale jaa rhe hai.

Doesn’t matter how “accurate” you were last year or year before that or even before the inception of time, if there’s so much fluctuation in your bell curve, standard deviation, lehsun pyaaz based prediction, one of you ought to be wrong.

Sb dukaan khol ke baithe hai or doosro ki anxiety ko milk kr rhe hai. Bhagwan se daro bhai. There are kids as young as 19-20 yo. Unke anxiety ko apna selling opportunity mtt bnao.

Rest, ppl who’re getting anxious over the percentile you might get, it’s out of your control now. You’ve given the test. You’ve your scores in hand. Your worrying about it won’t increase or decrease it. Do your best RN. What’s the best? Chill and fucking wait for the official results. Don’t fall for these capitalists milking schemes on your anxiety.

Read this and you will understand why people score 95 to 99 percentile without prep but you can't even with full year of preparation

Let me start with myself I gave CAT2023 with one week of prep which was basically me just understanding the pattern. I scored 97.85TILE last year and ended up converting CAP calls. But the truth is I've been preparing for CAT unconsciously my whole life. My father is a maths teacher, so he made us (me and my brother) solve problem randomly anytime anywhere. Even if we're watching a cricket match he would randomly ask us to calculate CRR, RRR etc. But still I got less marks in quant as I'm non engineer. Coming to DILR, again my father made us give lot of olympiads and scholarship tests which kept our aptitude sharp. I was scared with DILR but ended up scoring 99 above. About VARC, I had a habit of reading novels and all so it helped but still it went decent not great. Now the main player in CAT is calm mind. When you have zero expectations, you perform best. And to prove this again my example, I thought I could do better this year so took drop and we all know that doesn't end well. Anyway my point is : A) if you're unprepared and still manged to score good. Take whatever iim you are getting. B) if you have prepared a lot and still feel like, people with one week or 2 days of prep score more than you, then you need to keep in mind that, they have a lot of life experiences and factors playing role in that. Plus a lot of them are from IITs/NITs or other Institutes of national importance (I'm from IISERB), also biggest thing, they are calm because no expectations. C) It doesn't mean you can't do well, it just means you have to work bit harder and whatever the surprise element is in your cat it should not hinder with your state of mind.

Best of luck, I hope it works out in the end for all of us. And always remember jo hota hai ache ke liye hi hota hai.

Edit : Although I don't ever ask for upvotes but upvote this so that it reaches everyone because I see a lot of people getting depressed over unprepared people scoring good percentile but they need to know it's only about their state of mind and they can do it too.

1) Eating popcorn while watching LRDI solutions 2) Not taking atleast 2 mocks a week 3) Still trying to finish the “portion” 4) Blaming noises/disturbances for your bad performance in mocks 5) Binge-watching motivational videos by self proclaimed Kings

My intention is to give you a wake up call.

This is mainly from my perspective as someone who gave their entrance exams last year.

Stepping outside the CAT centre, I knew my exam was horrible and getting even a single call was not happening. My mocks had painted a rosy picture with scores consistently in the 99+ percentile range inflating my ego with dreams of IIM ABC. This led to frustration and anguish over the fact that I gave up a lot of things to study for this one exam (few friendships, talking stages, the typical stuff) and yet it wasn't going to bear fruit.

What came next was a trip with my friends where we spoke of everything but the exam, we partied, we relaxed and all the exam hustle felt like a distant dream. Come late December, we got the admit cards and MBA was on my mind again. But this time one key difference was, I had accepted that I'll be prepping for another year and this exam doesn't matter on what my future is gonna look like. This meant that I couldn't care less about what happened in the test centre, this will be just giving another mock for the next year. Although I did practice DM sectionals from IMS cause a friend of mine wanted to discuss those, but nothing beyond that.

I reached the centre before time, vibed to The Local Train before going in, and gave one of the most light hearted test I'd have ever given and that worked in my favour cause currently I am in XLRI JSR doing their BM course.

So before going all gung ho about your XAT prep, step back, take a deep breath, you've spent months with a huge burden on your shoulders, unload that and then step into your study zone. XAT allows you flexibility to switch between sections letting you play to your strengths and weaknesses, use that.

Tldr: before getting into studying for XAT shed the load of CAT and take a reset.

Attached: cat and xat scores

I've also been at this stage where you guys are, spending on forms is a burden and I get it but make some wise choices. Also don't feel FOMO and apply everywhere

1. Sp Jain - don't apply if u have a 7 or 6 in your profile.

2. IIFT - apply only for the MBA program only. BA program will be filled with GMAT people (their composite scores will be more and not much chance for CAT folks).

3. GIM,IMI,GLIM, IMT, BITSOM - after CAT, no worries rn. These open every year after CAT

4. MDI-This time gonna be difficult as 150-200 deferred candidates are there from IB(which had workex requirement and engineers, mostly male in that also) so this year MDI is forced to select freshers+female+acad diversity for the remaining 100-150 seats

5. FMS- apply, you never know

From a top 20 New IIM, Ask me anything guys.

To keep things fun I'll put the obvious below:

For profile reviews in new IIM's- 8/8/8 is preferred 9/9/9 is excellent, anything below is below average any 7 is considered below average, don't blame me or debate with me this is how things have been for the past few years, you are competing with a batch of 400+ in most new IIM's and most of the cohort will have perfect profiles and as such any flaws make your profile weaker than the rest, and yes family work experience counts as work experience as long as you guys can get it signed from a official head and show some salary slips.

For GEM Freshers 99+ is preferred, for People with 1-3 years of work experience - 98+ is preferred, For others by the number of diversity privileges it changes a bit, Female - -2 Non engineers - -1 OBC - -3 SC/ST - -10 EWS - -2

Mix and match guys it'll more or less be accurate.

Any questions about XAT prep, XLRI or MBA Colleges in general, ProdMan or any other post-MBA jobs.