IIM Ahmedabad revised the admission process for the 2016-18 season, providing a huge relief to the aspirants, by removing the minimum academic performance as the eligibility criteria for shortlisting under category-wise selection. 

 IIM Ahmedabad shortlists students for Essay and Interview round in two ways - (A) through their academic credentials (given overall CAT %ile > 90 and section-wise >80) under each set of stream (engineering, medicine, commerce etc.) (B) through their CAT %iles within each category (general, sc, st etc). While the earlier version had minimum graduation requirement in both (A) and (B), the latest version has done away with the requirement for (B). 

 The process document released in the first week of August contained the table below for the minimum percentage required in graduation for category-wise shortlisting.

 (iii) Min. Bachelor's % requirement for category-wise shortlisting -

Discipline	General	NC OBC	SC	ST	DA
AC - 1	74	69	64	59	64
AC - 2	68	63	58	53	58
AC - 3	71	66	61	56	61
AC - 4	78	73	68	63	68
AC - 5	73	68	63	58	63
AC - 6	66	61	56	50	56
AC - 7	59	54	50	50	60

This meant that one needed to have secured a minimum of 78% (for a general category engineering student)* to be considered for IIM A's admission process, the CAT %ile did not matter if one failed to make the cut. Likewise, those from the Commerce/Economics (AC-3) streams needed 71%. Needless to say, this sent the MBA aspirants into a tizzy, especially those who had graduation scores less than those in the table.

 Thankfully, IIMA seems to have had a rethink in their criteria and published an updated admission criteria in the second week of August, in which the bachelor's cut-offs as primary eligibility were not there any more. This should be a huge relief to the aspirants, as this means that the CAT percentile will be the major determining factor in their IIM A selection and not their past academic background!

 Students can now focus on getting their best possible score in CAT which carries a 70% weightage in the first stage selection. Academics, counted under AR (Application rating) score count for the remaining 30%.

 Please note that the criteria of a minimum 50% or equivalent CGPA [45% in case of the candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste(SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Differently Abled (DA) categories] in graduation still remains for aspirants to be eligible to write CAT.

 For more details on the IIMA amission criteria for 2016-18 season, click here 

1.  *AC - 1 includes Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Dairy Science, Fisheries, Forestry, Food Technology, Horticulture, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Science, Veterinary Science 
   
2.  AC - 2 includes Arts, Humanities, Law, Education, Rural Studies 
   
3.  AC - 3 includes Commerce, Economics, Hotel Management, Management
   
4.  AC - 4 includes Agricultural Engineering, Architecture, Engineering
   
5.  AC - 5 includes all disciplines not included in other categories
   
6.  AC - 6 includes Medicine
   
7.  AC - 7 includes Chartered Accountancy, Cost and Works Accountancy, Company Secretaryship