rediculous, that is all i could say, we have mavericks in todays era who were no child prodigy. IIMA should think over its decision, management skills are not imbibed by 70 % score in boards.
truely retrograde....

The only rationale I can think of for this move by the IIM is that additional filters are needed because too many people are qualifying in their test. If that is the case, it would be better to restrict admission to those with some years of work experience as that will throw up more of a difference between potential achievers and the rest.

Agree with the author completely. Examinations are unavoidable accompaniments of a course of education, not their central purpose. The Indian obsession with marks scored in an exam overturns this logic. IIMs should help reverse, not reinforce, this sort of travesty.

Hi.There has to be some cut off line.Excessive weightage to the CAT exam may not go down well ( too much importance to a 2.5 hr exam etc..).Any benchmark will be open to criticism.Tough call.

Its unfortunate..........
And many good students are going to suffer.

Mr.Raghunathan is absolutely right. Is it not possible for some body who has done badly in school board exams improve in the next 5-6 years academically. One of my friends who is doing extremely well careerwise today had just managed 60% in the school board exam . He never had the exposure in his early days as he was from a village. But once he got the exposure during his college days he started doing well. This step will go against those sections of the scoiety who were not fortunate to have the right guidance, schooling , exposure in their early student lives.

I think this idea of IIMA is really retrograde. Does it mean that only academic excellence is a measure of good managerial ability. The ability to think and make decisions. The ability to manage people and resources is much beyond grades in schools and colleges. The ability to provide leadership and to take responsibility is really something totally different and I am afraid that the IIMs have failed to deliver on that.

As said by V.raghnathan a multitude of applications should pose no problem in this age of advanced technology.The new approach would make a pariah of those who were not fortunate enough to get good access to education or whatever necessities.It is a diktat which says, if you fail once then you are not allowed to try again and that's it.More ironic the move comes at a time when HRD ministry is trying to root out our old rote learning method of education tojust to secure marks.

Its sick...
Why should a person be instropected based on previous results.
Is the present result not enough to satisfy these stupid set of administrative people,
Mr. Sibbal, You have a way to go.
Please stop these things.
A person might have not performed on his boards due to various reasons.
He might have been sick, may be some personal problem.
These type of measures would force a student to drop an year.
Then the consequences would be very bad

I fully agree with the Author, the only question that arises in my mind is do IIM Board guarantee that the scores of the School Boards do fair amrking and justice to everyone.
And is IIM Ahemdabad sure that below 70 students cant run management than Dhirubhai was the worse hero of Indian Business.
Free advice to IIMs do follow the foot prints of indian politics by juzz doing something rather do something logical.

The decision by IIM A just signifies that, the coveted CAT has lost its importance, perhaps due to the recent fiasco of online test. IIM A just wants to play safe by taking students with a consistent academic record.I feel other than going online they should also change the pattern of CAT, perhaps add some case studies. perhaps that will ensure better candidates (who are intelligent in real sense, rather than having a lucky CAT day.)

Centainly, the move will not be in the interest of 'fairness', more speficically, when there is no correlation established with board marks & IIM's entrance criteria

I agree with the professor.If a person has done exceptionally well in CAT,it is unfair to deny an interview call.Some children are late bloomers.If IIMS want to follow this policy then they can notify that cat applications will be given only to those scoring above 70%IIMS is introducing this policy just when Mr Sibal wants to make board exams less stressful.If one looks around one would notice that those who reach the top of the corporate ladder are not only those who had 90% in school board exams.Come to think of it the recent Indian American Nobel prize winner Mr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan did not not make it to the IITS but went on to win a Nobel prize.

Mr. Raghunathan,

Imagine going for a movie, without any seat number allocation. Imagine a Flight/train without any reservation status. Imagine a situation or times where we stop accepting challenges in our lives and so on and on.

