XAT 2021 Topper Farzan Shaikh Shares His MBA Preparation Journey

XAT 2021 Topper Farzan Shaikh shares his journey to XLRI, SPJIMR and ISB. Read how he prepared for and cleared CAT, XAT and GMAT.

Farzan Shaikh doesn’t want to live a mediocre life. It is his drive to strive for excellence that got him 99.94 percentile in XAT 2021, 98.35 in CAT 2020 and 720 in GMAT. Even though Farzan's MBA journey wasn’t as smooth as he expected it to be, he never gave up. He prepared for one year to realise his MBA dream. Shiksha got in touch with Farzan to know his MBA preparation journey. Here’s how Farzan Shaikh prepared for MBA and converted XLRI and ISB calls.

XAT 2021 score: 99.94 percentile

CAT 2020 score: 98.35 percentile

GMAT: 720

My MBA Preparation Journey Month by Month

May 2020

I started preparing on my own (thought NITians don’t need help), quants from books like Arun Sharma, Sarvesh Sharma and rest bhagwan bharose!

20 days into my preparation, the ‘fear of unknown’ kicked in. Because of lack of any benchmark, I had zero clue if I am solving enough questions every day or whether my preparation is enough for CAT. Also, since I had no set targets the friction to start studying was high and I started getting distracted, demotivated and anxious very easily.

June 2020

Appeared for my first mocks (SIMCAT and AIMCAT) and it was a major aukaat check. I got really scared, felt I will never be able to crack CAT exam. I reminded myself why I started this journey and decided to fix my following problems –

1) Lack of structure/plan and tangible targets

2) Emotional support, lets accept it, sacrificing everything for a year for an exam as uncertain as CAT requires a lot of courage.

I enrolled myself at a coaching class and also discovered iQuanta’s CAT group on Facebook. I had already paid for an offline coaching so could not afford to pay for iQuanta (regrets) but continued being active on this group and solving a ton of free questions and doubts posted by other users and moderators. I used to do this while traveling to office, in between meetings at work and even before sleeping. I surrounded myself with CAT questions.

July to September 2020

1) Solved 3-4 DILR sets daily

2) Actively read and summarised articles, books and essays from Aeon, The Economist, WSJ etc. in my own language to improve my reading comprehension.

3) Basic preparation of Quantitative Aptitude was being covered by my coaching material and randomised practice and revision by solving doubts for others.

4) Mock analysis and all the practice helped my scores and percentiles go up as my rank went down, started being in top 200 consistently with 98.5+ percentile in most of my mocks

5) Yet, had multiple breakdowns and bad mocks in between.

6) I decided not to spend too much time in watching lecture videos for hours and decided to do all the revision and learning through solving questions and hence I learnt to apply multiple concepts at once to solve difficult questions with ease.

October to November 2020

1) I kept solving questions through marathon sessions and daily sessions on iQuanta secret group as well as visiting bookmarked questions I could not solve earlier and analysed past mocks.

2) I got unwell and had to travel to Pune from Mumbai for CAT and did not score as well as I could in CAT.

December 2020

1) I was really upset but decided to take control of things, told myself that a bad day will not decide my future and started taking actions instantaneously.

2) I booked December 27 for GMAT and enrolled myself in free XAT course by iQuanta. I solved DM questions in XAT using past year papers.

3) I scored 720 in GMAT, wrote two beautiful essays and applied at ISB.

January 2021

1) On January 18, XAT 2021 result was announced. I scored 99.94 percentile in XAT. Since I was one of the toppers, various news outlets covered my story.

2) I got SPJIMR interview call for Operations. I got IIM Shillong call as well but did not appear for interview.

February 2021

SPJIMR interview gets ruined, was disheartened. Worked double hard for the remaining interviews.

March 2021

I aced my ISB interview. Had a flawless discussion and ended the interview at a positive note. Still it is ISB so I was not sure if that gets me an admit (anxiety max).

April 2021

1) On April 5, I had my XLRI interview and it was flawless and fun.

2) On April 6, ISB informed that I have been selected. Months of hard work, anxiety, sleeplessness and insecurities flashed before my eyes and I felt I was floating. Best day of my life (so far)!

May 2021

I directly converted XLRI and have decided to continue with ISB.

Overall

In all the months, days and nights the one thing common was “the fear of unknown”, working 12 hours a day, bad scores in mock tests and difficulty in increasing my scores. It generated anxiety, fear and demotivated me. My mind told me I could utilise my time into something else because maybe I was not good enough for MBA.

And all those months, days and nights I reminded myself why I started this journey.

I do not want to die after living a mediocre life. I want to become better and do better things. It might sound stupid to you, but it made a world of a difference to me.

And I know many of you are going or will go through same doubts, same uncertainties and insecurities.

And when you do, ask yourself, 'Why did I start this journey?'

Read More:

• How Rupesh Gupta Cracked IIM Ahmedabad Interview
• Abhinav Paigwar Shares His IIM Bangalore WAT-PI Experience
• Mayank Shares His IIM Bangalore WAT-PI Experience

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