CAT 2016 aspirants coming from non-engineering background should expect a little easier passage to top IIMs with more weightage awarded to other factors than CAT scores. However, even the non-engineers will have to score high percentile in CAT 2016 to get shortlisted at the 1st stage.
Highly ranked Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) namely Ahmedabad, Bangalore Calcutta, Lucknow and Kozhikode have announced their admission policy and have announced to award lower weightage to CAT 2016 scores as against last year. Now the academic profile, non-engineering background with Arts/Commerce/Humanities will get higher weightage at the 1st stage shortlisting.
Accordingly, even a candidate who has scored above 90% marks in his/her class 10 to bachelor’s degree but does not go beyond 95-96 percentile score in CAT 2016, can expect to be shortlisted by the top IIMs who will award more weightage to other factors than to CAT 2016 scores only.
Low Weightage to CAT scores
IIM Bangalore while announcing its admission policy for PGP 2017-19 batch has made it clear that it would award only 40% weightage to CAT 2016 scores and rest 60% weightage will go to excellent academics, academic diversity, work experience and gender diversity.
Now if a candidate cracks CAT 2016 with 100 percentile but has only 60% or less marks in his academics will get 40% weightage only and almost 0% weightage in academics. The chances to get shortlisted are remote as against those candidates who have scored 90 percentile in CAT 2016 but have 90% and above marks in their academics from class 10 to bachelor’s degree.
The second category candidate will get 36% weightage for CAT 2016 scores; 50% for academic profile and on the top of it, if he has 3 years or above work experience, an additional weightage of 8% will be given to him. 2% weight will be awarded to female candidates.
IIM Ahmedabad: Lowest qualifying scores in CAT 2016
It is not only IIM Bangalore, but all the IIMs are going for the change. IIM Ahmedabad has already reduced its qualifying sectional percentile in CAT 2016 from 80 to 70 so that non-engineers who find it difficult to score high in Quant and Data Interpretation can also qualify and can be shortlisted at the 1st stage.
IIM Calcutta: Drastic change in admission process
IIM Calcutta has also reduced the weightage to CAT 2016 scores. For the first stage shortlisting for Personal Interview round, IIM Calcutta will award only 28 out of total 50 points to CAT 2016 score. This weightage was 67% last year but for admission to PGP 2017-19 batch it has been reduced to only 56%.
IIM Calcutta has increased award of weightage percentage from 30% to 40% upto class 12 marks to shortlist candidates at the first stage.
IIM Lucknow: CAT 2016 weight reduced to 60%
IIM Lucknow has reduced the weightage to CAT 2016 scores in 1st stage shortlisting to 60% from 78% in last year. In the final selection also CAT 2016 scores will be awarded weightage of only 30%.
CAT 2016 aspirants with non-engineering background and with excellent academic profile, seeking admission in PGP 2017-19 programme at IIM Lucknow should expect to be shortlisted even if they score a little low in CAT exam this year.
IIMs: in dire need of diversity
In fact almost all the 20 IIMs have been facing massive influx of engineers after every CAT exam in their class rooms. Out of 17 candidates scoring 100 percentile in CAT last year, it was difficult to find one or two non engineers. Besides, the ratio of female 100 percentilers during the past 2 years has remained 1 female to 15 or 16 male candidates.
IIMs are working towards the strategy to improve the ratio of non-engineers and female candidates in their class rooms to effect a good learning experience with optimum academic and gender diversity.
This was the reason that with effect from the 2015 CAT convened by IIM Ahmedabad concrete efforts were made to revamp CAT exam by inserting more number of sections and introducing different types of questions. This yielded good result and now carrying the initiative forward, CAT 2016 convener Prof Bandi proposes to move on the same pattern although there may be slight changes in the content level of the exam.
Sharing with MBAUniverse.com, Prof Rajendra Bandi, Convener CAT 2016 emphasised the need of higher number of registrations from Non-engineers and women candidates “We would like to see an increase in the number of applicants from the non-engineering background and from female applicants as well.”
Adding further Prof Bandi, CAT 2016 convener said, “We believe that having a good mix of candidates from both the genders, and from all academic backgrounds enriches management education.”
46% Non-engineers registered for CAT last year
Last year CAT registration which clicked the closing mark at 218664 applicants contained 46% Non-engineers. The ratio was increased from 37% in 2014. Besides there were 69176 girls constituting 31.63% of total candidates increasing from 27% in 2014 registered for CAT.
Out of total 2,18,664 registered candidates for CAT 2015, 179602 candidates appeared in the test. While there were 112,012 engineers who appeared in CAT last year, 67590 candidates were from other academic streams like commerce, science, arts, and humanities.
232434 candidates have registered for CAT 2016 an out of them 33% are female candidate. Going by the trend the number of candidates from non-engineering back ground has also increased substantially. Prof Bandi believes ‘a number of bright students opt for a whole range of non-engineering disciplines as well and we would like to encourage more of these candidates to appear for CAT.’
Common Admission Test (CAT) 2016 to be held on Sunday December 4, 2016 is the mandatory exam for admission to management programmes at 20 IIMs and other top B schools in India. IIM Bangalore is convening CAT 2016 and proposes to make it one of the most aspirant friendly test, keeping intact the last year CAT pattern consisting both – MCQs and Non-MCQs in the exam. CAT 2016 registration was closed at 5PM on September 27, 2016.
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