IIM Gaya: Revises admission criteria, kindles hope for 70 sectional percentilers in CAT 2015; other IIMs may follow

IIM Gaya in Bihar after announcing its admission policy 2016 earlier has revised it further and this time has reduced the minimum qualifying CAT 2015 sectional percentile from 80 to 70 although overall required percentile has been increased to 96 from earlier announced 90. The move has kindled hope among thousands of CAT 2015 high overall percentilers who despite scoring 97 to 99 percentile in CAT 2015 were not shortlisted by any IIM as they had low percentile in one or other section. It is expected that more IIMs may follow and may announce the revised admission policy 2016 as the admission process in most of the newest IIMs is still underway.

Thousands with dip in 1 sectional percentile 
CAT 2015 result awarded high overall percentile but there are thousands of candidates who despite scoring a percentile between 95 to 99+ were not shortlisted by any of the 19 IIMs including the newest ones. While CAT 2015 result awarded 100 percentile to 17 candidates, 1814 scored 99+ percentile and 9003 scored 95+ percentile. Out of these high percentilers, many of them could not score minimum 75 or 80 percentile in each of the 3 sections, due to which they remained out of the admission fray to IIMs. For example one of the high CAT 2015 percentilers Shivam scored a decent 98.2 with 99.93 and 96 percentile in 2 sections but could hit 79.6 percentile in the 3rd section. It brought feeling of depression among the IIM aspirants.

MBAUniverse.com highlighted this aspect to apprise the IIMs to take corrective steps http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/9246/CAT-2015. Accordingly IIM Ahmedabad was the first to revise its admission policy 2016 and reduced the qualifying sectional percentile in CAT 2015 from 80 to 70. IIM BodhGaya is the next IIM to revise its admission policy 2016, further reducing its requirement of CAT 2015 sectional percentile score from 80 to 70. Now the candidates like Shivam can find their names in the list of shortlisted candidates and can participate in WAT & PI process to convert the call to their dream IIM.

IIM Gaya aiming for full intake
The reduction in CAT 2015 sectional score requirement in shortlisting at IIM Gaya also aims to get full intake in class room in the PGP 2016-18 batch as there are fewer candidates at IIM Gaya in its first batch. At present there are only 30 students instead of an intake of 60 in the PGP 2015-17 batch at IIM BodhGaya.The learning from the last year must have prompted IIM Gaya to further reduce the minimum qualifying sectional percentile in CAT 2015.

No reduction in overall percentile
However IIM Gaya who earlier reduced the requirement of overall CAT 2015 percentile in its admission policy 2016 from 96.3 to 90 has again increased it to 96. This move may not hamper the interest of IIM Gaya admission seekers as there are thousands of candidates who have scored above 95 percentile in CAT 2015 but have not been able to score equally good sectional percentile yet keeping the requirement of minimum overall CAT 2015 percentile to 90 could have attracted more candidates to show interest in admission to IIM BodhGaya. In fact in its revised admission policy, IIM Ahmedabad reduced not only the requirement of minimum qualifying CAT 2015 sectional percentile from 80 to 70 but has also reduced the overall percentile from 90 to 80 at the first stage shortlisting.

IIM Gaya: Participant to CAP 2016
IIM Gaya is a participant B-school to Common Admission Process (CAP) 2016 being coordinated by IIM Kashipur for 9 new and newest IIMs. CAP 2016 has already begun on February 15, 2016 at 5 centres namely New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai.  After getting shortlisted by IIM Gaya at the first stage on the basis of CAT 2015 scores, candidates seeking admission to IIM BodhGaya will have to go through the Written Ability Test (WAT) and Personal Interview (PI) in the CAP 2016. The Common Admission process is proposed to be over on March 4, 2016.

MBAUniverse.com predicted on Sep 28  
Anticipating the relaxation in qualifying CAT 2015 score for PGP 2016-18 batch MBAUniverse.com predicted that the minimum CAT 2015 percentile requirement for admission in 2016 would be relaxed  by IIM Gaya after learning lesson from fixing high CAT percentile in the first academic session http://www.mbauniverse.com/article/id/8961/IIM-Gaya

IIM Gaya: Revised Shortlisting criteria 2016
The revised and previously announced shortlisting Criteria for admission to the 2nd PGP batch 2016-18 based on CAT 2015 cut off at IIM Gaya is as follows

CAT 2015 score is the only criterion in shortlisting candidates for PI-WAT round for admission to flagship PGP 2016-18 batch at IIM Gaya. All other factors like academic profile and diversity, work experience would play their role in arriving at final merit list after including the WAT & PI score and before making admission offer to the eligible candidates.

Final Selection at IIM Gaya
Final selection at IIM Gaya will be based on the ranks of the candidates computed separately for each category (General/SC/ST/NC-OBC/DAP) on the basis of their Final Scores (FS). Minimum qualification would not automatically qualify the candidate for admission into IIM Bodh Gaya  The numbers selected in different categories will be in proportions mandated by the law.

A candidate’s final score for selection is calculated on the basis of the following criteria and their weights to be used for the final selection for PGP for the batch 2016-18.

A = Candidate’s Total CAT 2015 score; B = Maximum CAT 2015 Score
C = Points awarded for Class X marks; D = Points awarded for Class XII marks

The classes of IIM Gaya are conducted in the transit campus of the Magadh University’s directorate of distance education (DDE) building. 90 hostel rooms at IIM Gaya have been provided for accommodation.

Permanent campus of IIM Gaya as per the decision and agreement arrived at, will also be built up at Magadh University Campus on 119 acres of land lying vacant in the premises. The mentor director to IIM Gaya Shaibal Chattopadhyay, Director of IIMC is very optimistic on the holistic development of IIM Gaya and proposes to make it an international B-school in the coming years.

IIM Gaya will continue to be mentored by Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. During the mentorship period and while IIM Gaya’s own faculty are recruited, faculty members from IIM Calcutta will be delivering courses at IIM Bihar. The overall design, quality and delivery of PGP will be to the standards and with direct involvement of IIM Calcutta

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on IIM Gaya