How can I get an Interview Call from IIM Bangalore ?

What are the salient points

- Work experience – quality and duration both matter: The good news is that you get marks for work-experience. The bad news is that your work-experience marks get updated after the interview based on the quality of your work experience. You get a maximum of 5 marks for 36 or more months of work-experience (marks are scaled proportionately from 0-5 based on 0 to 36 months of work-experience). At the interview stage, the admissions panel will be able to evaluate the quality of your work-ex, and therefore, update this work-ex score with a multiplier. The multiplier will be on a five-point scale (0.25, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2.0). Thus, your maximum work-ex score will be 10. If you have poor quality work ex for three years, your final score will be only 1.25 instead of 5.

In short, work-ex duration may provide a very small boost to your chances of getting a shortlist, but to actually help you in the final selection, that work-ex has to be of very high quality.

(Note: If you have done a professional course like CA, CS and Cost Accounting, your performance there will be given a score out of 10 and the higher score between work ex and professional course will be considered).

-   Acads, acads and Acads: IIM Bangalore is known for its relentless focus on consistent academic performance. This year is no different. The weightages for different items are as follows:

-  20 is the weight for the CAT score

-  15 is the weight for Standard X, 10 for Standard XII and 15 for graduation.

Thus, acads will have a huge bearing in your shortlisting as well as final selection. For IIM Ahmedabad last year, the weightage of acads in the final selection was only 9% last year (30% of 30%). At IIM Bangalore, the weightage for past acads in the final selection is about 40%. The good thing is that normalization would be done for standard X and XII scores according to the 90th percentile score of the candidate’s board (using the CAT aspirants’ standard X and XII scores over the last two years as database). Also, graduation scores will be‘adjusted’ with their category, which we interpret to be some form of normalization. This is fair and will ensure that an arts graduate is not penalized for topping with only 77%.

- Personal Interview and Note Writing stage The candidates culled on the basis of CAT score, work-experience duration, and academic performance will be evaluated by a personal interview and a note-writing task. The weightages are 20 for the personal interview, and 15 for the note writing task (15 is split equally for content and style). Also, at this stage, the quality of work-ex will be discerned and the work-ex score out of five will be scaled to a score out of ten.

To sum it up

Adding up all the weightages for CAT (20), Std X (15), Std XII (10), Graduation (15), Work-experience (10), Note-writing task ( 15) and Personal Interview (20), we get a maximum total of 105. Will this be scaled back to 100? We have asked the admissions office of IIM B to clarify. Watch this space for more. There is no explicit mention of diversity, but the criteria are quite well-rounded and will definitely lead to diversity.

What’s changed from last year

There aren’t too many major changes from last year. The one change is in a reduced minimum cutoff CAT percentile. See the table below. Minimum Verbal Percentile has been reduced from 90 to 85 for general, and 80 to 75 for OBC.

How does this compare with IIM Ahmedabad’s new criteria?

The main difference between the two sets of criteria is the weightage given to the Personal Interview stage.

At IIM Bangalore, the Personal Interview stage (PI plus writing) has a total weight of only 35. In comparison, at IIM Ahmedabad this stage (writing task plus interview) has a total weight of 60 (and 70 last year). Thus, at IIM Ahmedabad, if you some how manage to get yourself an interview call, your past sins can be  washed away by a brilliant performance at the interview stage. On the other hand, IIM Bangalore has a more balanced approach, with weightages pretty much divided among several parameters like past acads, PI performance etc. It is difficult to influence the final outcome with a spike in any of the parameters. What is required is consistency in all parameters. The other important difference is of course, that work-experience is of no help at IIM A, whereas it fetches you some extra marks at IIMB. Plus, IIM Bangalore follows a normalization procedure for evaluating past academics.

In short, there are so many checks and balances in the IIM Bangalore criteria, that luck plays very little role in deciding whether you get in. Getting into IIM Bangalore is like winning in a League Format (like the English Premier League) – it requires consistent performance over a period of time, and at the end, it is hardly a surprise when the winner is announced.

