Here’s the Interview of CAT Topper Pranav Maheshwari who cracks the CAT exam with 99.82%ile and converts IIM Bangalore while having a full time PSU job.
Q: Hello Pranav, let’s start with your introduction and please tell us about your profile, your CAT score, sectional percentiles and the B-schools that you have converted.
PRANAV: I am basically a Mechanical engineer from IIT Jodhpur. My 10th score was 10 CGPA from CBSE board, 88.4 percentage in 12th class from Rajasthan board and I scored 88.1 in my B.Tech.
And talking about the CAT score, it is 99.82% with 99.9 in quant as I have a good mathematical background. In LRDI I scored 99.6 and around 91 percentile in VARC. I have got calls from all the B schools but I gave the interview for IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Calcutta, IIM kozhikode and FMS and I converted all of them.
Q: How much work experience do you have?
PRANAV: As of now, I have 31 months of work experience in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited. It’s a PSU and it was my campus placement.
Q: So as you have 31 months of work experience at a PSU, did it affect your selection in any way?
PRANAV: Actually at this PSU, I was having a field job where I interacted with a lot of people like the DM and SPs of the districts and the farmers of the area who are not much educated. It’s a managerial position so I think it helped me a lot. I think it helps in communication, it helps in the perspective of what I will be doing.
But, it also hindered my CAT preparation because in a managerial position you are always on a duty. You can get a call at 10pm at night or 12am at midnight. So, this is what my job looks like.
Watch Pranav’s Full Interview here :
Q: I understand it’s a hectic job, as you are working on the field in a PSU. So please let me know how you managed your CAT preparation along with your job?
PRANAV: My job is like doing 2 night shifts, 2 day shifts and 2 noon shifts in a week. So, I did not manage it in a day wise pattern, I made sure that I will utilize most of my time and make a balance between my preparation and my job. I used to do my shift, have good sleep and utilized the rest of the time of my day to study only. I believe you have to stay disciplined and utilize your time well. I don’t think that I wasted any time during my preparation. I dedicated as much time as it was possible to my studies. I used to plan and cover all the things on a weekly basis.
Q: Why did you choose MBA and management as your career?
PRANAV: It is basically an extension of what I am doing currently after my B.tech so it is like now I want to do it on a much higher scale as my job is also a managerial role.
Q: How do you think that MBA is going to help you now? Are you planning to change your sector or do you want to stay in the same sector?
PRANAV: Frankly speaking, I want to change my sector. It is not like that I don’t like my current job. I would definitely like to change my sector. I believe it’s the time where I can try different things. I have been doing different things since my B.tech, I have written EV exam and have won smart india hackathons. I have worked in racing events too in a racing team and also drive an ATV. So, this is how I like to try and do different things.
Q: How did a day in your life looked like while you were preparing for the CAT exam along with your job?
PRANAV: Whatever time I got in a day I dedicated it all to my studies. Like if I got only 15 minutes then I would solve a LRDI set in that 15 minutes of time or sometimes 2-3 questions of quant. It was around 9 hours of work and 1.5 hours of travel on a daily basis and after that whatever time I got I just dedicated it to my studies. I prioritized the small things first like daily LRDI practice, daily VARC practice and the 5-6 questions that were posted on the whatsapp group of iQuanta. I would prioritize them first because these are small things that give a lot of confidence. When you see in the whatsapp group that there are 7 links posted and you have done 5 of them then it kind of gives you a boost to your confidence that okay I have done something in a day.
Q: When did you decide to prepare for the CAT exam and what made you join iQuanta classes?
PRANAV: So I started to think about appearing for the exam last year’s december and there was a friend of mine who was an iQuanta student and from the same job profile. So, we both started researching which coaching will be the best for our preparation and would suit our schedule. So from there, I got to know about iQuanta by various online forums and I took the trial and saw that the doubts were getting resolved quickly and people were actively engaging and helping each other at the night time also so that was the thing that encouraged me to join the iQuanta classes and I saw that the faculties were even responding to the doubts coming from the classes that were done 7 days before. So that helped me a lot. Even if I missed any of the classes I would get help from the group itself.
Q: Did you use any other study material apart from the iQuanta classes?
PRANAV: No, I did not use any other resources for my preparation, iQuanta’s classes and groups were enough for me. The whatsapp group was the most efficient source of study material for me. I used the website only for the sectional mocks and for the VARC, Indrajeet sir would post the general wise articles and I used to read them a lot. There are past year papers too available at the website so iQuanta itself has enough study material for the preparation. 95% of my preparation was done from the iQuanta group and the rest 5% from the website.
Q: How was your performance in the mock tests?
PRANAV: I started late as I started giving mocks when 70-80% of my syllabus was covered. I started with sectional mocks and that too only after doing most of my preparation because what i believe is that if you start giving mocks in the initial stage of the preparation then you will be wasting your resources and study material. I used sectional mocks to find my preparation strategy for all the sections. Initially my mocks were good as I come from a good academic background so quant and LRDI were easily sorted. My VARC was weak, I was scoring around 70 percentile In the starting but after practicing later on it came to around 90% and then I was confident that I will score well in VARC too. I started late in giving mocks so the mentor suggested that I solve past year papers as I was having limited time so I solved papers of around 5-6 years past and I analyzed it as if it was a mock test. And then later on I gave around 2-3 iQuanta mocks in which I scored around 99%ile.
Q: What was your strategy to analyze the mocks?
PRANAV: There were 2-3 things to analyze as CAT can be unpredictable and the sectionals can be tough so rather than analyzing what you can get in absolute terms one should focus on what best strategy he/she can apply to solve the sections and then you can analyze and see what you can do to improve your scores in the mocks and lastly in the CAT exam. You have to identify your strong and weak areas and then solve the sectionals accordingly.
Q: As you joined the iQuanta GDPI course as well, how did it help you in the interviews and what were the questions that were asked from you in the interviews?
PRANAV: As many top MBA colleges give weightage to GDPI also rather than just focusing on the CAT exam, I believe it is very important to prepare for the interviews as well. 8-10 weeks is something that you should give to the GDPI preparation. Here, iQuanta helped me a lot in
Preparing for the interviews because firstly I was very much familiar with all the faculties and of course your style of communication helped me a lot. Shantanu Sir, who is already in IIM helped me a lot for the interviews.
Talking about the questions asked in the interviews, In the IIM Ahmedabad interview they asked me about Andhra Pradesh politics. I am not from Andhra pradesh and also never been to Andhra Pradesh so that was quite challenging for me to answer.
Q: What according to you are the 3 most important things that a CAT aspirant should keep in mind?
PRANAV: There are a lot of things, first is that you should be able to utilize your time in a perfect way possible and that is the most important thing. One other thing is that one should utilize his time in a way that he/she would not regret later. Third, I would say that you should be ready to take challenges as I see that many aspirants follow a set pattern in their preparation and focus only on certain topics which is somehow not right according to me. You have to start taking challenges right from the start of your preparation and that will help you a lot. In the end, everything is interconnected. You cannot do PNC without knowing the basics of calculation or basics of numbers, you cannot do time speed and distance without knowing the basics of arithmetic. You need to know at least the basics of every concept.
Q: Apart from the CAT exam, what other management exams did you give and what were your backup plans?
PRANAV: I did not write any exam as my job was the only backup plan that i had. I think it’s a personal choice which is based on someone’s requirement and condition. The faculty here are really good and experienced and they also provide good advice on MBA and also the other things.
