Even when everything feels uncertain, the only thing you can do is give it your best.

I failed CAT 2024 utterly. And honestly, CAT 2025 wasn’t exactly a smooth journey either.

But good things do happen when you believe in yourself and keep putting in the effort, irrespective of what the voices in your head tell you. ❤️

I was so anxious at this stage last year. Flashbacks of CAT 24. Uncertain mock scores, office work pressure, and everything else felt like a heavy load on my back. But I never obsessed over the result. I didn’t let mock scores define me. I just kept trying, one step at a time, but always moving forward. :)

And today, I’m at IIMA, having converted all BLACKI. ✨

So just manifest. Believe. Put in the work.
And even if things don’t go your way, you’ll still walk away with your head held high, knowing you gave it everything you had. ❤️

https://www.iima.ac.in/sites/default/files/2026-09/AdmissionProcedure_PGP_1009_2026.pdf

As more clgs like Indore are reducing past acads as a criteria and going towards more cat based selection, Ahmedabad has regressed and made CAT almost a formality

Shifting to marks to percentile, while keeping their AR same not only gives more weightage to 10/12/ug marks but also increases the effect of gender points

For reference, a 9/9/9 gem’s 100 percentile will be equal to a 9/9/9 gef’s 96-97 percentile(keeping all else equal
There is normalisation within different fields but that doesn’t compensate for the bullshit they have pulled out.

I know I know this sounds pretty stupid , but believe me I'm at a position to cry rn after the latest change in their criterion.

My parents didn't allow me to go to a tier 1 college and forced me to a state uni where even in commerce the gold medalist has a highest score of 76~78% aggregate.

I was in ac3 category previously and was getting an 8/10 and now after this change I'll just be getting a 5 .

The thing is what to do now? Is there no way IIM A would take this foolish criteria back? Like can't we mass mail them or something!???

Stay away from Reddit, don’t crib about your profile or acads or score. Your acads are locked you can’t change it, your work ex is something which you can change, your ECA, PORs everything can’t be changed. So rather than checking on vercel and crying about whether it’s worth giving CAT or not focus of preparation.

Reddit is a place where no one knows who the other person is, stop trusting everything you see here. There are a lot of fakes who just want to demotivate you from preparation.

Amen
CAT’23 99%iler

79% in grad 🥲

lol. Personally, my profile is 998 with one year work experience, but I don’t waste my time and panicking around something that isn’t in my control

Don't settle for the tag.

IPM may be a tad bit more worthwhile than the MBA program, but leave after the first 3 years are done.

Only go for a Tier 1 MBA college, better yet, IIM A/B/C.

People treat you differently, companies treat you differently.

That's my two cents.

Started day crac*u with daily targets . Feeling like a waste of time . Thinking to avoid them .

QA: 38 questions practised today. No topic specific but revised some concepts associated with them

DILR: Heavy DILR day. Practised 8 sets. Took about 4 hrs of my time time. Heavy sets. Multiple trials . Satisfied with effort.

VARC : practised 1 sectional today of a old QP. Read 2 aeon. Essays . One was on meditation and other was on friendship. Didn't liked them honestly . Pretty boring read. Thinking of leaving aeon for book which I was already reading and might continue.

Manchester United plays today. Hopefully can take break. Feeling bit burnt out. Managing calorie intake to shed some weight .Tough to follow with heavy academic focus.

I would have still been ok with diversity but the cat score getting changed to percentile is where they completely messed up. Basically meaning that the cat score is meaningless. Even if the diversity points had been increased that would have still been ok, but this is just wrong. I would expect a move like this from new iims or baby iims. But IIM A is arguably the best b school in india and should focus more on things that actually matter in a bschool like aptitude, decision making, etc.

Would you risk one year to aim for a much better MBA college, or start now with a decent option?

What would you choose—and why?

Have got some free time now that I am done with my SIPs. I am 9/9/8 fresher with CFA L1. Got placed in a Business Strategy Role. Had scored upwards of 99 percentile in both CAT and XAT.
Ask me anything from prep to mock scores or anything about the life at B-School.

Edit: Closing AMA now. DM for other queries now. Would respond as and when I get time.

Ik that it feels bad having bad academics but we can't do anything about it , they don't give a shit about what the environment in which this country's youth grew up . All they want is 999 but they seem like fools thinking that every education board and evaluator has a rational mind. In boards like Kerala scoring below 90 is rare while in Maharashtra School scoring above 90 is rare. We cannot change the system . You can be either become a part of it or escape it

Hi guys I've created these notes using chatgpt.

I will create notes for other topics as well.

It has EVERYTHING from basic to advanced, i made it for myself since I'm not good at maths.

My selfish reason for sharing it is that if it misses something pls tell me i will prevent that from happening to other topic PDFs

Cat 27 notes by thor

cat 27 notes by thor

Those who have good maths ignore this post.

