Deconstructing IIM Indore's Shortlisting Criteria for the Class of 2014-16

- IIM Indore remains among the 3 old IIMs ( IIM A and B being the others) not to give extra marks to women. However, the criteria still managed to admit over 140 women in a batch of 450 last year.

- There is also no extra weight given to non-engineering background students in the shortlisting. It explains why the % of Engineers is very high at IIM Indore.

- No weight to work experience given while shortlisting. This explains the relatively high proportion of freshers in the 2013-15 batch.

- CAT is a filter during shortlisting. 90 Percentile overall and 85 percentile in both the sections for the General Category. However, we have data that says that NO ONE with less than 95%ile has got an final admission offer for PGP at IIM Indore for the General Category in the last 3 years. (Source : RTI Query) In any case, it is a little difficult to have an overall percentile of less than 95%ile if you have to satisfy 85%ile in the 2 sections. So, we don't see too many students with less than 95%ile even getting calls. Bagging a final admission offer will be very very tough.

- There will be a normalization scheme used for 10th,12th and Bachelor's Degree scores. However, the scheme has NOT been made public in the release here.

- Once you get a shortlist, CAT Percentile of 99.99 = CAT Percentile of 95 as the Final Composite Score to make an ADMISSION offer does not have any weight for the CAT.

- The Ratio of candidates called to admission offers is 1:10.

However, 4510 interviews will not take place. Why? - IIM Indore starts its interview process after final results of IIM ABC are out in April. They have been doing it for the last 2 years now and Prof. Rohit Kapoor (CAT 2013 Convenor and Admissions Chairperson at IIM I) is very happy with this schedule. About 6 months back he had told us that since candidates who have offers from IIM ABC are unlikely to appear for the IIM Indore interview, only serious candidates who are likely to join on getting an offer turn up. This ensures that the panel at IIM Indore gets to spend a lot of time per candidate and the overall process is satisfactory for both the professors and the students who appear for the interview. Earlier, there was a lot of pressure to finish off interviews early because of the sheer number of people which had to be interviewed.

Our view is that this is a smart move. The interview process is likely to be better. In certain slots during the IIM I interviews only 3-4 candidates are interviewed and this ensures that a candidate gets a lot of time to have a conversation with the panel. The interview process is far more meaningful than the 10 minute speed dating type scenarios. It prevents unnecessary wait list movement as well.

We believe that since IIM K has changed its criteria and introduced sectional cutoffs, there will be a bigger overlap with IIM K's pool of candidates this year.

The Criteria and Cutoffs are given below :

CAT 2013 Sectional and Overall Percentile Cutoffs
Category	Section 1	Section 2	Overall
General	85	85	90.00
NC- OBC	75	75	80.00
ST, SC, PWD	50	50	55.00

Once you satisfy this, CAT Percentile becomes irrelevant. Then, 2 Scores matter. The Composite Score and the Final Composite Score. The Composite Score will determine whether you get an interview call.

Weightages used for calculating Composite Score
Academic Performance		Weightages
10th Standard/ SSC		35%
12th Standard/ HSC		35%
Bachelor's Degree (BD)		30%

The table below talks about the 'Planned Intake'.

Category-wise intake versus shortlisted
Category	Planned Intake	To- be shortlisted
General	213	2130
NC- OBC	122	1220
ST	68	680
SC	34	340
PWD/ DA	14	140
Total	451	4510

The Final selection however depends on the Final Composite Score which includes your performance in the Written part as well as the Interview.

Weightages used for calculating Final Composite Score
Academic Performance		Weightages
10th Standard/ SSC		17%
12th Standard/ HSC		17%
Bachelor's Degree (BD)		16%
Personal Interview (PI)		35%
Written Ability Test (WAT)		15%