JOIN USMost candidates who did well in the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2016 from the city are engineers. Their dream is to get into the top three IIMs — Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta (ABC).
Anurag Nandi, a management consultant in Bengaluru, scored 99.95 percentile overall. Though he graduated in 2015 with a degree in mechanical engineering from BITS-Pilani, he was always interested in consulting.
“I got a campus placement in a core mechanical job but I did not like it, so I quit and joined a consultancy,” he said. This was his third attempt at the entrance exam as he wanted to get into an ABC IIM. He enrolled at IMS for coaching, and with a hectic work schedule, prepared only in the last one month. He has been shortlisted for personal interviews at both IIM Ahmedabad and Bangalore.
A BTech graduate from IIIT-Hyderabad, Shiv Raj scored 99.94 percentile in his second attempt at the exam. Juggling work and coaching classes at TIME, he attempted over 30 mock tests. “Mock tests help you to prepare better because you get into the exam mode and you get a good idea of what questions to expect,” he said. Unsure of getting into top IIMs because of his CGPA, he hopes to specialise in social financing or strategy from IIM Lucknow or Calcutta.
With a score of 99.93 percentile, Shrikanth K hopes to study at any ABC IIM. He has been shortlisted for personal interviews in Ahmedabad and Calcutta. Having completed his engineering in information science at PESIT, Shrikanth found consultancy more appealing and has been working in this field for nearly two years now.
Among the non-engineers who did well in the exam is Nikhil Prabhu, a final-year BCom student at Presidency College. He scored 99.74 percentile in his first attempt. Fearing that Quantitative Aptitude would be his weak area, Prabhu joined TIME, a coaching centre. “I started preparing for the test in 2015. Right before CAT, I had my exams in college, so I had to shift my focus to those tests,” he said.