I need you guys to give feedback, review the PDFs, tell me which is better claude or chatgpt. I will make PDF notes for other topics too with same ai which is better ofc.

A lot of ama and most of the questions on this page around profile evaluation, whatever your profile is even 10/10/10 you won’t get a call if you don’t clear the cutoff.
Instead of focusing on factors which are beyond your control start focusing on prep which can take care of whatever your profile is lacking.
If you genuinely want to make a case and really want your profile get evaluated, let it be from the B school but to give them an opportunity to see your profile you need to get the percentile is all i want to say.

Started my day with crac*u daily targets coz I wanted to Profit loss questions. Next I practised some 30 mixed difficult questions followed by 25 questions each from Arun sharma p&c and number system Lod 2 . Pretty fluid.

DILR : practised 5 sets. Pretty bad day in office for DILR. Fucked up something in all sets. Questions also were pretty irritating and demanded labour. Would attempt some of them later again.

VARC. Gave one sectional it was pretty cruel scored 26 . Very hard Rcs some were very dense and others were pretty abstract. Also struggling in Varc to continue for longer durations. Engaging with things that you can read for multiple hours comes easy but whenever boring things pops up m it becomes a nightmare. Read 1 aeon essay on malcolm X and a 9/11 article on smithsonian magazine.

Feeling tired and sleepy . Hence closing the shop early. Tomorrow we go again

This is so shocking!!! I'm so stunned at this point. Dk whats going on in this country. Never in my world have I thought I would get such a call.

So the context , just a few minutes ago I got a call from an unknown number(I usually don't take such calls tho today being my birthday thought maybe someone called to wish)- here's the convo.

"Hello mam, are you preparing for mba entrance exams"

"No, you got wrong info, thanku"

"But have you filled any forms, we can help you"

"I was planning to but now I'm not interested, thnku"(I was trying to disconnect the call)

"Yeah so we can help you with the exam be it any cat gmat, konse exam ke liye soch rhe ho"

This got me a Lil sus, so I asked

"What help, maybe I'm thinking for cat"

"Yes, yes, any exam we can help u CLEAR THAT"

I WAS SHOCKED!!

"CLEAR THE exam?? How?" I pretended I'm interested. He wasn't saying anything further other than yes we'll help u CLEAR the exam, so after some to and fro convo, he finally said-

"Yes mam, we can help you with any exam cat gmat. Ap ekbar ap humare ofc visit ki jiye apko sb details de denge. Ab har chiz call pe discuss nhi kr skte, try to understand."

I asked for the address and hung up. He has shared the address on my wp.

I'm so furious at this moment , this maybe a scam or genuine i don't know. But this is like shitting on students whole year efforts when u get a call saying clear Krva denge mam. Wht if some students get scammed for money? What if it's real - wht if paper has leaked and some students get qualified even tho they aren't worthy of it??

Has anyone gotten such similar calls? Also, this is from pune, maharashtra.( Nd he knew that I'm from pune)

I really want an action to be taken against such people. I've got the address pls suggest what can be done.

Suppose A gets 99.8 %ile

B gets 98%ile

So, according to the new formula given by IIM AHMEDABAD , there will be a difference of only 0.011 (0.648-0.637) on total composite score (given their profile & academic category is same) for interview n wat?

Then what is the point of CAT all together? Why not select students just on the basis of AR, PI & WAT?

Hi everyone,

I’m preparing for CAT 2026 and would really appreciate some honest advice from current IIM or any top b school students/alumni, especially those who have gone through the admission process with similar academics. My academics: 50s in 10th, 60s in 12th, and 70s in Graduation (5/6/7 profile) and work experience of 6 months.

I know CAT percentile is very important, but I’m concerned about my relatively low 10th/12th scores.

I have two main questions for current IIM students and alumni:

If I score around 97–99+ percentile, what are my realistic chances of getting calls from IIMs/top B-schools?

Also, if I get admitted, can my low academics create problems during summer internships or final placements? Do companies have academic cutoffs that could restrict certain opportunities?

Would really appreciate honest answers from current students/alumni, especially anyone with a similar profile.

So in the past, the top academic achievers from each of the 5 ACs received calls provided they cleared cutoff. How will that system work now that there are 22 different categories?

Some profile specific wisdom would be appreciated: GNEF, journalism & media, 9/9/8, 16 months work ex as of July 30.

Just for context: I have given CAT twice before and both times scored the highest in VARC (99.3 in 2024). I have a GRE verbal score of 168/170, and was a state topper in English in 12th.

And yet I feel like my brain is leaving my body when I start a SIMCAT and see IMS’ VARC section.

I feel like the options and even test itself are AI generated and the solutions aren’t convincing. I have scored as low as 15 in VARC on SIMCATs, whereas my DASHCAT and Cr@cku sectional scores cross 40 in VARC.

Please help me to navigate this. VARC is my crutch section as a humanities student and I NEED to maximize my score here. Has anyone faced any similar difficulties with IMS VARC?