How to get into Top IIMs – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Lucknow
Well, I have been pondering over this thought for sometime now – How to get into top IIMs namely Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Lucknow in today’s scenario. I have seen people getting baffled by the criterion of top IIMs in India and bugging themselves to the extent that it starts hindering their preparation to the extent that people underperform on C-Day. While one should refrain from thinking about the criterion at this stage, he/she should also have a reality check and should not worry about just few B-Schools. While top IIMs undoubtedly provide you a good platform to launch your career, they do not guarantee a successful career. Successful career ultimately depends on you and only you- and no one can take it away from you if you are determined and focussed. However, in this article let us do a reality check of how can one make it to the top IIMs. Selection criterion set by top IIMs for admissions is no less than a case study in itself.
Getting into Top IIMs – Demystifying the Case
As the first step to demystify the case in hand of selection criterion of top IIMs, let us consider the following categories as and when applicable:
- General Engineer Male (he is a GEM, Aah! only if IIMs realized)
- General Engineer Female
- General Non-Engineer Male
- General Non-Engineer Female
We are not taking possible permutations and combinations involving reserved categories into consideration for the analysis presented in this article.
In addition to the above, another broad classification can be done as shown below:
- Strong Academics
- Average Academics
Getting into IIM Ahmedabad
When we talk about top IIMs, IIM Ahmedabad is the first name that strikes us. It is the institute whose dream gave birth to the passion for cracking CAT. Let us dive deep into its selection criterion and see how easy or tough it is to get into the undoubtedly top IIM of the country.
IIM Ahmedabad calculates Application Rating depending on the marks obtained by the candidate in class X, class XII and Graduation. The good thing about the rating system is that it doesn’t provide any extra points for being a non-engineer or for being a female. It provides a level playing field to all irrespective of graduation background and gender, atleast in in the initial phase where shortlist for WA/PI process is done. So, a General Engineer Male/Female and Non-Engineer Male/Female need to get same CAT score (assuming they have similar marks in Class X, class XII and Graduation). However, huge weightage is given to marks in Graduation and people who do engineering from universities where it is tough for even university topper to get 80% are at a disadvantage as compared to students who graduate from places where toppers can easily get 90 plus in even engineering (Yes, there are universities in South India where topper of engineering batch has 96 plus).
Composite Score for IIM A (CS -> Composite Score, value in bracket is CAT Score)
Analyzing the above calculated Composite Score (at different CAT Scores of 350, 300, 275, 250 and 200) out of 450, you would realize that even if the person scores 99.9 percentile in CAT but has less than 70% in graduation, less than 80% in class XII and less than 90% in class X, it would be actually very tough for him/her to get a call for WA/PI round, while a person with 90+ score in class X and XII and 80 plus score in Graduation, may fetch a WA/PI call at 99.5-99.6 percentile itself.
Though gender diversity and academic diversity are not taken into account for initial shortlist, it might have some latent weightage while candidates are evaluated in the second phase of the admission process.
Getting into IIM Bangalore
IIM Bangalore is another top IIM which is at high priority for all MBA Aspirants. However, IIM Bangalore has always enjoyed the reputation where it is considered to be completely out of reach of anyone who had either of the academic scores in class X, class XII and graduation slightly less, unless the respective candidate’s score of either of the sections or overall is among the top 10 scores.
IIM Bangalore doesn’t take the scores of class X, class XII and graduation at the absolute face value. The scores obtained by students in respective classes are divided by the 90th percentile score for respective applicable category and is then taken into account for calculation of score depending on which candidates are called for the next round of admission process.
Sample example of above normalization of class X, class XII and graduation marks is as shown in the image below. Please see that following table reflects only hypothetical values to give you an idea about scoring and is not the exact set of values used by IIM Bangalore.
IIM B Scoring
So, a student with marks in 70s throughout would have weighted academic score like 33.32 (sample values taken).
While a student with class X and class XII marks in 90s and graduation in 80s would have weighted academic score like 40.45 (sample values taken).
Now, to cover the difference of approximately 7 points here, student with marks in 70s would have to score around 0.35 to 0.40 percentile more. In a way, student with scores in 70s might not get a call even at 99.9 percentile if there is a person with strong academics who has 99.5 percentile, assuming both have same amount of work experience.
However, point to note here is that person with academics in 70s and score of 99.9 can get a call for next phase over the student with strong academics, if he has more work experience than the other candidate especially if it is 36 months or more in the case of IIM Bangalore.
