Common Admission test (CAT) and Management Aptitude Test (MAT) are conducted to determine whether the applicant has the aptitude to pursue management studies.
A person who has an IQ of 100 is considered average and IQ (realized intelligence) can only be improved upon marginally after coaching. If this is so, can aptitude (which is the natural ability to do something as per dictionary) be improved upon by coaching? Here, expert’s views differ. According to Macklem (1990), short term cramming will not help improve the aptitude. The point I want to make is, does the aptitude coaching, that a management aspirant undergoes in coaching institutions, indeed help him to crack the admission test or it is his own natural ability? If a person understand this, his expectation from the coaching institutes will be limiting to refining or honing his skills or to find out in which aspect he is better.
The CAT/MAT score, is given the highest weightage amongst various selection criteria. This is understandably so since these tests evaluate the aptitude an applicant has for management studies. If we buy this argument, the management aspirants who secure the highest CAT score, get into the best of the IIMs. Now the question arises, are the best CAT scorers also the best performers academically? Ironically, it need not be so.
In one of the RTI query in 2008 it was revealed that 69 students dropped out of IIM-Calcutta in the past 2 years, and 286 students since 1995, and this is just one IIM. The state is similar in others as well and these figures are increasing every year.
The moral of the story for the management aspirants here is that the role of the coaching institutes should be confined to brushing up the candidates’ skills and not be a place to rote and reproduce, thus killing the original creativity in the aspirants.
Lot of emphasis is laid on attitude of the interviewee by any recruiter because selecting a wrong candidate could cost the company dearly. When we look at the dropout rates, even from the reputed and prestigious institutions one wonders, whether the importance of finding out attitude is given a serious effort it deserves in selecting students. If a student can crack the CAT/MAT, they might as well be coached to make the interviewer believe in their Statement of Purposes and impress him in the interview. Interestingly, if we make an analysis as to whether the Topper in CAT/MAT is also the highest academic achiever and also the one who gets placed with the highest CTC, well, it need not be so.
The point a management aspirant needs to know here is, does he /she has the burning desire to pursue management studies and will it be worth spending time, effort and money rather than the interviewer trying to find this out .
Ultimately, nothing succeeds like success and once you believe in yourself, the success follows, the aptitude and attitude fall in line.
Col(Retd).S.Vijayaraghavan,
Thiagarajar School of Management, Madurai.