List of B-Schools which accept CAT Score

If you will write the CAT 2007 or the CAT 2008, my best wishes are with you - i hope that you make it to one of the IIMs. But if you don't make it to an IIM don't blame yourself much - the fact is the odds are stacked against the brightest of students. Almost 2,00,000 students write the CAT every year - chances are that figure may swell upto 2.5 lakhs in CAT 2008. The total number of seats offered by the IIMs is fewer than 3000 which means only 1% of the students can expect it to make it to India's best b-school. And it's nobody's case that 99% of the students writing the CAT every year don't deserve a seat in a good b-school.

Here's a list of other Business Schools/Institutes which accept CAT scores for admission.

1. Academy of Management Studies, Bhubaneshwar

2. Alliance Business Academy, Bangalore

3. Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore

4. Apeejay School of Management, New Delhi

5. Aravali Institute of Management, Jodhpur

6. Army Institute of Management, Kolkata

7. Army Institute of Management & Technology, Greater Noida

8. Asian School of Business Management, Bhubaneshwar

9. Asia Pacific Institute of Management, New Delhi

10. Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Information Technology & Management, Gwalior

11. Bhartidasan Institute of Management, Tiruchirappali

12. Birla Institute of Management Technology, Greater Noida

13. Centre for Management Training & Research, Kharar, Mohali

( this list will be added to regularly till we have a more comprehensive list)

Business Today Indian B-School Rankings 2007

The fifth annual Business Today - Nielsen Best Business Schools of India survey's findings have just been released. Here are a few of the key results:

Top 10 Business Schools of India:

(In some browsers, the 'Tick' may appear as 'a' in the Our Remarks column)

Rank 2007	Rank in 2006	Business School	Our Remarks
1	1	IIM Ahmedabad	a
2	2	IIM Bangalore	a
3	3	IIM Calcutta	a
4	4	Symbiosis-Pune	Symbiosis at No.4?? Over IIM-L and XLRI?
5	5	IIM Lucknow	Should be at No.4 or at No.5, just after XLRI
6	8	IIM Indore	? We suspend our decision on IIM-I
6	7	Bajaj(JBIMS), Mumbai	Could be anywhere between Ranks 7 and 12
8	6	XLRI Jamshedpur	Should be at Rank 4 or 5
9	13	ICFAI Hyderabad	This business school has no business to be in the top 15
10	17	Narsee Monjee (NMIMS) Mumbai	Could be anywhere between Ranks 10 and 13

Favourite B-School: Opinion Poll Results

I had been running this "My Favourite B-School" opinion poll on this blog for the past 3 months and it's time now to share the results with you.

A total of 413 MBA aspirants have taken part in this poll so far. (still running) The b-school at No.1 is not very surprisingly the IIMs ( the six IIMs clustered together) - the IIMs were chosen as the B-School of choice by 193 respondents, a little under half the total number of respondents. B-School Rank 2 is XLRI, Jamshedpur - with 57 votes. At no.3 is MICA, the specialised b-school for marketing communications in Ahmedabad. 'Others' make it to No.4, closely followed behind by FMS, Delhi with 30 votes. 20 students voted a non-Indian B-School as their preferred place to do an MBA.

Are you preparing for CAT 2007 or CAT 2008? Or are you amongst the few that are not looking at the IIMs but at the specialised b-schools like MICA, TISS or IRMA - do let us know your favourite b-school by participating in the poll.

Best Schools under MAT (Management Aptitude Test)

The Management Aptitude Test, generally referred to by its abbreviated name MAT has become one of the most popular MBA entrance tests in India. It has now been approved by the Government of India as a National Entrance Test and a wide number of AICTE approved institutions and some University departments now use the MAT as their entry level test. Conducted by the All India Management Association (AIMA), the MAT is held 4 times in a year.

B-schools affiliated to the MAT are by no means comparable to the ones under the Common Admission Test (CAT) or the XAT conducted by XLRI, but there are a few good ones which can be considered by those who have for some reason or the other not been able to make it to the top b-schools.

The MAT is an 800 marks test, similar to the GMAT, though the level of difficulty is lower than either GMAT or CAT.

This is a list of the top institutes under MAT. Not in any particular order though Amity & Alliance are the most preferred ones.

Alliance Business Academy, Bangalore
( from the Alliance website: Alliance is the first B-School in India to be accredited by the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE), USA, one of the 3 premier accrediting bodies for management education.)
Outlook C-Fore survey in 2006 ranked it at no. 9 amongst India’s top private b-schools. In another survey carried out by AIMA, Alliance was ranked as an A+ institute.

