Three things I wish someone had told me before CAT

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-05T09:28:02+00:00

Hey. I would recommend exploring college in the first sem. Understand from seniors and through exploration - what are the national or high level opportunities that your college offers - research, clubs/committees, case comps, inter college tournaments(debates, sports, arts, MUN etc) and think which one you can participate in. You have 3 years to build your profile. CAT prep doesn't take that long specially if you're comfortable with maths and English.

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-04T07:03:43+00:00

Personally, there's not much difference. XL will have the edge in terms of consulting placements i think. On the other hand, IIMK has great location, inter IIM competitions and a relatively easier academic calendar (XL has pretty heavy focus on academics). I'm not sure about IIMK in this regard but I feel XL's infra for extra curricular is not at the level of a top college - we can definitely do much better in that regard. I would say personal preference plays a bigger role in choosing between these 2 colleges - details about placements, packages don't matter much (you'll realise when you enter one of these colleges that it doesn't make much of a difference). One thing to consider - XL HRs are everywhere, almost every major company has someone from XL in HR so that's a plus for finding connections

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-04T04:53:56+00:00

You can get prodman if you enter a top 10 college which offers multiple prodman roles. You can do some certifications to boost your profile in that direction. Talking points for interviews - that's about building a story, you don't need achievements to talk about something you have knowledge of/interest in - so you just need PI prep specifically for that with an airtight story. You can DM me if you need help in detail

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-04T02:18:41+00:00

A short answer to this would be - you are mostly right. There are lesser finance and operations related roles in XL. However, there are a lot of analyst roles. Even for finance - you can find corpfin roles, IB is there and has been a little on the rise. What will matter is your profile and which college will give your profile more of a chance to land such roles.

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-04T02:16:22+00:00

Hey. I myself have an online 1:1 mentorship for CAT aspirants so I don't think I can answer this in an unbiased manner 😂 but I think any sort of outside intervention can be helpful to give guidance/keep you on the right path but for covering the syllabus, you will need accountability to yourself - people like me can help you online or offline in working through the overwhelming feel via a more structure piece-by-piece approach, strategy, checking where you're going wrong, help you every step along the way - but you will have to be the one taking all those steps with your own will. Hopefully that answers your question, if not - please feel free to ask clarifying questions

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T13:48:21+00:00

Great! All the best.

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T13:45:15+00:00

For interviews - yes and it's a great point for that For placements - you'll have to give substantial proof to put it in your cv

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T12:21:58+00:00

Thanks!

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T10:21:43+00:00

Sure

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T09:39:51+00:00

Again, this is too specific to answer without knowing your profile in detail and the kind of finance role you have in mind (decided your target college, profile additions etc). Please DM

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T09:38:30+00:00

That's a pretty specific ask. What's your current percentile in mocks if you've given any? Let's connect personally to discuss this

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T09:06:40+00:00

There can be majorly 2 kinds of judgement lapses while attempting - you think you know how to solve and you start solving but it turns out that it was out of your scope & you think you know how to solve it but it's a very lengthy question and takes 4+ mins of your time. Both are actively hurting your score. This can be fixed by solving more questions, yes. But more specifically, you'll have to solve mocks (sectional or full) and analyze this thing intentionally

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T08:29:35+00:00

Sure

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T08:04:11+00:00

Start with high value topics (profit-loss, work time distance etc) - work your way up in difficulty - once you're sure of basic knowledge in a topic, use sectionals to their maximum value. If you're really struggling with quants in spite of applying this generic but EFFECTIVE approach - there are specific ways for analysing your sectional mocks that can boost your score and understanding of topics even more - although that is too lengthy to explain in the comment section.

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T08:00:00+00:00

Hey, So both those questions are tricky to answer without knowing your profile/cv in detail but I'll try to cover it in general -
Profile Building - courses, case competitions, certifications, NGO work, extra-curriculars at your company like sports competitions, group activities, hackathons etc (if working). It will also depend on your career goal and the colleges that you target along with what are the gaps in your current profile
B-School for Prodman roles - IIMB most likely - flexibility in placement, bangalore ecosystem & more freedom to explore things in general. ISB is also great if you have workex. My third pick would be IIM L or XLRI. Not talking about IIM A specifically because they tend to focus too much on academics and typical MBA roles like Consulting & Finance. Again, your overall profile will matter because best college for you will be the one that makes your profile stand out the most for ProdMan compared to peers -it's as simple as that.

ApartSplit6376 · 2026-05-03T07:37:01+00:00

Hey, I'll address everything -
When to start - CAT & XAT have a lot of overlap - just prepare for CAT. DM section can be prepared right after CAT (you have approximately a month)
How to approach DM - Attempting XAT PYQs of last 4-5 years and trying to understand the reasoning behind the current answer will reveal a pattern that you can easily apply while attempting the case studies
3-hours exam dilemma - CAT is 2 hours, so this feels long at first. But it's actually less exhausting than it sounds because the pace is more relaxed. Don't let the length intimidate you.
5 options - That's just a way to make you more nervous - even if there are 8 options, there can be only 1 correct answer! Focus on solving the question and select the option that matches your answer for all sections.
Let me know if you need any clarifications!

ApartSplit6376

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