In contrast, the IIM Ahmedabad has a slight element of variability brought in by the 60% weight to the PI and writing stage. This means getting into IIM Ahmedabad is like winning in a Cup Format (like the World Cup), where one bad day / one great day can drastically alter your chances.

Both B schools are extremely difficult to crack in their own way.

In a nutshell

The last sentences of the detailed admission criteria document on IIM Bangalore’s website sum it up better than we ever possibly could. In short, it is difficult to get into IIM Bangalore without brilliant acads throughout and a strong record in work-experience. We quote it here for your benefit….

“Since IIMB follows a comprehensive multi-criteria process at the pre-PI stage, it is able to identify  many candidates for the PI who have an excellent academic record and work experience but who, while doing well enough in the CAT to be in the first shortlist, may have narrowly missed the high score that would have been required if CAT alone was the basis for the PI short list. Such candidates effectively replace candidates who have only a high CAT score but score poorly in terms of their past academic record and work experience. IIMB emphasizes consistent and high performance in past academics.”

We are not including test cases because it is amply clear from the above criteria  that only a consistent performer in all stages of academic and professional life will get in.

How can I get an Interview Call from IIM Calcutta ?

Salient points

-  We do not see any major changes from last year.

-  Graduation score will not be a factor either in the initial shortlisting stage or the final call stage. (Although your academic performance in graduation may indirectly influence their perception of you during the interview stage, and therefore, find its way to the final evaluation).

-  Gender diversity encouraged  - three marks for being a woman. (This will help only in the initial shortlisting stage and not be a factor in the final selection).

- Weightage for work-experience on a scale of 0-8 where 36 months of work ex gets 8 points, and from there on, up to 42 months, your work-ex score gets reduced to 5 points. (Work-experience in terms of number of months, will be calculated as of January 2015).

Decoding the criteria

The minimum CAT percentiles are same as that required by IIM Ahmedabad (in the general category). The requirements are slightly more stringent than IIM Bangalore.

For the GD-PI Interview call, you have 77 points for CAT score, 3 points for gender diversity, and 10 points each for standard X and standard XII scores. (The points out of 5 from the table below will be scaled to 10)

Verdict

- The three marks benefit for gender diversity is not something that guys can complain about, and frankly, it is not too difficult to get more than 80% in your Std. X and Std XII. It is graduation where the differences in percentages across boards becomes very severe. But graduation scores are not being considered, and getting more than 80% in Std X and Std XII will put you in the top bracket any way, so you need not worry about normalization. In short, the battle to get an interview call from IIM Calcutta for CAT 2014 is an all-out war based mainly on your CAT percentile.

Making the final cut

- At this stage, the selection process at IIM Calcutta has elements of both IIM Bangalore (weightage to work experience) and IIM Ahmedabad (skew towards performance at the interview).

The total score out of 100 is broken up as

- 35 marks for CAT

-  54 marks for Personal Interview (44) and Written Task (10). (The high weightage given to this stage has echoes of IIM Ahmedabad – where it is slightly higher at 60%).

-  8 marks for work experience

-  3 marks for educational diversity (2 for diversity at graduate level, 1 for diversity at post-graduate level)

Comparison with IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore

While IIM Bangalore has several checks and balances to ensure that only people with great overall profiles (past acads, work ex) get through, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta’s criteria are skewed towards performance at the all-important interview. While IIM Ahmedabad has some additional criteria for shortlisting for interviews (preference for educational diversity, and weightage for graduation score), IIM Calcutta has more lenient criteria, and has special focus on gender diversity.

Conclusion

If you have a less-than-stellar past academic record, IIM Calcutta is your best bet. It is a straight battle between percentiles. Graduation scores are not considered. Even in the scores for Std X and Std XII which are considered, you get full marks for being above 81% (whereas at IIM Ahmedabad, you need more than 90% for full marks in Std X and Std XII). We get several queries in our helpline from people claiming that their poor acads are the only thing standing between them and a place in the top IIMs. Well, the answer to them is loud and clear – at IIM C you have no excuses. It is a straight battle between percentiles, and IIM C represents your best chance to get into the ABC bracket if you have poor acads.

