IIM Ahmedabad: shortlists 80 percentilers in CAT 2015, 24128 shortlisted for PI; check your place

After announcing its shortlisting criteria based on CAT 2015 scores, IIM Ahmedabad has reduced the minimum cut off percentile ranks for CAT 2015 scores from 90 overall to 80 overall and from 80 sectional to 70 sectional percentile scores. In all 24128 candidates have been shortlisted by IIM Ahmedabad for final admission round.

Apart from CAT 2015 percentile scores IIMA has taken into account academic profile & diversity among other parameters to shortlist the candidates.
Out of 24128 high percentilers in CAT 2015, shortlisted by IIM Ahmedabad for final stage of admission round, the Academic Writing Test (AWT) and Personal Interview (PI), 20190 are from General category; 2592 from NC-OBC category; 952 from SC category; 292 from ST category and 102 from DA category. The number of overseas candidates, shortlisted on the basis of GMAT scores are 1182.

The shortlist announced by IIMA for AWT & PI round post CAT 2015 result declaration does not include many 99+ percentilers although they have decent overall as well as sectional percentile scores in CAT 2015. This is all because of reducing the weightage to CAT 2015 scores while computing the weightage criteria for shortlisting. IIMA has increased the weightage awarded to academic profile and diversity to improve academic and gender diversity in its class rooms.

Minimum Cut off percentile rank reduced from 90 to 80
The first stage shortlisting based on CAT 2015 scores for admission to PGP 2016-18 batch as earlier declared by IIM Ahmedabad required minimum 90 percentile to be eligible to be considered for shortlisting at IIMA. This criterion has been reduced to 80 percentile now.

Another drastic change in shortlisting criteria announced by IIM Ahmedabad is reduction in minimum cut off in sectional percentile score from 80 to 70 in each of the 3 sections in CAT 2015.

Scoring pattern compelled the change
The sectional dip in CAT 2015 scores of high percentilers has probably compelled IIM Ahmedabad to arrive at the decision to reduce the minimum cut off criteria. 1814 candidates out of 179602 CAT 2015 test takers have been awarded 99 and above percentile and 9003 have scored 95 and above percentile but 24128 have been shortlisted by IIMA due to change in shortlisting criteria.

The irony of situation is that hundreds of these high percentilers have sectional dips in scores. Despite scoring 99+ percentile and high scores in 2 of the 3 sections in CAT 2015, these candidates have gone below minimum qualifying score in one section which kept them away from getting shortlisted by IIM Ahmedabad as earlier it had 80 sectional percentile as minimum cut off which has now been reduced to 70.

Some of the high percentilers in CAT 2015 found dip in DILR while others in VARC and many others from Arts, humanities and other background in Quant section. Had these 99 percentilers scored equally good like 80 or 85 percentile in their low scoring section, they could have moved to the club 100 percentile or at least 99.99 percentile and would have been shortlisted by the top notch IIM Ahmedabad, the dream B-school of CAT 2015 toppers.
For example Ankit with 99.01 percentile scored 98.46 and 99.99 in 2 sections but lacked in one section where he scored 63.9; 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 and therefore both of them despite scoring so high, remained below the minimum 80 sectional percentile required to be eligible for shortlisting at IIMA. Shivam can now expect to be shortlisted by IIMA as per the amended criteria.

Total shortlisted are more than total 95+ percentilers
If we take into account all the 17 of 100 percentilers, 1814 with 99+ percentile and 9003 with 95+ percentile, all of them taken together would make only 10834 candidates whereas IIM Ahmedabad has now shortlisted 24128 candidates which implies that either thousands of low percentilers must have also figured among the shortlisted candidates at IIMA or the 95 and above percentilers having sectional dip below 80 percentile who could not find place earlier due to high sectional score requirement have now become eligible to be shortlisted after IIMA reduced the sectional score requirement from 80 to 70.

No use scoring 99 percentile
One has to analyse how good it is to score 99 percentile when you cannot even hope for admission to an IIM. The criteria to award 99 percentile could also be a matter of analysis because when you get 99 percentile you are among top rankers but the top rank goes below the rank of many thousands who have been able to score only 90 or 92 percentile but have cleared the hurdle of minimum qualifying sectional percentile score in CAT 2015.
After the stage 1 shortlisting the successful CAT 2015 takers shall have to go through the final admission process at IIM Ahmedabad. The final admission round will comprise Academic Writing Test (AWT) and Personal Interview (PI). Both the tests will be conducted on the same day and the admission offers shall be issued based on the scores obtained in CAT 2015, AWT, PI and other key parameters in the month of April, 2016.