IIM Lucknow - Indian Institute of Management

Going for MBA can have two directions, one you can pursue MBA as a fresher and work or two you gain some work experience and later, figure out what to do. If you want to go the first way, I believe you should appear for CAT 19/20, and check what is your current status compared to other aspirants around the country. It will give you a rough idea of where you stand. You have around 5 months which is good enough for you to prepare. If it doesn't work, you can get some experience a year or two and then try for CAT once simultaneously. So basically its a question you need to ask yourself. But whatever it is, I would recommend you to definitely appear for CAT 19.

The minimum percentile is dependent on the category one belongs to. The first shortlisting is done roughly on the basis of category for all the students. The academic diversity helps one while calculating the composite score at the end of second round. The composite score is calculated for everyone with extra points for non engineering students. For IIM Lucknow, 5 point weight is given for non engineers this year and for Amritsar, Kashipur and Sirmaur, it is somewhat similar. So if you are a non engineer and you clear the cutoff, you will get a good edge over that engineer with similar profile. But there is not much difference in the cutoff based on academic diversity.