(3) CAT-a-LOG: All about CAT, IIMs and Coaching.
(3) CAT-a-LOG: Why You? Another question from IIM/Top B Schools!
(Posted on 5/9/2023, Teachers Day)
Unfortunately, IIMs do not mention their expections from students in simple and clear language in their notifications for CAT. Besides, their notifications come in only English but not in Hindi or any other language. Coaching Institutes take advantage of this lack of clarity, and create hype for CAT. Consequently 90% of the students enrolled in Coaching Institutes get dejected and depressed after the CAT result.
Reproducing below the 'Admission Process' of various IIMs as mentioned in CAT Bulletin for CAT 2023:
"ADMISSION PROCESS
Please note that IIMs shortlist candidates for the interview stage based on their own criteria,
which may be independent of each other. The process may include Written Ability Test
(WAT), Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interviews (PI). Performance in the CAT 2023
examination is an important component in the admission process. IIMs may additionally use
other factors such as the previous academic performance of the candidates, relevant work
experience, gender and academic diversity and other similar inputs in shortlisting and
ranking of candidates at various stages of the admission process. The processes, academic
cut-offs and the weights allocated to the evaluation parameters may vary across IIMs. For
more information, refer to the admissions policies of individual IIMs on their respective
websites"
Please try to understand from the above that CAT score is just one of the several parameters to be shortlisted for IIMs.
In general, IIMs have following parameters for selection of Students, though they don't write in their admission process explicitly:
(1) Academic Brilliance: Brilliant students who have performed exceedingly well in X and XII board exams are preferred in both the stages: (i) Shortlists for Interview (ii) During the Interview process also indirectly.
To be fair to IIMs, it is true that the Good scores in X and XII do show Students' positive managerial qualities like intelligence, commitment to goals/targets, hard work, dedication, time-management etc. And the IIMs and Top B Schools obviously prefer such qualities in the students selected.
Unfortunately they expect academic brilliance but never mention in their bulletin! This is exploited by the Coaching Industry. They go on enrolling students in the name of only CAT score!
(For more details please read the article Mental Health: Role of IIMs.)
(2) Managerial Qualities: They want to see Managerial qualities in students like Planning , Organizing, Controlling, ability to perform successfully in Group tasks as shown by students in their College or School life.
Accordingly, students who have participated in co-curricular and extra activities during School and College life are certainly given preference as they do show above mentioned managerial abilities. These activities may be : participation in : various Sports, Olympiads, NSS, NCC, Any NGO for a social Cause, professional groups' activities etc.
They are more interested in the Merit Certificates at National Level or State level , not just participation certificates. Such Merit certificates are not mandatory but they do help CAT-IIM aspirants.
(3) Work Experience: The MBA/PGDM courses throughout the world were introduced for working Managers. Over a period of time the course became equally popular among freshers also. The premier Institutes do believe in giving weightage to experienced persons in comparision to the freshers.
The above three milestones are achieved by the students themselves much before joining a Coaching Institute. No Coaching Institute for MBA contributes in the above achievements. In fact much much more weightage for final selection is from the first two or three points than the much hyped CAT Score.
The remaining two points are about CAT and GD/PI or (Group Discussion)/(Personal Discussion.)
(4) CAT Score:
This is the common exam in which every aspirant has to appear every year in November. The hype created by the Coaching Institute is all about this exam only.
They will tell you that once you clear the CAT; you will go to the coveted IIMs. It is just not true. Even a few hundred percentilers and many-many ninety-nine percentilers fail to go to IIMs because of failing in the first 2 points.
CAT is now more like screening exam and it's weightage in established IIMs and other Top B Schools is not more than 25 percent, overall.
(5) Performance in WAT/GD/PI: The next stage after clearing the CAT is about GD/PI. GD may be replaced by Written Ability Test or some other Group Task.This stage is very important. Here the coaching Institutes may be helpful in fine tuning your preparation.
Most of the Coaching Institutes will offer you free GD/PI course even if you were not their students for CAT as they will use your name as their own student in the future as advertisement! A smart student likely to go to IIMs does not pay fees for GD/PI.
The CAT preparation should be started only after understanding the expectations of IIMs and other Top B Schools as mentioned above in brief.
Pankaj Khanna
Indore (9424810575)
B.E. (Mech.) SGSITS Indore 1983 Batch
-Worked with HPCL from 1984 to 2007.
-Faculty Maths/DI-LR -TIME Indore 2007-2020
-Faculty Maths/DI-LR-IMS Indore-June22-July23.
-Blogger on diverse subjects.( Love thy Numbers, Epeolatry, CAT-a-LOG, Corruption in Oil Companies, Tawa Sangeet, Ikshak Indori and a few more.)
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List of Articles of the blog CAT-a-LOG:
Section A: The articles written in this section are about basics of Self-Mentoring, MBA, CAT and perils of Parallel Education System (Coaching Institutes). Everyone concerned about Coaching Classes including the Parents and Students are requested to kindly go through following Articles in this Section before joining any Coaching Institute for CAT.
Section B : This section is all about Mental Health of CAT aspirants. The darker side of CAT Preparation nobody discusses. These articles should also be read by Everyone including Parents and Students.
Section C: It is about detailed CAT Preparation Plans for Students. Parents may also Read:)