How can I get an Interview Call from IIM Lucknow ? – CAT 2014 : PGP 2015-17

The detailed shortlisting and selection criteria for getting an interview call from IIM Lucknow is given here. The criteria are largely the same as last year. No major changes. We summarize the main points below:

Salient Features of IIM Lucknow’s selection criteria

-  The initial shortlist for interviewing is based on a score out of 50 – with different weightages for different aspects of your profile. The second stage evaluation (GD, PI and WAT) counts for another 50 marks. The CAT score has a high influence on your chances – it counts for 38 marks out of fifty, i.e. it has a 76% weightage at the interview shortlisting stage, and a 38% weightage at the final selection stage.

-   Academics – X, XII, and graduation score are considered, but they don’t weigh on your application as heavily as in the case of IIM A (for shortlisting) and IIM Bangalore (for shortlisting and final selection). Std X scores carry 1 mark, Std XII scores carry 1 mark and graduation scores carry 3 marks. Academics therefore contribute 10% at the interview shortlisting stage, and 5% at the final selection stage. Marks are normalized at every stage.

-   Work experience counts for 2 marks (i.e. 4% at the interview shortlisting stage)

-   5 points for diversity (i.e. 10% at the interview shortlisting stage) which will lead to a lot of debate as usual. Of these, 3 marks are for academic diversity (based on stream of graduation) and 2 marks are for gender diversity (given only to women). Definitely the odds are stacked in favour of female non-engineers – they are the only ones who can reach a total of 50 points in the interview shortlisting stage, while male engineers are capped at a maximum of 45. A male engineer without work ex will find himself at a significant disadvantage (especially if graduation scores are less than stellar).

-   At the second stage, the GD, PI and WAT will count for 10, 30 and 10 points respectively. IIM Lucknow remains one of the few older IIMs not to have done away with the GD. The total points, therefore will be out of 100.

Test Cases

For the general category, we have done an analysis for everyone to understand how the various type of candidates fare at a certain scaled score. Let’s see how male engineers stack up against the competition.

Assumptions:

We assume the Total CAT score remains 450.

We assume all candidates have 10th and 12th scores between the 90th and 95th percentile.

Candidate Type	CAT Scaled Score	CAT Points out of 38	Gender Diversity out of 2	Domain Diversity out of 3	10th Std out of 1	12th Std Out of 1	Total out of 45
Female – Diverse Background	275	23.22	2	3	0.75	0.75	29.72
Female – Engineer	275	23.22	2	0	0.75	0.75	26.72
Male – Diverse Background	275	23.22	0	3	0.75	0.75	27.72
Male Engineer	298	25.16	0	0	0.75	0.75	26.66

Assume the 4 types of applicants to IIM Lucknow to have the scores above. Clearly, a General Engineer Male has a lot to fight against to achieve parity with other types of candidate . An additional 23 Scaled CAT Score Points are wiped away clean by the virtue of the other applicants being of a certain ‘Type’. But mind you, this score is out of 45 whereas the final analysis for a shortlist is out of 50.

The Other 5 Points – Work Ex (2 out of 50) and Grad Score (3 out of 50)

The G E M has his grad score and his work experience to try and narrow this gap against the others in the case above. A work experience of 20 Months gives you 2 out of 2 and technically, a male engineer with 20+ Months of work ex can be even with a fresher engineer female if both have the same Scaled CAT Score. Also, one can hope grad scores normalization stays in your favour and you don’t lose ground even if you can’t realistically cover much ground.

Conclusion

The selection criteria have a lot of conditions, and clearly it is again a case of ‘right person at the right time at the right place’ phenomenon to bag that IIM L call!

Percentile calaculator to get into IIM C!

