IIM Gaya: Gambling with CAT score requirements; lowest sectional but higher overall; be ready for the admission call

Updated on March 22, 2016

Arriving at new revised shortlisting criteria, IIM BodhGaya has reduced the qualifying sectional percentile from 80 to 70 and increased the overall percentile from 90 to 96 in CAT 2015

Unless and until IIM Gaya promptly revises its score requirement downwards quickly, it may not get good number of students as per its intake

IIM Gaya is playing games with admission seekers sometimes revising the CAT 2015 score requirements downwards and sometime upwards. Now, arriving at new revised shortlisting criteria, IIM BodhGaya has reduced the qualifying sectional percentile from 80 to 70 and increased the overall percentile from 90 to 96 in CAT 2015. It is expected it could further reduce the sectional percentile requirement even below 70 and may come back to overall percentile as announced earlier. This will open up more admission opportunities for admission seekers in IIMs. In case the decision is not timely taken, IIM Gaya may again have to operate with half of its sanctioned strength for the consecutive second PGP batch 2016-18.

Quite a low number of CAT takers confirmed their interest in IIM Gaya for admission to its maiden PGP batch and it appears that the same is about to be repeated for the second batch since IIM Gaya has been shifting stand on the required CAT 2015 percentile now and then.

At present IIM Gaya has a strength of 30 students instead of announced intake of 60 while Ministry of Human Resource Development proposed the intake for the first batch at 140 to be upgraded to 560 during the next 7 years. Now it appears that instead of achieving the bare minimum strength of the batch of 60 students, IIM Gaya would be running again with even less than 30 students for the consecutive second batch unless it reconsiders the admission criteria and lowers the requirement of overall CAT 2015 percentile.

Expression of Interest in April 2016
It is expected that in the month of April 2016, IIM Gaya would send the e-mail to all the eligible candidates who registered and applied for IIM BodhGaya while applying for CAT 2015 and would ask them to confirm their interest in IIM BodhGaya. With 96 as overall pegged percentile to shortlist the candidates and number of other factors to be considered before generating final admission offer, it is anticipated that IIM Gaya may not get the full intake in one or other category of candidates as it has no notable USPs displayed during the last 1 year except for the fact that it is mentored by IIMC.

Percentile required is higher than mentor IIM
Unlike its mentor IIMC which requires only 90 overall percentile in CAT 2015 for PGP admission 2016, the newest IIM Gaya has now revised upwards needing 96 overall percentile shifting from its earlier stand of 90 in CAT 2015.

One can well imagine whether the candidate would prefer IIM Calcutta at 90 percentile or IIM Gaya at 96 percentile. The irrational approach in admission process 2016 may again refrain sufficient number of candidates showing their interest in IIM Gaya when so many better options with CAT 2015 percentiles as low as 75 to 80 are available in very good B-schools. Unless and until IIM Gaya promptly revises its score requirement downwards quickly, it may not get good number of students as per its intake.

IIM Gaya - shifting stand: Question mark on credibility
The PGP admission policy 2016-18 as announced earlier by IIM Gaya appeared as a learning lesson to the B-school from the first batch as IIM Gaya reduced the minimum qualifying overall percentile in CAT 2015 from 96.3 to 90 for PGP batch 2016-18 matching with IIMC.

But it appears, IIM BodhGaya expects that more number of higher percentilers in CAT 2015 will approach this new IIM for admission 2016 for the reasons best known to this one year old IIM. Because of this reason, it has again raised its minimum percentile requirement bar from 90 to 96 for admission 2016 even before candidates could confirm their interest in the B-school. None of the other 6 newest IIMs have asked for such a high percentile score in CAT 2015 for admission to PGP 2016.

Contradictory & wide gap in sectional Vs overall percentile
The revised admission policy 2016 of IIM Gaya has reduced the sectional percentile from 80 to 70 but has increased the overall minimum required percentile from 90 to 96. Earlier candidates who approached MBAUniverse.com regarding the admission at IIM Gaya were anticipating that IIM Gaya would further reduce the requirement of both the sectional and overall percentile in CAT 2015 for admission to its flagship PGP 2016-18 batch as was done by IIM Sirmaur who requires only 75 sectional and 80 overall percentile for admission 2016 and that too without any GD/PI round.

A candidate with sectional percentile of 70 or 75 may score overall percentile between 80 to 85 but it would be difficult for him to score above 90 with the prescribed sectional percentile. The reduction in sectional percentile appears only as an eye-wash as neither the candidate would achieve it, nor they would be considered by IIM Gaya for admission.

