IIM Lucknow’s latest admission policy for admission to the PGP programs has now been released. In this article, we will take you through the IIM Lucknow selection process, discussing the criteria for shortlisting. A detailed dive into the formula for deciding who is shortlisted and a brief discussion on the final selection criteria.
IIM Lucknow Admission procedure
There are 2 stages that a candidate goes through before getting selected for IIM Lucknow PGP program. The first stage is appearing for the CAT exam. Candidates are shortlisted for the interview based on their performance in CAT exam, past academic performance, and relevant work experience. The final selection is based on performance in CAT, academic performances, performance in WAT(Written ability test), and Personal Interview(PI).
IIM Lucknow Eligibility and selection criteria for PGP
IIM Lucknow calls candidates for the PI stage based on Candidates composite score. The composite score has an element of the CAT percentile, previous academic performance, work experience, and diversity factors.
Shortlisting of candidates for PI
IIM Lucknow has set a category wise minimum CAT overall and sectional cut off which candidates must meet to become eligible for being shortlisted Written Ability Test and Personal Interview round.
NOTE: Simply meeting the minimum cut off does not mean that you will be shortlisted for the WAT-PI round. You must meet both the overall and sectional cut offs set by IIM Lucknow for being shortlisted.
The candidates fulfilling the above given percentile criteria shall be considered for a GDPI call only if they obtain a qualifying shortlist total. The shortlist total comprises various components which have the following weightage:
Let’s try to understand this table in details
1. Scaled CAT Score(CS)
Let’s assume the maximum possible marks is 300 in CAT. And you’ve got 150 marks in CAT. So your composite score or CS will be calculated as (150/300)*60 = 30 points. So out of 60 marks- the weightage that has been assigned by IIM Lucknow, for CAT you will get 30 marks. Another example, let’s say you’ve got 200 marks in CAT, so in this case your composite score will be calculated as (200/300)*60 = 40 marks.
2. HSC marks
The most important point to note here is the ‘percentile‘. Let us a take an example to understand this better. Suppose a student got 98 percentage in the class 12th exam of CBSE. And let’s assume at 98 percentile he has topped the CBSE board. Then the marks of this student will be considered as 100th percentile. And this will be calculated on the basis of the relative difficulty of respective board and academic discipline. It means if you’re from West Bengal board, then your score will be calculated on the basis of marks obtained by the topper West Bengal board.
3. Graduation Marks
let’s try to understand this parameter in details. Here the symbol Mu means average. Let’s say the cut-off score in CAT for this year to get into IIM Lucknow is 90 percentile. It means IIM Lucknow is going to consider 10,000 for the second round. Then these 10,000 students will be divided according to their academic discipline.
Let’s say out of these 10,000 students only 6000 students are from Engineering discipline. Then the marks obtained by these 6000 students in their graduation will be added and then divided by 6000 students, to find the Average or Mean marks obtained by a candidate of Engineering discipline. Now, let’s say you got 80 percent marks in your under-graduation. So the average/mean(Mu) marks obtained by a candidate of your academic discipline will be subtracted from your marks by you in your under-graduation. Then the result will be divided by standard deviation(Sigma).
What is standard deviation?
In order to understand the standard deviation let us try to understand the idea of Variance first. In order to calculate the variance we take each of the marks obtained by the candidates, and then we find the differences between all the data points(marks) and Mean(Mu), and then we square the result to get a positive value. Finally, we add all the squared distances and then divide it by the number of squared distances to get the variance. So if there are 6000 students in Engineering discipline, then in order to calculate the variance, we will take the marks obtained by each candidate in Engineering discipline, and then find the difference of each score from the Mean marks of the Engineering discipline. Finally, we will square these differences and add these squared differences. At last we will divide it by total number of differences to get the variance.
Now, the Standard Deviation(sigma) is very simple, it is the square root of the Variance.
Then applying the formulae given to calculate your graduation score, marks will be amended to take values between 0 to 10. If you get negative marks after using the formulae given to calculate Graduation Marks, then you will be awarded 0 points. The maximum points that can be awarded here is 10.
4. Work Experience
If you have less than 6 months of work experience, then you’ll be awarded 0 points. If you have more than 6 months of work experience, then work ex is calculated on the basis of the formulae given – Min{(x-6)*0.50, 10}. Let’s say a candidate has 12 months of work experience, then the points that will be awarded to this student for work experience is Min{(12-6)*0.50, 10} = Min{3,10} = 3. Another example could be, let’s say a student has 30 months of work experience. Then the points that will be awarded to this student for work experience is Min{(30-6)*0.50, 10} = Min{12,10} = 10. Because the maximum points that can be awarded for work experience is 10.
5. Academic diversity
Given that the pool of Engineers taking the CAT exam is significantly larger than those from other undergraduate streams, all 20 IIMs in the country have been, for the past few years, pushing for a more academically diverse MBA classroom by awarding extra marks for being a non-Engineer. In the case of IIM Lucknow, non-Engineers will be provided 5 more marks than Engineers in calculating the composite score to shortlist candidates.
Based on the various selection criteria and the weights assigned to them mentioned above, IIM Lucknow will shortlist candidates for the Writing Ability Test and Personal Interview round.
After completing the WAT-PI round, IIM Lucknow will calculate a new weighted composite score to create the final shortlist of candidates that will be invited to join the PGP 2022-2024 batch. The table below encapsulates the various components and their corresponding weights in the IIM Lucknow selection criteria.
Note: The minimum requirement for getting a pass in Personal Interviews is 12 out of 40 marks. Names of candidates who do not pass in PI will not be included in the final merit list regardless of your academic profile, diversity, or CAT 2021 scores. Your CAT 2021 scores will have a 30% weight in the final shortlisting process, while your WAT performance will have a 10% weight in the shortlisting process.
A final note
The most important component for admission to IIM Lucknow will be your CAT 2021 score, which accounts for 60% of the total weight during the WAT-PI shortlisting process. This means that 60% of the WAT-PI selection criteria is entirely in your hands, while the other 40% is defined by your academic background and profile.
So throw everything into the preparation of CAT, and give your best. At this point you may also want to know how to make the most out of the remaining 4 months. Watch this video to know, how you can utilize the remaining 4 months to get kick-ass score in CAT.
Abhishek Mukherjee works for 2IIM. Apart from solving interesting math questions he likes to eat biriyani and watch movies.
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