Tricity students shine in CAT

Amarjot Kaur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 4

More than 15 students from the tricity have secured more than 99 percentile in the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2019, the results of which were declared today.

Around 7,500 persons from the region appeared for CAT this year. The test, the most prominent entrance exam for MBA admission, took place on November 24 last year. While MBA courses have a series of options as far as subjects are concerned, a large number of students are preferring to pursue MBA in Finance.

Himanshu Chopra, 26, who has scored 99.9 per cent and is currently working with the SBI, said, “I will purse MBA (Finance) because I love it. Most people opt for MBA (Finance) because of good pay package. The last package, the highest, in fact, of the IIM-Calcutta went up to Rs 26 lakh a year.”

“This was my second attempt. Even in the last attempt, I scored 99 per cent. I didn’t want to take admission in any of the IIMs here in India. In fact, I am planning to go to the US. Their education system is better,” he added.

Approximately 2.44 lakh candidates registered for CAT-2019. CAT is the gateway for students to get admission in the prestigious IIMs and other top b-schools in the country. Salary packages of graduates from the IIMs usually range between Rs 16 lakh and 25 lakh per annum. It is a test conducted jointly by the IIMs.

Running an NGO called Sparks, Mannat Kaur, who scored 99.61 per cent, said, “Even while running the NGO, I realised that managing finances and growth patterns are keys to successful ventures, especially those that forward a social message. It took me three months to prepare for MBA and I mostly focused on mock tests.”

According to Hirdesh Madan, Director, Bulls Eye, “From the tricity this year, more girls are amongst the toppers in proportion compared to the previous years.” Sahil Singla, who scored 99.88 percentile, said other than subject knowledge, strategy of the exam was also important. Currently, there are 20 IIMs in India and there are more than 12,000 seats on the offer by these IIMs. There are two IIMs in this region — the IIM-Amritsar and the IIM-Sirmaur, which admit students above a cut-off of 96-97 percentile.

In Chandigarh, the top MBA college is University Business School, (UBS), which is a part of Panjab University. The UBS accepts CAT score and likely cut-off is around 90 percentile. Now, different IIMs will call these students for interview. Every IIM uses its own criterion to generate interview calls. This includes students’ performance in Class 10, Class XII, graduation and work experience. The next stage of admissions includes the essay writing and interview. Most of the interviews will be conducted in February and March. The final results will be declared in April by most of the IIMs.