 You just need to enter your credentials and it will tell you the percentile you need to get a call : Percentile Calculator. Just download the file using save as and enter your credentials to know what you need to score

Two cents on MS/Phd program in top US universities

Q. Could you give me tips on writing a good statement of purpose (SOP)?


You can find tons of resources on the web about writing SOPs and even find a lot of sample SOPs. However, try not to read another person's SOP (or sample SOPs you might find on the web) and derive from that. At least don't look at them before you have written your very first draft by yourself. Looking at someone else's SOP at the very beginning might bias you to write your own SOP in a way, which was probably suited to the other person's profile, but might not work so well in your case.

You should do multiple iterations over the SOP and sometimes it might be necessary to give some idle time between iterations. You can ask peers, seniors and/or professors to review it and give you suggestions on improving your SOP.

I won't talk a lot about SOPs because of the abundance of information already available on the internet on this topic. But do read section 3.4 of DAGAP for further discussion on what a SOP should and should not be.

Some useful links:
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~mabdelm/statement-of-purpose-tips.html
http://www.cs.umd.edu/Grad/sop.html
http://blog.yournextleap.com/this-is-how-you-write-a-kickass-sop/


Q. Is the GRE Analytical Writing (AWA) section important?

Yes. Based on my experience as an application reviewer, the importance given to AWA was less than that given to the quantitative section, but definitely more than that given to verbal.

Low AWA scores (<3.5, even 3.5 is borderline) can be a cause for concern.

Q. How much does the name of the undergraduate college matter?

All top schools do give some weightage to how good the undergraduate college is. When evaluating Indian applications, all top schools have definitely heard of the IITs, but have seldom heard of anything else (even the next-best colleges like NITs, BITS Pilani, Anna Unniversity, etc.). In fact, some times IIITs (Indian/International Institute of Information Technology) get confused with IITs and the IIIT applicants might thus have it lucky thanks to their easily mistakable name. But awareness is on the rise and a lot of the US schools now do recognize IIITs (as being distinct from IITs), BITS Pilani and a few other colleges in addition to the IITs. The importance of the "IIT" brand varies. In some top schools, it may be an absolute necessity to the extent that non-IIT applications are pretty much not evaluated at all. In others, it just adds a bit more of weight and trust to the application. Thus, cases which are on the borderline (say due to borderline GPA or GRE or other factors) and might have been rejected for a non-IITian, might just get accepted because of the "IIT" tag.

Stanford is one of the schools which does give importance to the IIT brand name, but not so much as to overlook other aspects of the application. It thus has an Indian student population such that the number of non-IITians pretty much equals the number of IITians. In summary, if you are at an IIT, stop worrying! If you are not, don't kill yourself about it - there might be a very small number of universities (and this list is becoming smaller every year) that might reject you on account of not being an IITian, but most schools will definitely do a fair evaluation of your application even otherwise. Provided your overall profile stands out, you should still be able be able to into most of the top graduate schools.

Q. Should I apply for an MS or a PhD?

This is a very common doubt that a lot of aspirants have. In some cases, the student himself/herself does not have a clue about what he/she wants, in which case they are mostly interested in how this decision (of applying for an MS or a PhD) affects their acceptance chances and funding opportunities. In other cases, the student is quite sure that he/she wants to do a PhD, but is not sure whether directly applying for a PhD right after BTech/BE is the right choice, or if he/she should apply for an MS first and later apply for PhD.

As far as chances of admission at a top school is concerned, a PhD admission is considerably more tougher to secure than an MS admission. The PhD application pool is simply lot more competitive and the admissions committee too has much higher standards of admissions for a PhD admit. If you do not have a very high research orientation and are looking forward to just get an opportunity to study at a top school and/or have the name of that school get attached to your resume, then applying for MS is a much safer bet. Thankfully, a lot of the applications these days have an option that says "consider me for MS if I am rejected from the PhD program". You should definitely select this option and for universities that don't give this option, you would be better off only applying to their MS program.

Of course, things are different if you want research/academia to be your career and are sure about doing a PhD. In that case, it makes more sense to apply for a PhD directly. Such applicants should also keep in mind the things said above about the difficulty of gettign a PhD admit at a top school. However, when PhD is your goal, then the rank of the university doesn't matter as much as the particular professor/research lab you would be working with. Even in universities that might not feature in the top 10 or 20 in most rankings, there might be specific research groups or professors who are highly reputed in their field and do quality research work. As long as you get an opportunity to work with and be advised by such a professor, you should be fine. However if you really really want to do a PhD from a very top school, then you'd be better off doing an MS first and then applying again (your chances should improve once you have done an MS from a reputed university).

