How Sayanika got AIR 4 in CA -M’19 | IIM Ahmedabad &IIM Bangalore admits thru 40 days of CAT Prep

Sayanika, daughter of an ISRO scientist , opted for CA and cleared it with aplomb — AIR-19 IN CA IPCC and AIR-4 in CA Final, articleship from Deloitte. Then she decided to prepare for CA T— 40 days it was and she secured admits in IIMA and IIMB. Watch her narrate her strategy in detail

Q1. You were born to Bengali parents but grew up in Ahmedabad. So you are more of a Gujrati than Bengali?

Ans: This was one of the questions asked in my interviews at IIM Lucknow and I had to explain to them that I am almost 70% Gujrati and 30% Bengali and I actually had to give reasons for it.

Q2. How did this daughter of an ISRO scientist, land up in the CA world?

Ans: This was another question which was posed to me in IIMA in the interview itself and I had to explain to them that actually my mother is the odd person out in the family because we have very less engineers and most of the people on my patriarchal side are into commerce. So, when I was in the 10th standard, right after I had written my exams for 10th board, my father told me that he used to research the various career options that seems available and choose one, we can discuss it but you choose one in which you would be happy, so there were no restrictions laid upon me to go into a particular line and because there was more dominance of genes on the patriarchy side, that is why I think commerce was the more fascinating option for me.

Q3. In the CA world, you had all ticks in the box: articleship from Deloitte, AIR-19 in IPCC and AIR-4 in CA final. What is your mantra for success in CA world which led to all of these achievements?

Ans: Basically, I had a very simple thing that I attended all my classes regularly and I followed it throughout IPCC and as much as I could in the finals because I had articleship in the Big Four so sometimes because of time constraints I would not be able to attend the lectures so I made it a point to take the notes regularly and as far as possible just revise the topics which were taught in the classes on a daily basis. If I wasn’t in a position to do that, then I would mark those topics for future references. Also, I used to give all the tests regularly and mainly followed the institutes material which is the modules that the institutes releases and all the mock test papers and the RTTs. Apart from that I gave my exam in the old course, ISCA is one of the subjects which is really dreaded by the students. I actually failed once in my tuition test because I did not take it very seriously and post that I made changes to my schedule and after that I got the highest marks in the second group in ISCA, plus I also got highest marks in India in financial reporting so I had a very planned structure with regards to which book would I refer or how many days would I be covering a subject and how many revisions I wanted to give. I give three revisions before I went for the exams and after giving every test I analyzed where I was falling short of my target. So I always kept a target for each of my exams and I analyzed where was I falling short and what could I do to achieve the highest possible marks in each subject. I knew it isn’t possible but I always tried to keep the highest target possible so that I could achieve it.

Q4. Which teachers did you opt for — local Ahmedabad based teachers or the PAN India ones?

Ans: There is a tuition class named J K Shah Classes, so I preferred that because I continued my entire CA journey, started from CPT from the same lectures so I had the same level of comfort with the teachers so I thought I would continue with that in the finals as well.

Q5. You cleared CA final in August 2019, and post that you started preparing for the CAT after your articleship got over finally, and then in 40 days you cracked the CAT! How did this happen? Was 2019 your first attempt in CAT?

Ans: 2019 was my very first attempt of CAT and basically I had always thought that even if I didn’t perform well, I would at least make it a point to have a good start, have a high percentile so that next time when I go and give it I would be in a position to achieve more. But what happened was I tried to focus my efforts into very limited things so I appeared for the TIME test series in CAT. I had also paid the fees for the lectures but I hardly attended any lecture so I attended the TIME test series, I chose the Arun Sharma book series for all the three sections. Specifically if I go section-wise for VARC I actually did not practice anything because I always had a habit of reading. I knew I would be able to give a shot to all the questions at least and I wouldn’t be leaving out on any question. I just started reading newspapers more thoroughly and in a time-bound manner. For DILR, I had just completed my CA exams so I thought I was little more comfortable with data interpretation so I started focusing on logical reasoning and started covering different types of questions in that. I tried to cover as many questions as possible in logical reasoning. For quant section, the syllabus of quant is basically a revision of what you have done in your 10th and 12th standard with some few additional topics, so I focused more on brushing up the concepts and revising the formula. For quant, I had done LOD1 and LOD2, these two sections from Arun Sharma. On an average I had attempted around 25 free-course mock test for cracking CAT.