Everybody has the right to opine, but who will draw the line? How will a child become a winner, if he/she does not learns how to react in rejection. What is the best vaccination for chicken pox? Yes, you guessed it right, it is the virus itself.

What would you say if the cut off percentage was say 60% or 65%? OK, maybe you would have not written this article, but someone else would write a genetically similar note citing the similar reasons.

Why always bring out the matter of poverty as a discriminatory factor. Would you say that all who are rich today were born rich or some of them have struggled hard. I am sure we can find many persons who have fought the adversities in their lives and maybe are still fighting to reach where they have envisioned to.

Let us admit that someone underprivileged will always have to work harder to reach somewhere in life, but do you think that the definition of underprivileged starts with poverty?

There will always be disparities in our lives. It is we ourselves who will have to sharpen our abilities to discover and ride over them.

Are IIMs the only places left for doing Management studies? Are there not other institutes, which also provide the same exposure, but from a different faculty. Are all the successful persons in this world coming from only one school or college?

Mr. Raghunathan, Please encourage everyone to rise over matters and hyperboles. We know how many IIMs there are in our country and we also will agree that there is only a certain number of students they can accommodate. If they listen to us and remove these minimum eligibility criterions, where do we imagine those ADDED students will study and what and by whom???

Otherwise, it was a nice article. Thanks

Recently, when I was analyzing MBA option, while sifting through list of top MBA institutes, I wondered why, when Chinese institutes, Singapore & even a Private Indian Institute was there, but no IIM. Now I can understand, their reluctance to think beyond accepted mainstream line, analyze aspects other than academics, hampers their ascendance. I beieve, IIM-A top brass are displacing goal of MBA degree, i.e. to prepare a person to face real business world & not to prepare just academicians. In their laziness, they are denying a person, esp. from not so well to do background to afford some fancy degree in Pvt. Institute or abroad, a second chance to revive his/her mainstream career.

Very biased and populist. Does not suggest any alternative. Very sparse on content- no specific solutions at all. Seems written in a spiteful mood, and plays to the gallery. Not constructive. Outraged, my left foot.

Dear Sir
I could not agree more with what you said. I also do not understand why we are so hung up about per cent marks obtained in School. The Indian Education System needs to catch up with the current times and redesign itself. This is the time to question the entire examination system - to ask the question whether we should have marks in the first place and what purpose do they serve? Why not have grades instead? Instead we are digging deeper holes by linking marks obtained to entry criteria to other institutions like IIMs. This is clearly walking backwards!!!

i completely agree with the idea...being the top most B-schools in india it should not judge students by their percentage...their can be number of reasons why one couldnt make into 80s in board.managerial skills are developed by experience,exposure, exploring one's own limits..not just by craming few chemical equations and vomiting it out in boards. the criterion must be reconsidered

The IIMs are undeserving of the hype that always surrounds them. The reason that their students do well in later life is that these students are already the cream of the lot, having cleared the arduous CAT. There are several colleges in India that have better infrastructure, and arguably, better faculty, than the IIM. What these other colleges don't have are better students.

A person who can clear the CAT should be considered as having aptitude enough to do well in the PGDBM courses. One's school and college academic records do not represent anything except the ability to navigate rote-based exams.

My question is why do they consider board or any previous exam result when they are considering a candidate for admission. The previous board results or even graduation marks in that case has nothing to do with the course that the candidates are going to pursue in these institutions. What ideally they should be looking for is work experience, non - academic profile of the candiadate and the score in the qualifying examination. One may say that a student with consistent records alone deserves a seat here. The world has seen a lot of people who were poor performers in the beginnig and in due course of time changed the world we live in!

very ewll said

An excellent post and the IIM's do have to be questioned on their admission process as CAT 09 results looks the worst. And for sure the quality and standard of IIM is in question? A selection process should be done on the basis of their results(that's already question whether its right or wrong?).

A REQUEST: IIM's try to lead from the front rather than hiding the face of guilt?
In simple terms:-
CAT 09 Exam(Failure) & results (A better Failure)- "How a top institute can cheat everyone?"

