Undoubtedly, scoring a high percentile in CAT 2014 is the bare minimum requirement to remain motivated and hopeful of getting shortlisted by IIMs for second phase of admission 2015. But the thought that only high over all percentile score in CAT 2014 will suffice to get shortlisted for GDPI round is nothing more than living in a fool’s paradise.
IIMs look beyond your high overall percentile in CAT before offering you admission and therefore It is not essentially necessary that your 99+ percentile may make you eligible to receive a call from IIMA, B, C, L, I or K nor it is mandatory that a 92 percentiler may not get a call from these top institutes.
IIMs have variable standards and percentiles to shortlist the cream of CAT toppers and high CAT percentile is only one of those important criteria. If a candidate doesn’t qualify on these prescribed standards, he may either not get shortlisted or even if shortlisted may not be able to convert the call in final admission round as each of them has specific weightage which facilitates the offer of admission in IIMs.
Apart from scoring high percentile in CAT 2014 with your knowledge, intelligence and smart way of attempting the test if you have following 5 key assets IIMs will welcome you at their campuses.
1. High but Balanced CAT percentile
Your yearlong hard preparation for CAT 2014 with dedication should bring the desired fruits is what you always think. You might have gone for a drop year too or might have given up the job to prepare meticulously. All this preparation is meant to score high in CAT 2014. Out of the 4 topics i.e. Quant, DI, Verbal & LR you may be very good at the first two or the latter two or a mix of all.
With your very good mathematical skills and hard hitting efforts you are also able to score a very high percentile in Quant & DI section but lag behind and score an average percentile in Verbal & LR section of CAT 2014. The overall percentile is decent enough with 99 but there is a slip in sectional percentile. With 99 in Quant and 92 in Verbal, the percentile appears fine but for IIMs. However, lagging behind in scoring a balanced high sectional percentile may not be an ideal situation as per the short listing criteria of IIMs.
IIMs after applying their equated normalization system would prefer a candidate with fairly high balanced percentile of 90+ and 94+ in each section with overall percentile between 95-97 to a candidate with overall high percentile of 98-99 having greater deviation.
The candidate therefore, with 99 percentile with such deviation may not be shortlisted for GDPI by older IIMs unless he is very strong on other 4 points. On the other hand the candidate with 94 percentile (having balanced and fairly high percentile) may get shortlisted.
If you are a CAT aspirant, keep this in mind that apart from high overall percentile high balanced sectional percentile is very much important.
2. Excellent Academic Background: A must
Although the time to improve your academic profile is a matter of past now, still if you are yet to appear in your final exams put your best efforts to improve your scores. All the IIMs prefer a candidate who has a very good academic record right from 10th standard.
Your academic excellence can pull you through in the short listing phase. IIMs award points on a scale of 100 in a range of 8 to 20 for scoring high marks in 10th, 12th and graduation. For example IIM-Calcutta awards maximum 10 points each for more than 80% marks in class X and XII which make it 20 out of 100 while the maximum weightage for CAT percentile is 77 to shortlist a candidate for GDPI. If you have a good academic record, you stand better chances of getting shortlisted even if you scored less CAT.
Ironically, Indian Education system allows number of examination conducting boards at 10th and 12th standard especially Central and state Boards. While CBSE and other central boards are much lenient in awarding marks to the students some of the state boards are quite miser in disbursing this bounty to the examinees. If we compare it to CBSE or ICSE results where students comfortably score 96 to 98 percent, U P Board candidates stand nowhere. But the weightage in final admission round in CAT is not awarded on the basis of Board but on the basis of marks scored.
The higher percentage in CBSE is therefore a dream for UP Board students as they are unable to score even 85 and 90. IIMs however, do not discriminate on the basis of marking system among the education Boards nor do they have any system and procedure to normalize and equate the percentages of the boards across the country so that the candidates could be treated at par.
So, this weightage despite being very important is static now and you may not be able to do much about it.
3. Professional Experience
IIMs award weightage for relevant professional experience while short listing the candidates for GDPI. A work experience of 2-3 years is considered the best period since no IIM gives any weightage to the work experience of less than 6 months. Work experience beyond 4 years onwards also has very less or no weightage and is not much preferred by IIMs.
For all candidates in the first shortlist the score/weight for work experience is calculated at IIMs as: Pre PI score for Work Experience = 5x/36 if 0 < x < 36; = 5 if x >= 36. Work experience up to September 2014 is supposed to be calculated in months. Maximum weightage of 5 to 8 will be awarded for the work experience of 36 months or more. Important feature is that the quality of work experience will also be considered to award and improve this score to 10.
Please however remember that varying work experience may also create problem as you will be required to justify the change of domain.
You could definitely add a few months’ experience before going for CAT 2014 but any experience with less than 6 months’ period may not be helpful.
4. Gender Diversity
Alarmed at the depleting number of female participants in CAT, IIMs have begun awarding direct or indirect weightage on a scale of 100 to girl candidates. For example IIM Calcutta awards 3 marks out of 100 to a girl candidate in short listing the candidates for final admission round.
If you are a girl candidate, you may have better luck. But for others it can’t be helped since whatever gender you are, you are supposed to be throughout your life.
5. Your extra skills also matter
Every CAT aspirant is unique and has his/her extra skills. The need is how to package and present them in GDPI WAT round. You might have come across number of students who are bursting with knowledge but are more confused and are not able to express themselves coherently. There may be candidates who have great speaking power but find it difficult to pen down their ideas and thoughts in a natural flow.
IIMs need such candidates who can develop good managerial skills, the ones who have clarity of thought and can write well, can convey the message in their writing piece with no ambiguity. With use of simple and clear vocabulary words they should be able to speak out what they want to say. Hence the IIMs need a person with good knowledge and intelligence who is smart enough to project himself/herself instead of a Shakespeare who may be good to become a professor of English but not a good manager.
Your experience with an NGO; your participation in spread of education and other contribution to social cause reflect your leadership skills. The questions based on such experiences must be answered with a positive attitude and optimistic view.
Please remember IIMs do not require any candidate with superfluous knowledge and CAT 2014 is going to be a reflection of this fact.
MBAUniverse.com experts suggest the candidates to prepare well for CAT 2014, prepare a strategy, find out how many of the 5 needed assets to get into IIMs are available with you and what are the things where you can improve further to get through the examination. The advice is not to get depressed and continue on the path of struggle to emerge a winner in CAT 2014.
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