“A Penny Saved is a Penny Earned – quote by Benjamin Franklin has a myriad of meanings. With this quote as a tool lets try to find a relation between the ‘CAT-preparers’ and the platinum standard MBA dreams which are already over-hyped.
Almost every one of the students preparing for admission in an MBA college dreams of cracking CAT exam with the formidable percentile of 99.xx or 100.xx (x will take only 0 as a value in case 100 percentile ) and then finally joining one of the elite colleges.
Now then, what changes so dramatically in transition that, year after year more than 2 lakh applicants are competing to get admission in these colleges. Reasons like better job profile, business acumen and hefty salary instantly cross our minds.The genera belief is that top 20-30 colleges offer all of these. So if you are in top 10-15 then even in a worst case scenario the best jobs will be churned and offered to you at the end of MBA program.
Better profile and business acumen are surely good and valid reasons beyond doubt. It is the hefty salary which stirs a lot of commotion in the play-field of CAT exam every year (placement reports of many colleges with brazenly inflated salary records). These records have been challenged at PaGaLGuy and other reputed communities but no college ever comes out to testify against the challenge.
Money was never meant to bring felicity or success, in fact it was devised as a common medium for exchange of goods or services. Any job pays according to the responsibilities involved, and as the profile offered are better then the work associated to them is certainly heavier (bete-noire of an employee).
One can try connecting to past MBA students and comprehend whether post-MBA job is what one wishes to do for rest of one’s life. Lest the job should reveal itself as not so dramatically good then one will surely try to rollback to previous years as a non-MBA (but then MBA degree is done and dusted and investment is too big). After all, the story of a ‘CAT-preparer’ shouldn’t end up as a dog chasing a car (not knowing what to do even if end result is success).