While many take time off, and spend years trying to crack the Common Admission Test (CAT) to get in to their Indian Institutes of Management of choice, Chhavi Gupta from Delhi, not only cracked the exam in her first attempt while holding down a full time job, she was also one of the two female candidates to be placed in the 100th percentile.
While CAT 2017 also had 20 students in the 100 percentile like the previous year, this year saw two women and three non-engineer candidates made it to the list unlike the previous year.
Chhavi, 24, who completed her dual BTech and MTech degree in Biotechnology from IIT Delhi, hopes to get into IIM Ahmedabad or Calcutta. She is aware that not many women make it to her spot but she believes it has more to do with society than calibre.
“If boys are studying, and I have seen this amongst some of my distant relatives, they will not disturb them. But a girl would still be asked to help out with household chores. Two, the priorities for many parents is to get the daughter married off after her graduation and so not many women really attempt the post graduate level entrance exams... Thankfully, I had a family that supported me 100%,” said Chhavi, the oldest of three siblings.
With a full time job as a business analyst in a technology and analytics firm, Chhavi found little to no time to prepare for the entrance exam during the week, and studied mainly on weekends, when she attended coaching classes too. Despite the time crunch, strategising her study schedule, concentrating on logical applications of formulae and practising mock tests is what helped her crack the competitive exams.
Academic excellence is not new for the Paharganj resident. According to her mother, Anju Gupta, she sets a “strict routine” for her children and Chhavi has been participating in competitive exams since her fourth grade and even cracked her IIT-JEE in her first attempt.
Though she claims she was not stressed for the most part, there were times like when she was placed first All India during a mock test conducted by her coaching centre, that she felt the pressure. At such times, she either turned to her favourite author, Jeffery Archer’s books, or turned to her personal support system to cope.
“I talked to my sister, brother, or my mother. My family really helped calm me down,” she said.