97 & 98 percentile in CAT, only IIM Kashipur in hand — do I take it or rebuild my profile and try again? My mind is fried overthinking this😭😭
I genuinely don’t know whether I’m being ambitious right now or just stupid, and it’s honestly messing with my head.
I scored 97 percentile in CAT first and then 98 percentile the next year, but because of my profile (77/77/70, BBA fresher, almost no internships/work ex), I could convert only IIM Kashipur this year.
Now literally everyone around me is telling me to take it immediately because “an IIM is an IIM,” and part of me also feels scared to let go of a confirmed admit in this market.
But another part of me keeps thinking — if you had told me during my CAT prep journey that after all this effort and 2 years of preparation, the end result would be IIM Kashipur, I would’ve probably been disappointed.
The thing haunting me the most is that I came surprisingly close to converting better colleges despite having almost zero profile depth. For example, I was waitlisted around 370 in MDI HR even after getting 0 marks for work ex and a very poor interview score. That made me feel like maybe my actual problem isn’t aptitude, but the fact that I went into this process as an underdeveloped profile.
And now I’m stuck between two thoughts:
- Take IIM Kashipur, start early, take the loan, work hard there and move on with life
OR
- Accept that my profile simply wasn’t ready yet, spend the next 2–3 years building work ex, maturity, certifications/profile, maybe even GMAT/CFA later, and try again from a stronger position
What scares me about Kashipur is not the college itself. It’s the thought of taking a huge loan in a difficult placement market while competing against people with much stronger profiles, and then ending up in an average role despite all the effort.
At the same time, what scares me about rejecting it is the uncertainty. What if I never get a better opportunity again? What if I’m overestimating myself because of back-to-back 97/98 percentiles? Also being a bba fresher doesn't guarantee a job right now.
I know Reddit can sometimes be brutally honest, and honestly that’s exactly what I want right now.