CAT - my sweet lady!!!!

Its long but please spare some moments
Chat between two serious CAT aspirants and the elusive CAT/IIMs

Student 1 : Dear Sir. I have got 99.33, 99.72 in 2 sections and a 99.84 overall, but only 95.32 in the other section??: . Can i get a call, Dear CAT, from IIMA.

CAT/IIMA : What????, IIMA Call?. Dont you see you are not competent enough to cope up with the rigorous 2 year course we conduct here. Had you scored 0.02 %ile more you could have proved yourself to be competent enough to pursure a course and joined the ranks of MS Banga and Harsha Bogle. With a poor 95.32%ile in one section, All i can tell you is plz study more.

Student 1 : Sir, How about the chances from IIMB. :neutral:

CAT/IIMB : Ha ha ha ha ha.. IIMB.. ha ha ha.. (Gearing up itself somehow to answer the question).. Fine.. I will anyway try to answer your question.. I need a few more details to answer your question anyway.. like..

1) What is your Date of Birth. It must fall between May 14th and Dec22nd. Else doubtful. Lets see. There are some rare cases who get thru with some lineancy in that. Anyway. Best of Luck on that.
2) 10th scores and the State you did it from and also, whether you have scored more than 83.11 % in that
3) 12th scores and the State you did it from and also, whether you have scored more than 86.76 % in that
4) Work-ex. Just the number of months would do fine. You need not tell whether you did it Microsoft, Google or a Textile mill at lahore.. It does not matter much. We need diversity, you know. We also dont like differentiating between people based on illogical data like this.
5) CAT %ile. Now, wait. This is thr trickiest part. We are still awaiting the results from Las Vegas Casinos were our profs are playing. They are yet to finish the game. Prof X (who has a bet on keeping VA cut-off at 88.32%ile) is losing badly. He needs to improve on his casino skills. Prof Y is winning the game. He had pegged it at 96.32%ile. lets see.. Last year Prof Z won hands down with a 85%ile in DI. A few bugging students sneaked into our institute thru that. Lets see how many more get lucky this year. But lemme say guys, Its fun. Casinos are fun. The above rules are very well applicable for other IIMs too, though some lineancy maybe allowed.

Student 1: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Somehow composing himself to ask the next question)

Student 1: But Sir, almost none of these can be changed by me now. I dont have any control over it at this stage of my life.:eh:

CAT : Obviously. You cant change. And thats what we love the most. You have absolutely no control over your destiny. We control it. You heard it right? Anyway.. We do have a backdoor entry. If you score 99.95+ in all three sections and a 99.98+ overall, you may be exempted from all this. But again, its a "maybe". So please dont have high hopes. Lets see.

Student 2: Sir, I have scored 99.81 overall and a 99.96 in quants, 99.14 in verbal but a 78.17 in DI coz of a bad day. I have received no calls from none of the IIMs till now. But I have good work-ex, can very well think logically and am suited to do an MBA from the top IIMs. I can obviously handle the rigour. :satisfie:

CAT : ROTFL.. My God! a 78.17 in DI.. Do these profs release these types of below average percentiles too. Yuck! I never knew anyone can get a 78.17 in DI. pretty surprising. And were you talking about calls from the IIMs. First you need to explain to them what a 78.17 means.

Student 2: But sir a 99.96 in quants and a 99.81 overall and a 99.14 in VA. Does that not look attractive enough to study at IIMs ABCLI?:angry:

CAT : Sorry.. I could not hear properly.. What did you tell your score was in DI?

Student 2 (losing his cool ): WTF. WTF do you want to know. I got a f'in 78.17 in DI and finally all you buggers decided I am incompetent to think logically. You decide that since I could not crack one more set in DI, I am not fit for management. Blah Blah Blah..

CAT : Beta.. Tension mat le.. See. I will let you out one trade secret. We ourselves are pretty confused in how to eliminate people. Its a nice game with us and the computer. We keep changing one variable or the other till the calls for each instis touches the required number. In fact how to predict the right nos so that we can give results in 3 weeks itself is now a casestudy at IIMA.

