Toppers Mantra: How Saumil Shah scored 99.54 percentile in CAT?

Mr Saumil Shah scored 99.54 percentile in CAT and accepted an admission offer from NITIE, Mumbai. Mr Saumil who had a working experience of 23 months in Ernst & Young , received final admission offer from multiple B-schools including MDI, SJSOM and NITIE.

In this Toppers Mantra session with MBAUniverse.com, Mr Saumil shares his CAT prep strategy and talks on the challenges he faced during his preparation while being a working executive. He also speaks on his GD/PI strategy and suggests MBA aspirants to prepare the same along with their preparation of CAT.

Interview:

Q: What was your CAT percentile and which B-schools offered you final admission?
A: I scored overall percentile of 99.54 in CAT and 99.79 in XAT. I got final admission offers from NITIE Mumbai, MDI Gurgaon and SJMSOM Mumbai.

Q: Did you expect to get this much percentile after your CAT? How did you evaluate yourself on the basis of your mock test scores before CAT?
A: I did not expect to get such a high percentile in CAT. I expected to get a score between 95 and 98 percentile. However, to my pleasant surprise, I scored above 99 percentile. One aspect I focused on, during my CAT prep, was to take mock tests regularly. I would score anywhere between 85 and 95 percentile in the mock tests. I would thoroughly analyse my mistakes, try to locate unattempted questions which were absolute sitters and I should have attempted, would again try to analyse attempted questions which were difficult and I would have been better off leaving them and above all, to find areas in which I needed to improve. Apart from this, I would also analyse the time I had taken to solve each question and analyse any question on which I had spent too much time. This entire exercise was to constantly keep improving my speed as well as accuracy.

Q: How did you prepare yourself a day before the D-day (your CAT Test day)?
A: It was important for me to be calm on the day of my CAT. Hence, a day before my CAT I just revised the basics of the Quantitative Ability Section. I did not solve any questions or perform any analysis.

Q: What was your question solving strategy on the CAT testing day?
A: The questions in the CAT have started focusing more on the fundamentals and have become relatively simple since the CAT has been being conducted online. Hence, it has become necessary to maximize attempts while maintaining high accuracy. My CAT was in the middle of the CAT window. The general observation of the CAT in my year was that one of the two sections would be difficult while the other would be simple. Hence, I had decided that I would try to maximize the number of my attempts in the easier section and focus slightly more on accuracy in the more difficult section.

Q: What was the toughest & easiest section for you in CAT? What was your strategy to handle the difficult part?
A: QA & DI (Section 1) was the easier section while VA & LR (Section 2) was the more difficult section in my CAT. I started with section 1 and attempted significant number of questions. I then went on to section 2 and realized that it was more difficult. Hence I made a conscious attempt to focus more on accuracy.

Q: One area that greatly influenced your selection to go for this Top B-school?
A: NITIE is a B school that admits only engineers into its management program. Even though I had a work experience of 23 months, I was aware that there were very high chances that my interview would be focused on my knowledge in engineering subjects. At the same time, it was very important for any candidate with work experience to be very thorough with his work experience. Hence, I had prepared thoroughly on my work experience and on my two favorite engineering subjects. As it turned out, I was grilled on both my engineering subjects as well as my work experience in my interview at NITIE.

Q: Your long-term preparation strategy for GD/PI
A: For GD/PI, I prepared on several aspects. For GDs, it is very necessary not only to be aware of the current affairs but also to have an opinion about them. Hence I regularly read newspapers, a general current affairs magazine and performed research about different topics on the internet. I attended several mock GDs to accustom myself with speaking in GDs. For PIs, I thoroughly prepared on every aspect of my profile. This would include researching right from the history of my work organization to the current happenings related to my hobbies. I attended several mock PIs so as to understand the kind of questions that would be asked during an interview and subsequently prepare for them.

Q: What was your biggest mistake during selection process beginning with CAT
A: My graduation aggregate was low as compared to the national average. However, I underestimated its significance in the B school selection process. Hence, I applied only to a few B schools. However, once the shortlisted candidates for various B schools were declared, I realized that I would not get a call from any of the old six IIMs even at such high percentile. I realized my folly and understood that I should have applied to more B schools. Fortunately, I converted my call at NITIE.

Q: Your advice for CAT 2013 Aspirants
A: The nature of the CAT has become such that a candidates performance is heavily dependent on the specific day of the exam. If a candidate is lucky, he may score very well. However, on a bad day, the best of candidates may fail to make a significant impact in the exam. Hence it is necessary for candidates to maintain their composure while taking the exam. Having said that, aspirants should prepare hard, take as many mock tests as possible, analyse their performance, try to constantly improve their speed as well as accuracy and give their best shot at the exam.

Q: What was the change in your prep strategy during last 30 days to CAT?
A: During the last 30 days, I focused more on taking more mock tests rather than basic problem solving. This gave me more practice on solving problems under time constraints and allowed me to decide on an optimal strategy that I was most comfortable with while taking the CAT.

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