Clarification from the Media Cell

This is in regards to the blog post published by the IIM Ahmedabad Media Cell on the changes to the Admission Policy for the batch of 2014-16 (see here). Some of the leading national dailies and online publishing agencies have published speculative and unsubstantiated articles, misrepresenting the spirit and intent of the original piece. As such, we would like to expressly clarify the following –
1. As explicitly and adequately stated in the blog post, the content of the piece is an attempt by the Media Cell (a student run media committee of IIM Ahmedabad) to evaluate and paraphrase some of the features of the new policy and not a comprehensive document that reflects the official policy of the institute. We would like to stress that for all official (including that for the information of the press) purposes, the original document (here) will be considered as the sole authentic source.

2. All views reflected in the blog post are the personal views of the author(s) who have compiled it for the Media Cell, and in no way represents the official opinion of the institute. The institute, the admissions committee and the Media Cell are in no way liable for any statements that are or may be misconstrued.

It has been observed that new media articles on the topic are increasingly quoting references from the initial set of inaccurate articles that is creating a cascading wave of falsified information amongst the public.

Please note that all official policy decisions as regards admissions will be communicated directly by the IIM Ahmedabad Admissions Committee via appropriate channels.

IIM Ahmedabad revises selection criteria for batch of 2014-16

Note: The following post is based on the IIM A PGP 2014-16 admission criteria released by the IIM Ahmedabad Admission Office. The motivation behind this post is solely to paraphrase the salient features of the new policy and provide a convenient reference to applicants and other readers. While we have made every attempt to include all important aspects, Media Cell and the institute are in no way responsible for any omissions/errors that may have inadvertently crept into this article. For all official purposes, the policy document uploaded (see here) on the IIM Ahmedabad website will be considered authentic.

Based on the feedback given by the admissions committee, IIM Ahmedabad has changed the admission criteria significantly for the year 2014-16 compared to the previous couple of years. The following is an attempt to briefly analyze the major changes in the policy and their expected impact on the batch profile in the coming years.

According to the data available, 96% of students in the 2012-14 batch in IIM A come from an engineering background, and the numbers are expected to be similar for the 2013-15 batch.  The changes proposed in the admission criteria fall in line with IIM A’s desire to increase diversity among the incoming students with respect to their academic background.

There are two major changes proposed this year which will have a considerable influence on the composition of the batch-

1. The formula for calculating the application rating has been changed
2. A provision for direct shortlist to the WA-PI round for top performers in the five academic categories has been included

1. Changes in the Application Rating (AR) Calculation

For the current year 2013-15, the Application Rating (AR) was calculated according to the formula –

AR = (A*B*C) + D + E

The rating scores were assigned based on the Table below.  The maximum possible score is 33.

Table 1– Application Rating Score for the year 2013-15
(Source: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/users/admission/files/Short%20listing%20Criteria%20for%20PGP%202013-15.pdf )

The new system applicable for CAT 2013 based admissions moves away from a composite of multiplicative and additive scores to a completely additive model.  The AR will now be calculated as –

AR = 0.5*A + 1.5*B + 2.5*C

The rating scores are assigned based on Table 2.  The maximum possible score is 45.

Table 2 – Application Rating Score for the year 2014-16 (Source: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/users/admission/files/IIMAProfile_13.pdf)

There were several complaints since the past two years that, due to the multiplicative calculation of AR scores, there was too much focus on marks obtained in 10^th and 12^th standard examination.  Under the old system, if the candidate had fared badly in any one of the exams but showed exceptional performance otherwise, it would have hampered his chances in getting shortlisted.  By giving more weightage to performance in the undergraduate degree and shifting to a completely additive model, the proposed system makes sure that recent performances are given adequate weightage as performances farther back.

Currently, freshers constitute around 27% of the batch.  As the new system does not give any points for work experience or for Master’s degree, the number of freshers who will be shortlisted for the WA-PI round is expected to increase.  Work Experience and postgraduate education will however be used as a criteria while evaluating candidates for final selection (i.e. in the calculation of the Aggregate Rating that would be used to determine the final list of selected candidates).

2. Direct shortlist into WA-PI round for top performers in the five academic categories

IIM Ahmedabad, for the first time, is considering direct shortlisting of candidates from each academic category (as provided in Table 3 of the Admissions Shortlisting Criteria document using information provided by the applicant at the time of filling the CAT 2013 application form) to WA-PI round, provided they clear the minimum percentile cut-offs as mentioned below-

This is expected to bring in the much required diversity on campus and give a holistic perspective on different opportunities in each stream.  Long story short, the candidates will be categorized into five academic categories on the basis of the information they provide in the CAT Application form. For every such academic category, the top 1% or top 50 candidates (whichever is lower) will be directly shortlisted for the WA-PI round irrespective of their Application Rating (AR).

This policy is expected to have a significant impact on the overall profile spectrum of the candidates shortlisted for the WA-PI round. Our calculations indicate that the number of engineers can be expected to fall significantly. The conversion ratio from a WA-PI shortlist to a final admit has historically been 1 in 3 candidates (unofficial figures).  Assuming that top 50 students are shortlisted to WA-PI round directly from each category and the conversion ratio remains same, the number of students from non-engineering background is expected to increase.  Interestingly, IIM Bangalore and IIM Calcutta both have higher percentage of non-engineers as part of their current batches as compared to IIM Ahmedabad.

Other Changes

Due to confusions regarding the calculation of percentage by the board/university, the admission criteria clearly states that “all subjects that appear in the mark-sheets of 10^th and 12^th standard exams will be considered irrespective of whether the Board/University considers them for calculating the percentage”.

Also, with respect to the undergraduate degree, if the university does not consider all subjects in the mark sheet for all the years while calculating the percentage, a letter certifying the details of the practice has to be produced at the time of WA-PI for the candidate to get the benefit of the provision.  This was included after it was noticed that some boards consider a few subjects as non-evaluative.  While the marks-card includes these subjects in the calculating the percentage, many boards/university do not.

For more details about the admission criteria for the 2014-16 PGP batch, please refer to: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/users/admission/files/IIMAProfile_13.pdf

(Compiled by the Media Cell)