Eligibility Criteria
The eligibility criteria for most management institutes and management entrance exams held in India are almost same. The minimum eligibility criteria for any mba related entrance exam is a degree of graduate level but diff. Exams and institutes have their own set of criteria and selection parameter. The eligibility criteria for few prominent exams and reputed institutes are as given below.
CAT
A Bachelor's Degree (or equivalent) in any discipline, with at least 50% aggregate marks (45% for reserved categories)
OR
Appearing at the final-year examination of a post 10+2 course. of minimum three years duration, leading to an award of a Bachelor's Degree, in any discipline of a statutory university in India (so recognized by the Association of Indian Universities)
OR
Post-Graduate applicants having at least 50% marks (45% for reserved categories) in either their Bachelor's or Post-Graduate Degrees.
XAT
A bachelors degree under 10+2+3 system recognized by a university or a deemed university is the eligibility criteria.
Students below 50% marks can apply for XAT.
JMET
Candidates with B.E./B.Tech. or equivalent with first class or equivalent from a recognized Institution or University (OR) A Master's degree in any discipline with first class or equivalent from a recognized Institution or University are eligible to apply.
But students with a second-class engineering degree can apply for ISC Banglore.
SNAP
Graduates from any Statutory University, with a minimum of 50% marks at graduation level, can apply.
MAT
Any Graduate
IIFT
Recognized Bachelor's degree of minimum 3 years duration in any discipline
IRMA
Graduates with minimum of 15 years (10+2+3) of education and having 50% (45% for SC/ST/PWD ) aggregate marks or an equivalent GPA from a recognized Indian or foreign University/Institution are eligible to apply.
FMS
A. Candidates applying for admission to the first year of MBA (Full-Time) Programme must have pursued at least a 3-year Bachelor's Degree Programme after 12 years of formal schooling in any of the following disciplines. The minimum requisite percentage of marks in different disciplines is as follows :-
1. Arts, Commerce or Social Sciences - 50%
2. Sciences - 55%
3. Mathematics or Statistics - 60%
4. Medicine, Engineering or Technology - 60% / CGPA of at least 6.00 in a scale of 10.00
OR
5. Post Graduate Degree or 2nd Degree examination after 10+2+3 scheme, securing at least 60% marks.
Note : Candidates appearing for the final examination of Bachelor’s / Post Graduate Degree examinations may also apply.
B. Candidates must be 20 years of age as on 1st of October of the year of admission.
Work Experience
Only full-time, paid, permanent positions after the first degree are considered as the work experience. The internships, project works, summer training and similar experiences gained during college certainly helps students in interview and other parts of the selection process but they are never considered as work experience.
Work Experience as defined by the IIM
"Work Experience Indicate only paid and full-time work experience, acquired after completing the Bachelor’s Degree, as on December 31 of the year of. Apprenticeship, Article, Internship etc. , which form an integral part of a course of study , should not be treated as work experience. Write in the 3-digit cell the number of months of your work experience and darken the appropriate circles. If the duration of your work experience is in one or two digits, and the appropriate number of zeros on the left to make it a 3-digit number. For example 6 months should be entered as 006, and 3 years, 5 months as 041."
The weightge given to work experience vary from Institute to institute and also depends upon the course. S.P Jain gives a lot of importance to work experience and for specialization like IT in the institute one need to have at least 12 months of work-ex. IIMs do give importance to work-ex and an applicant with work experience of more than 18 months always get preference over a fresher with same percentile.
The best way to know how much weightge is given to work-ex by a particular institute is to check out the current batch profile. The percentage of students with work-ex in premier institutes like IIM, XLRI , FMS , SP Jain varies from 15-50 and The average number of years of full-time work experience varies from 0-24 months , Though of all these statistics are increasing with each year. Off late it has been observed that many engineering graduates join b school after working in a topnotch IT company.
In US it s mandatory to have an work-ex for applying an MBA program but the case is not so in India and thus the curriculum of top B schools are made in a way that a fresher can follow with out much problem. There are many benefits of going for MBA after getting a good work experience of few years. It is always beneficial to the students and the company which recruits them in b school campus. All the top b schools now have started the facility of lateral placement where students with work experience gets a chance to join their dream company with a position higher than MT (Management Trainee). The packages offered to work-ex students are always in higher side and that makes the average salary of all the institutes a bit surprising. If the average salary for freshers and students with work-ex is calculated then both will be at quite apart for all the institutes.