With regards to funding, PhD admissions almost certainly coming with funding in most of the top schools. but MS admissions don't. PhD admits get some sort of scholarship or fellowship with their admit which is good for couple of years (or at least one year), and even after that expires, it's easy for them to get research and teaching assistantships. MS students on the other hand have to solely rely on getting RAships and TAships to fund their studies. The ease of getting assistantships differs from university to university. It might be a good idea to contact a couple of graduate students already studying there (it should be fairly easy to get email addresses of students from the university website) about the funding situation there.

Two cents on MS/Phd program in top US universities

Q. How do I choose my recommenders?

Choosing recommenders is often a trade off between how famous/reputed or senior the person is and how close the person is to you. Though recommendations from more senior persons (like professors or people with a PhD degree) usually are more impressive (than say from a lecturer who doesn't have a PhD), the closeness of the recommender to you will matter much more. Thus, your recommender could be a highly reputed person in the field you are applying to, but if his recommendation doesn't sound enthusiastic or personal enough (i.e. is too generic), that recommendation will not have a lot of value. It's always better to choose people who have interacted with you or supervised you closely over a considerable period of time, e.g. your final project advisor.

Two cents on MS/Phd program in top US universities

Q. I did my BTech/BE in X field of study. However, for my graduate studies in the US, I want to apply for a graduate programme in a different field Y. What are things to keep in mind for such a situation?

Quite a few students do this every year. Whether this poses a problem at all depends on how close or far apart the two branches are. For instance, it might take a bit of convincing if you are applying for a MS in Computer Science but your undergraduate major is Political Science or even an unrelated engineering branch like Civil engineering. It would be easier if your bachelors was in one of the so-called circuit branches (electrical, electronics, computers, etc.). However, in the end, more than what your bachelor degree says, more important would be factors like your individual courses, projects and work experience, and their relevance to the branch you are applying to.

Here are a few things that can help:

1. Highlight in your SOP any relevant courses done even if it's at an introductory level (e.g. if you are a MSCS aspirant, this might be any CS-related course like intro to algorithms, programming, etc.). Also highlight any projects or work-ex which requires a similar skill set as your intended graduate field of study.

2. If such a relevant project or work-ex exists, get a recommendation letter supporting that.

3. In your SOP, very clearly state the reason or background for considering a branch switch. It should be genuine and logical. For instance, it could be the interest you developed from a course project, or work-ex, etc. which got you really excited in the other branch.

4. Consider giving the subject GRE (in fact this might even be a requirement for some universities when your UG degree is in a completely different field of study - check this individually on the admissions website of each university you are interested in).

Two cents on MS/Phd program in top US universities

Q. How many universities do I apply to?
or
Q. How do I decide which universities to apply to?
or
Q. What are the different things to keep in mind while choosing the universities to apply to?

First, lets talk about how many universities one should apply to. The easy answer is the more you apply to, the better your chances of getting into a university of your choice. Practically however, the number of universities you can apply to is limited by the application costs. This includes the base cost of the application itself which can range anywhere from $45 to well over $100 (depending on the university), and the postal charges in shipping the application material. Depending on your spending budget, you can apply to 8, 10 or more universities, but I would advise applying to at least 8 to have a reasonable chance of making it into a good university.

