MBA Admissions 2014: Five big MBA Admission trends

All the top B schools are making perceptible changes in their admission process. Aspirants may benefit more with the emerging MBA admission trends and utilise their CAT scores to the optimum in getting to their dream B school.

1.WAT, the new yardstick

Writing Ability Test (WAT) has now been playing very important role in second round of admission.

While XAT, gateway to XLRI and other important B schools has made Essay writing an important part of its written examination, most of the IIMs and top rated B schools have substituted GD by Writing Ability Test(WAT) in post CAT scenario. Looking at the significant increase of importance on the performance in WAT during the past few years, you will also have to focus more in improving your writing skill.

IIM A, IIM B, IIM C only use WAT for PI Round.

The six new IIMs, namely IIM Ranchi, Raipur, Rohtak, Trichy, Udaipur and Kashipur, have started conducting a common admission process since the academic year 2011-13 and have substituted Group Discussion(GD) by written ability test (WAT).

IIM I, IIM L, IIM K use both GD & WAT assessments.

2.Work Experience becoming more important

If you are a working professional, you have all the reason to be happy as you stand a better chance to get admission in these top B schools since prior work experience for a specified period is given a good weightage in final admission round.

IIMA awards 5-7% out of its 30 percent weightage, IIMB 10; IIMC 8; IIML 4; IIM Kashipur 5 and IIM Kozhikode provides 8 percent weightages respectively to candidates having post degree work experience.

CAT 2013 Results to be declared on January 14, 2014

3.Women candidates preferred IIMs are now very much aware that women empowerment will change the surging face of management education in India. If you are a female candidate, you may get some bonus points to get into your dream B school. Top three IIMs A, B, C earlier didnt provide any weightage to gender diversity but now old as well as new IIMs have begun assigning some points to fair sex.

IIML awards 10; IIMC 3; IIMA and B have devised a formula to entertain more girl candidates out of their total weightage points; IIM Kashipur awards 7 points; IIM Rohtak and Raipur 20; other top ranked institutes have also started following suit. Women candidates have all the reason to smile on this count.

4.IIMs and XLRI no more engineers domain

MBA aspirants from other than engineering background used to have a second thought before registering for CAT and XAT as getting admission in IIMs and XLRI was considered easy for the candidates with engineering background. To a great extent it is a fact also. But now the scene has changed. In case you are from non engineering background you also stand a good chance to get admission in top rated B schools.

To encourage the candidates from humanities, commerce, Law, economics, science, computer application, medical and paramedical, fine arts, the admission criteria in IIMs has been changed with the award of some bonus points to non engineering background candidates. IIMC followed by other IIMs started to award extra marks in the final admission round to non engineers. IIML awards 2 marks; IIM Rohtak 20; IIM Raipur 10 (Out of 30 awarded to female and non engineers).

CAT changed its pattern of examination and reduced the sections in test from 3 to 2. Now the Quantitative Aptitude section which was a stronghold of engineers has got Data interpretation clubbed to it. Now the percentile will be calculated based on both the parts in the section. Questions on Data Interpretation can be solved with a little more practice and no mathematical formulas are so much required for the same. This has also increased the admission chances of non engineers.

XAT another most coveted but paper pencil based MBA entrance test added two sections of General Awareness and essay writing so that the students from diverse backgrounds on XLRI campus can be admitted. Now the institutes associated to XAT are no more the sole domain of engineering students. XLRI also wants to have versatile students who can excel in the management field with equal knowledge of business, economics, politics and social developments.

5.Fading charm of GD

Group Discussion hitherto used to play a very important role in the second stage of admission round which has now been either replaced or added by WAT. Still there are a few institutes that conduct Group Discussion as an integral part of their admission process like IIM Lucknow, IIM Shillong, IIM Kozhikode, although the weightage to the same is getting reduced year by year and now it stands in the range of 5 to 10 percent. Another interesting feature is that although these IIMs have not done away with GD, WAT has been added to the final selection round.

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more admission 2014 related updates