CAT 2023: IIM Bangalore revises 2024 admission policy; 40% weightage to personal interview

NEW DELHI: The premier Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore has revised its admission policy for its flagship postgraduate programme with changes in weightage to past academic scores.

IIMB has a two-phase selection process. The first phase of the process is applied to all eligible candidates who appear for Common Admission Test (CAT 2023) to determine candidates to be called for a personal interview (PI). Candidates selected for the personal interview will additionally be required to take a Writing Ability Test (WAT) conducted by the institute.

According to the new admission policy, the weightage to personal interview has increased from 35% to 40% this year, making PI one of the critical components in the admissions process.

The institute has reduced the weightage to marks obtained in Classes 10 and 12 from 15% to 10 % each in the shortlisting phase. In the final phase, the weight assigned to Class 10 and Class 12 marks has come down from 10% to 5%.

The CAT examination date 2023 is November 26, 2023. According to the CAT 2023 convenor, IIM Lucknow’s Sanjeet Singh, 3.3 lakh students have registered for the exam this year.

CAT Examination 2023: IIM Bangalore admission criteria

Candidates with top 10 highest scores in IIM CAT 2023, combined with adjusted bachelor’s score and professional courses like chartered accountancy category, automatically qualify for the WAT-PI round.

How IIMB shortlists

Also read | CAT 2023: Why women have a better chance of getting into IIMs than ever before

IIM Bangalore has also reintroduced graduation marks as a factor in both selection and final phase. Student’s graduation marks will hold 10% weightage in the selection and 5% in the final phase of MBA admission. The component was removed in the 2022 admission policy.

“The selection criteria and weights given to various parameters are based on data from previous cycles as well as on inputs from the IIMB faculty body and other relevant stakeholders,” the document states.

Weightage in other components like CAT 2023 scores, gender diversity, writing ability test and work experience will remain the same as last year. In the final phase, the 25 points for CAT will be derived from the performance in each of the three sections of the exam. The verbal and reading comprehension (VARC) will hold 8.75 points, data interpretation and logical reasoning (DILR) - 10 points, and quantitative aptitude (QA) – 6.25 points. Overall, the CAT cut-off stays at the 85 percentile for IIMB.