Students’ Speak: What are my options if MAT performance is not up to the mark?

By: Abhishek Desai

Since the syllabus of almost all the MBA entrance exams remains overall the same, an aspirant just needs to tinker with the test-taking strategies (which can be done by giving and analysing more mocks) and revise the basic concepts thoroughly. 

If the MAT result isn’t as per your expectations, an MBA aspirant has two options — choose a college based on the current score or reattempt the exam in May. In case an aspirant chooses the former option, it means compromising on their career goals by taking admission in a not-so-good college. Whereas the latter option gives the aspirant another shot at getting a much better score in MAT and, thereby, chances of getting admission into a better college. Since an MBA is mostly only once in life and is more valuable only when done from a reputed college, it makes more sense to go for the latter option.

In case an aspirant wishes to aim for the other exams next year and get into the IIMs and other renowned non-IIMs, even that’s a good option as not many top-ranked colleges across India accept MAT scores. As the next season of MBA entrance exams begins with the September MAT, aspirants have ample of time to prep up more nicely. Since the syllabus of almost all the MBA entrance exams remains overall the same, an aspirant just needs to tinker with the test-taking strategies (which can be done by giving and analysing more mocks) and revise the basic concepts thoroughly. This would ideally not take a lot of time since you are already pretty familiar with the entire syllabus.

When it comes to short-listing different colleges, which accept the MAT scores, one can take help of the related details available on Shiksha and other education portals. Check out the past cutoff scores to get more clarity on the probable cutoff in 2020 (or 2021 if applicable). I suggest all the aspirants keep a wide range of various good backup colleges, wherever they are in India. For example, the usual cutoff of colleges such as BIMTECH Greater Noida, SIES Navi Mumbai, IMS Ghaziabad, etc is about 80 percentile. It is better to register for the interviews of at least four colleges so that even if you face rejection from any college, you still have good backups; thereby not having a lot of pressure upon yourself during the interviews.

To increase the score, not repeating the same mistakes, making a list of such errors and spending more time on the weaknesses, are essential. A fine balance has to be maintained between speed and accuracy to ace in an exam. Take help of your peers and professors for providing better guidance, as well as make full use of the articles and videos posted on the Internet on how to use shortcuts and tricks to solve a particular type of question (in case you’re not aware of).

About the Author:

Abhishek Desai is currently pursuing Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) in e-Business from Welingkar Institute of Management. He has done his Summer Internship in the field of Market Research with 'TimesofMoney'. He's also served as 'Secretary of the Green Committee' at Welingkar.