No room at IIM-B for 100 percentile scorer from city

Shashank Prabhu, 26, one of the city’s 100 percentile scorers has not made it to the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) despite being one of the nine all-India toppers at the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2011.

Shashank Prabhu, 26, one of the city’s 100 percentile scorers has not made it to the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) despite being one of the nine all-India toppers at the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2011.

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Prabhu did not receive an interview call from the IIM-Bangalore, which announced its shortlist on Wednesday evening. Prabhu has made it to the other four old IIMs — Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Calcutta and Kozhikode. They put up their shortlists on Wednesday and Thursday.

The CAT is the admission criteria to the 13 IIMs and 155 other business schools across the country.

“It’s fine, I am not that concerned,” said Prabhu. “My bigger worry is whether or not to continue studying at the Faculty of Management Studies in Delhi.”

Another city student, Srikanth Lanka, 20, who scored 99.99 percentile on the CAT found that he too, had not received a call from IIM-Bangalore but made it to the other four old IIMs.

“I sort of expected it,” said Lanka, a final-year student at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Matunga. “They apparently give weightage to different criteria including academic performance in drawing up the shortlist. At my institute, it’s very difficult to score well.”

Mukul Gupta, 22, who scored 99.97 percentile received a call from IIM-C but not from IIM-A or IIM-B.

The IIM-B website gives a detailed explanation about its rules for making interview calls to candidates. This includes a combination of factors such as board exam marks, academic performance and work experience computed on a mathematical formula. Each of the 13 IIMs follows its own criteria in shortlisting candidates.

“IIM-B has a very specific formula. It is not necessary that high performers in CAT will get a call,” said Amol Kokate, course director, Triumphant Institute of Management Education in Mumbai.

Last year, several aggrieved students had moved court stating that three IIMs changed their admission criteria after CAT results were announced.

IIM-A later admitted to having fixed its criteria after the results. This year, each of the 13 IIMs announced their rules well before the results.