3 IIMs to announce separate shortlists: Opt for different admission criteria; wait & watch till May 2016

Columnist & Author, MBAUniverse.com

Updated on March 9, 2016

3 IIMs are expected to finalize their admission offers without convening the GD-PI-WAT round and might even further reduce the qualifying overall and sectional CAT 2015 percentile scores

If you have scored less than 90 percentile in CAT 2015 and have not been shortlisted for CAP 2016 or have not received any communication from any IIM, you can expect surprises from new IIMs till May 2016

Out of 6 new IIMs that started maiden PGP batch in 2015 only 3 participated in the WAT & PI round of Common Admission Process (CAP) 2016 coordinated by IIM Kashipur for 9 IIMs from February 15 to March 4, 2016. The other 3 IIMs are expected to finalize their admission offers without convening the personal interviews and Written Ability tests and might even further reduce the qualifying overall and sectional CAT 2015 percentile scores for PGP 2016-18 batch as has been done by many other older IIMs.

While IIM Amritsar, IIM BodhGaya and IIM Sambalpur participated in CAP 2016, they may not be making final admission offer till May 2016. Rest 3 IIMs namely IIM Sirmaur, IIM Nagpur and IIM Visakhapatnam did not participate in CAP 2016 and propose to make final admission offer directly.

IIM Nagpur: No GD-PI proposed
IIM Nagpur has clarified that it proposes to ask the candidates who opted for IIM Nagpur while registering and applying for CAT 2015 and have scored required percentile in the exam to express and confirm their interest in IIM Nagpur by April 15, 2016.

According to IIM Nagpur ‘The candidates who had applied to "IIM Nagpur" at the time of CAT-2015 registration and also meet the cut-offs, would be receiving an email from IIM Nagpur by 15th April, 2016. These candidates will be provided a link to a page where they MUST express and reconfirm their desire to pursue their candidature further for the admission to PGP in management at "IIM Nagpur" by a stipulated date’.

IIM Nagpur proposes to finalize its selection process without GD-PI round but academic performance and work experience will be awarded due weightage by the B-school before generating final admission offer to 60 candidates. Clarifying that only 3 components will be taken into account while finalizing admission merit list, IIM Nagpur has informed ‘The admission process at IIM Nagpur takes into account the candidate's Past Academic Performance (PAP), Work Experience (WE), and performance in CAT’

50% weightage to CAT 2015 score
IIM Nagpur while finalizing the merit list will award 50% weightage to CAT 2015 scores.

PAP:30% weightage
30% weightage will be awarded to the past academic performance (PAP). The applicants who have obtained above 90% marks in class X and XII and above 70% in bachelor’s degree examination will be awarded full weightage of 10 points for each academic standard.

After arriving at the total PAP scores, IIM Nagpur will adopt the following formula to finalize the rating score for academics –PAP = (0.25*A+0.35*B+0.40*C)/10 Where, Rating score: A=class X; B=class 12; C=bachelor’s degree

Work Experience (WE)
20% weightage will be awarded for the work experience of completed months x till the time of CAT 2015 registration. No weightage will be awarded for the period of work experience after close of CAT 2015 registration process. The candidates will be assigned a WE score using the following formula:

WE = 0 for x < 6; WE = 0 for x > 60; WE = x/30 for 6 <= x <= 30; WE = 1 - ((x-30)/30) for 30 < x <= 60
Accordingly, with no weightage assigned to GD-PI-WAT, candidates can expect to get admission offer from IIM Nagpur on the basis of above parameters.

IIM Sirmaur: Direct admission
IIM Sirmaur mentored by IIML has announced that the final admission process will not include GD/PI round and the offers for PGP 2016-18 batch will be made only on the basis of CAT 2015 scores and profile of the candidate.

Besides, IIM Sirmaur has put its admission process for 2016 on hold and will finalize it sometime in May 2016 when it will be asking the candidates to express their interest for admission. According to the admission notification released by IIM Sirmaur “IIM Sirmaur will ask for expression of interest in the first week May 2016, after which merit list will be prepared as per the guidelines stated in the admission policy document.”

Candidates with 80 percentile in CAT 2015 can expect admission offer from IIM Sirmaur this year.
IIM Sirmaur has reduced the minimum qualifying percentile in CAT 2015 by 16.3 points from 96.3 to 80. Apart from the overall percentile, the required sectional percentile in CAT 2015 score has also been reduced by 5 points in each section from 80 to 75.

Final weights to generate merit list
Generation of merit list for PGP 2016-18 batch will be based on other profile components and on CAT 2015 percentile as follows-

Component	Weight on a scale of 50	Remarks
CAT 2015 score	40
Class 12 marks	2	95+ to get maximum weight
Graduation marks	3	Weight as per stream
Work Experience	2	In months as on Aug 31, 2015
Diversity factor (academic discipline)	2	Non-engineers, arts-humanities, commerce others eligible
Diversity factor (gender)	1	female
Total Weightage	50

Final Admission offer
The score generated after assigning the weights will be doubled to make it on a scale of 100 and necessary merit list will be generated to make final admission offer.

For the PGP 2016-18 batch the candidates with sectional percentile score of 75 and overall percentile score of 80 in CAT 2015 may find their names in the final merit list from IIM Sirmaur.

IIM Visakhapatnam: Mulling over
IIM Visakhapatnam mentored by IIMB has also not participated in CAP 2016 coordinated for 9 IIMs nor IIM Visakhapatnam has announced its admission policy for PGP 2016-18. However, IIM Visakhapatnam will now have to either conduct its own PI round which may not be so easy, or may offer admission on the basis of CAT scores, academic profile and work experience. It is expected that the admission policy of IIM Visakhapatnam may require 80 sectional and 85 overall percentile in CAT 2015 to qualify for shortlisting at IIMV.

Wait & Watch for surprises
If you have scored less than 90 percentile in CAT 2015 and have not been shortlisted for CAP 2016 or have not received any communication from any IIM, you can expect surprises from new IIMs till May 2016. They may ask for your confirmation of interest and may then be offering admission to you without any GD-PI in the month of May 2016.