Over 16,000 candidates sitting for the interviews for entry to premier business schools in the country, as well as improved academic performance this year, have led to higher cut-offs for admission to the flagship MBA programme at 10 newer Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) that conduct admissions collectively.
Ten IIMs that are part of the Common Admission Process (CAP), 2024, are Jammu, Kashipur, Nagpur, Raipur, Bodh Gaya, Ranchi, Sambalpur, Sirmaur, Tiruchirappalli, and Udaipur. CAP is the conclusive selection phase for MBA admissions at these newer and relatively smaller IIMs.
This year, IIM-Kashipur was the coordinating IIM for CAP 2024, overseeing the entire process. Every year, one of the CAP-participating IIMs is nominated as the coordinator.
According to data from IIM-Kashipur, this year, a record number of candidates — 16,371 — sat the Personal Interview (PI) round. Of these, 3,800 were women. The interviews are conducted in hybrid mode. The common online PI process of 10 IIMs ensures lower costs in terms of time and money for MBA/PGP aspirants, the institute said.
The full-time Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programmes are the flagship programmes across all IIMs. The degree is offered as a two-year Post Graduate Programme (PGP) in Management.
Shift in cut-off scores
According to the coordinating institute, this year’s cut-off scores for CAP 2024 are higher as compared to last year. For example, the cut-off for IIM Ranchi’s PGP programme has increased from 96 to 98 percentile while last year, cut-off scores for CAP 2023 lay in the range of 92 percentile.
Higher CAP cut-offs this year were attributable to several factors, including the CAT 2023 score — on the basis of which initial shortlisting was done — where the cut-off range was 95-100 percentile. Other factors were a higher number of applicants and improved candidate academic performance.
“A higher number of applicants increased competition. This shift in percentile in 2024 reflects an increase in competition and popularity of the programme. With the aspirant count increasing manifold, a more rigorous selection process is employed. Hence, the cut-offs have gone higher,” said Prof Abhradeep Maiti, CAP-2024 coordinator and associate professor of economics at IIM-Kashipur.
Also, he said, the selection criteria have undergone changes in 2024 for all major management entrance exams.
“It includes revisions in the weightages for entrance scores, academic performances and interview processes. IIMs have introduced some new parameters to ensure greater diversity in student demographics,” he added.
For the 2024-26 programme, some IIMs gave CAT scores 55 per cent weightage in the first phase and 25 per cent in the second. Graduation marks are important and at least two of the three academic criteria require strength.
“This CAP iteration has seen the implementation of greater degree of transparency and candidate-friendly features by the CAP group of IIMs. During the process, the candidates got an opportunity to correct incorrect information in their applications to avoid issues later on. The candidates also got to see the normalised Personal Interview (PI) score at the end of the process. This ensures fairness of the process and will lead to further increase in the popularity of CAP in future,” said Maiti.
This year, the 10 participating IIMs together offer 2,400 seats for the MBA programme. This figure was 2,300 in 2023; 2,200 in 2022; 2,000+ in 2021; 1,600+ in 2020; 1,500+ in 2019; and 1,460 in 2018.
What is the selection process for entry into IIMs?
IIMs conduct admissions to their MBA/PGP courses after the declaration of the Common Admission Test (CAT) result. CAT is a national-level entrance exam conducted by IIMs for entry to their flagship MBA/PGP programmes. Candidates are short-listed based on CAT scores, Written Ability Test (WAT) and Personal Interview (PI) while final selection is based on various parameters, including academic record and work experience.
There are 21 IIMs across the country of which 11 conduct admissions individually. These mostly include first and second-generation institutes, while the newer 10 IIMs follow a common admission process.
The IIMs established after 2008 are called newer IIMs. They admit students through CAP, which is another level of assessing candidates having become eligible based on CAT scores.
Each CAP-participating IIM creates a separate merit list using normalised PI scores and other criteria based on the already-published admission policy and sends offers individually. The first few offer lists are generally sent on the same dates by all the CAP-participating IIMs so that the candidates can make informed decisions regarding their choice of institute.
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