CAT 2021 test-taker Srishti Jain scored 90.5 percentile. She completed her graduation in 2019 and had 2 years of experience (1 year each) working with SRF Ltd. and Collegedunia Web Pvt Ltd. as an analyst when she appeared for CAT. Now, having received admission offers from NMIMS and GIM, she is currently awaiting her final shortlist result from baby IIMs and IITs. In an exclusive interview, Srishti has shared her admission journey from CAT 2021 result declaration to appearing for PI rounds at baby IIMs and IITs.

Interview with Srishti Jain (CAT Score - 90.5 percentile)

Ques. Please tell us something about yourself? Your educational qualification, year of graduation/ PG, reservation (if any).

Ans. I am from New Delhi. I completed my B.Tech in chemical engineering from Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology in 2019. I belong to the general category. My academic profile is:

• 10th: 87.4%
• 12th: 92.8%
• Graduation: 83.1%.

I have approximately 2 years of work experience, 1 year in production with SRF Limited and 1 year as an analyst with Collegedunia Web Pvt Ltd.

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Ques. How much did you score in CAT 2021? What were your overall and section-wise scores?

Ans. My scaled CAT score was 60.49 and my overall percentile was 90.5. My sectional scores were 30 in VARC, 16 in DILR, and 14 in QA.

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Ques. Did you appear for any other MBA exam in 2021? If yes, please specify your scores in the same.

Ans. I gave NMAT. My score was 236.

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Ques. How many admission offers have you received till now? Are they from the colleges you were initially aiming for?

Ans. I have received offers from GIM, NMIMS HR till now. I gave interviews for baby IIMs and IITs but their results are yet to be announced.

These colleges were not the ones I was aiming for, initially. I used to score 95+ in mocks but unfortunately could not do so on the D-day and hence could not apply for the colleges I was aiming for initially.

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Ques. Which colleges were you aiming for admission? (IIMs and non-IIMs)

Ans. I was aiming to get admission to NMIMS core MBA, IIT Kharagpur, IIM Nagpur, and IIM Visakhapatnam

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Ques. Did you also apply for MBA colleges other than IIMs?

Ans. Yes, I applied for IMT, GIM, NMIMS, and IITs.

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Ques. Did you get a call from any IIM? When did you get the call or what was your interview slot?

Ans. I got calls from all baby IIMs: IIM Jammu, IIM Bodh Gaya, IIM Sirmaur, IIM Visakhapatnam, IIM Amritsar and IIM Nagpur. Most of my interview slots were in the afternoon. The SAP and non-IIM calls started releasing from February onwards. However IIM Nagpur and Visakhapatnam were late in rolling out PI calls, they only called in April.

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Ques. How many rounds of selection did you go through? (Details about AWT, PI or extempores depending on different institutes)

Ans. Baby IIMs did away with AWT this year, so there was only one round: i.e. PI round. I did not give extempore in any of the rounds, however there are students who were told to give extempore in the PI of IIM Nagpur/Amritsar itself.

In case of NMIMS, IMT and GIM, I had a WAT round. I was given 30 minutes to write 250-300 on topics such as ‘Marketing is only selling’ , ‘AI’ and ‘Cooking a meal for your loved ones’. It was fairly simple.

In GIM, additionally there was a Group Discussion (online) on the topic of ecotourism.

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Ques. What were the questions asked in the interview/ AWT/ extempore? (if you can recall some for specific institutes)

Ans. In case of NMIMS, IMT and GIM, I had a WAT round. I had to write 250-300 words on topics such as ‘Marketing is only selling’, ‘AI’ and ‘Cooking a meal for your loved ones’ in 30 minutes. It was quite simple. However, in GIM, there was an additional online Group Discussion round on the topic of ecotourism.

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Ques. Did you have prior work experience? If yes, what was the field of work experience and how was it beneficial in the admission process?

Ans. My major experience has been as an analyst at a startup. My work profile has been managerial in nature and having worked in a startup, I have been more exposed to responsibilities since day 1. In each interview I was able to tell the interviewers about my future aspirations i.e. to become a product manager and back it up with the fact that I was already an analyst. Interestingly, though, I had a gap of almost 6 months on my resume, and was expecting a lot of grilling on that gap. But apart from NMIMS, no college grilled me on my gap year.

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Ques. What was your preparation strategy for the PI rounds?

Ans. In PI rounds, there are few areas that an interviewer tests:

1. About the candidate, why candidate wishes to pursue MBA
2. Past academics
3. Work Experience
4. General Awareness
5. Current affairs

I had written down my answers to commonly asked questions about the candidate, work experience and basic GK questions (about my city, ministers of the country, etc) in a notepad and kept it handy before each interview. I had my answers peer-reviewed from friends who had similar or greater percentiles than me. This notepad enabled quick revision every single time before an interview and helped collect my thoughts easily.

