When results of the Common Admission Test (CAT) – the gateway to IIMs and top management institutes in the country – were announced on Saturday, the Harinarayanan family was overjoyed. Ashwin H., a 22-year-old engineer from Bengaluru, had secured a perfect score in his second attempt at the competitive exam.
Speaking to The Hindu , Mr. Ashwin, who is employed in a private IT firm, said he is yet to come to terms with his success. “The 100 percentile is the result of two years of hard work,” he said.
Since the results were declared, his parents R.M. Harinarayanan, an entrepreneur, and V.S. Sreedevi, a homemaker, have been distributing sweets to neighbours and visitors.
The electronics and communications engineer graduated from PESIT last year and joined a private IT firm. “I wrote the CAT last year as well, and secured 99.36 percentile.”
However, he wasn’t happy with the score even though he got calls from IIM Kozhikode and Faculty of Management Studies-University of Delhi. He felt he could do better. “So, I decided to give CAT another shot,” he said.
After familiarising himself with the different sections and subjects, he spent most of his time solving mock papers and analysing the results. “After writing the CAT this year, I analysed the results based on the answer key. I was expecting 99.9 percentile; but securing 100 percentile is just fantastic,” he said.
“I hope to join one of the top IIMs – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Kozhikode, Lucknow or FMS-Delhi. But I would definitely prefer IIM-Bangalore, as I will be closer to home,” he said.
