Past acads no cause for worry during admissions - IIM Calcutta's Prof Anup K Sinha

******************** NOTE ******************* * Hi everyone, This interview is more than 4 years old and since then most IIMs have revealed their admissions criteria. So it is recommended that readers use their best judgment in using the in…

******************* NOTE *******************
Hi everyone,

This interview is more than 4 years old and since then most IIMs have revealed their admissions criteria. So it is recommended that readers use their best judgment in using the information given here at face value. I am closing the thread for any further discussions.

Apurv

******************* NOTE *******************

At the Indian Institute of Management - Calcutta, academic capability is gauged only through the CAT, says the Dean of Programme Initiatives Prof Anup K Sinha. In an interview with PaGaLGuY.com, he speaks candidly about this year's CAT shock, the future of the IIMs and life at Joka.

With IIM C's international festival Intaglio 2005 in the backdrop, he also throws light on the growing problem of good faculty at the IIMs and how the coming in of international b-schools will affect the IIMs' brand value.

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Wish all IIMs had the same agenda!

On a serious note-

If a person is able to give comprehensive reasons for his bad acads, then he should be marginalized...Else in my personal opnion 45% student and 80% student have to be demarcated

For reasons like "No interest in the subject ", it may extract a bit of wrath from panelists!

The reason being IIMs expect MBAs to be "Jack of all trades" kind of people who can handle various skill-sets ranging from Systems to finance to recruitment of a company or startup!
Bad acads because of disliking of the subject might contradict with the above theory

I think the Prof is sorely missing the point when it comes to bringing in objectivity in the IIM admissions procedure. As long as the IIMs continue their misguided so-called objectivity (it can't be called that - because for being objective one has to look at all aspects rather than performance in just one screening test like CAT), they will never be able to rival the top global institutions.

When he himself admits that there is huge demand for MBA in India, then why not address that demand instead of allowing it to be satisfied by overseas b-schools.

And on the subject of having to choose between people getting 99 and 98 percentile, I remember there was an interesting discussion in the Economic Times a couple of months back. It was said that what the CAT does is promote academicians who do well in the test, not future leaders.

In the end I guess it is the IIMs more than the students who are losing out on diverse quality of students. What matters is not whether you have scored 99.75 or 98.75 but what you bring to the b-school through your academics, work ex, ideals, motivations rather than just topping a unidimensional screening test.

Absolutely not looking at acads is stupid... And though this dude is saying it, I doubt the claims... He might have worded it to mean you are not ruled out... One wrongly marked answer is around half a god damn percentile... So how the hell can work done over 4 years not be considered relevant enough over the CAT score...
Though I would still rate a 1% higher percentile superior to any acad difference with the lower percentile...

Also I believe the decision about people must be done upto 80-90% before the actual GD/PI...
Its the last 10+% plus a few positive and negative vetoes that take place in the GD/PI round...

K

edited......

What kind of difficulties will an Online CAT system bring up?

difficulty wont b much... just operations!!! 😃

i perfectly agree with Abhishekp. It makes absolutely no sense to exclude students who have scored 98.75 and select those having 99.25 just because our dude with 98.75 could not solve a "time and distance" problem (which the latter succesfully solved!) and hence rejected! Rejected from studying in the IIM's coz they are considered "not competitive enough" to do an MBA from them. Why? coz "time and distance" was the problem!

c'mon, can a process be more immature than this? As abhishek pointed out, a students ability to interact with people, his attitude, his ideals, how MBA fits in his career, how an MBA will be helpful for him, his work ex, his achievements in the past etc. must be considered "along with his score" while selecting rather than using this lop sided approach.

I hope things change for the better in the future.

hey pradeep n all

U ppl hav a point but also consider the fact, that given the limited number of seats in top b schools, IIMs, FMS, XL etc and a large pool of applicants approx 1.5 lac to 1.8 lac with diverse backgrnd, a method hav to be adopted for shortlisting thm that has to be objective.
The questn is not whether a guy with 0.25%ile less than othr is incapable, but the fact is the guy with .25%ile higher score performed slightly better at the line of decisn on pre declared selection criteria std. The qstn is not of time n distance, its of performin to ur level best, using proper selectn.
As per ur logic a guy who fails any exam at 44.5 marks nd othr one who passes it at 45.5 marks (with 45 being passing marks) is jst nt abl to write one extra sentence thats why he failed. But that does sentence matters!! There has to be a border!

Alaric

the limited no of seats is the root cause of all ills. An developing economy like India requires more seats. And it is laughable when the argument is made that the IIMs can't increase seats in order to maintain quality. We don't realise it, but the pressing need of the hour is to increase intake at all top b-schools in India.
And a course like MBA is not like a normal academic course. Its more to do with the individual as a whole than merely the CAT. Precisely why it takes more than a good GMAT score to get to Harvard.

