“CAT”astrophe

So it’s the very same time of the year once again. CAT is closing in and I can very well see excitement and tension creeping in all the aspirants. Everything and every person I see in MBA forums remind me of my pre CAT days in some way or the other. The excitement regarding the paper, the ecstasy to perform well, the dream to get into a top notch B School, the fear of failing (in the single shot provided to them for putting to test all the efforts they have made) and no one is left untouched by the plethora of emotions that find an easy target in them, year after year.

Having realized it myself, I know that an MBA aspirant goes through all the possible emotions during the course of his/her preparation. It was such a roller coaster ride for me. Excited on getting an awesome score in a mock. Depressed with a bad performance in one of the sections. Frustrated on making the same mistake again and again. I saw it all, and I mean all the stages. And today when I was looking at some of the pages of my diary a sense of nostalgia did crept in. Those were the pure emotions (extreme at times nevertheless). And anyways you need a little push in order to achieve anything and that is when you truly realize the value of your achievement.

But there has been quite a few things different in the way it has been looked at, in the past few years. The word “CAT”, this time around, is marked by all sort of controversies. As if the online fiasco and normalization blues were not enough. Every forum that I look into is filled with a debate between engineers and non engineers. The reason being the criteria most IIMs have come up with i.e. awarding extra marks to girls and non-engineers even before the test is taken. I mean how could you justify this thing? If you are a male engineer who comes from a tough state board (with a percentage which was more than enough to get you featured in the merit list, but not enough to help you crack what you aspire to), IIM-A is a far fetched dream.

Fair enough that IIMs need some diversity. Fair enough that the CAT pattern is designed to give an edge to engineers. Fair enough that you need to give an equal opportunity to non-engineers. If that is the case, then why not design a paper in such a way that it gives an equal opportunity to everyone (or at an extreme, design one which gives an edge to non engineers, just like XAT has come up with it). I am sure no one will be complaining like this then, because at least everyone will be on the same ground and will be having the equal opportunity to show their mettle.

But is it the case that IIMs believe that whatever the pattern might be, engineers will maneuver there way in somehow, and that will be detrimental to their diversity motto. Quoting what the Dean of FMS, Prof Mamkoottam once said,

We do attempt to dilute what is known as the engineering-oriented component in the FMS test but to be very honest with you, in whatever experiment we have tried, engineers have again managed to come up.

This very well might be the reason, and if that is the case I can’t blame IIM for coming up with these criteria to bring in more adversity diversity. So now we implicitly have further reservations within the general category. Female non engineers, followed by female engineers and male non engineers, followed by the most pitiable creatures Male Engineers. There might be many justifications given by many people, but I really find it hard to buy anyone of them.