* 10 months of full-time work experience (Content Analyst) * 6 months of internship experience (HR) * Around 1 year of online volunteering experience (no certificates for it though)
Extracurriculars:
* Hosted a few events in college * Organized a city event for a well-known poetry platform's first event in my city, which saw 50+ attendees * Have done a few freelance art/design projects like logos and illustrations
I've been preparing for CAT completely on my own without any coaching or mentor. The only platform I'm currently using is Percentyl. I started my prep this week and have covered Speed Math till video 4 so far.
VARC is my strongest section, while LRDI and QA are definitely my weakest areas at the moment.
I wanted to ask:
1. Based on my profile, what overall and sectional percentiles should I target for BLACKI IIMs? 2. Do I have a realistic shot at BLACKI if I score well? 3. Are there any free resources, question banks, YouTube channels, or mock strategies you'd recommend for a self-prepper? 4. Any advice from people who prepared without coaching and managed to convert top B-schools?
Thank you in advance for your time and guidance. I would genuinely appreciate any suggestions or reality checks regarding my chances and preparation strategy.
PS. Thankyou so much Shweta Di for creating Percentyl, it's literally a life saver :)
1 Answer
Sujay Panda · 2026-06-24 · 4 helpful
According to everything you've mentioned- I think you should target for 98 to 99 overall percentile to have high chances of getting BLACKI calls. Since VARC is your strongest section, master it completely and aim for 99.7 or more in VARC. In others around 94-95 would help. You have a realistic shot if you prepare consistently. And for quants- I would recommend MBA pathshala....his videos are impressively good and he does a lot of questions in his sessions. So check his Playlists. Start with Arithmetic then algebra and then number system. After that if you think you can cover geometry and modern math then go for it or else skip it. Rodha sir is very good but his videos are too old and he doesn't do so many questions as Udit Sir from MBA pathshala. Plus Udit sir teaches a lot of shortcuts and easy methods to ace the questions. And I love his teaching style. For LRDI- Follow Rodha and Elites grid. And for VARC- Read one Aeon essay everyday and solve 3 RCs....ace RCs first and then slowly incorporate Verbal ability.