Amity Busines School, Noida
(Though it has been ranked as the no.1 private b-school, I am not too sure about that. There are too many b-school surveys happening in India, and the results of most of them are pretty suspect. I won’t be surprised if some of the b-schools they include amongst their top ten are sometimes paid for)
Amity also has a campus each in Delhi, Lucknow, Manesar, Gurgaon and Jaipur.

Indian Institute of Modern Management, Pune (IIMM)
( Though it also conducts another test called BAT (Balaji Admission Test) for the institutes in the Balaji Society, IIMM being one of them. It also accepts CAT, XAT and SNAP scores.)

Christ College Institute of Management, Bangalore
Ranked as an A grade institute by AIMA b-school survey. Christ College accepts the February MAT scores. Minimum requirement: 600

Jagan Institute of Management Studies, Delhi (JIMS)
A comparatively new institute, JIMS has been able to create a name for itself, at least in Delhi and its neighbourhood. Its BBA programme is widely rated as the best under the IP University.
Also accepts CAT scores. Ranked at B+ in the AIMA survey

Institute of Rural Management, Jaipur
Needs a MAT score of 600. You can also apply through ATMA. Ranked as an A grade institute in the AIMA survey.

School of Communication & Management Studies, Cochin (SCMS)
Ranked at A grade by the AIMA survey. Also ranked as A+ by Business India. CAT scores also accpeted

Caution: This is only an indicative list, and by no means an exhaustive one. Please corroborate this information with atleast one more source before taking any decision.

Get Ready for the Group Discussion(GDs)

You must have received your CAT score-card by now, and it's now time to get ready for the crucial next phase of the B-School Entrance process - the Group Discussions and the Personal Interviews. The first point that you need to understand now, and this is very crucial, is that unlike the written test which was an elimination process, the Group Discussion & Personal Interview (GD PI) rounds are a selection process. At the Common Admission Test (CAT) stage, your objective was to just be one-up on others so that you finish around the 99th percentile. However, now you need to make a sufficient impression and convince the GD/PI panel that you are good enough to be selected for the prestigious MBA seat.

In this post, we will discuss how one needs to prepare himself for the GDs and a few handy tips for the B-School Group Discussions.

In the Advanc'edge MBA, Chitra Jha correctly and succinctly defines a GD: Group Discussion is simply an informal discussion amongst a group of candidates belonging to the same age-group and possessing similar aptitude (as proven by the CAT). A group generally comprises six to ten candidates, who have the full freedom to discuss their views on a given subject in the manner they please. This exercise gives the examiners an opportunity to assess the personality traits of many candidates within the same time-frame.

The beauty of this unstructured process is that whenever a group of human beings is given a common task within a set time limit, the group dynamics soon finds a leader or leaders. Those who have natural leadership traits in them display their inborn talents and automatically take over as leaders, enabling the selectors to gauge everyone's leadership quotient. Simultaneously, several important personality characteristics of the candidates can be observed when they are engaged in the discussion, and their guard is lowered.

A most common misconception is that you must speak as much as you can and as many times. While it's important that you make yourself heard sufficiently and put forth your point of view across clearly, and if need be, a little forcefully - it would be most imprudent to try and hog all the limelight. Remember at all times that you are not on a podium but on a round table ( mostly invisible!!). Your objective for the GD should be: To put forth your point/s on the GD topic across to everyone else, supported by logical and meaningful reasons for your stand. Also factor in a secondary objective, which if well executed alongwith the main objective can make you a winner - be a good listener, so that you can sieve out points put forward by your colleagues which you can embed into your arguments as further support. Thus, you will manage to increase the circle of influence for yourself and convince the group on your stand.

You may also take note of the following points for a good GD:

1. No amount of tips and suggestions can help you if you do not have a sufficient knowledge base - you must be regulary reading at least one English newspaper and one Business daily. Make sure to read the editorials and columns - while knowledge is essential, the GD is ultimately a place to voice your opinions and back it up with logic. Look at the way the top columnists structure and build up their argument to convince you of their stand.

2. Begin the GD only if you are absolutely sure you have enough reason to do so - remember that you will be immediately noticed - while you will get points for the initiative, it can easily backfire too if you make a fool of yourself.

3. If you can support your arguments with statistics and quotes from influential people, nothing like it. But at no point should you resort to a lie.

4. Listen to others. It helps.

5. You may disagree with a point raised by someone else - but you must counter the point politely and logically. Don't overdo it.

6. Never lose your cool. Never.

In a later post, we will discuss Personal Interviews at length.