CAT Talk Q&A
-written by Sudeep Puspa Kumar
The Public Policy Club had organised a Live Talk session on 24th March on the CAT exam with Milind Sinha, who had scored 99.93 Percentile in this years’ CAT. Following are the minutes of the talk session:
Opening Remarks –
Mr. Sinha opened his remarks with his schooling under the ICSE board, and described programming as one of his interests. Upon joining BITS Pilani, along with his love for coding, he discovered a newfound interest in management, team building and organisation activities, which led him to join various clubs, and eventually resulted in him holding various positions in all three clubs. In addition to being the General Secretary of the Public Policy Club, he served in various organisational positions in BOSM and Nirman. These would later prove their importance in his resume during the interview for IIM-Calcutta.
Mr. Sinha started his CAT preparations with a mock test on the advice of his senior, Aryan Kapoor, scoring rather well in the test, especially in DILR and QA. Although the VARC marks had scope for improvement. He then recalled not progressing anywhere else in his preparations, and then getting caught up in his PS towards June 2021. He credits MR. Kapoor for a lot of the guidance he receives that was important in his preparations for CAT. He gave a few mock tests in August and started seriously preparing for CAT from November 2021, when the CAT form was released. As per his friend’s advice, he chose not to enrol in any coaching, since online resources appeared sufficient. That was when he enrolled for a mock test series (IMS) and got results similar to his first CAT, scoring well in DILR and QA but failing to score well in VARC. He then shared that reading books was the best to improve one’s VARC score. For Mr. Sinha, his VARC scores were weak, and so he dedicated his last 2 weeks in November, before the exam, to preparing for VARC. As mentioned earlier, the best way to improve VARC scores was reading, something Mr. Sinha didn’t have enough time for. He was told of a course called Gejo, which he started following. Along with that, he used a few methods such as compacting paragraphs into a few words, and making a timeline of the passage to improve his VARC scores, which was evident in the CAT exam. For QA, his advice was to leave any question that required solving again.
Following his CAT, Mr. Sinha appeared in 1 interview in IIM Calcutta, for which he prepared 2 subjects from his EEE branch. It was a stress interview, and he was asked questions on his branch as well as on his interests, we he had mentioned as history and organisational activities in BITS. He did get placed in product management in a firm called Sprinklr, but it would not be counted in his work experience.
1. How did you decide whether you wanted to go for MS or CAT?
Its rather simple. There is a clear difference between research and management, and I gravitated more towards management. Its important that one should make this choice based on one’s interest.
2. Are you already enrolled in IIM Calcutta or are you placed there?
As of now, I’m placed there. I’m still officially in BITS Pilani.
3. Did you have any plans other than CAT before you finally decided to prepare for CAT?
I was sure about my aspirations to appear in CAT, although not about whether I wanted to do MBA directly. This apprehension about whether to do MBA, or to take up a placement and do MBA after some years of work experience is still very there now. This was also the reason why I took only 1 interview (at IIM-C). Naturally, there are several factors that matter here; for example, should you go for MBA, you’ll have to remain financially dependent for 2 more years and so on.
4. In your remarks, you mentioned about your club PORs in BITS. Do these require any certificates or proof as such if mentioned in the interview application?
Yes. Everything mentioned in your application requires proof. It includes your academics as well, where you need a certificate from the college (BITS) authorities verifying that your mentioned academic credentials are correct and so on. And as such, for the positions in various clubs or for the roles you might have played in various events in the campus, you need a proof.
5. What is the importance of the interview in getting into IIMs?
It varies according to the IIM you are applying for, and your CAT marks for example. How your interview goes depends a great degree on your luck and also, to some extent, on your resume that you’d have submitted. They may ask you about your PORs, or on subjects from your branch or degree.
6. Is it advisable to start prepping for CAT from 1st year?
No. In my opinion, a maximum of 6 months is needed to seriously for CAT. If you want to be generous, maybe 1 year. But there’s no need to prepare almost 4 years in advance; better focus on exploring the campus.
7. Is it that important to have PORs in your interview resume? What if I have none?
The interviewers will ask you about the courses you have studied in your branch. Having positions is not that important; what’s more important is how well you are able to answer questions, if you are able not to break down, and how the overall interview goes. But no, you will not be penalised for having no positions as such, if you manage to answer their questions on your grad study.
8. When and how did you start preparing for your interview?
The interview phase goes on for a long duration, and there are multiple slots. My name was in the first slot of the first day of the interviews. I didn’t have much time to prepare for the interview. As for preparations, it is advisable to prepare your graduation courses well. IF there isn’t much time, prepare at least 2 courses and in the interview, be straight forward and ask the panellists to ask you questions from those 2 courses. Also, be prepared to answer questions on whatever your interests are.
9. Did your CAT preparation have any impact on your choice of your PS-2 time (4–1 or 4–2)?
No. CAT is totally unrelated to PS. PS depends on your CG and therefore, its on you to decide when the best time for PS-2 is.
10. Is taking a drop advisable for CAT and MBA?
I don’t know for sure. Although, you can prepare for CAT during your university. For MBA, since work experience also has weightage, it might be preferrable to take some time between graduation and MBA to accumulate work experience. Your work experience is counted in months up to the August of the exam year. So, that is important as well.
11. Do engineering students have any advantage in IIM admissions?
It’s a mixed case actually. While engineering students do tend to perform better in CAT, they face a few disadvantages in the admission process. For example, several IIMs add weightage to diversity, and the group excluded from receiving any points under this criterion are GEM (General Engineering Male) applicants.
