Here’s the Interview of Rishab Rahiman who cracks CAT with 99.63%ile and converts all Top B-schools
Q: Hey Rishab, Congratulations on clearing CAT, XAT & SNAP with 99%ile and converting IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, SPJAIN Mumbai, XLRI Jamshedpur and SIBM Pune. Please tell me about the difficulties that you faced while preparing for the CAT exam along with your job.
RISHAB: I started preparing for the CAT exam along with my job but later I found it very hectic so I decided to quit the job at the end of June and from July I gave a fresh start to my preparation and joined the last batch of iQuanta.
Q: What kind of job you were having and what were your roles and responsibilities?
RISHAB: I was a software developer and my responsibility was to mostly look into the bugs and tickets that were raised there. I think the people who are preparing for the CAT exam and having a job simultaneously, should be able to manage their time very well because you have to make a balance between these two things and that is very important. If you follow the right strategy and schedule, it will definitely help you in the long run.
Q: What were your sectional percentiles in the CAT exam and what are the B-schools that you have converted?
RISHAB: I scored 99.63%ile overall. My sectional scores were 86%ile in DILR, 99.4%ile in quant and 99.8 in VARC. For IIM Ahmedabad I am in the waiting list of 14 currently, and rest I have converted to all other top IIMs like IIM Bangalore, IIM Lucknow, IIM Calcutta, IIM Indore and IIM Kozhikode. I have converted Non-IIMs like SP JAIN Mumbai, SIBM Pune and XLRI Jamshedpur.
Q: So, which B-school you have decided to go to and what is the reason?
RISHAB: I have decided that I will be joining IIM Bangalore. The reason is that I wanted to explore consulting and I think IIM Bangalore is the best place for that.
Q: Why MBA? Why did you choose Management as your career?
RISHAB: I was having a normal engineering job and I used to think that If I want to progress in life then I have to be a part of a decision making team and I used to see that MBA had helped many individuals to do that. Like my manager used to understand very well how all the things would work like the finance of the product and who are the members because of which the project is affecting. So, she was able to see and manage the whole picture of the particular project and I was very much inspired by that. So, from there I wanted to do the same and have a managerial profile so that I myself would be able to take the decisions and have full control over a particular project.
Watch Rishab’s full interview here:
Q: Please give me an insight over your academic profile like what were your 10th, 12th percentage and graduation score?
RISHAB: I was always a good performer in academics, So in 10th I got 10 CGPA and in 12th I got 96 percent. I did my Engineering in computer science from NIIT 360 where I scored 8 CGPA. So, overall my quant was already strong as I come from an engineering background but at the same time I had to do a lot of work in VARC and DILR.
Q: What were the resources that you used for the preparation of CAT?
RISHAB: I started to find some resources for the preparation from the month of july and saw that there were a lot of blogs on iQuanta and from there I got to know that the last batch of iQuanta was going to start soon. Then I asked a few of my seniors for a review and they gave some good reviews for iQuanta. So, finally I decided to join it as there was a fresh batch that was going to start which would help me to revise all my concepts. Then the next thing that I had to do was to revise my basic mathematics and I saw that there were videos uploaded already for all the subjects on the website. It took me a week and a half to revise my basics and then I started giving mocks.
Q: What were the other hurdles you faced while preparing for the CAT exam apart from your job and time management?
RISHAB: For me, VARC was always a problem. I used to get good marks in quant and LRDI but VARC was something that would drop the whole mock score down. My overall percentage that was coming was around 80 because the VARC percentile used to come in the range of 30 and 40. So, that was very demotivating and I wanted a solution for that. I almost took a week for VARC and did a marathon on RCs and grammar and then I saw that slowly my marks were improving in VARC. I knew that the process would take some time as my seniors also told me that initially I will score low in the mocks but with practice I will be able to increase the score so that motivated me and gave me a lot of confidence.
Q: How did iQuanta help you in your overall preparation?
RISHAB: Every day when I woke up, I used to go to iQuanta’s portal and see what were the doubts that were put in the facebook group and what I saw was that I used to get so many solutions for the same problem. I was finding newer ways to solve the same question and that was really amazing. The community in iQuanta is really the best according to me. Other than that, the classes used to happen at night so I used to get a full day for the preparation. The last batch was very competitive and the peer competition helped me to perform better.
Q: There is a concept of dual pedagogy, Like one happens in the live classes and the other one is there in the Application classes. So, how did this help you in the preparation?
RISHAB: I think both of them are very important. The live as well as the theory classes are very important because in live classes I would see how the faculties used to approach and solve the questions and doubts because sometimes when there is a new kind of problem we don’t know how to solve it. So, in this way the live classes really helped a lot, especially in DILR.
And in the theory classes that used to happen later at night, the practice there was super fast and the quality of the questions were also great.
Q: How did a day in your life look like while you were preparing for the CAT exam?