IIM Bangalore considers amount of work experience as well for rolling out calls for the next phase of the admission process (It provides maximum possible marks for work experience if it is equal to or more than 36 months), unlike IIM Ahmedabad. However, the similarity between IIM A and IIM B is that they both don’t give extra bonus for being a girl and hence do not take away level playing field atleast when it comes to gender.
Getting into IIM Calcutta
When we talk about top 3 IIMs, IIM Calcutta is the only IIM that provides extra points to girls in the name of gender diversity and provides a non-levelled playing field to lakhs of male aspirants who start preparing for CAT with the dream of studying in Joka. The only better take away for the male applicant is that IIM Calcutta has not shown any significant reluctance for taking engineers by any seperate weightage for non-engineers in the initial shortlisting phase.
While students are evaluated against maximum of 100 marks for initial shortlisting, weightage given to CAT score is 77 and 10 each for class X and XII marks. There is no seperate weightage for graduation marks. However CAT, Class X and Class XII weightages sum up to only 97. Rest 3 marks are for gender diversity. Before getting into overall marks that can be obtained out of 100, let us see how much a student will score out of 97 depending on CAT Score, class X and class XII marks. CAT score is normalized depending on maximum marks obtained in CAT 2013 out of 450. We have assumed that maximum marks obtained in CAT 2013 are 350 out of 450.
IIM C Scoring
Coming back to the scoring on the basis of gender, female candidates get 3 out of 3 while male candidates get 0 out of 3.
Thus, a male candidate with 350 marks (100 percentile in the assumed example) will be at the same position as the female candidate with approximately 336 marks if they both have similar marks in class X and class XII.
Thus, creating a huge difference between the marks required by a male candidate and a female candidate for getting shortlisted for second phase of the admission process.
Getting into IIM Lucknow
Among top 4 IIMs, the IIM that is most reluctant for selecting engineers and to add on to it, even males is IIM Lucknow.
In addition to weightage given to class X, class XII and graduation marks; it also gives weightage to Gender Diversity and Academic Diversity. However, before looking into these 2 additional parameters, let us have a look at the difference created in scoring of candidates after academic scores and CAT score has been taken into consideration with due weightages.
IIM Lucknow calculates score out of 50 for shortlisting candidates. Out of 50, 38 marks are for CAT score where score is normalized depending on the maximum score achieved in CAT 2013. 1 mark is there for each class X and class XII and 3 marks are allocated for graduation. Graduation score is not taken at the absolute face value but are normalized using a complex statistical formula including Mean of the marks and standard deviation of marks in each of the graduation streams.
Following table shows the score out of 43 (38 of CAT, 1 each of X and XII and 3 of Graduation) that would be achieved by a candidate depending on his/her marks in X, XII, Graduation and CAT Score. We have assumed that the maximum score obtained in CAT 2013 is 350 out of 450 and have calculated the respective scores accordingly. Also, please note that value of graduation scoring is based on a small sample taken and might vary slightly when IIM L takes into account entire pool of applicants. However, the numbers in table below reflect the trend which will more or less remain the same.
IIM L Scoring
In addition to the above 43 marks; 2 marks are for Work Experience, 3 for Academic Diversity (for PGP Course) and 2 for Gender Diversity, taking the total of maximum possible marks to 50.
An engineer is not eligible to get any marks out of 3 allocated for Academic Diversity and a Male candidate is not eligible for any marks out of 2 allocated for Gender Diversity.
Because of this differential treatment to males and engineers, the difference created in required scores for getting shortlisted for second phase of admission process becomes quite significant.
Male Engineer getting 350 marks (100 percentile in the assumed example) is equivalent to Female Engineer with approximately 330 marks which in turn is equivalent to Female Non-Engineer with approximately 303 marks and Male Non-Engineer with approximately 322 marks.
Who belongs to Whom?
Before we conclude, let us have a loot at the snapshot of who belongs to whom as per the different shortlisting criterion of different IIMs.
Who belongs to Whom?
Red blocks in the above image reflect the scenarios where getting shortlisted would be tough, yellow shades reflect the moderate chances while green reflects the strong chances. The slight shade variations of the same color in the couple of blocks should be treated as better chances where the shade is brighter.
With this, we come to the end of the article with an attempt to facilitate you in understanding the realistic chances and putting the efforts accordingly. You should not be thinking that clearing the cutoffs as mentioned in the selection criterion of different IIMs should help you big time but you should be aiming at maximizing your scores to strengthen the chances.
Remember not to target 99.5 or for that matter even 99.8, target the magical figure of 100 if you want to set any target. Aim at being the best, aim at the highest possible landmark and not the predictive cut offs thrown by so called experts who claim of knowing the cut offs.
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