Why do some people give CAT every year even after admission to IIM?
People retake CAT after IIM admission for three real reasons: coaching industry credibility, ego validation, and occasional genuine curiosity. The "intellectual challenge" framing makes headlines but rarely holds up to scrutiny.
The Soham Katkar Case
Soham Katkar, a 23-year-old IIM Calcutta student, scored 100 percentile in CAT 2024 for the second time and described it as an intellectual challenge. The story went viral, then got picked apart.
IIM Calcutta charges ₹27 lakh in fees, places students at an average of ₹34.23 LPA, and demands 99+ percentile just to receive a shortlist call. At that stage, a second 100 percentile adds zero practical value to your career or admission status.
Why People Actually Do It
The Reddit MBA community was blunt. Three motivations came up repeatedly
- Coaching business positioning: A "2x or 3x 100 percentiler" commands premium fees as a teacher or course creator, sometimes ₹5-10 lakh+ per year in content revenue.
- Ego and identity: For some students, CAT excellence became a core part of their identity before IIM, and letting go of that benchmark is genuinely hard.
- Teacher validation: Many coaching institutes quietly require faculty to retake CAT annually to stay current on difficulty, phrasing shifts, and slot variation, which is actually a legitimate professional reason.
The intellectual curiosity justification exists but is rare. Most people who genuinely love quantitative puzzles solve them on Brilliant or LeetCode, not by taking a three-hour proctored exam that someone else needs.
The Normalisation Problem
This is the part that matters most and gets ignored in feel-good news coverage. CAT uses a normalisation process across slots, and high scorers anchor the percentile distribution. When an already-admitted student scores 100 percentile, it can compress the top end of the curve. Someone genuinely aiming for IIM Calcutta who scores 99.9 percentile might miss a shortlist call they would have received otherwise. The effect is small but nonzero, and the person who suffers it has no idea why.
| Motivation | Legitimate? | Real-world impact |
|---|---|---|
| Coaching credibility | Debatable | Higher course fees, wider reach |
| Faculty exam knowledge | Yes | Better teaching, prep relevance |
| Ego boost | No | None beyond personal satisfaction |
| Intellectual challenge | Rarely | None |
| Normalisation disruption | N/A | Minor but real cost to others |
The Ethical Question No One Asks Loudly
Taking an exam slot you do not need, when lakhs of aspirants are competing for preparation time and mental bandwidth, is not neutral. It is not illegal.
But calling it noble is a stretch. The coaching angle gets a pass because there is a professional justification.
The pure vanity retake does not earn the same pass, whatever the score.
If you are already inside IIM Calcutta, your time is better spent on case competitions, pre-placement offers from McKinsey, BCG, or Goldman Sachs, and building the network that actually determines your career ceiling. The people who land the best roles focus forward, not backward at an entrance exam.
Pro Tip: If you genuinely want to test yourself intellectually after getting into an IIM, write the GMAT or GRE instead, since those scores can open doors to global programs and executive education without distorting a high-stakes domestic exam that others depend on.