Dear Sir, This coz of the reason that they have messed up CAT this time... and themselves do not believe in the CAT scores. The reason which has started a MASSIVE protest the scrap/ evaluate the CAT 2009. Please help us raise our voice against this CATerrorism

first of all thanks to Raghunathan Sir for picking up this issue. It really does not make any sense that if a person did'nt perform at one point of time in his life, he'll fail every time. Management capabilities are reflected by your shrewd manipulating skills, taking good decisions in worst situations...... . your class 10 or 12 mark sheet never guarantees this. they should use CAT , gd-pi & essay writing as the measuring rod.
And not putting breaks at someone's journey because of its earlier faults!!!!!!!!!!!

yes now they try to filter candidates on these criteria as CAT exam failed in doing so this time..

it is really orthodox in one side govt tries to reduce presure of 10th and 12 th board exam on other side top mba institute opposing it by introducing 70% marks for addmission in these colleges.

You cannot dilute higher education on SOCIAL agenda.

It is like Housing Loan for all, which ruined USA.

India with limited resources cannot waste precious minds on social agenda.

I am splitting my response due to space constraints for a single post.

Well written Sir,
I was one of the aspirant of the CAT and I am much disappointed with the way the entire CAT admission fiasco has been met with indifference and nonchanlance, be on the part of the IIM officials in particular or the media.

I am not discussing the percentage criteria, but through this forum I would like to slam the persons who are at the helm of conducting the entire process of CAT.

I would like to put my grievances before the readers in the best possible manner I can.

1.Why there was such an urgent need to conduct the CAT in ONLINE avatar, given the number of students appearing was humungous and the infrastructure we have, is certainly not upto the snuff ? Why the Pencil Paper format was done away with, just by giving a poor alibi of overhauling and easing out the entire intake system?

2.At the very outset of the registration process, there were glaring lapses, be in the validation of the text fields, or the retention of the information submitted by the students during the the Entire registration process.How someone can be so reckless about the event which is undoubtedly of highest imperative to the IIMS other than placements?

3.The Prometric dished out the most pathetic UI before the large number of CAT taker, which ought had been exemplary to other Admission process.The regitration process was cleary a MOCKery for the students who were burning mid night oils to withstand the rogors of MOCKS across the country.

4.It was assured the level of difficulty would be maintained uniform across the days and slots.With the hindsight, I can definitely say nothing could have been farther from the truth vis-a-vis their(IIMS) claim in upholding this simple premise.

5.On 28th of Nov2009, the CAT day when the Worst nightmare became true.Server across the country crashed, and the officials came out with a simple excuse of some unknown virus. They completely bungled the entire process. Frequent shutdown, and program behaving errartic on a D day,made us feel frazzled, hopless and incensed.

6.No doubt some of the CAT papers were bog standard. What the CAT has established and gained from it, other than undermining their credibilty to the whole nation , which hitherto was hailed as a holy grail.If any one had seen this year XAT paper, they can easily see what kind of paper and precedents they(XLRI) have set before the aspiring managers. DID IT MADE THEM ANY LEES SIGNIFICANT B School,BUT THE WAY IIMS have undertaken this huge exercise, IT HAS DEFINITELY PUT THEM SEVERAL NOTCHES DOWN IN THEIR TRANSPARENCY AND INTEGRITY.

7.The CAT results were deliberately delayed, just to cut the time Test Takers will have to seek their redressal via legal recourse.

I can definitely say the So called NORMALIZATION process they are talking of is just a sham to divert the attention of folks from the crept inadequacies and flaws in the entire process.

8.There cannot be any bigger irony that for the purpose IIMS had hired PROMETRIC for a 5 year contract for mammoth 40 million dollars, is defeated totally.They screwed up the entire thing right be it regestration, be it conduct of the exam, or be it declaration of the result.Even on 28th feb, CATIIM website had to be shut down.Why? Did not they were aware of the number of hits this site woulgd get after results were out?

