Diversity of class has been the driving force behind declaring the list of shortlisted candidates from the Xavier’s Admission Test (XAT) 2012 results for the interview stage of the XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur admissions.
XLRI’s admissions chairperson Soumendra Bagchi told PaGaLGuY that the school was looking at increasing the number of female candidates and non-engineers and the shortlisting criteria had been aimed towards reaching that goal.
However, Prof Bagchi made it very clear that at no point will merit take a beating during the admissions process. We will not discriminate with a section of candidates just to keep diversity in class. Which is why there are no extra marks added to any particular category of candidates. After the initial search, it will be a level playing field.”
Ironically, 93% of XAT 2012 test takers are engineers which means that the school couldn’t force diversity even if it tried very hard.
But is it really possible to keep diversity in class and yet not interfere with merit? Prof Bagchi replied in the affirmative and said that at the interview level, everything else being the same, the panelists will be asked to be sensitive to women candidates and those who show interesting achievements. For instance, with women, maybe we will ask the interview panelists to look at personality traits which we may not consider in the male candidates, he said.
Interviews are scheduled to begin on February 20, 2012 and will be conducted at Jamshedpur, Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi.
The XAT 2012 cutoffs for XLRI admissions this year have been higher compared to the last year and this is primarily because the applicant pool has been larger. For the Human Resource Management (HRM) Programme, a total 1,372 applicants have been shortlisted for interview at XAT cutoffs of 80 percentile in the English Language (EL) section, 80 percentile in Decision Making (DM), 70 percentile in Quantitative Aptitude (AQ) and 88 percentile overall. While for the Business Management (BM) course, a total of 955 applicants have been shortlisted for the next stage. The XAT cut-offs for BM are 70 percentile in EL, 80 percentile in DM, 92 percentile in QA and overall 90 percentile. Last year, the pool for HRM had been 1,100 and it was 880 for BM.
Prof Bagchi added that since the XAT test format had been different this year, the overlap between candidates wanting HRM and BM will be very less.
Moving forward, Prof Bagchi advises shortlisted candidates to brush up their basic academic knowledge. They have to be aware of what is happening in society and the world at large. They need to be sensitive to societal changes and understand them properly.
More than anything, Prof Bagchi pleads that candidates should not cook up hobbies at the last minute. We get candidates with zero knowledge of certain activities but they would be listed as one of their attributes. Please refrain from it totally,” he cautioned.
As for the topper, the only information available with us right now is that like last year, this year too it is a female candidate. In fact, there are two women in the XAT 2012 top 10.