Now, 70% marks in X, XII mandatory for IIM-A interview call

Now, 70% marks in X, XII mandatory for IIM-A interview call

Ahmedabad: Elite business school Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), has raised the eligibility criteria for admission to its hallowed portals, which makes 70% marks in Class X and XII as a prerequisite to qualify for interview call, irrespective of CAT-2009 score.
    Setting a new benchmark for admission, IIM-A on Thursday said candidates in general category with overall percentile of 99 in CAT-2009 and 70% marks in 10th and 12th standards will only be considered for interviews.
    "IIM-A has shortlisted 562 candidates in general category for personal interviews whose percentiles in each section of CAT was 96.1 and above, besides overall percentile of 99 and also 70% marks in 10th and 12th standards," IIM-A admission committee chairperson Diptesh Ghosh said.
    "The move is likely to deprive some candidates who might have qualified in CAT as per IIM's specified eligibility criteria but had lower than 70% marks in Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC)," sources said.
    "Last year, IIM-A had adopted a point-based system for admission under which weightage to percentage of Class X and XII was given in terms of points, alongwith CAT percentile," Ghosh said.
    "However, to simplify the process we have abolished the point-based system and set a benchmark of 70% score in Class X and XII, along with CAT percentile, as eligibility criteria for interviews this year, Ghosh said.
    "The idea behind setting this new benchmark is to analyse the academic consistency of the candidates right from Class X," Ghosh said.
    "IIM-A has reduced its cut off percentile of CAT from 99.3 last year to 99 this year largely due to increase in seats here," sources said. The number of seats at IIM-A this year has gone up to 450, as compa--red to 360 odd seats a year ago. "Close to 450 students are proposed to be admitted this year for various programmes like Post Graduate Programme, PGP-Agri Business Management and Fellow Programme in Management," Ghosh said.
    After the CAT results were declared, IIM-A is in the process of dispatching call letters to eligible candidates. PTI