I’m just another candidate, who wrote the “esteemed” CAT exam this year. I was going through the website of all the IIMs one by one, seeking the criteria on which they shortlist candidates for an interview call. I was stupid when I first thought, that the criteria would include my CAT percentile, my work experience and may be my past academics. Astonished was I, to witness that if I were a girl, I’d have been given 20% more weight-age for many of the IIMs. Or had I not chosen “engineering” as my degree, some 7 years ago, I’d have received preference over engineers. Perplexed by this fact, I started to search for answers, whether such a criteria is really fair for each and every individual who writes the CAT exam?
I met engineers with 3 years of work experience, preparing hard day and night for this exam, scoring 90+ in both the sections, with an overall percentile above 96 and devoid of a single IIM call. While on the other hand, I’ve witnessed my friends (girls) having percentiles just above the 90 mark, fresh graduates from commerce, receiving not one, but multiple old IIM calls and they’ve converted those calls too. I would really want to know, where did that General Category Male Engineer went wrong? Is it because he was born a male? Is it because some 7 years ago, he chose engineering as a profession? Do you want to convey that he can’t be a good manager because of these reasons?
On one hand you talk of spreading “equality” across the nation, across the world. And then you choose such wonderful criteria which makes a mockery of the term “equality”, rather what would you expect from a person who is rejected merely because he is a male and a female was given preference over him? How could you even expect him to be fair in future when you’re teaching him to differentiate on the basis of sex?
I seriously want to argue that how could you reject the candidature of a person even without evaluation, while he scored better than a female candidate, has more experience, and might prove to be a better future manager if given a chance. If the calls are to be made on such “ludicrous” criteria, rather than on qualifications and percentile basis, then why don’t you just scrap the CAT exam?
I know, I’m no one in a billion to challenge the procedures being followed by the most prestigious institutions of the country. But it definitely feels sad to be part of such a system which teaches something completely opposite to what it actually implements. I’m sure; there’d be thousand others who’d criticize my argument and would call it flawed because of one reason or the other. But I stand by my opinion. If justice and equality is to be prevailed, then we better set such examples by which no one is treated unfair behind the veil of gender or stream preferences.