Zaheerabad: Visually impaired girl cracks CAT, joins IIM-Indore

Shivani Reddy, resident of Zaheerabad, cracks the Common Admission Test (CAT) and gets cut-off marks to secure a seat in 16 Indian Institutes of Management out of the 21 IIMs in the country.

Sangareddy: Overcoming all the obstacles that come with being visually challenged, Kothakapu Shivani Reddy of Zaheerabad cracked the Common Admission Test (CAT) and got the cut-off marks to secure a seat in 16 Indian Institutes of Management out of the 21 IIMs in the country. She has decided to join IIM-Indore, which is among the top management colleges in the country.

Shivani Reddy, a resident of Zaheerabad town, has a brilliant academic record since childhood. Though she was completely blind by birth, her parents Kothakapu Venugopal Reddy and Vijayalakshmi, farmers by profession, supported her in pursuing her studies. Reddy got Shivani admitted to the Devnar School for the Blind in Begumpet in Hyderabad. Shivani was very active in her studies and also extracurricular activities during her childhood. After getting an 8.3 GPA in her 10th class board examinations, she rose in confidence that she could study with regular students and compete with them. She joined Master Minds junior college in Zaheerabad town and secured 921 marks for 1000 and stood as the topper in the batch.

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Speaking to Telangana Today over phone from Indore, Shivani said she always wanted to work in an environment where she could meet different sections of people when she decided to join BBA at Satyabhama University in Chennai. Shivani passed the graduation course with flying colours by scoring 90 per cent in graduation. However, she started dreaming of pursuing her Master’s while doing graduation. After undergoing online coaching for six months in 2023, Shivani cracked the CAT with 93.3 percentile. She got admission offers from 16 IIMs out of 21, but she decided to join IIM-Indore. Accompanied by her father Venugopal Reddy, she went to Indore on Tuesday to complete the admission process and join the hostel.

Shivani, the second of three daughters of the Reddy couple, said she wanted to join an MNC after completing postgraduation. Interestingly, her younger sister Bhavani, who is also partially visually challenged, had also cracked CAT this year and secured an MBA seat at the University of Hyderabad. Appreciation is pouring in for Shivani and Bhavani, while the couple were on cloud nine after the success of their daughters.