Hi Puys and Pirls,
Apologies for a very long post, but given the 'heat' of the topic, I could not cut it short. 
Much have been discussed and argued over the shortlisting criteria of IIMs. Admission policies adopted by the Ivy league B-schools of our country have been summarily objected by many, while some others have found adequate justifications behind these criteria. But no one can deny that something is wrong somewhere: somewhere there is a flaw that has lowered the respect and credibility of the exam down in recent times and has made CAT an exam of chance and uncertainty.
Factors like economic slowdowns, tuition fee hikes, brand dilution of IIMs, increased reservations and uncertain CAT scores (due to a mysterious Normalization algorithm and varied difficulty level of papers across different slots) might be some of the reasons behind the falling respect and credibility of the exam. But the very fact that acing the CAT doesn't guarantee you the much desired call has certainly added to the misery.
The aftermath of CAT 2012 results saw hundreds of 99+ Percentilers not getting a single deserved call. For example, a 'General Engineer Male' (GEM) with 99.64%ile in CAT 2012 would not even have a single call from BLACKIS if his percentage in graduation and 12th is in 70s.
Amidst numerous debates and discussions already took place and will continue to do so on this subject, below are some of the points that I find most objectionable:
1. Application Rating (AR), courtesy IIM A, is the obvious No.1 on this list. Okay, it is agreed that IIM A requires students with decent and consistent academic history. But what is the point of making it practically impossible for the aspirants with even a slight drop from 80% in any of their previous exams?
Everyone knows that it is more difficult to score in many State Board Exams and Universities than some others. And the task becomes monumental for those who are from non-science / non-engineering disciplines. It then becomes an absolute injustice to blindly apply the multiplicative function (A * B * C) without considering any other facts.
2. If academic background is that important in deciding admissions, why can't all the IIMs Normalize scores across Boards (and Universities) when some of them are able to? There is a huge difference in the overall scoring pattern among various Board exams and Universities; And if the marks obtained in these exams decide the destiny of aspirants, then their scores have to be Normalized to make them comparable.
Council of Boards of School Education (COBSE) has provided the initial Normalized Scores for the 12th standard from different Boards across India : COBSE 2012 Report
(This link was previously posted on PaGaLGuY by 'Pratiyush'. The above document shows that a student in Andhra Board has to score 87% in order to secure an 80 Percentile, whereas a mere 61% marks will fetch him the same Percentile in Maharashtra).
3. Adopting a linear scoring method would save the candidates with boundary scores from being the biggest losers. Candidates having marks between 79-80% are the most unfortunates to miss out on IIM A, and the same applies to 80%, 75% and 70% scorers when it comes to IIM C.
A student with 79% is just 2% underperforming than a student with 81% and he needs to get 2% lesser opportunity in making it to that IIM. A linear scoring method would help in these cases:
Score in X/XII/Graduation : 80 and above, Marks awarded (out of 5) : 5
78 - 78.9 4.8
77 - 77.9 4.7
and so on...
Some have argued that candidates with such boundary scores would constitute a negligible ratio when compared to the total pool of applicants. Hence, it is unreasonable to change the selection criteria for such a small number of candidates! This is equivalent to saying the number of rapes and murder cases are extremely small compared to the total population of the country, and hence, we can ignore them.
Even if a single eligible candidate has missed out the opportunity he/she actually deserved, it is a flaw of the selection process and immediate action should be initiated to rectify it.
4. “Recruiters are the root of this acads based selection criteria set by IIMs”, they say, “Those big names (read Consulting giants of the likes of Mckinsey, Bain, BCG) would prefer only those with excellent and consistent academic backgrounds”. Agreed. But the question remains: What is the head-count going into these companies each year even from A, B, C? Even if admissions were based SOLELY on CAT scores, then also IIMs certainly would have enough number of excellent academic profiles to feed some of the niche consulting and marketing roles (just like XLRI and FMS do).
5. Awarding upfront additional marks to Gender & Academic diversities is an absolute disregard for meritocracy. Though, personally, I don't have much idea about gender diversity (and how XLRI seems to achieve this better than IIMs ), but putting a bit more weightage on Work experience would, most probably, yield a more diverse ambiance inside the IIMs.
Having said such a volume, the moral of the story is simple: Please don't lay such an excessive emphasis on a single criterion. A consistent and decent academic background may be a valid criterion to get admission in a top B-school, but please don't make this single criterion so extensive that a marginal shortcoming in it cannot ever be overcome by good performances in other relevant areas.
Now comes an important question: Why the hell are we wasting our time thinking and discussing this stuff which is not in our hands? True. But is it completely out of our hands? Don't we have any means to make the Admission Committees at IIMs revisit their shortlisting criteria?
I believe this website (as the 'Web' as a whole) is a powerful enough platform to start an initiative. There are many seniors, veterans, students and ex-students active on Pagalguy who might further have contacts to Professors, Alumni and other concerned persons related to Admission Committees. We already know the effectiveness of networking. Thus, we can discuss and try to construct some more reasonable and justifiable shortlisting criteria and explore ways to forward them to the concerned persons when the Admission Committees meet to revisit their policies next time.
Clearly, many facets of these selection criteria are completely unreasonable and unacceptable, and they are going to impact the lives of thousands of aspirants. So together we may consider putting a step forward.
With only four months to go for CAT, I know it's not easy. We hardly have any time to spare. So may we request our seniors, Alumni and all concerned persons here to come forward and try to suggest a probable solution? Can we together put forward our views to the media and even to the MHRD if nothing works out? The Government and the MHRD have previously interfered to the internal matters of the IIMs (to increase reservations). Is there now no possible ways to attract the attentions of the media and the Government to a matter that is going to affect thousands of dreams?
Isn't there any way at all to try together and to make a difference?
Eagerly waiting to hear from you all...
(I'm a newbie when it comes to posting on Pagalguy. Please feel free to notify me and ask the Mods to modify or delete this post (or to take whatever action is required) if you find it inappropriate or redundant or violating any other norms of this site)
