IIM Ahmedabad, the top ranked management institute, has reduced overall and sectional CAT 2020 score requirements for MBA admission 2021. Moving a step forward to further improve the academic diversity in its class rooms, IIM Ahmedabad has slashed the minimum percentile cut off in CAT 2020 to 70 and the overall percentile cut off to 80 for shortlisting for 2021-23 batch.
As is well known, IIM Ahmedabad accepts only Common Admission Test (CAT) score for admission to its management programme, the reduction in sectional and overall CAT score cut off for first stage shortlisting will help many such candidates who score high in one section but low in another section, to get shortlisted for IIM Ahmedabad final selection round. The non engineers and the candidates from diverse backgrounds, planning to appear in CAT 2020 stand a good chance to get into IIM Ahmedabad at a CAT 2020 percentile of 80 and above. Last year also IIM Ahmedabad offered admission to number of students from diverse percentile despite scoring a percentile as low as 82 or so.
If you have a good academic record of 90+ marks from class 10 onwards and have a diverse background, IIM Ahmedabad can shortlist you for admission to PGP 2021-23 batch, even if you score as low as 70 percentile in each section and 80 percentile overall in CAT 2020.
After the start of CAT 2020 registration on August 5, 2020, IIM Ahmedabad is the first top B-school accepting CAT score to announce its admission policy for PGP 2021-23 batch. The Indian Institute of Ahmedabad has placed on record the shortlisting criteria which state that General category candidates will have to score a minimum 70 sectional percentile in each of the 3 sections and minimum 80 overall percentile in CAT 2020 to be eligible for first stage shortlisting by IIM Ahmedabad.
IIM Ahmedabad to Award MBA Degree
IIM Ahmedabad will award MBA degree to its students who successfully complete the PGP 2021-23 programme instead of Diploma as was done previously. Although IIM Ahmedabad has not changed the name of its flagship management programme from Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in Management to Masters of Business Administration (MBA), it has started conferring MBA degree now, consequent upon implementation of IIM Act 2017. The Act has empowered the IIMs to award MBA degree instead of Post Graduate Diploma.
The two years PGP of IIM Ahmedabad is a full-time residential course for graduates from all disciplines wishing to choose a career in management.
Selection at IIM Ahmedabad: 2 Step Process
The selection of the candidates for admission to the PGP at IIM Ahmedabad is a two-step process. In the first step, candidates are short-listed for Academic Writing Test (AWT) and Personal Interview (PI) from among the candidates who have a valid CAT score and have applied to the programme while filling up their CAT registration and application form. The applicants should also satisfy the eligibility criteria for the programme. The next part of admission process is the PI round after which final admission offer is made.
IIM Ahmedabad CAT 2020 Cut off: Lowest Among IIMs
The first stage shortlisting based on CAT 2020 scores for admission to PGP 2021-23 batch at IIM Ahmedabad is lowest among all the 20 IIMs. The institute will now require a minimum 80 percentile overall as against 90 in other IIMs and only 70 in each of the 3 sections as against 80-85 required by other IIMs.
Category-wise CAT 2020 Cut off Percentile Required by IIMA
IIM Ahmedabad has slashed the minimum qualifying CAT 2020 percentile for all categories of candidates. According to IIMA Admission Policy for PGP 2021-23 batch, “In CAT-2020 there will be three sections, viz., ‘Quantitative Aptitude’ (QA), ‘Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning’ (DILR) and ‘Verbal and Reading Comprehension’ (VRC). Only the candidates above the following minimum cut-offs in the sectional percentile ranks, the overall percentile rank and obtaining a positive (greater than zero) raw score in all sections of CAT-2020 will be considered for all the subsequent stages.”
Accordingly, your CAT 2020 score should have minimum following sectional and overall percentile to be eligible to get shortlisted by IIM Ahmedabad
|
Category
|
Percentile Rank in Verbal & Reading Comprehension (PVRC)
|
Percentile rank in Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (PDILR)
|
Percentile Rank in Quantitative Aptitude (PQA)
|
Overall Percentile Rank
|
|
General
|
70
|
70
|
70
|
80
|
|
NC-OBC cum transgender
|
65
|
65
|
65
|
75
|
|
SC
|
60
|
60
|
60
|
70
|
|
ST
|
50
|
50
|
50
|
60
|
|
PwD (All categories except ST)
|
60
|
60
|
60
|
70
|
|
PwD (ST)
|
50
|
50
|
50
|
60
|
Key changes in IIM Ahmedabad Admission criteria
Following are the aspirant friendly changes and important points in the IIM Ahmedabad admission criteria 2021:
- Minimum qualifying CAT 2020 overall percentile reduced to 80
- Minimum qualifying CAT 2020 sectional percentile reduced to 70
- Top rating of 10 (Rating score A) is awarded above 90% marks in Class 10 irrespective of your stream
- Top rating of 10 (Rating score B) for Class 12 will vary. To get highest weightage for your class 12 marks, you need above 90% marks in Science and Commerce stream. If you are a student of Arts stream, your 85% plus marks will get you highest rating score of 10.
