If you are planning to take up CAT 2016, there is some very important news for you. In a bid to increase academic and gender diversity at the premier B-schools in the country, IIMs are planning to slash the weightage of CAT 2016 (Common Admission Test) score in the admission process. The Indian Institutes of Management have tweaked their admission policy whereby other factors / sections such as personal interviews and WAT rounds will be more important parameters to be considered for admissions in addition to CAT 2016 score.
The move comes after constant criticism about the admission policy followed by IIMs which heavily favoured engineering graduates over candidates from other backgrounds. Data from last few years show us that nearly 90 to 95 per cent of students in premier B-schools have technical background, thanks to skewed admission criteria which makes CAT as their primary selection point. As a result, all IIMs including the four oldest located at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Khozikode are planning to revise their admission to policy to correct this.
Talking about specifics, CAT aspirants must consider that for this year, CAT 2016 will hold only 28% weight in the selection procedure for IIM Ahmedabad; it was 35% last year. Other IIMs are also working on modifying their admission criteria to increase diversity and invite more women and non-engineering candidates to IIM campuses.
While the tweaking the admission policy, IIMs have also been careful to ensure that quality of students entering the top management colleges in India doesn’t suffer. For this, personal interviews, WAT rounds and extra credit for academics will play an important role in the final selection of students. Many industry leaders and IIM alumni have noted that analytical skills and soft-skills are equally important to excel in the corporate world today. Therefore, it makes more sense to increase the diversity of the new PGP Batch not only in terms of gender but also in terms of academics.
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