My journey of converting 9/9 calls: Wasim Khan Pathan

Immediately after graduating from IIT Gandhinagar, I got a job at Polyplex Corporation Limited where I worked on a global project on inter-unit benchmarking for five different locations globally: Turkey, Thailand, America and two locations in India. Over the days, I realised that for the roles I was keen to work on, only technical knowledge was not sufficient. The projects that intrigued me, required a skill set that could be gained from a formal management course. Since, it is important to gain a holistic approach towards business to climb the ladder in an organization, I decided to pursue an MBA program. I resigned from my job and started concentrating on CAT.

Since I was good at Quant, I joined a coaching institute as a Quant faculty in the month of June which left me 4-5 months to prepare for CAT. I gave extra time to verbal section as I needed to only practice Quant. I also started taking online tests. In June and July, I took sectional tests and started taking full length mock tests in August. When I took my first mock test, the pattern for CAT 2015 was not declared and the mocks were designed as per the previous pattern, i.e. two sections only; first, Quant & DI and second Verbal &LR. In my first mock I scored 99.67%ile in Quant & DI but my score in Verbal &LR was around 80%ile; mainly because of LR. After a few mock tests, my performance improved significantly and I was consistently scoring around 90-95%ile in verbal section and maintaining 99+%ile in Quant.

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When the new pattern was announced, I was a bit sceptical of my performance as now the LR section was disintegrated from the verbal section. I couldn't score well in the section in first mock test based on the new pattern. My scores were: Quant (99+%ile), DI&LR (98+%ile) and Verbal (73%ile). I started taking 2-3 mocks every week and after some weeks I was able to manage 90-95%ile in Verbal (97%ile being my highest and 88%ile being the lowest) consistently.

I changed my strategy two weeks before CAT. In the last two weeks, I took one mock test daily and focused only on the basic concepts and methods.

The D-Day was just about to arrive and I was almost prepared for the exam with consistently scoring 99+%ile in mock tests. Three day before the test, I stopped taking mocks tests and spent time with my friends and family and went out for movies, dinner etc.

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Finally, November 30 arrived. I started the exam with confidence and attempted quite a good number of questions in verbal section. I managed to solve 6 sets out of 8 in LRDI and 29 questions in Quant. I was slightly disappointed with my Quant performance as I had expected to attempt at least 30 questions and I knew only these 1-2 questions were going to make a difference, but I was satisfied with my performance.

After the CAT, it was time for XAT which was to be held 20 days after. After taking CAT, I was quite relaxed as there was nothing new to prepare for. It was just a matter for practice. The pattern of XAT was also revised, so I thoroughly understood the changes and adapted the strategy accordingly. XAT also went well and I scored 99.53%ile.

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While preparing for the exams, I observed that many students focus on learning useless formulae to solve problems, as a result they have plethora of formulae to remember. I have always emphasized on the basics and advise students to learn the concepts behind the formulas. In my experience, the CAT question paper never contains a problem that requires a complex formula. The Quant section must be dealt carefully as there is immense material available online. Just be cautious while using such resources because you come across several formulae and concepts. Learning new things isn't bad but it must not be at the cost of something important. So it's better to invest time in solving sets of LR/DI or Verbal section.

LRDI is all about practice. The more you practice, more are the chances that you will end up with a similar set in CAT. I would advise each aspirant to solve at least one set each of LR and DI daily, and to increase the numbers to three per day in the last one month. To give you my own example, I encountered 4-5 sets out of 8 sets that I had already solved at some point of time.

Shubham Ranka shares his WAT-PI experience at IIM Calcutta

When the CAT results were announced I received calls from 10 B-Schools as I had secured 99.73%ile.

The interview was 15 days after the result was declared. I started preparing on my own. I never had a fear of interviews, neither did I feel nervous during that phase. I practiced answers to the basic questions in my free time, mostly while driving. I would deliver the answers and try to evaluate them as a third person, cross-questioning myself, daily. I did so until I was satisfied that I would be able to sell myself to the panelists in those 30 minutes. Yes, an interview is almost a market where multiple salespersons (candidates) are trying to sell their products (themselves). So make sure you stand apart in the crowd. Just be honest with whatever you have got.

Now let me share my interview experiences in detail.

My first interview was of IIM-Ahmedabad (FABM). The interview panel consisted of a professor and an alumni. I was asked few probability questions and I answered almost all of them. Overall the interview was good. I had been quite confident throughout the interview, though the panelists tried to cross-question me but I handled them calmly.

The next interview was of NMIMS. As expected my interview went really good and the panel was quite impressed with the way I handled the questions. The interview boosted my confidence a lot and I understood the ‘art of driving an interview’. Yes, you can drive most of the interviews in the area that you are confident of.

As I faced more interviews, I started gaining more confidence. Almost all of my interviews IIMS, IIMK, IIML, IIMC, XLRI, FMS, IIMI, went as per my expectations. I was grilled a bit in the IIMK interview, but I handled it well.

In between these interviews, NMIMS result was declared and I had secured merit (AIR 6). It proved to be a catalyst to my performance and I gave my best in all the interviews. I was done with all of my interviews by April 14, with FMS being the last one. I was eagerly awaiting IIM Calcutta result.

On April 15 IIM Calcutta result was declared. I felt a slight shivering, as this was my dream call and all of my plans were dependent on it.

I logged in to IIMC website to check the admission status. While entering the details a lot of thoughts were running through my mind. I took a deep breath and pressed ‘enter’. For those few seconds when the page was loading, I was completely numb and praying to god. The page loaded and I just glinted through the page to see something good. And here it was! “Congratulations! You have been offered………..”

I was so excited on reading it that I got goose bumps. I immediately, called up my parents to inform them. I could hear immense happiness in their voice. They were quite happy that I had converted my dream call, so was I!

Then the other results followed and I converted all the 9 calls that I had. The list is as:

IIM-C, XLRI, FMS, IIM-A (FABM), IIM-L, IIM-K, IIM-I, IIM-S, NMIMS. I also had SP Jain call but I didn’t appear for it as it clashed with IIM-K (February 17) and I couldn’t manage to get it postponed.

I would like to end this thread here with some basic tips.

First of all don’t worry if you don’t know something. There were quite a few questions during my interviews that I had no clue about, so I politely acknowledged that I was not aware of the topic. If you are not sure about any answer but still want to make a guess, you can definitely take permission from them to do so.

Overall, appearing in all these interviews was a learning experience for me as they gave me a further insight into my strengths.

IIMs don’t need a nerd, they want a leader. Just exhibit your confidence before the panelists. Whatever they ask you, answer with confidence and show them your eagerness to learn something new. Show them that you can overcome challenges and surpass benchmarks.

Be clear with your reason of doing an MBA and ask yourself; if your answer justifies your thoughts. When I say the ‘art of driving an interview’ it means being cautious with word selection. So set some format of your answers but it shouldn’t look like that you mugged up the answers. Believe you me, it is easy to figure out whether one is throwing out some swotted up answers or are they are one’s original thoughts. Maintain your pitch and tone throughout the interview, i.e. neither be too loud nor be too soft. Dress smartly and believe in yourself!