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Ambiguity in MICA admissions screening irks applicants

Has Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad violated its AICTE certification?

Applicants to the 2006-08 PGDCM course were astounded on Thursday to find that MICA had screened in students with CAT and XAT percentiles between 90 and 95 but many with higher scores were left out, giving way to speculations that sectional scores were used in the process.

Why is that an issue? According to the accredition terms quoted by government certification body AICTE for MICA, the institute is only allowed to use overall scores for their screening process. By that logic, only the top certain number of percentile scores would be allowed to take the next level MICAT. However, the pattern of the qualifying percentile scores did not adhere to this guideline.

In one of the clauses, the institute has reported that “Short listing is done based on the overall percentile and not on sectional cutoff.”

When contacted, MICA Director Prof Atul Tandon told PaGaLGuY.com that the sectional scores had been used to decide the cutoffs to be used on the overall score.

“In the end, we have used overall scores only. But since we were using many different scores, that is, CAT, XAT, GMAT and previous years’ CAT scores, we had to take sectional scores, past profiles, work experience and background also into consideration,” he said.

This is again not in agreement with another AICTE clause, which reads, “CAT, or GMAT is used to shortlist candidates. 100% weightage is applicable for screening applicants.” Clearly, weightages have been accorded to other factors too. Prof Tandon insisted that no AICTE rule had been violated and the institute was allowed to use factors other than the CAT score.

The matter has infuriated applicants across the country, some even feel cheated. “We had received official emails from MICA giving us updates like only overall scores would be used for the screening and that the cutoffs would be low owing to a tough CAT and XAT. Now it seems like it was all a cheap money making exercise to get more applications,” said a student.

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