My academics are poor, will I get calls from top IIMs?

People with poor academics always have one concern: Will they get calls from top IIMs; in other words, they want to know, will the get calls from the old IIMs.

This is not an easy question to answer because we don’t know what you mean by poor academics.

There is no doubt that if your academics are really bad, you will have a tough time getting calls from the old IIMs, but that may not always be the case. All the old IIMs give you calls based on your composite score.

Here you must remember two things:

1The components of the composite score may not be the same for all colleges, for instance IIM Lucknow in its composite score includes: CAT score, Graduation score, 12^th score, Work Experience, Academic Diversity and Gender Diversity.

But IIM Indore in its composite score includes: 10^th score, 12^th score, CAT score and Diversity factor. It does not give any weightage to Graduation performance and to work experience

2The second thing is that amount of weightage given to each component also varies. For instance, IIM Lucknow gives 60 percent weightage to CAT score, whereas IIM Indore gives only 20 percent weightage to CAT score. There is formula for calculating that weightage.
Below is the link of few top IIMs admission process.

1. IIM Ahmedabad
2. IIM Bangalore
3. IIM Calcutta
4. IIM Lucknow
5. IIM Indore

You can visit the college websites to have look at the formula used by the college to calculate the composite score.

But if your academics is very poor, it does not mean that you will not get calls from any old IIMs. You should have the advantage of work experience (it should not too high or too low); academic diversity and gender diversity. In addition to this, you should have a very good CAT score.

In conclusion, I would say that by poor academics we mean that your scores in 10^th, 12^th, and graduation are all below 60. In such a case, getting a call from the old IIMs would indeed be difficult.

But if you are good in 10^th and 12^th (above 80 or 90 percent), and average in graduation (above 70), then you stand some chance, and you have to ensure that you get a good score in CAT.

Thus the question of poor academics is not easy to answer. A number of other factors will have to be considered, factors such as academic diversity, work experience and CAT score, too, play a critical role.

Also, we would like to add that every year the criteria to calculate the composite score keeps on changing; moreover, there are IIMs (new IIMs) that give calls solely on the basis of your CAT score.

Apart from the IIMs, there are institutes, such as MDI, NITIE, SP Jain, IITS, XLRI and many more, that call you only on the basis of CAT performance.

So it is pointless to worry about your academics, because you can neither change it nor make it count. Pondering over it will only result in loss on precious time and energy.

Just focus on your prep and try our CAT online course for better preparation

If your CAT score is equal to or above the cut-off score and your composite score too is equal to or above the cut off score, you will get WAT PI calls from the college.

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