What kind of tranformation and overhaul they are talking of?
Totally rubbish and bull shit,and it is the students who are recipients of injustice and unfair methodology, which has been foisted upon them as a yardstick to gauge their performance and give a ticket to enter in the hollowed premises of IIMS.

As I myself is the victim of this bungled episode, and I emphatise will all the ppl across the nation who have been wronged and wronged totally with the shabby display of ego and self-righteousness of IIMS, while abdicating their responsibility to do a postive bit for future of students.

LET ME EMPHASISE ONCE MORE, OUR CAREERS ARE TOO PRECIOUS TO LEFT THIS(CAT) PROCESS THE WAY THIS HAD GONE THIS YEAR AND CERTAILNY TOO SACROSANCT TO BE RELEGATED TO SOME COMPANY, WHICH HAS FAILED GROSSLY ON MAINTAINING SOME SIMPLE TENETS OF A FAIR AND TRANSPARENT CONDUCT OF EXAM.

SCRAP THE DEAL AND TAKE THE BATON YOURSELF(IIMS), FROM NEXT YEAR.PERIOD.

what a mess... so you have to get 70% to prove you will be a good future manager. See the history and people those who are super achiever . Its irony that many business tycoons are college dropouts. Some were not great performer. Reason creativity does not come with percentage. Innovation is not limited to 70% + percentage. The fact those who get average percentage maximums are good thinkers and innovators. Undoubtedly maximum IIMers are good worker , not good innovators..

Hence for the future of India and IIM such criteria are useless.

Sir you have been a professor at IIM. Do you know anyone with poor scores in their school board exams and yet being selected in the IIMs? The cut of for graduation is also 50 percent, but i think this is a joke. I have been through the selection process and appeared for cat exams, and as far as I could make out, anyone without impeccable academic records throughout does not stand much of a chance. I doubt they would ever select anyone with poor school or graduation scores.

Of course, this does not apply to reserved category students and a few exceptional cases. I may be wrong but this is my perception, you of course know better about whether it will really make a practical difference.

Rightly pointed out. Instead of percentage of marks, aptitude should be the basis for admission to management stream.

I do agree with Raghunathn. B'coz this decision shuts the doors to the poor brilliants who do not have good education access during schooling. If % of board exams is the criteria to decide the eligibility, then there is no point in conducting CAT. Y not IIM admits the students based on % of marks in board exams which still reduces the hassles of selection process thro CAT. It is pathetic to have such stand by IIM even during the ages where the discontinuation of exam based academic performance assessment is under question by the HRD ministry.

Hi,
I was a CAT 2009 aspirant myself and despite scoring 99.72, failed to get any calls. There are many people I know who have scored above 99.5 percentile and this is because there is a point based marking for 10th and 12th. So, because of this people scoring above 95 percent gain a lot of advantage which people in 80s don't. So, that is why you can see that even 99.72 wasn't enough to even get a call for next round.
And though the system which you are advertising,such as giving points and all looks good on paper as many would feel that this would actually give a chance to people below 70 percent in the boards but this is not actually the case. If you see that it has been verified that people scoring below 75 percent in any 1 of the exams cannot get through even with a 100 percentile in this kind of system. So,anyways it doesn't matter. Rather, this would atleast make sure that people who get in 80s won't loose out despite getting very high percentiles.
Or the best thing to be done is don't take any of your past into account. This would give people very fair chance and your entry into IIMs won't be dependent on something you can't change in your life.

Well said.
It is often the case in education everywhere to disqualify people by testing them for the wrong requirements. Computer programming is a case in point where companies used to demand a Masters degree in Maths/Physics or an engineering degree, when in reality many excellent hackers and programmers are only high school graduates. Honestly, the CAT test is too stringent and irrelevant an evaluation to determine entry to a management education.

