CAT Topper Journey: Cracking top IIM is a sign of full dedication, exposure and understanding the Common Admission Test (entrance examination). IIM Indore is one of the BLACKI IIMs that have a competitive admission process where you are dealing with the pool of aspirants possessing expertise in their own field and excellent academic background. Today we have an amazing journey of a CAT Topper, Shireen Sultana who cracked IIM Indore with an excellent percentile. IIM Indore is the second top institute who follows the case study methodology after IIM Ahmedabad. Getting graduated from such a prestigious institute covers the vital part of not just getting succeed in a corporate world but also getting several advantages by using the IIM alumni network worldwide. In this blog, we will be talking about her in-depth journey to an IIM Indore, her experience related to the Personal Interview, how did she finance her entire journey, perspective towards the placement scenario and message to all the CAT aspirants.
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Who is CAT Topper Shireen Sultana?
Shireen Sultana is a CAT Topper who cracked IIM Indore. She is coming from Vishakhapatnam and not actually knows more about Common Admission Test in the starting. She attended CAT exam twice as in the first attempt she didn’t able to make it for any of the IIMs but gotten to TAPMI Manipal. But she really wanted to attempt CAT again and later she got calls from all top IIMs. She worked consistently when it is about practicing and spend 1-1.5 hours daily, did her mock very religiously. While getting calls from top IIMs, she gave 10 interviews – 6 interviews of top IIMs and rest four interview of MDI Gurgaon, MICA Ahmedabad and other institutes.
CAT Topper Journey to the Prestigious IIM Indore
Shireen Sultana – a CAT topper who converted prestigious institute IIM Indore, although her journey to cracking the top institute is quite interesting where in the starting she was very new to the term “CAT Exam”. All the way she was coming from the Biological Sciences (Science background) and converting to the commerce is a new change to her. During her preparation journey, she was very continuous and spend 1-1.5 hours for practicing concepts, gave mocks rigorously. She attended CAT exam twice where the first attempt resulted for not getting calls from top IIMs but gotten TAPMI Manipal. She was not satisfied with her first attempt and planning to give another one where she got call from all the top IIMs and finally converted IIM Indore. As per the title, she is successfully discovers the entrepreneurship as a journey of a corporate world where IIM Alumni network really works for her. Let’s discuss CAT Topper’s experience to the Personal Interview which might give an interesting way to other aspirants who are planning to give the CAT exam and dreaming of entering in the top IIMs.
CAT Topper’s Experience of Personal Interview
In her words : “Every institute has fairly different approach to their interviews some were stress-kind and some were easy. So it was bit of a group discussions and there were some references to the academics. She said the interview panel was very strict towards the batch quality and hopefully she gave all the answers right and converted IIM Indore as a final result.“
How Did Shireen Finance Her IIM Indore’s Journey?
There was a very common question that most of the CAT aspirants faced – “How do they finance their IIM Admission?”
She answered – “It was heavily subsidized and might difficult to manage when someone is coming from a regular college but luckily education loans were definitely picking up at that point and my father pitched up the collateral. But the campus back then was very helpful for me as the loan process was very flexible there, finally education loan that came to me rescue.“
CAT Topper Perspective: Placement Scenario in Top B-Schools
CAT Topper’s Perspective to the Placement Scenario: She did her summer internship in a Market Research. For placement, she cracked Coats India Ltd, which is really challenging to crack as the management trainee program. She was posted in Hyderabad and then Dharwad there she was standing as a Sales Representative which was challenging for her to understand the thread of levels. According to her, “Women in Sales” is practically unheard of. There were 40 Sales Managers in a team and she was a single women among entire team in an organization
CAT Topper Shireen’s Message to All CAT Aspirants!
Even before you make that choice you should be very clear about a term – “Why You Were Making It?“. Candidates should be fairly clear about why they want to do MBA and self discovery for everyone is a longer process. Because when you are investing a time of 2 year to the MBA, you should be very clear about – “What You Would Be Taking from Here?” which later help you in the corporate world.
One pattern that CAT topper noticed during the recruitment process is that candidates are very rigid towards their decision. The two factor that impressed her there – Candidates think very rigidly about this -“What I want to do?” and “Where I want to go?“. In the early starting of the career you should be very clear about your steps and what does it entail during entire process of working towards your success.