Once you have an idea of the number of colleges you will be applying to, the next step is to choose them. Some of the factors to consider are:

1. Ranking, general reputation of the college, campus recruitment scenario, average salary of a graduate from that university - these factors are more relevant for MS than PhD
2. Professors, their reputation, research groups, relevancy of research to your own interests - more relevant for PhD than MS
3. Course structure and specializations offered, whether there are enough good courses offered in your area of interest - for instance, there might be good CS universities which might not have enough exciting courses on say, AI or Theoretical Computer Science, since their area of focus is something else. Make sure that the university offers enough courses related to your interests.
4. Flexibility of curriculum, whether it is possible to take interesting courses from other departments as well in addition to your department's core courses - for instance if you are specializing in AI within CS, it might be helpful to take a few courses from other departments like mathematics, statistics, psychology, linguistics, etc. and it would be good to get credits for taking those courses too.
5. Tuition fees and living expenses, i.e. how expensive the education is
6. Funding opportunities

The university website and its students (by getting in touch through email) are good resources to get the above information.

Finally, the last thing to evaluate is how realistic your chances of getting admitted into that university are. Obviously, the higher ranked or reputed the university is, the tougher it is to get into them (with few exceptions). Also, PhD admissions are much more tougher to secure than MS admissions at the same university. There are many online forums (Edulix being one of the most popular ones) where existing students from across different US graduate schools help in evaluating the profile of aspiring graduate students and give them guidance on which universities might be a good bet for their profiles. In addition, you can email students from your interested university and get their opinion on how good your chances are.

The usual algorithm followed is to apply to a few ambitious universities (ones which are out of your reach and would mostly require a miracle for getting accepted there), some gettable ones (i.e. those which should ideally be gettable for your profile, and if luck's on your side, you should get accepted into those) and finally a few safe ones (i.e. those which have been known to give admissions to students with profiles even worse than yours, so you should definitely get an admission there). Suppose your were to apply to 8 universities, depending on your risk taking capacity, you can do a 2-4-2 or 3-3-2 or 4-2-2 split, etc.

Also, there are few universities which have very late deadlines compared to others - these are so late that you can get results from the other universities you have applied to, and still have enough time to apply to these. Keep in mind that such universities do exist, and especially if one of those happens to be a safe or gettable one for you, you can wait for hearing from other more ambitious universities before applying here.

Two cents on MS/Phd program in top US universities

Q. Will I get funding with an MS admit?
or
Q. How soon can I expect to get funded after joining my Masters program at a US graduate school?
or
Q. How do I go about getting funding as a Masters student?

MS admissions hardly ever come with scholarships or fellowships right with the admission itself (unlike in the case of PhDs). Most MS admission letters would read "The MS is an unfunded program and students should not rely on securing departmental/university funding for attending the graduate program" and or something similar. However, that only means that you are not "assured" to get funding, it doesn't mean that you will not be able to get funding at all. 

Sources of funding for Masters students typically include research assistantships, teaching assistantships and if neither of those work out, other jobs like library/administrative/IT assistant, etc. The ease of actually getting funded depends on a lot of factors like the particular university in question, the economic situation, department, etc. Funding will be tougher to get in universities with very large admit pools. E.g., if a usual batch of MS students in a department is 200 or 300-strong, that increases the competition for the limited amount of funding slots. The economic situation (e.g. recession) may affect the amount of funding the university/its professors are getting from the government, defence agencies, industry, etc. for various research projects. Even the department you are admitted into has a part to play. Some departments are in general wealthier (as far as funding is concerned) than others. These are just some of the factors that affect funding, but the best way to get a good picture about the funding scenario at a particular department in a particular university is to talk with a current student there. Forums like edulix.com are good sources for such information. But it would be best to get the contact information of a current student from the university's directory and mail him/her directly to get an accurate picture of the current funding opportunities there.

I can do my part by talking a bit about funding opportunities at Stanford, specifically the Stanford computer science department. The funding scenario for Stanford CS students is quite good. Most people I know managed to get funding at least by their second or third quarter, if not right from the first quarter itself. Of course, it involves a lot of patience to contact different professors, possibly interview with them, etc. and repeat this as many times as necessary. But students who took the funding-hunt seriously did eventually manage to get funded - either as RAs or TAs . CS students also have the advantage of easily applying for RAships in other departments like Psychology, Geophysics, Linguistics, etc., where there may be projects that need students with programming expertise. They thus have plenty of opportunities (because of their programming skills) in places apart from their own department. This is a luxury which students in other departments might not have. Also, from what I knew/heard at Stanford, there certainly were funding opportunities for students in other departments too, but probably not as abundant as those for CS students. It's always better to cross-check this information with current students at the university.