Great article! I think it's high time someone sympathizes with the poor students. Neither the IITs or the IIMs rank anywhere among the globally best universities in their fields. Why then, does a student have to face so many hardships to get into them, with the fear and trauma of rejection at every stage? IIM-A's argument that it is being done for administrative simplicity is preposterous! They cannot just play with students' lives in this manner. There are enough politicians messing up our education starting from the great Murli Manohar Joshi anyway! Ask any person who has studied abroad, and he will tell you that this percentage-centric system of ours is bullshit. It amounts to squat when it comes to practical knowledge. I sincerely hope someone at the helm of things realizes this one day, so that future generations don't have the best days of their youth ruined, writing entrance exam after entrance exam, with the fear and pressure of failure. Don't you think it's too much for a 16-17 year old to take?

a book on"Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development (Paperback)
~ Henry Mintzberg" is worth referring to in this context

I agree 110% with the author...IIM-Ahmedabad's admissions committee has taken a foolish decision which should be taken back immediately if they wish a better crowd in these top B schools of india.

what the hell IIMA is doing with.Is it only becoz a student scored below 70% in school boards dont have the right to even dream of IIMA altough he can score 100 percentile in aptitude test.......shit ....IIMA should improve its standard of thinking.The committee shouldnt take this stern action.The institute should try to accept quality students not on the basis of 12th bord marks......

A very valid point. It is ill-advised to concoct a grading system that bars chunks of candidates from consideration. What about late bloomers. Some of the great minds in business have never gone to school. All they had was experience and entrepreneurship. I surely hope the IIM-A will reconsider this. A scorecard that grades on various criteria will and should work well. Besides, what point is it to only accept 90% or higher folks, with IIT degrees and re-package them as minted MBA's. MBA classes are best when people bring experience to class. It would be best to have a class that includes varying degrees of experience. Well, at that point, the IIM becomes ISB, doesn't it?

The real issue is where to draw the line.Iam afraid that the response from the several boards is simply to raise the marks such that most of their students score over 70 %. What IIMA willthen do?

Mr. Raghunathan presents excellent reasons on why this policy is wrong and disasterous. It is unfortunate that our representatives, who are supposed to be looking out for all of us, dont present any opposition to this policy. Didnt we send them to parliament to be watchdogs for us and oppose senseless policy such as this. Clearly they have abdicated their responsibility. There is no scientific basis for such a cutoff; it is an arbitrary limit and comes from a generation of people with closed minds that lack imagination. Kudos to the author for bringing this to the public's notice. I sincerely hope someone challenges this cutoff in a court of law and it is heard by judges with a progressive mindset.

This time IIm has no game plan to play.They themself don't know what to do at this stage.This was cent percent expected this time that with the failure of CAT online mode they will come up with a plan in which there would be least weightage on CAT. But rather than making a cuttoff criteria they should haveen come up with more broad approach like cummalitive weightage or essays like in GMAT. This was a case of double standard from IIM where at one point they are laying 70% cuttoff criteria and on the other way there CAT is open for anybody has % above 60%.

IIM and IIT don't attract the best talents most of the time. School board toppers are focussed on regular school studies and don't go thru' coaching for IIT or IIM and can't make it. They end up getting straight into top local engineering colleges and don't wait or can't wait for one year to prepare for coaching classes to make it to the IIT or IIM..............US universities give more stress to your regular education in college or school apart from GMAR or GRE. That's more practical..........

Extremely well substantiated.

I personally knew a guy who joined a school with me in the 8th standard. The guy was from the Kannada-medium background and had absolutely no knowledge of English, except for writing his name.

In the 8th final exams, he was ranked 78th out of around 90 students. He dramatically improved his knowledge of English soon and in the 9th std. finals, he was ranked 5th among the 90+.

Then came the State Board exams of 10th standard. Any guesses? The guy was ranked 12th, not among the 90+ students of my school, but for the entire state of Karnataka.

