I have seen guys taking a look at a picture of IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta before going into the laps of sleep angels. I have seen guys arguing about the fact that the fastest way to earn big bucks is to be an entrepreneur or get into the corporate scheme of things. I have seen guys walking with naked feet on the chilling floors of the corridors for preparing for the gateway to these Ivy League B-schools- the CAT. And primarily for these reasons it has become an upheaval task for the renowned professors and counselors to select the appropriate candidates for these colleges because simply, there are absolutely so many worth it. So, the inclusion of the class 10 and 12 in the selection criteria is not a surprise. But as I see, there are some gaping lacunae in the system.
The CAT exam is structured in such a fashion that it is the measure of the quantitative and logical ability of a student. In other words, it determines how much a student is appropriate to be an entrepreneur. On the other hand, a class 10 or class 12 score is a measure of the hard working and to some extent mugging ability of a student. I don’t mean to denigrate the importance of hard work but are we ready to accept to the fact that firstly, we can compromise the entrepreneurial abilities for that and secondly, that IIMs don’t believe in “living in present” and “a change is possible” anecdotes anymore? The IIMs seem to say,” You might be fat-glassed nerds with no leadership qualities. You must be able to work your asses off for all we care. We have got experts in this field and we can make you an entrepreneur and a leader in 2 years!!” There are students who are destined “not to think big” just because they had a 63 in Hindi in the 10th or a 67 in Physics (or any subject which has nothing to do with judging entrepreneurial abilities) in the 12th or unfortunately fell sick during the crucial times. It seems they would have to atone for the “mistake” that they committed 7-8 years back. I mean, there are people who didn’t even think about doing an MBA when they are 16! The real question is, what is the IIMs going to do when grading system is implemented at both 10th and 12th levels as Mr. Kapil Sibal is so eager to do? How would they distinguish between a huge pool (and by huge, I mean HUGE!!) of Os? I guess their kindergarten scores would determine if he is apt for an IIM or not! Moreover, there is also the whole uproar about the whole normalization process which is anything but transparent.
There are certain argument that there is very low correlation between CAT scores and actual academic performance inside b-school and some b-schools have gone a step ahead and performed informal studies to find that there is high correlation between one’s past academic scores and b-school GPA but my simple question is this – To take to cycle of events forward, does the placements in the corporate world and the ratio of students being independent entrepreneurs have any “correlation” with the student’s GPA? Once you are inside a company does the boss care whether you are from the IIM or a college like MDI or NITIE? All he is concerned is whether his job gets done!! I once talked to a NITIE alumnus and he had a very interesting thing to say. He said, “You can’t really blame these institutions because even the top notch corporates want to show a heavy intellectual workforce to the market with students from IITs and IIMs. Being from a college like NITIE or XIMB or MDI there is just an year gap when u need to compensate for your profile with hard work and deep aspiration. At the end of the day, you just need to believe that these institutions didn’t recognize a talent, and move on. Nothing is the end of the world.” So true. If all your work is geared towards securing yourself against failure and embarrassments, why live at all? If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.
A simple solution could have been this - The IIMs should first conduct the CAT and then allow all above 97 percentile or say 95 percentile to send their resume. A panel of experts should scan the applications based on the overall profile (extracurricular activities, positions of responsibility, scholarships, etc.) and not just some board or graduation marks. Okay, hardly matters what I think…hehe. In the word of Susan Sontag, “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”(Few IIMs are out of my list though…lol)