IIM Gaya: Shift in shortlisting criteria 2016
The shortlisting Criteria for eligibility to be considered for admission to Post Graduate Programme in Management, 2016-18 based on CAT 2015 cut off at IIM Gaya has been revised upwards by 6 percentile as against the recent last announcement that reduced it by 6.3 from the last year. Candidates with following scores may expect to be shortlisted by IIM Gaya for admission in 2016.

Interestingly, IIM Gaya has not shared any information on the proposed intake in the PGP 2016-18 batch. It could be 60 or more but is not expected to be less than 60.

Category	Revised Sectional percentile for PGP 2016-18	Earlier announced Sectional percentile for PGP 2016-18	Revised Overall percentile for PGP 2016-18	Earlier announced Overall percentile for PGP 2016-18
General	70	80	96	90
NC-OBC	58	72	77.5	81
SC	50	60	59	75
ST	30	50	40	65
DAP	30	50	45	65

CAT 2015 score is proposed to be the only criterion in shortlisting candidates for further consideration in admission process 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 position in the final merit list before making admission offer to the eligible candidates.

IIM Gaya: Difficult to find candidate with 96 percentile
Instead of relaxing the admission criteria, IIM Gaya has left behind its mentor IIMC that requires only 90 percentile score in admission 2016. The wide gap in minimum 70 sectional and 96 overall percentile score in CAT 2016 may find many candidates with 70 sectional percentile opting for IIM Gaya, but probably none with overall percentile of 96 may be searching for IIM Gaya.

The reason behind this fact is that many top rated and highly ranked B-schools in the country offer better MBA/PGDM education at lower overall CAT percentile and at lower cost than IIM Gaya would offer.

IIM Gaya: Yet to fulfill 3 key parameters
The infant one year old IIM BodhGaya is yet to fulfill 3 key parameters that prompt a candidate run for admission to the particular B-school. Besides, it will take at least another 5-7 years for IIM Gaya to get any ranking position or accreditation from a good agency.

Many years to achieve some legacy
IIM BodhGaya started operation in August 2015. Its first batch is still to be out. There is no alumni base and the alumni of IIM Calcutta wouldn’t consider the students of IIM Gaya as good as their own peers. The only support is the legacy of its mentor IIMC. This support can offer good learning experience from the faculty of IIM Calcutta but nothing more.

So far as creating the wide alumni base is concerned, it is a time bound process and would come into being only after a few batches with good number of students have passed out of IIM Gaya.

3 More years to build insfrastructure
IIM Gaya is operating from the rented campus at Magadh University, BodhGaya in Bihar. 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. Going by the trend, the permanent campuses of IIMs that started operation in 2010-11 are still under construction even after the lapse of 5 years, it is anybody’s guess how much time IIM Gaya could take in getting its permanent campus ready for occupation despite IIMC continuing as its mentor institution.

First batch Placement: Still away
Out of the 6 newest IIMs, none have been able to complete its final placements. Usually, IIMs are the first to conclude the final placements. While the placement of mentor IIMC got completed months ago with more number of recruiters, IIM Gaya is striving hard to get its campus placement of first PGP batch completed. Not only this, PPOs, summer placement etc. at IIM Gaya are yet to begin.

No RoI & High Fee may keep the candidates away
Brand IIM may suffer a loss given the fact that neither IIM Gaya is compromising on fee structure which is around Rs. 11 lakhs and is as high as any top rated B-school nor it is able to offer good placement which is as low as any lowest rung B-school where no placement takes place.

One can wonder, how does IIM Gaya expect to get the best among the high percentilers in CAT 2015 who can get admission in the top B-schools like IMI, IMT, MDI, NITIE, BIMTECH, JBIMS, SIMSREE, K J Somaiya, TAPMI, Great Lakes, LIBA, IFMR, FORE, XIMB where the Placement is high, and the fee structure is compatible.

All these B-schools have considered overall percentile in CAT 2015 and the candidates with an overall percentile around 88 to 90 have been shortlisted by these highly ranked MBA/PGDM colleges. Besides, even after spending 2 years in pursuing MBA/PGP at IIM Gaya, one may not be sure of getting a good offer from a recruiter, whereas going by the past placement trends and average packages in other B-schools, it can be ascertained what would be the shape of your future.

IIM Bodh Gaya was the participating institute to the Common Admission Process (CAP) 2016 coordinated by IIM Kashipur for 9 IIMs. It is yet to be seen whether the candidates appearing in the merit list of CAP 2016 with 96 percentile would be interested in opting for IIM Gaya or this B-school will further reduce its requirement of overall percentile so as to complete its intake at least in the second year of operation.

Pegging a high minimum percentile required for admission to first PGP batch last year, resulted in very low number of candidates showing interest in IIM Gaya. Unless the learning from the last year gives some lesson, IIM Gaya may have to operate with the fewer candidates than its intake in the second PGP 2016-18 batch.