How Can I Get An Interview Call From IIM Lucknow PGP? – CAT 2016 : PGP 2017 -19

IIM Lucknow has announced the admission criteria for the PGP batch of 2017-19 and the big news is that weight given to CAT has dropped further. The changes:

1. CAT weight has further gone down from 76% in CAT 2015 to mere 60% now. And CAT weight for final selection is as low as 30%.
2. IIM Lucknow now gives 10% weight for past acads- 12th and graduation each as well as 10% weight for work experience while shortlisting.
3. The weight given to academic diversity has gone down to 5% from 6% last year whereas the weight given to gender diversity has increased from 4% last year to 5% this year.
4. With the shift in percentages in academic diversity and gender diversity, females from non engineering background will have an added advantage while shortlisting as well as final selection. (In the final selection, total of 5 points are awarded to gender diversity and academic diversity combined. That is, a female with non-engineering background will be awarded full 5 points whereas a male with non-engineering background will be awarded 2.5 points)

The admission process includes 2 stages, shortlisting of candidates based on CAT 2016 scores followed by stage 2 comprising of WAT and PI rounds. The first step has two stages. The first stage of candidates scoring 85, 85, 85 in each section and overall 90 percentiles for general category remains the same as last year. When we say non-engineers above – which academic disciplines will be considered for academic diversity points? Check the left column below for the PGP programme. The process remains the same more or less as compared to last year:

1. The first stage is composed of achieving minimum CAT percentile (both section wise cutoff and overall).
2. The score calculation for composite score will be done for those candidates who will clear the above cut-offs.
3. There are points and weights assigned to the following factors for composite score- CAT score, 12th marks, graduation marks, work experience, academic diversity and gender diversity.
4. IIM Lucknow gives weight to work experience, so if you have work experience (to be precise, 26 months), you get a perfect score of 10, which will help male engineers with work experience to counter the diversity scores. Work ex beyond 26 months will be awarded the same 10 points.
5. Final scores will be calculated on the basis of CAT scores (30 points), academic performances for 12th and graduation (5 points each), academic and gender diversity (5 points combined), work experience (5 points), WAT (10 points) and PI (40 points). OR Major weight for final selection goes to PI (40 points) followed by CAT scores (30 points). At the final selection all the factors included for composite score remain but with a 50% decrease in composite score.

Criteria for final selection of candidates for PGP programme for batch 2017-19 as given on the website:  Note: The minimum requirement for getting a pass in Personal Interviews is 12 out of 40 points. Names of candidates who do not pass in PI will not be included in the final merit list. Scenario Analysis Here, we try to show you how the diversity factor becomes a key differentiator & can make/break your admission into IIM L. You will get an understanding of how much you need to do better in CAT to get the first call.  

Candidate	CAT Score (for demo purposes)	Scaled CAT Score (for demo purposes)	Diversity score: Gender factor	Diversity score: Academic Discipline factor	Total Score out of 70
Male Engineer	195.0	46.8	0.0	0.0	46.8
Male with Academic Diversity	195.0	46.8	0.0	5.0	51.8
Female Engineer	195.0	46.8	5.0	0.0	51.8
Female with Academic Diversity	195.0	46.8	5.0	5.0	56.8

  From the above table, we can clearly see that CAT score will play a big role for an engineer who is a male. The case has been considered as a large proportion of CAT takers are male engineers. Also, it puts a male with academic diversity and a female engineer at par. In order to score above other candidates, so as to get the first call for WAT/PI, the first candidate shown above needs to score at least 240 in CAT.   Assumptions for the above analysis:

• CAT 2016 follows the same total scoring pattern of 300.
• Each candidate scores the same CAT Score of 195 out of 300.
• The highest CAT score for CAT 2016 is 83.33% of 300, which is 250.
• The background of the candidates considered is same in terms of XII^th, graduation marks & work experience.

Verdict: Weightage on CAT decreases year after year, giving applicants with lower percentiles a great chance at the short-listing stage. Preference given to candidates with excellent acads in 12th is apparent with total point of 10 awarded only to candidates with percentiles in 12th ranging from 98.01 to 100. Candidates with lower than 80%ile get no points. Graduation score as well as graduation field is considered. Points for graduation marks are awarded after normalization across fields including engineering, science, commerce, arts and others.   Work experience beyond a point (more than 26 months) wont be an added advantage. Method of Scoring:  If (PGP & x > 6),  then = min{(x – 6)×0.50, 10} , where x= number of month of work experiences as ofn 31st July 2016. Also, work experiences below 6 months get no points. Academic and Gender Diversity is encouraged and this is apparent by including it as a criteria for both short-listing and final selection.   To read IIM A’s admission criteria for the Class of 2019, click here To read IIM C's admission criteria for the Class of 2019, click here