The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it" - The quote stands true in case of Common Admission Test (CAT) 2016 taker Himanshu Mittal, who scored a whopping 99.55 percentile in the said exam. This year 20 candidates scored a perfect 100 percentile and more than 1000 students scored above 99.5 percentile, then what makes Himanshu stand apart from the crowd?
Himanshu hails from Faridabad. He has faced many ups and downs before acing CAT this year. His story is unlike others. Himanshu suffered spinal cord injury and hence is a PWD (Persons with Disabilities) candidate. Being a PWD candidate, Himanshu could have managed to get into a premier B-School with just 60-65 percentile, but Himanshu kept pushing his limits and went on to score a 99.55 percentile. Let's have a closer look at the story of his life.
Things went downhill when he was in first year of graduation in 2012. Himanshu fell from his room and met with an accident. He was diagnosed with major spinal cord injury and was admitted in hospital for 3-4 months. This is when his life came to a stop. He had to discontinue his B.Tech due to this accident. After getting back home, Himanshu took admission in a nearby college and started pursuing BCA. He has been a 4 time rank holder of Haryana University. Afterwards, he did internship for 10-11 months with an IT firm and completed his graduation in the year 2015. He then joined his father's business and started preparing for CAT simultaneously. His percentile has already fetched him calls from IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Kolkata and IIM Kozhikode. Source of motivation:
Previous year CAT topper Jaskaran, who scored a 99.35 percentile in CAT'15 and presently pursuing MBA from IIM Bangalore, acted as a source of motivation for him. He believes that if Jaskaran can do it, anyone else can. He accredits his parents for his success saying "they stood by me through all thicks and thins".
Himanshu took Mock test series from Career Launcher which helped him prepare for CAT in the finest way possible. CL's founder member Satya Narayan has been personally mentoring him via The CAT Club. Himanshu could not join any coaching center for CAT preparation. He mentions the reason behind it -"there is hardly any reputed coaching institute located on the ground floor in Faridabad". Now, Himanshu is preparing for stage-II of MBA admissions which is mainly the interview round.
His suggestion to all the differently-abled candidates who are going to appear for any competitive exam in future is to never lose hope. "We are not different from others, our way of doing things is different" says Himanshu. He concluded the interaction by quoting a statement made by the Prime Minister in one of his rallies. In his words "we are not disabled, but we are differently abled". This is the story of CAT 2016 topper Himanshu Mittal who achieved success against all odds.
Team CL is wishing Himanshu and all other CAT aspirants a very best for stage-II of MBA admissions.