So it’s the very same time of the year once again. CAT is closing in and I can very well see excitement and tension creeping in all the aspirants. Everything and every person I see in MBA forums remind me of my pre CAT days in some way or the other. The excitement regarding the paper, the ecstasy to perform well, the dream to get into a top notch B School, the fear of failing (in the single shot provided to them for putting to test all the efforts they have made) and no one is left untouched by the plethora of emotions that find an easy target in them, year after year.

Having realized it myself, I know that an MBA aspirant goes through all the possible emotions during the course of his/her preparation. It was such a roller coaster ride for me. Excited on getting an awesome score in a mock. Depressed with a bad performance in one of the sections. Frustrated on making the same mistake again and again. I saw it all, and I mean all the stages. And today when I was looking at some of the pages of my diary a sense of nostalgia did crept in. Those were the pure emotions (extreme at times nevertheless). And anyways you need a little push in order to achieve anything and that is when you truly realize the value of your achievement.

But there has been quite a few things different in the way it has been looked at, in the past few years. The word “CAT”, this time around, is marked by all sort of controversies. As if the online fiasco and normalization blues were not enough. Every forum that I look into is filled with a debate between engineers and non engineers. The reason being the criteria most IIMs have come up with i.e. awarding extra marks to girls and non-engineers even before the test is taken. I mean how could you justify this thing? If you are a male engineer who comes from a tough state board (with a percentage which was more than enough to get you featured in the merit list, but not enough to help you crack what you aspire to), IIM-A is a far fetched dream.

Fair enough that IIMs need some diversity. Fair enough that the CAT pattern is designed to give an edge to engineers. Fair enough that you need to give an equal opportunity to non-engineers. If that is the case, then why not design a paper in such a way that it gives an equal opportunity to everyone (or at an extreme, design one which gives an edge to non engineers, just like XAT has come up with it). I am sure no one will be complaining like this then, because at least everyone will be on the same ground and will be having the equal opportunity to show their mettle.

But is it the case that IIMs believe that whatever the pattern might be, engineers will maneuver there way in somehow, and that will be detrimental to their diversity motto. Quoting what the Dean of FMS, Prof Mamkoottam once said,

We do attempt to dilute what is known as the engineering-oriented component in the FMS test but to be very honest with you, in whatever experiment we have tried, engineers have again managed to come up.

This very well might be the reason, and if that is the case I can’t blame IIM for coming up with these criteria to bring in more adversity diversity. So now we implicitly have further reservations within the general category. Female non engineers, followed by female engineers and male non engineers, followed by the most pitiable creatures Male Engineers. There might be many justifications given by many people, but I really find it hard to buy anyone of them.

It has been some time since I have been here. Missed me?? C’mon don’t be shy. … As a matter of fact, I have been quite busy of late, particularly with the entrance processes of different B-schools. Just like a pendulum I have been moving to and fro between Delhi and Mumbai. No I am not complaining. As always, I love to travel and this came as a nice excuse to do so. But finally I took some time out and decided to pay my beautiful city a visit, after a gap of almost four months.

So far I have been lucky with the first half of the admission process. I have got a call from almost all the reputed B-schools of the country. And now I stand before the second and the most difficult phase of the entire process. The interviews. And this is the phase where they ought to select the best out of the best.

I am already through with IIM, IIFT, Symbiosis and NMIMS. The next stop being FMS on 15th, followed by IMI, NITIE and MDI. Keeping my fingers crossed to convert at least one of the calls, particularly one in either Delhi or Mumbai. I so don’t want to drop a year.

In the meantime I happen to have got a job at Infosys Technologies. So my bachelors degree did pay of and the myth of my faculty that the defaulters don’t go anywhere has finally been broken.

The news headlines of my college is marked by the strikes caused due to the placement issues, which has been going from bad to worse for few years now. Eighth semester is yet to get off the mark, with nil classes so far. Still, I am not complaining . I have no issues if the entire semester flies by in a similar way .

That reminds me that slowly, but surely, we are reaching the end of our college life. Time does fly by. It was, as if, only yesterday when I entered this institute and it’s already been four years now. Looking back through the time line, RKGIT has given me everything to learn. Friends, memories, a few “bad” habits, a lot of “surprises” and many many things which I just can’t list out. It would be real hard to bid all the idiots goodbye in only few days to come

But no point lamenting now. Time to plan many parties, many trips and many memories. I am not going to waste even a second of this semester once I am done with my last interview, which is on 30th of this month. And very soon I will be coming up with a post dedicated to my very own, very awesome, very entertaining and very enlightening interview experiences. … Till then .. sayonara … and yes … Happy Holi everyone

January 12th 2011 :: The day the earth stood still. At least for these few moments when I was typing in my serial number. And then it started spinning at an extraordinary pace as soon as I filled in the captcha and log in. This was my first major disappointment of the season. Though I scored a pretty good 97.75 %ile, it was not enough, not by far to get the coveted calls I prepared for, the entire year.

For the last few days I had an intuition that CAT is going to give me a surprise, and it certainly did. Blame the Verbal Ability section, blame the normalization, blame my slot or may be blame my luck. But things certainly did not go the way I planned them to. Anyways, I am not the only one who has to face the wrath of CAT’10. Pagalguy is full of many people whose scores are just unfathomable. But what’s done is done. No point blaming anyone. May be I should bring my focus back on the “pen and paper” exams, which happen to be the one which show you the real picture rather than a vague transformed image which has been tempered by a weapon of mass destruction termed “normalization”.

So CAT is out of the window. Might get a call or two from here and there. Got a satisfactory SNAP scorecard. Would be lucky to get a call from SIBM-P. Anyways, time to start the preparation in full swing for the calls I have in hand. But before that I need to wipe away these two words from the back of my mind >> CAT and IIM …!!!  x-(