@Seniors at IIMs
May I know, if there is any discrimination against overseas students during placements at IIMs as they don't go through the rigorous CAT as domestics.
Would anyone at IIMs with work experience( say, 2-3 years) be at disadvantage? I am told that firms, particularly investment banks, prefer young people at IIMs. Is that true?
Hey, just posting to clarify any doubts you have.
GMAT is not necessarily easier than CAT simply because about 200,000 unique people worldwide take the GMAT every year, and GMAT percentile is given taken into consideration the last three years of test takers. So you aren't competing against 200,000, but around 600,000 students (three years) overall for a top percentile.
As i've heard from some people who have taken both, the GMAT verbal is harder than CAT, while CAT quants is harder. Also it is tough to compare the exams, simply because GMAT is a computer adaptive test, that changes the difficulty of the questions as you go through. And, for the GMAT usually students have to answer a higher percentage of questions correctly to get a certain percentile as compared to CAT.
So simply in terms of GMAT discrimination i would say there will be none, because the top IIMs usually only accept students with GMAT percentile in the latter end of the 90s unless of course you have some really exceptional and extraordinary achievements in your CV.
Last but not least, all students at the IIMs have to take a similar course load throughout and therefore it makes more sense to differentiate in terms of performance in IIMs versus performance in entrance exams.
Also, for your question about work ex, students with work ex greater than 10 months are eligible for lateral placements which may give them a slight edge in terms of placements over students without work experience.
