Students' Speak: I was well prepared but the day of the exam wasn't my day

I realised that many colleges were still in my reach. I applied to these colleges. Now I'm in the interview process of a few.

So if you think your performance wasn't up to the mark in CAT 2019, then let me tell you that you are not alone.
I too prepared for CAT 2019 for more than a year, although I got serious about the preparation in April'19. With more than 6 months of hard-core preparation and rigorous analysis of mocks, I scored 95 percentile. I was well prepared but it seems like 24th Nov'19 wasn't my day. Unfortunately, I did not clear sectional cut-off for DI-LR. I was shattered, considering the amount of efforts I put in.

After CAT scores were out, I had two options-
First: I could cry about my score and then plan my journey for CAT'20.
Second: Or I could research about what all colleges accepted such scores and if nothing works then prepare for CAT'20.

I went for the second option. To select a college, my approach was to go through the lists that have complied by various CAT coaching centres. These lists have colleges mentioned at AA grade, A grade, B grade and so on. After checking various colleges according to rankings, I prepared my own list keeping in mind the location (city) + courses offered + return on investment. By ROI, I mean I did the cost-benefit analysis of few colleges which essentially means to compare that how much is their fees and how much is their average package of the previous year (all data is available on college’s website).
To my surprise, I realised that many colleges were still in my reach. I applied to these colleges. Now I'm in the interview process of a few. But honestly, I feel like working for a year or 2 (since I'm in my final year of graduation) before going for MBA. Having work experience is always a plus point, moreover, you actually get to find out where your interest lies.
Apart from CAT, exams like NMAT, SNAP,XAT etc. are also quite useful. I didn't write all these exams this year but plan to write in the future since now I know these help a lot to have a powerful backup. I would recommend you all to have a backup plan in place.

Lastly, coming on how to improve your score, here are a few tips that might help you -

- Firstly, join a CAT coaching or do a correspondence course. These people know the nitty-gritty of preparation and thus are able to guide you the best.
- Start reading newspaper (if you haven’t started yet) and start reading some books of your interest, this helps you prepare for CAT phase 2 (interviews).
- When you are 2 months away from CAT, start taking mocks (once a week) and analyse the solutions as and when available, view different methods to solve the same questions.
- When you are 1 month away from CAT, start taking 2 mocks a week and analyse the solutions of both.
-Lastly, when you are just a day or 2 away from CAT, relax, revise your formulae and don't give any mock. This helps you to go for CAT with an open and fresh mind.

About the Author: The author is a final year Student at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai batch 2019-20 pursing Bsc statistics.