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The CAT is one of the toughest exams, and it can be stressful, especially when life continues to throw challenges at you. Many applicants have to balance work-life, family, and other responsibilities while studying. However, the key to success is not having the ideal plan, rather, it is about keeping yourself focused, making the most of your time, and never giving up. Cracking the CAT is a dream for many aspiring professional. But for Harkiran, it was more than just an exam—it was a test of self-belief, preservance, and the courage to dream big. Harkiran a CAT 99.41 percentiler who converted IIM A and other IIMs too, is a distinguished Law graduate and a certified Company Secretary (CS). In a conversation with iQuanta, Harkiran revealed a simple strategy that no one could see coming. This topper story is also important for first-time test takers who can boost their scores and confidence for the exam if they understand the strategy. Check Harkiran’s determined and inspirational journey.
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Here’s the interview of Harkiran Chawla who has shared her journey to cracking CAT and converting IIM Ahmedabad despite being a Law graduate.
Ques. Congratulations Harkiran or converting IIM Ahemdabad and scoring 99.41 percentile in CAT, please tell us about your profile, your sectional percentile, and the B-schools you have converted?
HARKIRAN: I am a Company Secretary (CS) by profession and a Law graduate. It was my first attempt for CAT and I scored 99.41 percentile. My sections are: VARC—99.9, LRDI—89.5, QA—95.7. I was able to get a call from all the B-schools that I applied for and I was fortunate enough to convert quite few of them. With my CAT score and diverse academic background, I received calls from, IIM Ahemdabad, IIM Lucknow, IIM Kozhikode, IIM Indore, FMS Delhi, MDI Gurgaon, and all CAP calls. I am waitlisted for IIM Calcutta.
Ques. Why did you switch your careers from Law to Management?
HARKIRAN: So, basically CS and Law are corporate law background and they are said to be sister fields because they compliment each other so that was always the plan to pursue them jointly. The MBA came into the picture because the role of the Company Secretary is focused on compliance requirements of the company and I was more interested towards how business strategies works, how decisions are taken in a business including compliances and for that, my belief for pursuing MBA came into picture.
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Ques. What hurdles did you face while preparing for CAT?
HARKIRAN: Firstly, Maths was the biggest hurdle that I faced, it’s the most obvious one. As I was not in touch with maths after 10th, I had to start the preparations from NCERT books. Secondly, most of my education has been quite theoretical subjects, so practicing and studying practical subjects, attempting multiple questions, that was a bit of a change which was also a hurdle during my CAT preparations. And, the major hurdle I faced was with Quant with respect to Algebra. I was good in Airthmetic, I was pretty decent in Geometry but in Algebra as long as, I was doing basic questions I was good but the moment I switched to more advanced ones, I was finding it very hard so that were the hurdles which i faced.
Ques. How important is Arithmetic in CAT?
HARKIRAN: Just Arithmetic might not you are really tempting fate at that point of time because you don’t know the what would be the pattern on exam day. I was fortunate because on my exam day the slot I got, around 50% of the Quant section was Arithmetic and questions that I was pretty confident so I was able to ace it. If that had not been the case, I would have deep trouble. So I want to give this advice to everyone that if one section is weak, work really really hard on other sections as well. You have to aim for 95 to 100 accuracy.
Ques. What resources did you use while preparing for CAT?
HARKIRAN: I started with brushing up the NCERT books from 6th standard till 11th standard. Apart from that I was registered with iQuanta’s ABC batch which was a great resource for me as there were many questions which I practiced alot. I did purchase some books also but I ended up not using them much.
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Ques. What is iQuanta’s IIM ABC Batch about?
HARKIRAN: iQuanta ABC batch was basically a place where students was provided with whole repository of questions for all the three sections and I believe there were roughly seven thousand questions in all, and I think for all the three sections that was more than sufficient. There was sufficient practice for all levels of difficulty which was quite helpful. Apart from that, I took mocks as well.
Ques. How do you come to know about iQunata and when did you join?
