This iQuanta student has turned consistency into a successful result through multiple converts. On paper everything looked fine, he worked in a reputed company JSW Steel, having a stable job and overall everything looked sorted. But after a year something felt missing to Somesh which made him motivated towards starting the CAT preparation. Converting B-schools like MDI Gurgaon, IIM Vizag, IIM Sambalpur, IIT Kanpur and SCMHRD is not an easy task because this requires consistency, determination and structure plan for the preparation. This blog covers the detailed journey of a CAT Topper Somesh about how he cracked such a competitive examination and made it for several top B-schools in the country. So let’s discuss in a detailed manner.
Join iQuanta’s diversified student community for free and prepare with other 4.1L+ peers. Get access to 24*7 doubt-solving, mentorship, free webinars, etc., all at one single platform.
Somesh’s Academic Background & CAT Percentile
He started strong with 94% in his 10th standard boards, but his 12th standard score came down to 78% which is a dip that sits in the back of your mind for longer than you expect it to. A lot of students never really shake off that feeling of having underperformed at a stage that felt so important at the time. But Somesh refused to carry that weight into everything that followed. He went into mechanical engineering and by the time he finished his degree he had built his CGPA up to 8.99 which is the kind of number that doesn’t happen without a lot of quiet, consistent effort over four years.
After graduation he joined JSW Steel where he worked for 21 months gaining hands-on experience in one of the country’s most demanding industrial environments. The job was real, the learning was real, but after a year something inside him started pushing back. The work was not giving him the kind of growth he was looking for and the idea of an MBA started taking up more and more space in his head.
He appeared for CAT 2024 after preparing alongside his demanding job and scored 74 percentile. Then after quitting his job and preparing with full focus through iQuanta he appeared for CAT 2025 and scored 98.66 percentile overall with 99.65 in VARC, 97.99 in DILR and 84.9 in Quant. He received calls and converts from MDI Gurgaon for International Business, IIM Vizag, IIM Sambalpur, IIT Kanpur MBA and SCMHRD through SNAP.
(Here are few glimpses from his work location)
What Made Him Motivate Towards CAT Exam Preparation?
The real motivation was two things sitting side by side. One was the desire to give his family a better life and the other was the very personal need to find out what he was actually capable of. The job at JSW Steel was good but it was not the ceiling he wanted to live under. He wanted to learn more, think bigger and build a foundation for a future that felt like it was truly his own.
When CAT 2024 gave him 74 percentile after months of preparation squeezed between 12 to 13 hour work shifts, travel, cooking, cleaning and managing everything alone while living away from home, it genuinely hurt. But the disappointment did something useful. It made him honest with himself about the fact that preparing on the side while juggling a demanding job was not going to be enough. He needed to go all in and in June 2025 that is exactly what he did. He quit his job, took the financial risk that came with that decision and gave CAT everything he had. For someone from his background that took a kind of courage that doesn’t get talked about enough.
How iQuanta Helped Somesh in His CAT Preparation?
When Somesh joined iQuanta after quitting his job the first thing that genuinely stood out to him was the quality of the mock tests. That might sound like a small thing but for someone who had already been through one CAT cycle it was actually everything. He had used other platforms before and the experience was inconsistent.
iQuanta’s mocks felt like they were built for the real exam. The questions were relevant, the difficulty was calibrated and most importantly the solutions were thorough in a way that actually helped him learn. Every mock came with detailed text and video explanations that didn’t just tell him what the right answer was but helped him understand exactly where his thinking had gone wrong and how to correct it. After every single mock he came out with a clearer picture of himself as a test taker than he had going in.
