Right from the beginning, the IMT Ghaziabad alumnus and CAT topper with 94.8 percentile Manu Jain had the vision of becoming an entrepreneur after doing his MBA whether from an IIM or some other top B-school. He learned many lessons during his preparation journey and one of them was that low percentile in mock woke him up fully from slumber. This drove him to IMT Ghaziabad instead of focusing only on IIMs.
Manu is the co-founder of passkarado.com and a freelance consultant formulating "Customer Retention Strategies" for the Clubs and Casinos of Australia. He is the senior advisor Bulls Eye services Australia.
Manu is a B.Tech from NIT Jaipur and has worked extensively with Mu Sigma- a marketing leader in field of analytics. During his preparation journey for CAT he got very much aware that he wanted to go for Entrepreneurship after completing his MBA. According to him "If you know what you want to do, no matter which college you join, you will figure out a way." Manu has passed out of IMT Ghaziabad in 2016 and is keen to share his CAT preparation experience with CAT 2016 aspirants.
For the benefit of CAT 2016 aspirants, MBAUniverse.com has brought a round of CAT toppers’ success stories alongwith their success mantra that led them to crack CAT with high percentile. In the series we present the success story and CAT 2016 preparation tips shared by Manu Jain, alumnus of IMT Ghaziabad and CAT topper.
MBAUniverse.com: What was your preparation strategy for CAT?
Manu Jain: I started preparing in my final year of graduation. I cleared CAT 2014 with 94.8 percentile.
In the first phase of preparation, I devoted more time to reading only. Then I began devoting 1-2 hours of study on weekdays and 5 hrs of serious study over weekends. I used to visit MBAUniverse.com for its thought provoking articles.
Other important things that I included in my preparation strategy were a daily dose of Sudoku, The Hindu’s editorial page and Testfunda’s wordlist.
I used to attempt 3 Mock CATs every week and did Strength & Weakness analysis for my mock CATs. I used the analysis to devise a useful strategy- 60% time on strength and 40% on weakness
MBAUniverse.com: How did you prepare for each section QA, VARC & DILR? What study materials and books did you use?
Manu Jain: For Verbal I practiced daily atleast 50 questions as it ate my mind. For Quant I liked CAT by Sarvesh K Verma. The book turned out to be a good friend that took me through all such possible questions that could trouble me in the CAT exam.
For DILR I depended on various online and offline material as it required more practice. Besides I joined AIMCAT series to help me get a feel of CAT.
MBAUniverse.com: How can candidates use Mock tests better? What is your advice?
Manu Jain: One night a 22.1 percentile from a mock CAT hit my senses hard and woke me up from my much prolonged CAT fantasies and this did change to real 94.8 changing everything since then. This is how Mock helped me.
MBAUniverse.com: Preparation for CAT is considered quite stressful. How did you overcome this?
Manu Jain: I practised well to calm myself down during such stressful situations upon which I feel CAT was nearing and so was my end. I believed in CAT as an extension to my experiences in the journey of life and dealt with it with a positive approach.
MBAUniverse.com: Which institutes did you apply for admission?
Manu Jain: I applied to many colleges including IIMs, TAPMI and IMT Ghaziabad.
MBAUniverse.com: Which B-school you decided upon and why?
Manu Jain: I could not convert the call from the IIMs and I decided upon IMT Ghaziabad. To be precise there were 5 reasons to join IMT for me and these are the same reasons told by me during my IMT interview.
-- IMT Ghaziabad is known as Mecca to study Management in Marketing
-- It has a proper incubation space
-- Famous personalities like Prasoon Joshi, Sachin Pilot, Vineet Durani and Dev Amritesh are the breed of IMT
-- Founders of famous startups like Buddy4Study and Mast Kalandaar are from IMT
-- It is in North India
MBAUniverse.com: Any message you would like to share with the candidates preparing for CAT 2016.
Manu Jain: We go on delaying our CAT preparation in the vain hope and assurances that we can crack CAT with one or two months of preparation. Believe it or not I wasted 9 months relying on such assurances until the transition phase opened my eyes. So, the target is all set and so is the bait! Tighten your seat belts to experience the most thrilling journey of your life – THE CAT’16
CAT might have occupied 90% of your time as of now but after some time it would be MBA Admissions and lately dealing with your stressful schedule in MBA colleges. Believe me it is your efforts and positive approach that make you climb the highest ladder of success.
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Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more success mantra stories and CAT 2016 preparation tips from toppers