HARKIRAN: I was not looking out for outside coaching, I want to have some good online coaching and while researching about the same, I got to know about iQuanta from Quora and after knowing about the iQuanta’s online classes I liked it and this is how things happened. I was the part of first batch as I joined in January 2022 but my serious CAT preparations started from June 2022 because I had just gotten down with my LLB exams in June itself. So if anyone wondering if they can prepare for CAT in 4 to 5 months or not; it is possible but you really have to put so much of efforts to achieve your goals.
Ques. How much time did you put in NCERT?
HARKIRAN: Maybe a couple of hours a day, I used to go through NCERT books side by side. While doing number system I finished all the number system topics, when doing geometry likewise I did and that’s how it went.
Ques. How did you keep yourself fit physically and mentally while preparing for CAT?
HARKIRAN: I have always been an early riser, I woke up by 6:30 a.m everyday and I would try to go for a walk because I believe when you sit at home and study, you end up missing sunlight and that can really mess up your head that’s why I made sure to go for a morning walk as well as evening walk. After coming home from a walk, I take the recorded sessions classes because this is when I felt most productive and after that I end up practicing most of the day. After my evening walk, I teach English to high school students. At night I would practice maths because I think that’s the best time to practice it. So this was my homely kind of time-table.
Ques. How was your performance in the CAT mock tests?
HARKIRAN: Initially it was terrible, might be the pressure got to me in my head and suddenly my first mock crashed but after that things calm down and turned out well. I did not attempted a lot of mocks, maybe around 20 mocks not more than that because I was more focused on practicing sectional question and also practicing individual questions by setting the time to myself.
Ques. What are the 3 most important things that a CAT aspirant should take care of?
HARKIRAN: First thing that every aspirant should keep in mind, is that don’t be overconfident in any section, it will land you on your backside. If you are overconfident, even if you are good at it, make sure you practice. Secondly, do not leave the interview preparation till the time you get the results. Keep your thinking positive, assume that you will clear the exam, and you will sit for the interview. Side by side, start preparing for the interviews, brush up yourself with current affairs, your graduation subjects most importantly. Thirdly, if you end up sitting up the interviews, don’t read anything or everything relating to current affairs because you can’t possible remember everything under the Sun. Based on your profile you will be asked questions as I was asked about Indian Business industry and questions related to law. So keep yourself focused to what is relevant to your profile.
Ques. What questions were asked to you in the PI round?
HARKIRAN: While practicing for the interviews, I was brushing upthe current affairs like Union Budget, the Adani controversy and mony more but no questions were asked on it. My questions were mostly related to the National Company Law Tribunal or any insolvency cases that were going on at present or relating to shares and listing and all these technical questions happening in the global scenario. In short, my questions were related to my profile only.
Ques. What were the setbacks/hurdles you faced in the initial interviews?
HARKIRAN: I am a kind of person who don’t have fear of public speaking , so I thought I’ll be able to handle any kind of situation during interview but sometimes interview progress in a way that you’re unable to handle the conversation which was going on at that moment. So, interviews taught me how to keep calm like even if the interview is not according to how I predicted it to be, I had to remember that it is a conversation not an interrogation. I won’t name the college but during one interview just to shake me a little bit I was called jobless where being calm and composed I ended up converting them by explaining the whole scenario. Hence, it is happens that sometimes the environment becomes very intense, you just have to remain calm.
Ques. What’s your feedback for iQuanta?
HARKIRAN: I obviously had great fun studying with iQuanta as I was already looking out for something that was paged according to my study requirements. I believe iQuanta is great, I mean really good if you don’t want spoon feeding. I was also a part of GDPI course and that was also a great experience. I got to know what others got to the table, what competition i had, what future classmates I could possible get. So that exposure of sitting at home and studying setup was really help me out which introduced me to my potential classmates. Infact there are many to whom I’ll be meeting in the class now.
Nothing is hard ! Harkiran’s journey from the world of law and corporate governance to the top percentile in CAT is not just about the exam success—it’s about rewriting narratives. It’s a reminder that courage to change, discipline to prepare, and faith in oneself can open any door.
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