Get into MBA, know how & where to apply

by Ankur Agarwal

Ankur Agarwal

CAT is over! IIFT just went by, SNAP and XAT are up on the horizon. What should an aspirant be doing now? A lot of questions will be coming to the mind right from preparation for the upcoming exams to the filling up of forms for the different colleges to apply for MBA and to make matters worse College/University exams during the same time!!

Let us delve into the second part i.e. Forms filling! Putting things in perspective, almost every form is in the range of Rs 1500-2000, which puts a lot of pressure on the individual’s finances. Of course, in front of Rs 10-18 lakh fees for MBA (majority), this amount may look small but applying for 30 colleges puts you back by Rs 50,000. Besides, the fact that most of the colleges today ask subjective questions, applying to too many colleges deteriorates the quality of your answer as the same effort is spread across institutes. Hence, a more focused approach would give better results comparatively. However, it is always better to apply for at least two exams (not just CAT), since a bad day can set you back by a year.

Let us see how one can, not just improve the chances of getting admission into a reasonably good college but also optimise college applications. After taking various mocks, you would have gauged your performance range. Suppose you fall in the 90-95 percentile range then what should you be doing. First of all, make three categories of colleges according to the percentile cutoffs (in case sectionals are involved please include them). In this case, 95 percentile plus is one category which can be named as aspirational. The second category can be 90-95 percentile which can be named as realistic and the last will be 85-90 percentile which can be named as backup. Going by the nomenclature, one would have guessed by now that how you fare in actual CAT (or other exams in near future) would result in placing you in these categories.

Aspirational: Pick up 3 colleges in this list across different cutoffs, do not choose only the top colleges but one each of around 96/97/98 percentile level.

Realistic:  Pick up 4-5 colleges in this list around your most probable percentile for maximising your chances around that range, in case you feel you fared better in actual CAT then go for a percentile higher for two of the colleges.

Backup: Pick up 2-3 colleges in this list across different cutoffs, choose one each of around 85/87/89 percentile level in order to keep you chances of admission open.

**Please keep it in mind that if you score poorly in one section but good overall, look carefully before applying to colleges with high cutoff in that very section.

However, in case you feel or you have in mind that you will not apply below a certain level, then you can use the same spreading method to your bottom range and move upwards.

Remember, it is good to be optimistic but balancing it with a realistic approach will get you where you can.

All the Best!!

About the author:

Ankur Agarwal heads the IT and Publishing verticals of Endeavor Careers and Catgurus - a leading online Testing portal for CAT Aspirants.