A word about on-campus jobs apart from RAships and TAships. It's not uncommon to be unfunded in the very first quarter/semester. Professors usually want to know you first or evaluate you in a class before they give you an assistantship under them. Thus, with no or little background to show, it can be tough to secure an RAship or TAship right in the first (or even in the first two) semesters. An alternative way to fund yourself is through other on-campus jobs like library assistant, administrative assistant at a particular department, etc. These jobs are usually posted on an internal careers/job listing website and pay on an hourly basis. The salary might not be comparable to what you get as a RA or TA, and you also miss out on the best part of the RA/TA compensation, i.e. tuition waiver. Nevertheless, it can be a source of income to at least offset the day-to-day living costs and saves you from spending that much out of your/parents' pockets. Moreover, this should be a temporary job that you do while you keep your hunt on for TAships and RAships.

My final advice would be that if you are getting into a highly reputed university and into a very in-demand program (where you are assured of getting handsome jobs after graduation), please do not reconsider your decision to join just based on the fear of getting funding. Even if you do not get adequate funding and end up owing a substantial education loan, you should be able to repay that fairly easy with your post-graduation job. Having a Masters degree from a university like Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, CMU or any of the other top US universities is definitely well worth it.

What it takes to get into IIM A

The following post is written by a HBS alumni. He also converted calls from IIM A/B and Wharton !

Our view

Given the complexity of admission process at the IIMs, the various quotas and the 3 CAT percentile statistics involved, the IIMs must publish certain basic data. For e.g. check the Wharton Batch Profile here.  They publish a GMAT Range, the mean GMAT score and the middle 80% GMAT range.

Our admission processes are far more complex. But then, more the complexity, higher the need of transparency. It helps aspirants and recruiters. It will be interesting to know what your view is. Please leave your views in the comments below if any

I have been asked by tons of students that what it takes to get into IIM A/B/C ....Questions such as will my academic performance in high school and undergrad will cause any hindrance ?

so as requested by prakhar i am going to share my two cents on it 

Since the CAT 2014 process and the admission criteria of some IIM's has ben changed so this is in regard to the new process!!

IIM A

IIM A has a very complex admission process. Till last year it included application rating (AR) in its admission criteria,for those who don't know what is AR (AR is academic rating given by IIM A on the basis of your high school and undergrad grades. AR is calculated by 0.5*a+1.5*b+2.5*c  where a corresponds to 10th class grades,b to 12th class and c to undergrad ) so last year the final merit formula included AR which caused hindrance to many students who screwed their academics,but this year they have removed AR in their final selection.so if you follow these steps you  can get into IIM A 

i.Try to be in top 50 of your category so that you can get a call from IIM A directly because remember for initial shortlisting for wat and pi AR is still considered...so try to get cat % of 99.99 ( I know it is not easy but this is the only way you can compensate for your academic part) so that you can be called directly because IIM A has this criteria that it shortlist top 50 or 1% of toppers from each category A,B,C,D&E without even looking at any other thing for wat/pi stage

ii.So now you have made it to Wat/pi stage the ghost of AR will not hinder your chances any more,perform well in wat/pi and go through it.......the final merit will be prepared by this formula 0.50*PI score+0.10*awa score+0.40*cat score so here it is no AR is included in it

CONCLUSION

so if you have a weak academic record then just prepare hard for cat and try to get a very good % instead of asking that whether my  grades will cause any hindrance .If you can get 99.99% than you can surely make it whatever your past acad perfomance is ( a 50% ler in 12th class or 10th class or a 6 point someone in undergrad also has a chance )this is the only way you can make it! 

Some IIM A alumni have pointed out that the minimum Work Ex figure given seems to be only for people with work experience as there are bound to be freshers in the General Category of the graduating batch. We don’t know this for sure though.

Source for all the Information above : RTI Query

EDIT: Please visit the blog regularly on what it takes to get into IIM C ! will be updated soon !