What would have happened if the school had rejected his application just based on the fact that his English was bad? No points for guessing the answer, it's obvious :)

Very rightly said by the writer ..it is like finding a problem where there is none and then trying to solve it.very rightly articulated thoughts.

Management is a practical discipline...but these premiere institutes hardly do tht...if u get an inside view of these Indian prime B Schools...they also have an highly rot based and harsh grading systems...so only those who have a knack of scoring high marks in conventional system can ultimately do well in such institutes...they might try 2 show off but ultimately they r no different than other institutes in terms of learning culture...

Nice article. I feel sorry to read about such criteria, its very sad to see educational institutes judging people based on some percentages. I seriously don't think one can judge a person through numbers and i feel there are lot of kids who even though have acquired less than 70% are way to smart than someone with more than 70%. Take for example Bill Gates, a college drop out but look at him he is running one of the most successful company in the world. I hope some day, we change this closed mentality of the people, give the kids a great, improved and unbiased education system where they learn and not think about the corpoarte rat race, money and percentages.

Nothing surprising given the fact that we indians love rules. These rules give deciding authority power, and Indians just love to say "NO". Saying yes makes us look week and feeble. The one one thing that foreigners of all hue and colour can learn from us Indians is "How to say NO to anything in 1000 different ways.

I totally agree with the argument of Mr. Raghunathan. If this stand is taken by IIMA to "simplify calculation", then it says a lot about management at their end. With the chaotic fiasco of the online exams, this will surely ad to the woes of management aspirants and for me personally, brings down the standards of IIM's to a new low.

Its one of the most unfortunate decision taken by the reputated B-school.
Constraints can never be the solution to any education system as education is more about breaking barriers.
Management is a practical discipline and one that is best learnt through diversity of experiences, influences and thoughts in the classroom.
I believe no one in this world has the right of judging the calibre of an individual....tll the time the person himself decides what he wishes for
how will some one approve the lack of good education,basic amenities,irregular marking system,mass copying that results in irregularities.
Its only the transparency and honesty with premeir institutes like IIT'S and IIM's where the true talent gets a chance to step up despite their educational,geographical and financial fiasco.
If these institutes will come up with such strange and catastrophic remarks...that will if not today..then after a decade or two will feel the heat of this decision..which not only will deprive students of a good institute...but will also leave IIM'S deserted erom true raw talents they have been thriving on .

Well said Sir, but IIMs doesn't care for the students in general, they would just go their way.

I agree. The Marking system, even in the CBSE exams is thoroughly arbitrary, students doing very well in school internal exams perform poorly in the boards, and vice versa. Besides, the CBSE system rewards learning by rote, whereas CAT requires analytical ability. I've completed my MBA from IIM-C (and also gained admission into IIM-A), but scored only 68% in class 10.

No wonder, it's easier for Indian students to join colleges abroad than at home. Had exhorbitant fee (thanks to the dollar-rupee exchange rate) not been the deterrent, am sure Indians would have completely inundated the colleges abroad (and would have received better education as well).

I disagree with the above article.The previous year's criteria placed too much emphasis on board marks.(16 out of 22 points were alloted to board marks and 6 to CAT).The previous system ruled out people who had less than 80 in either 10th or twelfth.I think the new system, albeit has flaws, but is much better than last year's fallacious criteria.