"Are you saying that once shortlisted, two students with the same cat percentile - but one with 45 percent marks in the undergraduation and the other with 80 percent marks in undergraduation - are on the same plane during the remaining part of the admission process?

Absolutely. At IIM Calcutta, yes."

WOW..this is really freaky..there has to be some diff atleast! CAT seems to make up about 60-70% of the final score!

In my opinion, the Prof. Sinha is right. An MBA aspirant with bad past academics should not be left to pay for his earlier mistakes. Moreover, we have GD and PI to evaluate how the candidate has improved in developing a good vision for himself in futre. Bad past academics is mistakes from which the student would have learned. Let the present decide whether she is fit for MBA.

In my opinion, the Prof. Sinha is right. An MBA aspirant with bad past academics should not be left to pay for his earlier mistakes. Moreover, we have GD and PI to evaluate how the candidate has improved in developing a good vision for himself in futre. Bad past academics is mistakes from which the student would have learned. Let the present decide whether she is fit for MBA.

He has not justified his claim using this reason. You are attaching your own assumed reason as the actual reason.
well while seeing acads 1 major factor is that in india most of the learning has been root learning and when it comes to cat its a lot abt thinking outside the box and analytical thinking,even when it comes to maths i know many ppl who were maths toppers while in school struggling in the cat....when we talk abt managers we need out of the box thinkers may be thats why past acads really dont matter,though i must when we do have ppl with similar percentiles past acads should matter cos 1st it shows consistency plus the fact that the person with a good acad score has retention capacity while the other person may not put in an affort in an assignment which does not int him.

many pts need 2 be looked at but overall i feel the way cat is structured its a good judge ,and for all those who say its just 1 exam then i may add that the IIT entrance exam and so many damn other exams r also 1 exam which decide ur undergrad future and with cat atleast 1 has an option of taking up a job and trying next yr and 1 doesnt really feel as if they have lost a yr...... plsu dont we other entrance exams like xat and all!!!!

well just 1 more pt .....when XLRI and SPjain have gone beyond the cat scores and xat scores and looked at past acads and work ex they have come under heavy fire by ppl..so in the end all that matters is which side of the fense ur!!!!

guys personallly i feel that institutes have to have a borderline and there is no harmin a cut off system. Also the IIMs are continously increasing their intake cause they see the need to increse supply but you must realise it takes more than time and money to build an institution which is credible and worth its salt. They need faculty, other facilities, etc.

Also all of us have done poorly at some stage or the other in our past academic record and that is just a way of saying that the marks dont matter but nowhere does he mention that they will not check the candidates ability to answer questions related to his academics and subjects encoutnered in the course of his graduation. Thus they mean to say that the actual %s dont matter what matters is whether you know your stuff or not.

Now this is what I believe,

Just because you were not good at studies while you were doing your undergraduate exam doesnt mean that you are suffer for it for the rest of your life. I mean, that is quite sadistic isnt it?

When it comes to the argument about the fact that they could not do well in their acads because they weren't interested in it and thus might not qualify for the MBA course, but if they were supposed to be THAT unfit for MBA course how were they able to get thru the exam?

CAT is, I am sure we all agree, not an exam where formulas tend to decide the supremacy but rather your intellect(?) and approach. And, if a candidate of lower academic score were to get thru the exam doesn't that mean that maybe he has the right approach for this course than the one he had been previously employed in?

As for the student who has got a good record in his acads.... well, looking at it from business point of view, I would say he would do better cause he is more of an all rounder. Looking at it from philanthropic point of view, we can hope that the one with good academic % can get a job while the one with lesser score might not thus helping out the lesser % one by giving him a seat is better. But, dont think they would select for the sake of karma now would they?

I seem to be undermining my own statement... now that aint entertaining.

well another imp pt is that in india we have var boards and the marking system is not the same everywhere, a 65% in 1 good be the topper in that board while in another a 80% could be just a above avg student ,so how can u compare both!!!the eg given by the prof is an exaggerated,we wont really come across cases of having to choose between 45% and 80%,so lets look at it practically!! most foreign univs also clearly state that ur gmat/gre scores r wht will reflect ur acads background cos its diff 2 compare marks of students from var backgrounds and univs!!

Thats true that we have various boards in India but looking at the distribution of people who apply to management institutes and the experience that the panelists have it can be said that they have an idea of the various avergaes across the boards. Also if they doubt your competence in your earlier knowledge they will definitely ask questions to that effect in the interviews