Consider this scenario; 2-3 years back you get a 99+ percentile with 95+ sectionals and you were bound to get calls from almost all the IIMs. Come to present, you still get the same score and there is a major chance that you will end up with a zilch or a no call.
Yes this indeed is true. If the adventure of IIMs of turning the years old paper-pen format paper to a electronically buzzing Online paper in CAT 2009 wasn't enough ; the eligibility criteria this year which have been brought by the different IIMs for short listing is even more mind boggling.
The CAT paper on which there is a multimillion dollar industry flourishing, the paper which is termed as toughest in the world owing to the student: seats ratio, the paper which students trust so much to leave their comfort and smooth life behind and burn midnight oil in order to crack it, the paper for which students come back again next year if not successful the previous time, the beloved CAT; the IIMs plainly dumped it. The weightage of CAT exam now varies from 30 to 50% while short listing a candidate for the call.
So now the question arises what other criteria has been added? It is your academics, the 10th class score, the +2 score and your graduation score will also be considered now for giving that coveted IIM call in addition to work experience. These factors were considered even earlier but that used to be in second stage i.e. after the calls had been given and were used in final conversion. But now the almost equal weightage which is associated to them means that you can have some 92 percentile with a 90% in 10th and you will get a call from IIM Lucknow which gives 10% weightage to 10th score whereas a person with 98 percentile and 80% odd won't get it.
There have been many cases like this in which people haven’t got a single call at 99+ scores owing to their academic profile. So that brings us to the question Why this is done , What impact it will have ,How it could have been better done and last but not the least the way forward?
There is no official reason given for the same but the only one which can be thought of is that IIMs weren’t sure of the quality of candidates who have got good score in CAT owing to the catastrophe it has been, so that’s why they went for a safe passage of giving more weightage to academics for the calls.
The impact is already there for everyone to see, the skew nature of calls defies all odds. What can justify the logic by which a 99%iler doesn’t get a call and a 90%iler gets one? There has been wide spread agitation among students about the change that how can they go in past and change their academic scores. The Xth class exam whose difficulty level varies over years, boards etc and is a exam which one writes at least 5 years before he writes CAT, is it so important that you need to get a 90% in that to get a call?
What IIMs could probably have done better? The first thing is that if you are doing a change to the process, you should make it clear in advance. The IIMs change the criteria every year owing to their suitability and no one is aware of the reason and logic behind the change. What possibly they could do in future is to publish the criteria at the time of notification only so that a prospective candidate knows where he/she stands for selection.
What is the way forward? Academics are something which one can’t change, whereas one can study and get a better percentile in CAT, so give weightage to academics but not on the expense of CAT score and also be a bit more transparent in the criteria and scoring patterns. IIMs are the pinnacle of esteemed institutes in our country and they should take the first step in bringing the much needed transparency in the system. In our country it’s just not only the student who suffers, it’s the entire family. It hurts the parents to see their child spend sleepless nights, studying plethora of books and still being undone by no fault of theirs but a stupid system. This leads to depression, stress related diseases and sometimes even suicide. So being the supreme that you are in India: Bring the change which is so dearly needed.
Links for short listing criteria of different IIMs:
IIMA
IIMB
IIMC
IIML
IIMI
IIMS
7 comments:
Well, at least IIMB and IIML have had these shortlisting and selection criteria in place and posted on their sites since CAT 2007.
Hard work matters, talent matters. But we should not forget that at the end LUCK also matters.
CAT or I must say "future" is unpredictable and unreliable.One should plan his career taking into account the maximum risks n minimum returns.
i see you havent even put IIMI's criteria :P lookin in retrospect, a bit funny :)
@adarsh
at the time of writing IIMI havent had their criteria out :p
Try reading Its never the last time , need you comments
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