Its an outrageous decision, made by so called teachers of future managers/leaders. It disheartening to know that there are people, who for the sake of convenience to their staff, are adopting such a principle. And we say that we are going on the path of becombing a developed country. I feel, with this mentality of our groomers, we will be either always developing or will be under developed. How can you bare a student, probably of highest calibre, don't find place in the best of institution for development of the self and then the scociety as a whole. Management is an education of adopting right convenient economical and profitable path with the help of previous experiences and records. Sorry, to decipher, that our so called groomers, are now nuts, with such an egregious decision. They all want "ratu totas" placed into the system so that they think about only themshelves and their familes, majority of whom must have spent many valuable currencies for their studies and facilities for studying. Think about the poor, who are lowly paid. Can they really afford to give all facilities to their child to fetch mark of more than 70%. No obviously not. These, decision makers, as inferred from their decision, have not travelled to remote locations. How can they be the modern era gurus, while stil not loosing the respect. INDIAN EDUCATION SOCIETY NEEDS TO TRAVEL BY LEAPS AND THESE PEOPLE ARE DETERRENT TO IT. I urge all decision makers, to think in the interest of the nation as a whole and take such ridiculous decision makers to task. "For all others who will go through my comment should not feel that I am such a student who will be deprived of studying in one of the world's best institutions. I am 80% scorer and is well placed as a Manager in a highly respected company, known all over the world. My achievement is of a Manager in a core company with so less years of experience. But I am commenting on this decision, thinking of various grades and class of people."

This is a completely flawed argument made with only partial knowledge.The CBSE standard of exams and syllabus might be higher than many state boards.However I have seen CBSE students score more than 95% in subjects like Hindi where state board students barely make it past 75%.In fact for 11th std admissions in Maharashtra, most toppers would be from CBSE/ICSE board and many could barely compete with their local board counterparts in 11th and 12th standard.

True to the word.

I guess IIMA wants to have access to the creamy layer of 'clerks' being produced every year by the CBSE.

We have vastly overrated IIM's. Their original role and mission has long back been consigned to the waste paper basket: prepare change leaders. Instead they have turned out with few exceptions self-seeking slick-talking management graduates who are more concerned with fitting in than bringing about change towards professionalisation. We certainly need high quality education and you are quite right in stressing that academic achievement is not accurately reflected in the exam marks. If that were so, why conduct the CAT?

it makes no sense at all.it deeply reflects the obsession of indian education systm with marks.
IIM-A jst dont wanna take burden of selecting students frm large pool of brainy ppl of india.there is a huge gap between boards and cat exams..during this whole period a student undergoes drastic experiences which keeps on adding to their skills.marks should nt be the parameter to judge a student and that too of boards.i can say this cz my marks have always laid me down in many stages of my life bt when i am at my work i knw i can do wonders..jst right opportunities have to be grabbed!so its my kind request to IIM-A to rethink their system or else i can say they will be losing precious gems of india!!!give them a chance to grow. dont clip off their wings cz of mistakes done during school dys!!!

I agree. The Marking system, even in the CBSE exams is thoroughly arbitrary, students doing very well in school internal exams perform poorly in the boards, and vice versa. Besides, the CBSE system rewards learning by rote, whereas CAT requires analytical ability.

this decision seems to be strategically weak and partial. its not at all fair to treat all students through a common criteria when different students come from different boards namely cbse,icse,state boards knowing the fact that state boards are relatively tougher than cbse or icse. written test(CAT) is more than enough to judge a student's analytical ability. board results should never be a criteria to filter talents. just to ease their process of seletion,dropping state board students or even cbse/icse students who failed to get 70% marks but equally skillfull is totally an unjust decision. it clearly portrays their personal benefit and ease at the cost of talent.

I think this decision is not fair, especially when CAT itself is tough to crack. When you have the main filter very strong, you don't require other parameters to filter out aspirant candidates.

Dear Raghunathan, strange to find such an argument from person of your background.As I understand IIMs do not give business education rather it is management education. Whole curricula needs terrible motivation from the participant (very highly so for IIMA). In a completely group based activities, assignments very little non-motivation from one of the members may hamper the learning of the whole 5-6 member group. So one major criterion (or the only one) for IIM 2 year programme selection is the motivation level of person. No IIM anytime had any student below 70 percentage ever. Please understand that CAT score, 10,12th or board exams are proxy to this motivation. Last year IIMA had band based system, which actually gave advantage to flawed boards like CBSC or Karnataka in getting interview calls. The new criterion is actually fair as it eliminates any bias in various boards. CAT is still the major criterion as in 99.15%+ CAT percentile is also compulsory with this 70 percentages.Administrative simplicity referred is the elimination of meaningless bands which didnot help in proper decision making.