“So is it necessary to have few years of work-ex before applying for MBA? †The answer should be given on the basis of a student profile but in general if one gets a call from top B school after graduation then there is no need to join an organization for the sake of work-ex. But students who get a good percentile (say something more than 90 in CAT) in their first attempt with out any final call from a top b school should wait for another year and in the mean time should take up a JOB. Those who get a job in campus should join the organization and try for CAT after 2 years of work-ex.
Written Test
The first step to get admission in a b school is to clear the written exam. In India there are few institutes like FMS, IIFT, IRMA which conduct their own written exam but most of the other institutes do their preliminary selection on the basis of all India MBA entrance exams like CAT, XAT, MAT, JMET, ATMA, SNAP.
The exam pattern of most of these exams are different but the basic idea behind these exam is to test the knowledge of candidates in the fields of maths, verbal, reading comprehension, data interpretation and logical reasoning. Except CAT all the other exams also include questions from business awareness. The questions asked in these exams are always of multiple choice with negative marking.
CAT
Till Year 2005 CAT was an exam of 2 hrs but now its duration is extended to 2hr 30 minutes. This is the only information that can be given about CAT because the rest are unpredictable.
There is no particular exam pattern for CAT and it changes every year.
In its early stage CAT was used to be an exam of time and talent. In a time period of 2 hrs students had to answer more than 180 questions but by late nineties the number of questions reduced to 160-165. CAT followed a pattern of 3 sections of each 50 questions during the period 2002 to 2004. In 2005 for the first time IIMs revealed that they follow 1/3 negative marking and in 2006 the time period is increased to 2hr 30 minutes. Though all the questions in CAT are multiple type , the marks allocated for each question are not same.
XAT
The main difference between CAT and XAT is that the later includes questions on General Awareness and also includes essay writing.
The English section in XAT is mainly vocabulary based. Direct synonym and antonym questions are asked which is totally different from CAT. Off late XLRI has started asking questions in groups in mathematics section. The standard of the questions in English section is not that tough compare to CAT but the math section is of equal standard.
JMET
As JMET is only limited to Engineer graduates the questions asked in mathematics sections are the toughest. Other sections are similar to CAT and XAT, The number of questions on Business Awareness is reducing with each year.
MAT
MAT is considered as the easiest of all the entrance exams held in India and most of the b schools that accept MAT score are never counted among the top b schools in the country.
All the other exams are similar in nature to CAT and XAT. A student preparing for these two exams don’t need to worry about the rest. The General Knowledge questions asked in IRMA are quite different from XAT and rest. The GK questions in IRMA are very much similar to the type of questions that are asked in banking and railway exams.
The topics covered in exams are as given below. Its just only for reference and cant be said as complete.
Quantitative Ability (QA):A test of your mathematical skills - essentially high school mathematics. Topics covered include Number Systems, Profit & Loss, Percentages, Averages, Progression, Work, Speed, Geometry and Algebra.
Data Interpretation (DI):A test of your ability to analyze and give specific information from Tables, Activity Charts, Caselets, Bar Charts, Pie Charts and Graphs. At times a variety of Analytical Reasoning questions also come under this section. These are both single puzzle-type questions as well as caselet data sets.
Verbal Ability (VA):A test of your English usage -- Grammar, Vocabulary and Verbal Reasoning.
Reading Comprehension (RC):A test of your English reading comprehension skills. This section contains a few passages followed by questions that test your comprehension of the ideas contained in the passage as well as your reasoning skills.
General Awareness/Business Awareness (GA/BA): A test of your awareness of current affairs and business events. This section appears in most admission tests, except CAT. The test has questions on political events, scientific developments, awards, economic indicators, brands, CEOs and books.
Logical Reasoning (LR):A test of your analytical skills through Data Sufficiency exercises, puzzles and deductive reasoning. Data Sufficiency questions are based on basic mathematics.