- For Bachelor’s degree weightage, the top rating of 10 (Rating score C) varies for different streams. The academic streams are categorised from AC-1 to AC-7. The medicine branch is defined as AC-1 and needs more than 70% marks to get highest rating of 10.
- AC-2 at bachelor’s degree means CA, ICWA, CS degrees and needs 63% plus marks to get a rating score 10.
- AC-3 and AC-5 denote degree in Economics, Finance, Commerce, Science, BBA, BCA, paramedical and need above 80% marks to get highest rating score of 10.
- AC-4 & AC-7 – denoting Engineering, technology, and other bachelor degrees need highest percentage of marks of 85% plus to get highest weightage of rating score 10 in IIM Ahmedabad shortlisting
- AC-6 denotes Arts, Humanities, Law, Journalism and needs more than 75% marks to get the highest rating score 10 in shortlisting criteria
How will IIM Ahmedabad calculate Rating Score for Shortlisting? Check Below
The Application Rating Score calculation formula at IIM Ahmedabad is:
- Application Rating (AR) = {A(class 10) +B(Class 12) +C(Bachelors degree).
- The normalised AR score of an applicant is equal to the AR score divided by average of the top 50 AR scores from the applicants’ pool
- The applicants’ pool means the candidates who appear for CAT-2020 and apply to IIM Ahmedabad.
High Overall CAT Score: Not Enough
Above is only the minimum qualifying percentile score in CAT 2020 without which IIM Ahmedabad will not consider the candidates for 1st stage shortlist. For example, if a General category candidate scores 99 percentile in 2 sections and scores 60 percentile in 3rd section, his overall percentile may be as high as 95 or 96 but since he has not cleared the threshold limit of qualifying percentile in one section, he will not be shortlisted by IIM Ahmedabad. In case some other IIM prescribes minimum sectional qualifying percentile as 60, the candidate may be shortlisted by that IIM.
According to IIM Ahmedabad, “Performance in CAT is an important input in the admission process. Candidates should note that it is important to perform well in each section of the test. In addition to the performance in CAT, IIMA uses academic performance of the candidates throughout their academic career up to the bachelor’s level for shortlisting for AWT & PI.”
AR scores at all stages of shortlisting
At different stages of the selection process ‘Application Rating’ (AR) score of an applicant will be used. An applicant’s AR score is the sum of all the rating scores based on their percentage of marks obtained in the 10th standard, the 12th standard (depending upon the stream, viz., ‘Science’, ‘Commerce’ and ‘Arts & Humanities’) and the bachelor’s degree programme (depending upon the discipline) respectively.
For different streams/disciplines the equivalent ARs are arrived at by using a (sort of) percentile equivalence of the score distributions using previous year’s CAT data.
After the stage 1 shortlisting the successful CAT 2020 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 2020, AWT, PI and other key parameters in the month of April, 2021.
Many candidates with 99 and 100 percentile in CAT were not offered admission by IIM Ahmedabad earlier. On the other hand candidates with lower CAT percentile have got admission in IIM Ahmedabad.
IIM Ahmedabad: Category wise Cut offs
IIM Ahmedabad had issued admission offer to the candidates from diverse back ground who had scored below 90 percentile for 2020-22 batch. The institute also shortlisted top 50 students from each course out of the CAT applicants to appear for second round of admission. The category wise CAT cut offs for 2020-22 batch remained as under:
|
Category
|
CAT percentile cut off*
|
|
General
|
82
|
|
OBC
|
75
|
|
Scheduled Caste
|
71
|
|
Scheduled Tribe
|
61
|
|
PWD (Differently abled)
|
71
|
*Approximate cut off percentile
The total programme fees payable by PGP students of the 2020-22 batch at IIM Ahmedabad is Rs. 23,00,000/-. Laptop computer, personal expenses on boarding, travel, clothes and laundry are extra. The total programme fees for the 2021-23 batch will be announced later after making adjustment for inflation.
Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more updates on IIM Ahmedabad
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