One of the top performers, Raahil Rai, a final-year student of PEC Chandigarh who secured an impressive 99.95 percentile, attributed his success to rigorous practice.(representative image/ Pexels)
The Common Admission Test (CAT) 2025 results were declared Wednesday, with many students from the Tricity scoring above 99 percentile.
Rai, who is doing BTech (Mechanical), did his schooling from Bhavan Vidyalaya, Chandigarh. His father is in a private job, while his mother is a homemaker. “Consistency and hard work are the keys. I worked daily for one or two hours and prepared for a year. My hobbies include graphic design, chess, and music. I aim to get to high leadership roles in the consulting space to drive impact on a large scale. In the long term, I intend to start a venture of my own in the social sector. For those aspiring to appear for CAT, it is important to start preparation timely and put in a consistent effort from the start. Set weekly targets as to not drift away from your goals on a bad day,” said Rai.
Another regional topper, Kkanika Sharma, a student of the Army Institute of Law (AIL) who scored 99 percentile, echoed the importance of focused preparation. “I concentrated on strengthening my weak areas and practised consistently—especially in the quantitative section—to eliminate silly mistakes,” she said. Ankit Kumar, a student of GGDSD College, doing BCom, scored 98.6 percentile, and it is his first attempt. “Believe in what you do, and consistently analyse and improve your performance,” said Kumar.
Smridhi Aggarwal, a student of CCET, Sector 26, scored 98.55 in her first attempt, and says her success mantra is to keep giving mocks. “I want to get a leadership positions, in the corporate world,” said Aggarwal, who loves to do Mandala art.
Commenting on the Tricity’s results, Hirdesh Madan, co-founder of Hitbullseye, said, “This year city toppers are from diverse backgrounds, including engineers, lawyers, doctors, humanities and commerce background. This is a welcome change.”
The CAT is a national-level competitive exam for MBA that opens the doors for the 21 IIMs and other top B-schools in India. There are two IIMs in this region: IIM Amritsar & IIM Sirmaur. Chandigarh’s leading MBA college, University Business School (Panjab University), too admits students based on CAT scores.
Around 6,500 students appeared for CAT 2025 from Chandigarh Tricity region on November 30, 2025, which was conducted in three sessions. Different IIMs will call these students for the interview round. The next stage of admissions includes – Written Ability Test (WAT) and Personal Interviews (PI). Most of the interviews are generally conducted between January and March. The final results will be declared in April by most IIMs.