Student 2 (stammering to ask the next question) : But sir.. You will be losing out on lots of good students coz of this. :crazyeye:

CAT : So?

Student 2: "So?".. What question was that? I told, you will be losing out on a few
deserving students, some who may have got 97%ile or 95%ile overall but for whom an MBA would suit much well in their career goals.

CAT : Career goals..? What is that. I never knew our guys here talk about that. We know numbers. Talk numbers to us. and only numbers. Nothing else matters. And better if the nos are higher.

Student 1 : :huh:

Stdeunt 1 : Ok. Lets talk Numbers. You have given calls to some students with overall 97.5 %ile too but not someone with a 99.75%ile. How does it work.

CAT : Oh, You guys figured it out huh..:sly: These youngsters are smart nowadays. Anyway, promise you wont tell it to anyone.

Student 1: Promise Sir.

CAT : I believe you. When we were working seriously on Dec 30th, that bugging programmer had boozed a bit. Instead of typing 98.75%ile, he typed 97.5%ile in the computer program and some buggers may have sneaked in. Dont worry. We will take care of them in the interview.

Student 1: But sir,He may actually be a good candidate. :dontgeti:

CAT : How can he be a good candidate. He got 97.5%ile overall.

Student 2 (butting in ): Oh Man:bad-word:! Did dhirubhai score a 99.5, did lakshmi nivas mittal score a 99.5.. did..

CAT : Stop, Stop.. Why should they score.. We dont create people like them. We create people who can work for them.

Student 1: Sir. We are speechless. Anyway.. We have a question and a suggestion. question first. How come IIM A/B/C have called a candidate who may have 97+ sectionals and 99+ overall but not IIM L/I/K.

CAT : Hmmm.. Thats a very good question. What happened was these 3 IIMs wanted to show to the outside world that they are unique. Hence they chose a different casino this time and played a different game amongst themselves. Maybe cut-off changed coz of that. :satisfie: And what Suggestion? We dont like suggestions.

Student 1: Plz listen once.

CAT : We listening to others. He he.. Proceed.

Student 1 : Why cant you select people the way International B SChools do by finding out more about the personal characteristics of the student so that you can find whether he is better suited for management rather than just depending on nos.

CAT : Personal characteristics.. You mean height, weight, hip size etc..? We were thinking about it in 1997 but..

Student 2 : No No.. (In horror and controlling his temper).. We mean his aptitude do to management, his potential, his passion, his career goals, how an MBA from IIM will help him.. etc. In those lines..

CAT : Are you serious. We cant read the applications of 191,000 buggers. then we have to conduct CAT'07 for batch 2012. You are absolutely illogical. No wonder you scored a below average percentile in logical reasoning. Ha ha ha.

Student 2: (You #$^%^%*& ). You somehow got the point though not exactly. conducting CAT'07 for CAT'12 batch. We advice CAT to be designed in the lines of GMAT which has 5 years validity and is standardized.

CAT : OMG! That means our annual profs trip to Las vegas will be cancelled. ??: I dont think they will agree to your suggestion. And what is the crap about 5 year validity. How can the intelligence of a person not change in 5 years. We believe it will change every year, in fact every week also if CAT is conducted so often.

Student 2: CAT is supposed to test Aptitude and not intelligence and aptitude will not change much in 5 years. It will benefit the student community immensely since they can give CAT in the final year, concentrate on their careers and then join MBA after 3-4 years after understanding business and corporate life. They can also concentrate on extra curricular etc. Because of CAT, the career of many people is jeopardized and none of the serious working CAT takers know what Extracurriculars is.

CAT : Agreed. But what about the Las vegas trip?

Student 1 and 2: Fainted.

CAT (gets a phone call) : Are bhai. kahan hai tu.. Still playing at the casinos? You guys have real fun time.. So who won the game and whats the cut-off for QA this year.. What.. 89.11 ile huh.. Who won the game.. Ok.. Visit the miami beach.. (and he walks off speaking)