As for current affairs, I followed business news regularly and read up on terms I did not understand. This helped me a lot with the interviews. 1-2 days before any scheduled interview I made sure I read and analyzed any major happenings.

Must Read:

• How to Prepare for WAT in IIMs?
• How to Prepare for PI in IIMs?

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Ques. How was your Interview experience at the IIM/ Non-IIM? What type of questions were asked by the panelists?

Ans. In PI rounds, the questions were based on areas like personality, why MBA, past academic records, work experience, and general awareness.

Most PI had 2 panelists, but they did not really reveal if they were faculty or alumni. For IIM interviews, difficulty level and grilling was definitely higher than non-IIM interviews. They went to greater depths in IIM interviews and countered me in almost every answer. Only the IIM Nagpur panel was supportive. My non IIM interviews were smooth, and the panelists were sweet and supportive.

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Ques. Can you specify the details of the GK and current affairs questions asked in the PI rounds? (if any)

Ans. I was asked questions on the districts of Delhi, governor of Delhi, no of countries in the world, no of IIMs operating in India, Education Minister, number of metro lines in Delhi, Currency of Russia and Ukraine, capital of Ukraine, name of the RBI Governor, etc. From current affairs, the questions were related to election results, russia ukraine war, 3 business news, and key takeaways from the budget.

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Ques. How was it waiting for the final results after the PI round? Did you connect with any current students at the B-school?

Ans. I was initially anxious about the results, but finally decided to focus and work. I do have a job as a backup and can go for another attempt if things don't work out.

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Ques. In which B-school did you finally get admission? What was the process of admission/ reporting after the declaration of the final shortlist?

Ans. I am still waiting for the results at this point.

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Ques. Did you experience anything special or unusual that you would like to share with us? (Any kind of unusual question asked during the interview or the complete admission process)

Ans. In my IMT interview, because I work in an education website, we had a long discussion related to the current education system and its irregularities. My interview at IMT was an extremely offbeat interview. The usual tell me about yourself, GK, academics related questions were not asked. Here is the transcript of it:

IMT interview

There were two panelists, P1 and P2, both in the mid 40s. P1 asked most of the questions.

P1- Tell me your best experience in school
Me- I stumbled a bit and said I loved the library)

P1- Okay, tell me your worst experience from school.
Me- Again stumbled because I wasn't really expecting these questions, said that I was bullied at school

P1- Why MBA?
Me- I want to be a product manager because I love having variety in my tasks I do every day and I'm passionate about building things from the scratch.

P1- Okay, what is a product?
Me- Gave the textbook definition of product.

P1- What Kind of product are you working on right now?
Me- I am building content catering to the K12 audience.

P1- Can you identify some gaps in education currently?
Me- I started talking about online/offline, he stopped me in the middle and asked me to speak apart from online/offline.
Then I replied, ‘I feel education in India is very theoretical’. Gave an example of me being a chemical engineer and how there was a large gap between what the industry looks for and what they taught.

P1 - Okay, can't agree more. Tell me about your favourite startup
Me- Talked about zerodha and how it is a bootstrapped unicorn and user acquisition is not having as much cost, and they function on making money through large volumes of users with lower brokerages.

P1- over to my co panelist

P2- Asked if I follow Steve jobs, since he is one of the best innovators and talks very often about products.
Me- No sir, I don't follow him.

P2- Have you read the book " Innovator's Dilemma", it is about product management.
Me- I said I haven't.
Sir highly recommended me to read it, and told me he teaches product management from that book itself and shows Steve Jobs videos to students in lectures.

P2- You have a good academic record, why not get into academia?
Me- I said I worked at a lab for 6 months and did not like the repetitive nature of teaching and research because we had to work on one problem statement for a long while.

P2- Okay, enough from my end. You may log off.

No acads, GK, etc. They were genuinely interested in knowing more about me, and had a long discussion with me.

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Ques. Are there any interview tips you would like to give to candidates who are future CAT aspirants?

Ans. For interviews it is best to be yourself, know yourself well and if asked counter questions or faced with poker faces, just keep calm. It is okay to not know everything they ask you in an interview. But it is not okay to panic or stress out in the middle of the interview, because that creates a negative impression.

Quick Links:

• CAT Score vs Percentile
• CAT Cut off & Selection Process for IITs
• CAT IIMs Selection Process

Scoring 90+ in CAT is only the first step in getting admission to MBA/ PGDM courses at IIMs. What also matters in securing a seat in IIMs is your performance in the GD-PI/ WAT rounds, past academic performance, and how well you present yourself.