Q6. In mock, how was your performance ranging from percentile?

Ans: My lowest percentile was actually 75 percentile and that happened after I appeared for 5–6 mock tests. At that point of time I was really wondering whether I have a good shot at this CAT and my highest had also gone upto 99 percentile. I ranged somewhere around 97 to 99 percentile towards the end.

Q7. Did you have a group or a set of people whom you were in touch during those 40 days or was it like a solo thing?

Ans: It was actually a solo thing. I know a lot of seniors who had cracked CAT so I took tips from them right at the very beginning but there was no person with whom I could discuss if I had doubts in any part or if I wanted more clarity so on that part I did not take any help because I really did not have the time.

Q8. Tell us about the three hours on the final day.

Ans: Basically on the final day I had decided that I would just be revising the quant formula but I did not even end up doing that. I had the afternoon slot so I had some time in the morning but the day prior to the day of CAT, I finished with all the formulas and I wrapped it up. On the morning when I woke up I absolutely did nothing, I was just listening to songs and was chilling out. The difference between CAT and CA exams which I felt was that at least you have some time to recover if your paper goes bad. In CAT there are actually three exams of one hour each so if one of the sections does not go well, you do not have any recovery time to go on to the next section and carry any of these elements in the previous section so in our case the VARC which is the first section, English was very tough. I think a lot of us was flustered just because of that but I made it a point not to carry it forward and give DILR and quant which was comparatively the sections I had focused on during these 40 days. I think the most important part behind me scoring a high percentile was that I did not carry forward the effects of VARC towards the two sections. For DILR I had kept a target of at least six sets but I fell short and I could complete only four sets that was because of the mismanagement in time. For quant also I fell little short of the target I had kept because I attempted the non-MCQ questions when I had the target of attempting the MCQ questions first.

Q9. How does each of the IIMs give weightage?

Ans: It is a composite score which is given, so if I talk about IIMA, they actually bifurcate you into group on the basis of professional degree or the education background that you have. Then inside the buckets you are given composite scores, on the basis of your history; 10th and 12th standard. In IIMA the thing that I noticed was that irrespective of your history, if you are in the top 10 of the CAT or CA, CA, or CMA, or top 10 of the Bachelor’s degree, they will call you. I had really high marks in CA because of AIR-4 and AIR-19 and my education background was also good so I got a call from ANB on the basis of this criteria. I did not get a call from CE, I got a call from LIK and Udaipur and Shillong. I only applied to 8 IIMs and I got a call from 7 out of those 8.

Q10. After the CAT, you joined Deloitte full time. Is it?

Ans: Right; I had an offer and because of these things I told them I will join them later on so my CAT ended on 24th November and on 25th November I joined Deloitte as a full-time employee.

Q11. Did you take proper classes for the PI part or the VAT part which is the writing aptitude test and all?

Ans: I had very limited experience in interviews like the ones which I appeared for in articleship or so, so that is why I thought it would be better if I go and interact with the peer group because then I would be able to know how other people are performing and how I need to perform or should I be able to perform better so for that I joined the TIME GDPI series and I had a few mocks so I had around 5–6 mock interviews. I appeared for just one mock AWT, so I prepared very little about the interview preparation part which was like about knowing about yourself, your own work experience or your stay. The preparation on my part was limited but I focused more on the practical orientation in terms of appearing for mocks.

Q12. Did you read the pink papers even during your CA days?

Ans: I had to brush up on my current affairs because during CA I had reduced watching news to large extent and post CA I resumed it but I had missed out on that period so I had to put in a little more effort in terms of current affairs and knowing about the state and the culture where I belong to, so I went into a lot of depth for those things.

Q13. Take us through your interviews in IIMA and IIMB journey.