Why big institution and Industry use marks filter to reduce the candidate for entrance exam.If a person performed badly in any one of the board exam, he became illegible for whole carrier.
Industry and academic institution use filter to find out best talent, but marks cutoff is not a good idea to judge the talent of a candidate. In past it was right as we were not able to evaluate a large number of candidate due to lack of resource. It is computer age today. It is possible to do evaluation of lakhs of candidate in minutes. Marks Filter should not apply in the age of computer. There are lots of student who fall sick in board exam and after that never ever get a chance to perform.
There are many Boards in Inda, all have their different patterns and syllabus.In some board most of the student got above 90 percent and more than 90 percent in one board while in other board no student is able to cross 70 percentage. Is it means that there is no brilliant student in second board. If we want to use this type of filter then there should be only one board everywhere in INDIA.
Now a days student`s marks is his knowledge. All student just read for getting good marks no implementation of knowledge.Even students does not know why there are so many subjects in their syllabus and what will be the benefit of reading particular subject. "No practical just theory" this is our educational system now a days.
As many as people will appear in competition the chance of get talented candidate will increase. So please allow all the students to appear in exam and the get best out of then coal.
"Diamond is a found in mines of "
Woke up please .......

Taking into consideration the calls of all IIMs, it has to be understood, that all the other IIMs are merely following what IIM A has done, unlike before where diff IIMs used to give weightages seperately, traditionally IIM B attaches a significant weightage on academics, IIM C on the quant etc. This year all the IIMs have given lesser wightage to CAT, as is mentioned in their sites. It is actually difficult to understand how they negated the students with 98+ overall and 90+ sectionals and respectable academics from the shortlist, from all IIMs.
Probably the IIMs feel CAT scores given by Prometric is less credible. If so why consider the CAT scores at all, consider only the academic performance of the candidates, and fill IIMs with students with great memory power than students who can actually solve management problems!
For the self righteous IIMs to reconsider their shortlisting criteria is next to impossible. But until they are willing to tell the candidates(may be through an online response) on what stage they got rejected, or release candidates scores collectively, the process looks dubious and desperately needs clarity.

Sir, I don't agree with your views. Times and marks have changed lot over the years. In todays day and age even securing 70% in your boards is at best average. I don't think IIM A is a place for below average students. Also if a person could not get 70% in his boards he has a slim chance of crackign CAT and getting through the interview with low boards marks weighted against him. What I have sen from the coaching classes is that a majority of students go there becasue it is hip to say I am preparing for CAT knowing fully well that they can't crack it. And parents spend their hard earned money on these kids without knowing there is no chance for them to get through. At least if a 70% cut off is put some of these poor parents will know in advance and atleast save some money. In fact the institute is doing a favour by putting the criteria of 70% in boards. By the way, do you think kids with even 70% has a hope in hell to get into any IVY League institutes in the US.

Well my question to the author is if he thinks not getting good marks is not a hindrance for doing well in life ..how does it matter if one doesn't get admission in IIMA . We have loads of example of people turning into business tycoons without any management degree. Why is he so concerned about getting admission in IIMA ?? Is it the only path to get sucess in life.

I THINK A CASE OF CHEATING SHOULD BE FILED AGAINST IIM-A BECAUSE THEY DISCLOSED THEIR CRITERIA AFTER STUDENTS WHO HAVE LESS THAN 70% GAVE THEIR CAT EXAMINATION AND PAID A HEAVY FEES OF 1400+ PREPARATION FEES AND THE HARD WORK THEY DID WHOLE YEAR FOR CAT .IT'S SIMPLY CHEATING THEM LIKE AN IMPOSTER

it is not just iim's...even more big firms like recommend this....