Eligibility

The minimum requirements for almost all institutes seeking admission to their Masters Degree / Post-Graduate Diploma in Management are:

•  A Bachelor's Degree (or equivalent) in any discipline, with at least 50% aggregate marks (45% for reserved categories) OR

•  Appearing at the final-year examination of a post 10 + 2 course of minimum three years duration, leading to an award of a Bachelor's Degree, in any discipline of a statutory university in India (so recognised by the Association of Indian Universities/AICTE) OR

•  Post-Graduate applicants having at least 50% marks (45% for reserved categories) in either their Bachelor's or Post-Graduate Degrees.

Note: Some institutes also require that applicants have 50% at 10 th and/or 12 th level. The IIMs ask for just a bachelor's degree in any discipline. Percentage is no consideration. Similarly a few other institutes like FMS have higher eligibility requirements (55-60%) at graduation level.

Prospectus and Application Forms

Most institutes advertise in all leading newspapers, indicating where, when and how interested candidates may apply for prospectus and application forms. On receipt of duly filled application forms, the institutes issue tests admit cards which entitle the candidate to take the entrance test.

The Prospectus for various institutes are priced anywhere between Rs. 100/- to Rs. 1200/-. Most of the institutes include the examination fee in this price. However some may ask for additional amount as examination fee. Considering the high cost of appearing for an entrance test, it is advised that students must plan out in advance about which exams they would like to take up seriously and fill up only those forms.

Selection

The selection to the B-Schools in India is generally a two-stage procedure.

•  Stage I : Written Test

•  Stage II : Group Discussion (GD) + Personal Interview (PI)

Written Test

The first phase of selection for admission to the Masters/Post-Graduate Diploma in Management is the written test. This attempts to judge the candidate's aptitude in five core areas. The first, Verbal Ability, is based on knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. The second area is Reading Comprehension. The third area is Quantitative Ability, where questions are asked based on various aspects of pure mathematics. The fourth area is commonly known as Data Interpretation. The fifth area, Reasoning Ability, possesses questions on analytical reasoning, logical and critical reasoning and mathematical reasoning.

Test Areas

•  Verbal Ability (VA): Verbal Ability (English Usage) is the section that tests your understanding of the English language. Questions are asked in different formats aimed at checking a real understanding of the language. Typical questions comprise synonym - antonym relations, sentence sequencing, sentence correction, fill-in-the-blanks, verbal analogies, verbal reasoning etc.

•  Reading Comprehension (RC): This section consists of passages on varied topics and questions based on them. There are no fixed topics for the passages. The passages are usually extracted from standard newspapers, magazines and general literature. The best way to go about developing RC skills is to improve your reading habits and speed of reading. To compete successfully, you must regularly read Standard English newspapers and magazines, in addition to good non-fiction literature.

•  Quantitative Aptitude (QA): The syllabus for Quantitative Aptitude generally covers topics up to X or XII standard mathematics. The objective questions asked in the test stress more on the student's reasoning skills rather than computational skills. A clear understanding of the basic concepts coupled with sufficient practice should be enough for even a non-Maths background student to gain comfortable mastery over these topics.

•  Data Interpretation (DI): This section tests your skills as far as understanding data presented in different forms is concerned. Several sets of questions having bar graphs, tables, charts, line graphs, etc. are given and you are expected to deduce the required results from these.

•  Data Sufficiency (DS): About 5 to 10 questions are asked in major national level examinations on DS. It checks whether the given data is enough to answer the question asked or not. More or less, DS is a type of logical reasoning.

•  Logical Reasoning (LR): The section tests your ability to logically analyze the question/situation and reach a conclusion. Generally questions on Logical Reasoning are asked in QA section and/or in DI/DS section. CAT has grown to be an intensely logic heavy test, over the past few years.

•  General Awareness (Current Affairs Awareness / Business Awareness): This section is not a part of CAT, but is an integral part of some other national level MBA entrance examinations. It basically checks whether you are in the swim or not. As a future manager, it is a must, for you, to be aware of the environment around you.

The pattern of test varies from year to year, though generally it comprises the five testing areas spread over two, three or four sections. The questions asked are easy but tricky. For e.g. You may know the meaning of a word, but the choices are so close that you are confused and you waste your time pondering over the right choice. In the process you may not only do a mistake in this specific question, you are losing your valuable time as well, which is worse.

At most of the institutes, apart from securing the qualifying cut-off scores in each of these sections, you are also required to secure more than the aggregate cut-off score to qualify for the next round of the selection procedure, i.e., GD, Interview.

Most of the institutes have similar test patterns. Although institute specific unique elements may exist in specific tests, the overall flavour remains same.

Group Discussion and Interview Phase

Once the candidates have cleared the written test short-listed candidates are then tested for their suitability to the management profession, through personality tests such as the Group Discussion and a Personal Interview.

Group Discussions are held essentially to test the student's communication skills within a group. This is an extremely important method to check the ability of a candidate to convincingly put forward his views and ideas to the group. Group discussions also help to determine a person's ability to lead and guide the group, his/her sense of teamwork and creativity.

Though the Personal Interview has vast scope, its main focus is to assess a person's motivation levels, inclination to pursue a career in management, aims and objectives, thought processes, awareness, ability to handle stress, grasping power, work experience, analytical thought process, etc.

At some institutes, variants of the basic theme may be affected. For example,

IIM, Bangalore , includes a test on Essay-writing during this phase.

SP Jain, Mumbai, has a Group Interview.

XLRI, Jamshedpur , has only an interview, no group discussion.

FMS, Delhi , includes an Extempore Speech as part of the selection process.

Final selection is usually based on the sum a student gets on the parameters like (a) Past academic record, (b) Written Test score, (c) GD score, (d) Interview score, (e) Extra-curricular background, and (f) Work experience.

Ultimately the institutes have to ascertain that they get the best from amongst those who apply. Given the large number of applicants, the institutes eliminate students at each stage to arrive at the final list of candidates. After the test, a GD-PI call-letter is sent to those candidates who have the highest scores (results are also available on the net). Having cleared the first round, i.e., the written test, students attend the Group Discussion and Personal Interview. Once through the second stage, the selected students receive the final offer for admission to the institute.