David Newnes, having secured a percentile of 99.56 and calls from six IIMs, is one of them, now looking forward for the Group Discussion and personal interview. “Presently, I am going through a lot of literature during weekends and the  trends in the markets”, he says. An Electrical and Electronics engineering graduate from REC, Thrichy, he has been working for Intel in Bangalore for the last year and a half now.
With calls from all IIMs and a percentile of 99.85, for Manu Midha it is just a matter which of the premier institutes he would opt.
A mechanical engineer, who graduated from IIT, Khargpur last year, he has presently his options open for Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkata. However, finally it may just be IIMA for Manu, for his father is an alumnus of the same institute. “There is a lot of pressure from him that I join IIMA”, says Manu.
Manu had attempted CAT last year too. However, he missed getting calls from six IIMs by just one mark. Putting the past behind him, he concentrated on CAT-2007. “I learnt from last year's mistakes and decided I should get more balanced scores in all three sections”. he adds.
First attempt
Avik Roy, has got calls from IIMB and IIM Kozhikode. A native of Kolkata, Avik has managed to get a high percentile in his first attempt itself. A BTech (Computer science) from REC, Bhopal, Avik is presently working in Accenture, Bangalore. “It was very challenging to balance between work pressure and studying for CAT”, he says.
Avik used to study during weekends to prepare for the examination. Avik wants to give back to the society. “I come from a place where everybody does not have access to education. I would like to use my experience to chip in something for them”, he says.
Avik would like to work in the management sector for five to ten years, get a feel of the market, before trying out his own venture.
Atul V Nath, with a percentile of 96.43 had passed out from his engineering institute in 2005. Having worked in a banking firm, he now wants to pursue Finance.
To clear his Group Discussion and Personal Interview stage, he has now planned to attend coaching classes and brush up his general knowledge, reading newspapers more closely.
For Rohit, another topper, getting a high percentile was no easy task. Dedication and conviction is a must to bell the CAT.  This is Rohit’s second attempt at CAT. He has learnt from his mistakes in the previous attempt, where he got percentile of 96.38. Then, he secured only 40 in verbal ability, derailing his chance of getting into the IIMs.
“This time I concentrated more on verbal ability and dedicated more time to the paper. It is important to know one’s weakness and strong points while appearing for CAT,” says Rohit.
He is now preparing for group discussion and interview. Apart from professional coaching, he is planning to meet students at various IIMs to get some feed back for a fair assessment for the D-day.