Ans: Basically in IIMA, because I had the experience of just writing the CA exams, I finished my AWT in almost half of the time and that was noticed by my interviewers. So in IIMA I had a lot of different topic — I was asked about who invented roshogolla, because I said I liked watching Masterchef and I am a Bengali. I was also asked about the application of accounting concepts in economics, the practical application of economics concept about the budget. I was asked about the history of Ahmedabad, then the culture that Gujratis follow. I was asked the question about why did I take up commerce when my mother was a scientist. Then I was also asked about my AWT topic. So, it was around a 25 minute interview. My AWT topic was on the Statue of Unity, there were two people discussing about what were the benefits and what could have been done otherwise with the resources which were invested in the statue of unity, so we had to take a stand on who is right and present our views. My Bangalore interview was pretty short, it was around 10 minutes and it revolved more about what I had done in the practical experience, about my hobbies, my extra-curriculars and it was also about the generics of the CA curriculum. So basically if I could practice abroad, if I was a CA, the MOUs which the institute had entered into, all those things. IIM Indore I had it in two parts, so by the time we had our Indore and Lucknow interviews it was already an online session because of COVID-19. In the Indore interviews I was asked about accounts and costing, so there were many concepts of accounting and costing which we discussed, and then I was actually asked about literature, about Spanish flu. The first half was very much into my domain but the second half is something which I had never heard of. I was actually asked what are the romantic languages and I knew nothing about it. I actually thought for a moment that it is Bengali because I am a Bengali so may be the interview asked me because of that but I didn’t take a wild guess at it. My IIM Lucknow interview was very short and I was basically asked about how much Gujrati or Bengali I am, about the state I belong to and it was very generic. They asked me a few things about my work experience and what I do and where I am working currently and that was it.

Q14. You recently got an admit from both IIMA and IIMB. What are you opting for?

Ans: Since I was in the 11th standard and since I live in Vastrapur, I always told my father to take the IIM road and whenever I used to be glued to the window of my car so that I could catch a glimpse of the parking lot in IIMA and see if I could see any student around or something of that sort. I always used to imagine how would it be if I joined there, so I think IIMA is the more lucrative option for me and I have always been fascinated by the red bricks, so I think I would go with IIMA.

Q15. What are your future plans after IIM? Do you want to be a management consultant, an investment banker, or do you want to take it as it comes?

Ans: Actually I am still researching the options, so I don’t want to take any decision in haste and I am still looking at what are the various options available to a CA and an MBA grad. I am more inclined towards management consulting and either IB or PE so let’s see how it turns out.

Q16. What is your fitness mantra?

Ans: I try and keep one hour or 45 minutes daily where I take a walk and listen to music so it is that time when I really want nobody disturbing me and we have a big society so I usually work around the society only. I am not a gym freak so I have never attended the gym. I also do dance fitness regime, I just started it during the lockdown, so I think those are the things which I would like to continue if I get the opportunity in PGP1 and PGP2.

Q17. What would be your words of advice to viewers of this channel?

Ans: I have a lot of CA friends who went into IIMs post to work experience or even as freshers so I did not see a lot of difference because as a CA, we have already got the practical exposure because we have to go through articleship training and I did it from a Big Four so I already know how the corporate works to a large extent, plus the fact that if I had gained work experience for around 1–2 years before going into IIMs, I would just have slightly more responsibility because in the Big Fours we are taught to be responsible for our deliverables. So according to me I thought it was better that I go into an MBA right now and not delay the decision because I wanted to get an exposure to what are the different ways of thinking, what are the different perspective which makes the business successful so I really wanted to understand that and that is why I think I went with the option right now but for the newer generation CAs I think they should make a SWOT analysis on the basis of their experience till now and whether they feel that it would be more relevant if they join after a little work experience, so I think it is a very personal decision which each student should analyze.

From what I have talked with my seniors, almost everyone of them who scored 99+ percentile had studied for around 6 months and appeared for around 25–30 mock tests. I appeared for almost the same number of mock tests but in a very short period of time which might not be very recommendable. I think 6 months should be fair enough and if you say, you are leaving your job, there would be a lot of people who do that, who resign the job before appearing for the CAT so I think in that case 3–4 months is more than enough.

Q18. What are your general tips on life?

Ans: There is this mantra which I follow and my father had taught me, it is ‘incase you are facing any adverse situation at any point of time, use the zyada se zyada approach’. It is “zyada se zyada kya kharab hone wala hai”. If you estimate that, you would be on a better off position because you know you are going to lose this, you won’t have the same level of stress that you used to have. This is exactly what happened in my VARC also like I told you, it was very shocking for me. Then I thought in the exam hall that zyada se zyada you will have to appear for CAT the next time as well so its okay, just let it be. I think that is the thing which I want to follow throughout my life.