Boys rule CAT results

173,000 took it, 30 per cent of these women; 8 males score 100th percentile; 3,335 CAT seats on offer at the IIMs

This year too, the academic class at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) may comprise mainly of engineering graduates. In its results declared on Tuesday, the Common Admission Test (CAT) administered by the IIMs, saw eight male engineering graduates scoring a 100 percentile. Out of them, six have B Tech degrees and two are M Tech. The eight top scorers were from Andhra (four), Mumbai (three) and Delhi. Three have work experience.

CAT 2012 had 10 candidates scoring a 100 percentile.

A total of 1,73,735 candidates appeared for CAT 2013.

The test window was spread across 25 days – from October 16 to November 11 – during which about 194,000 had registered.

Among female applicants, one scored in the 99.99 percentile; nine more did, all males. Rohit Kapoor, convenor of CAT 2013 and chairperson, admissions, at IIM-Indore, said 51,208 women appeared this year. CAT 2012 was taken by 54,740 women, about 30 per cent of the 191,642 candidates.

In the category of 95th percentile and above, CAT 2013 had 1,391 candidates. This included 218 in the 99th percentile and above category. There were 20 students who scored 99.9 and above; 10 scored 99.99. (CALCULATE YOUR ELIGIBILITY)

For the batch of 2014-16, there are 3,335 seats on offer at the IIMs, compared to 3,220 seats last year. This means that there are 52 aspirants for every IIM seat this year, compared to almost 60 students vying each IIM seat last year.

After the evaluation of the CAT scores, the final selection is based on performance in a written ability test, an interview and a group discussion. Other factors such as past academic record, work experience, gender and stream of graduation are also taken into account by IIMs.

IIM-Calcutta, for instance, allots more points to female candidates. IIM-Raipur has additional points for students having relevant work experience of seven months to up to three years.

The ranking and final selection at IIM-Ahmedabad is based on a diverse set of attributes — performance in CAT, in the test and interview, academic, co-curricular and extra-curricular achievements, and work experience.

Sai Kumar, director, TIME Mumbai, said it would be as difficult as in previous years to get admission into an IIM. “They are looking at not just the overall percentile but scores in the two sections,” he said. Section-I in the CAT has quantitative ability and data interpretation; Section-II has verbal ability & logical reasoning.

The six new IIMs (Kashipur, Raipur, Ranchi, Rohtak, Trichy and Udaipur) have decided to adopt a common process of written test and interview, to be coordinated this year by Trichy. If any of the older IIMs (Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow and Shillong) are willing to share their written test and interview scores with the six new ones, those also applying to the new IIMs need not appear for those separately. The common candidates will be intimated the names of the older IIMs sharing these scores with the new ones.