As I reported earlier my CAT attempt was a joke as I didn’t study for even 15 mins this year for it. A far cry from my earlier days in 2002-2003 when my life used to revolve around it. Though I was rather pleased with the performance after I checked my marks(a practiced ritual in those days. Can’t help it!) I thought I had CAT by his tail this time.
Alas, the worst scripts are not written by god anymore and the job has been handed over to the IIM honchos who keep changing their preferences each year with no indication at all before the test. The result was declared yesterday and I was excited to see my score:
In fact, I was so excited that the fact that the result page showed no interview calls skipped my mind completely. Yes, I was looking at my best CAT score ever with my best sectional performances but still I was more unlucky than ever too! As it turned out, my quant score of 91.95%ile missed the cutoff set by not one, two by ALL IIMs by a whisker and because of that my other numbers lost their sheen in toto.
I am still having hard time understanding the meaning of cutoffs set by IIMs. Back in old good days, I remember sectional cut off was the minimum score to ensure that a candidate who is weak in a section doesn’t get in. Hence the sectional cutoffs used to be set to about 84-85%. But today can you say =~92%ile is a low score to an extent that the other good scores in other sections gets overridden? And if it is why dont IIMs declare upfront what is the good score in their view.
For me personally this event doesn’t hold much significance as for me joining a 2 yr course with freshers might have been a decision which would have taken a lot of thought. My heart goes out to people who were sidelined just because they were unlucky to find favor with the whims and fancies of IIMs.
I hate the eccentricity IIM admission staff pride themselves in. They do it in PGP and they do it in PGPEX. And lucky them, they always manage to get extolling tomes written about them by a servile Indian media. They should thank the vast talent India has for this. 
Posted by milestonemba 
