My letter to IIM A

Update : 2nd March 2010

Edit : My efforts last year seem to have borne some fruit. All the meetings and the letters seem to have finally been of some use. I had taken great pains to be heard by the right people.IIM A has released its criteria for this year(Please find attached at the bottom of the page). They now need a basic 70% in the 10th and 12th. This is reasonable as across all disciplines people do quite easily get 70% in their 10th and 12th. Mumbai students can't complain anymore.I don't think there would be cases like mine now. I am happy and satisfied.

What is sad is the fact that only 562 students from general category have been called. That according to me is too less. Call getters should be happy as they will never have such a great conversion ratio.

January 9, 2009

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have the highest regards for the Indian Institute of Management, Ahemdabad and the admissions team of IIM A. I am hence, hoping that my request will be given fair consideration.

The admissions policy document released by IIM A on 9th January on the website of IIM A - http://202.41.76.206/website%20shortlist%20note%202009-11.pdf states the procedure adopted by IIM A for giving out interview calls for PGP 2009-11.

I would like to point out to you that the document is silent on normalisation/standardisation of Xth/XIIth boards. Looking at the profiles of the call getters one assumes that no normalisation procedure has been undertaken. Note 1 of the above mentioned document gives a table showing Academic Performance values at various percentages in the Xth and XIIth board exams. The anomaly that i want to bring to your notice is that due to lack of standardisation a lot deserving open category candidates who have cleared the pre-screening criteria have missed out on a IIM Ahemdabad call.

For e.g. Take a Maharashtra State Board Candidate like me. TRNO.:4620824 DOB:20/09/1986 Name: ANKIT R DOSHI

I clear the pre-screening criteria - Quant 95.10, DI - 96.42, Verbal - 99.49 , Overall - 99.68

Std Xth - 85.86% (easily in the top 200 of the candidates who wrote the S.S.C exam in March 2002. Not even 100 students from Mumbai would have got a score of 90% and above.

Std XIIth- 85.13 % ranked 26th in Mumbai in the commerce faculty in the H.S.C exam in March 2004. The person who topped the exam got a percentage of 89.

According to the academic performance values table i should get a score of 12.

Compare that with a candidate from say ISC or ICSE board. A person with a 89.xx or a 90 percent may not even be in the top200-300 of their board but will still manage to get a 16 in the academic performance values criteria. Plus since, the weightage given to the CAT score is so low that it is statistically impossible for a candidate like me to cover up this gap of 4 marks.

In cases like the Andhra Pradesh board, toppers in the 12th std can get as much 97-98 percentage wheras in Mumbai a commerce/arts topper would not even get 90%! There is enough empirical evidence you can verify.

Unless a student of S.S.C or H.S.C (consider upto the year 2004) gets a 90%, which is very unlikely, given the marking pattern he/she will never be able to get more than 18/22 in the Composite score formula even if he/she has 100 percentile. If you study profiles of current IIM A students who are from Maharastra State board S.S.C/H.S.C , they would have never made it! To give you a example Ms. Akanksha .P. Thakore(batch 2007-09) and Mr. Harsh Bhimani (batch 2008-10)

Also, if you study the marking and scoring patterns of students, such a criteria completely closes the doors on students of Arts and Humanities across India. How many Arts std XIIth toppers even cross 85%?

Also, please consider the fact that candidates appearing for CAT 2008 would be mostly people who took their H.S.C and S.S.C exams in 2002/2003/2004. In Maharashtra board you can check the relevant statistics. It would be highly unfair to compare the performance of the students literally.

If it is excellence that is being sought wouldnt it be better when there is a level playing field? In the current scenario clearly a section of the candidates will miss out unfairly.

I would be grateful if you could please reply to this email and some alteration can be made in the current scheme of things.

Thanks.

Regards,

Ankit Doshi

TR.NO 4620824

DOB: 20/09/1986