RISHAB: Like I said earlier, my day would start by solving the doubt questions. Everyday there were 50-60 doubt questions that were out in the facebook group and I would sit and solve every doubt question that was there and also share my answers as well. I would go through the recordings of the classes that were held the previous night and then I would do the self study like analyzing the previous mocks and then would go on to start another mock test.
Q: Were you doing any kind of physical exercise or were there any mental challenges?
RISHAB: Yes, I think physical and mental health is really important while preparing for CAT. I used to sleep at around 12:30 or 1 as soon as the classes would end. I would wake up at 5:30 or 6 in the morning and go for a small exercise like walking or jogging and then come back home, get fresh and start studying at around 8 in the morning.
Q: How was your performance in the mock tests?
RISHAB: Initially, it was very challenging for me as my scores were fluctuating a lot so it took me like 20 mocks to get the stability. Once I got the stability I was able to do the analysis and see what were my strengths and weaknesses and how to change my approach. So, for every mock I had a different strategy to solve and approach the questions. And one thing that I used to make sure of was that I had to solve each and every question in the mocks.
Q: How much time did you used to take in analyzing one single mock?
RISHAB: I used to take like 1 or 2 days to analyze the mocks which was around 7-8 hours in overall.
Q: What according to you are the 3 most important things that a CAT Aspirant should keep in mind?
RISHAB: One thing that every aspirant should keep in mind is that it is not impossible to crack the CAT exam. Many non-engineers have this misconception that it is easier for the engineers to Crack the CAT exam but that is not true. Quant can be easier for us, but for non engineers VARC and DILR is not that tough.
The second one is the time management as the time is very less and the main aspect of the CAT exam is the time management on the day of exam and the Third one is to just keep on practicing.
Q: People generally look for shortcuts and tricks to approach and prepare for the CAT exam. So, what’s your take on that?
RISHAB: After clearing the CAT exam, what I think is that the basic concepts never fail. You must have your basics very strong, the tips and tricks really help but you must have your basics strong in the first place and all your concepts ready at the day of the exam.
Q: Apart from the CAT exam, how important do you think are the other management exams in getting a Top MBA college and what’s the difference between CAT and these other exams?
RISHAB: As my DILR and VARC score was not that good so after the CAT exam, I started preparing for the other management tests also. There are many other exams like XAT, SNAP and NMAT and all these exams are slightly different from each other. For quant and english, the concepts might be the same, your basics might be the same but the questions might be different like in the XAT exam, you will be asked questions on decision making. So, you need to have a separate preparation for that as well. In NMAT, they will ask you vocabulary based questions in English and different patterns of questions will be there. So, according to me if your basic concepts in the CAT preparation are strong, then I think every other exam will be quite easy for you because the CAT exam is of really high level. And if you are targeting other exams then iQuanta also provides mock tests which are particularly catered to those exams.
Q: Let’s say you have 100 units of time. So, how much time will you give to CAT and how much time will you give to these other management exams?
RISHAB: One thing to note here is that omets usually happen after the CAT exam. So, if someone is mainly focusing on the CAT exam then you have to give 90 units to CAT until you give the CAT exam. After that, as soon as the CAT exam ends, you should start preparing for all other exams and you have to start fresh for that because that too needs a lot of practice and some general knowledge as well.
Q: On the exam day, was there any kind of nervousness? If yes, then how did you overcome that?
RISHAB: Yes, I was very nervous and the computer that I had got was also very slow and I could not stop the anxiety that I was having. I started with VARC and it went well but then in DILR I got stuck in solving the sets so my strategy totally collapsed there as in the mocks I would usually start with DILR. I took a deep breath and told myself that okay no worries now this thing should not affect my quant section as my quant was really good. So, even though one section was not that good, the other 2 sections really helped me to score a good percentile.
Q: After the CAT exam, the interviews are there which are also very important in getting the admission. So, what were the questions that were asked by you and how did you prepare for them?
RISHAB: So according to me, whenever you are called for an Interview round, then it means that the interviewers really like your academic background and they are just trying to see whether you can handle a managerial position or not. They might put you in pressure and find out why you want to do an MBA. So these are some things that are asked in every interview panel as that is the core of the interview. If you answer this “Why MBA” question then you will probably be able to get selected.
Q: Which panel was the most stressful and the most easy going interview panel?
RISHAB: The XLRI was very stressful. The interview got over in 10 minutes but it was like they were just shooting the questions and not taking a break.
And talking about the easy one, I think the IIM Calcutta interview was really amazing as I just enjoyed it. At the start of the interview, they asked me to sing a song which was an ice breaker and then the interview went really well.
Q: One last question from you, what’s the feedback that you would like to give about iQuanta and how the classes can be helpful for the other aspirants?
RISHAB: First of all, hats off to the whole iQuanta team. The faculties were really helpful and at iQuanta I never felt that I had to wait for any problem to
be solved and it was solved in just 10 -15 minutes. So, it gave me confidence and I never felt alone.
For the students who are preparing for the CAT exam, I would say that have faith in the process, never lose hope and work hard because everyone is following the same process and if you are not doing it, then you will not succeed.
