- CAT Scaled score has a high weight in getting a shortlist. It is 76% for getting a shortlist. It also matters in the final analysis (38%)
- Sectional cutoffs are at 85%ile. Overall cutoff is 90%ile.
- Academic scores - 10th (1 point out of 50) , 12th (1 point out of 50), Graduation (3 points out of 50) and number of months of Work Experience (2 points out of 50) all have some weight in the shortlisting process. A fresher (no work-ex) male engineer who is not in the top 20 Percentile in his 10th and 12th board is unlikely to get a call from IIM Lucknow even at a relatively high percentile.
- Unlike most other older IIMs, IIM Lucknow retains the Group Discussion in the process for the final selection of a candidate.
Test Cases
For the general category, we have done an analysis for everyone to understand how the various type of candidates fare at a certain scaled score.
Stacking a Male Candidate against the other 3 types of candidates - IIM Lucknow Selection Criteria. Assume all candidates have 10th and 12th scores between the 90th and 95th percentile.
| Candidate Type | CAT Scaled Score | CAT Points out of 38 | Gender Diversity out of 2 | Domain Diversity out of 3 | 10th Std out of 1 | 12th Std Out of 1 | Total out of 45 |
| Female - Diverse Background | 275 | 23.22 | 2 | 3 | 0.75 | 0.75 | 29.72 |
| Female - Engineer | 275 | 23.22 | 2 | 0 | 0.75 | 0.75 | 26.72 |
| Male - Diverse Background | 275 | 23.22 | 0 | 3 | 0.75 | 0.75 | 27.72 |
| Male Engineer | 298 | 25.16 | 0 | 0 | 0.75 | 0.75 | 26.66 |
Assume the 4 types of applicants to IIM Lucknow to have the scores above. Clearly, a General Engineer Male has a lot to fight against. So an additional 23 Scaled Score Points is wiped away clean by the virtue of the other applicants being of a certain ‘Type’. But mind you, this score is out of 45 whereas the final analysis for a shortlist is out of 50.
The Other 5 Points - Work Ex (2 out of 50) and Grad Score (3 out of 50)
The G E M has his grad score and his work experience to try and narrow this gap against the others in the case above. A work experience of 20 Months gives you 2 out of 2 and technically, a male engineer with 20+ Months of work ex can be even with a fresher engineer female if both have the same Scaled CAT Score. Also, one can hope grad scores normalization stays in your favour and you don’t lose ground even if you can’t realistically cover much ground.
IIM Lucknow has a lot of variables and it is clearly a case of ‘right person at the right time at the right place’ phenomenon to bag that IIM L call!
You can read the official admission policy document for IIM Lucknow here
Our analysis of IIM Kozhikode's criteria
Our analysis of IIM Indore's criteria
Our analysis of IIM Ahmedabad's criteria
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