Make the sacrifice, it is worth it.

Make the sacrifice, it is worth it. When I took CAT'23 in my final year of UG, I had a clear plan. Work for a few years, then go for an MBA. I took CAT because everyone in my college was taking it (being a commerce college). Result day I was surprised to see a 98.5+ %ile. That changed everything. I had a 9/9/8 profile, and like the naive kid I was, I assumed I was getting a shot at IIMA. Turns out I didn't get a single BLACKI call. I had filled only BLACKI & UTR when filling the form as I had no interest in anything less (even though it was a non-serious attempt). I had filled IIFT after the raw score was out and BITSoM. BITSoM was good but I was rejected. CAP was a blunder, I knew it while it was happening. IIFT was average but didn't even get Kolkata, got a WL mail in july. But by June I was already prepping for a reattempt. I was sure I would get 99.5+ , all I had to do was maintain my strong sections and improve my weaker ones. Seems easy right ? I was overconfident. I was counting the chicken before the eggs hatched. I did put in a lot of time and work but I made the mistake of spending time watching lectures instead of practising and solving. Although in hindsight I am aware of this mistake, I did do a lot things correctly. I sacrificed festivals, parties, going out with friends and even dating. I turned down one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen in my life, because I was focused on CAT. My mother has been very vocal about how much she saw me study : she said a lot of times that she has never seen me study so much. And I feel good that this effort didn't go unnoticed. Though come exam day, I was stumped. The VARC made no sense to me, it was my strongest section. DILR and QA were "easy" meaning speed based, unlike difficulty based as our coaching had conditioned us to expect. I under-attempted and got 96.9%ile this time. Day after CAT results, I had my SNAP and somehow got 99.02%ile in that. XAT was a similar story to CAT. Missed QA sectional by a lot. Come January, I had my SCMHRD & SIBMP interviews. Converted SCMHRD, SIBM-P WL 800+. Dropped SCMHRD. Feb to April, I had these interviews : IIM Amritsar IIM Raipur IIM CAP IIFT MICA MDI Now here's how I flipped the script. I decided to give it my all. I decided to forget my test scores and convert all colleges, even if I don't wanna join, I wanted to see how many of these I could convert. I studied up, read the news, my UG books, notes, Tariffs, Deepseek you name it, I read it. Progressively, I was more and more prepared for the next interview. And I was happy with this incremental progress. (Although MICA was a blunder because I have no interest in marketing. It was pretty hard to go through). After IIFT, MDI was 3 weeks away. I mostly tried to revise what I had already studied. A week before MDI, I felt a little out of touch, so revised everything from scratch. MDI oh MDI : One of the best interview experiences I had. WAT-GD topic was the stifling of collaboration due to hybrid work. WAT : Finished first. GD : I was a decent participant. I spoke and expressed my points without infringing on other's turns. PI : P1 asked mostly out of syllabus questions , what is personality, test of personality, your type according to one such test. P2 asked eco, M1 to M4, impact of tariffs. In the end P1 and I had a little banter about my tie and pushups. It ended with all of us laughing. I walked out smiling. I saw people sitting in the lobby were confused by my smile. Yet, I didn't have much hope. But one day I saw an email, MDI Gurgaon, result status. I opened it quickly, expecting a reject or triple digit WL. It was <20 ! I had also converted BA. A few weeks later, I had converted core. Now what are my most important learnings ? Make the sacrifice. Be focused, don't lose sight of the target or you will regret it for the rest of your life. I could have done better, but I chose to accept MDI because for a better college, I would need to hustle at a 5-6 lpa job for 2 years min, take CAT again and again, go through the unpredictable PI process. Who knows what the criteria will be next year, what the job market will be like. I converted SCMHRD, IIM Amritsar BA and MDI Gurgaon, IIM Ranchi HR, IIM Bodh Gaya, IIM Raipur. Inarguably a no brainer choice. That is life, 98.5 with no effort vs 96.9 with so much effort. I feel I deserve the admit with the latter, more than the former. In the end, we end up where we're meant to. But the hardwork you put in, that's what differentiates you from your past. Now, I'm off to MDI Gurgaon, with a hopeful heart and the drive to work hard for my place there.