Admission Experience at IIM Kozhikode | A perfect blend of curve-balls and standards

After looking at the huge demand of the institute graduates by both domestic and international conglomerates IIM Kozhikode has now increased the intake of students in PGP to 480 from the academic session 2019. However, getting into its campus is not a bed of roses. Admission experience at IIM Kozhikode can be daunting and can break even the strongest. A little awareness and preparation can take you far. After getting through the cut off scores of CAT 2019, one has to pass two more stages to get into the batch of 2020-22.

Key Highlights of IIM Kozhikode Admission Process 2020-22:

A bachelor's degree with at least 50 percent marks or equivalent CGPA

CAT score percentile of 85 (GEN), 75 (NC-OBC/EWS), 65 (SC) and 55 (ST/PwD)

Shortlisting of candidates for WAT and PI is on the basis of:

The final scores will be computed on the basis of:

To make the admission process easier to comprehend here are the experiences of three MBA aspirants who were recently interviewed at IIM Kozhikode.

The Common Admissions Process for shortlisted candidates consists of two rounds:

Writing Ability Test

Personal Interview

Writing Ability Test

The main aim is to analyze the writing skills and the candidate’s clarity of thought process. In this process, the candidates are required to write an essay. The essay topics are announced at the venue just before the start of the WAT session. Here is an account of the admission experience at IIM Kozhikode of three candidates who appeared for the process:

Essay topics:
Candidate I: India and Pakistan can never be friends
Candidate II: Should businesses rethink and focus on the consumer is the king idea
Candidate III: Facebook should be banned

In a nutshell, one can estimate the range of the topics WAT can cover in the admission process. It can be anything from business, abstract, current affairs, politics, to social. Keeping the word and time limit, you can first frame the outline of the write-up to collect the idea behind the topic and then give a final structure to it.

Bonus Tip: The conclusion must carry the essence of your opinion so stick to your point of view. Nothing can be grey in the end!

Personal Interview

During the PI process, the candidate is evaluated on the basis of the academic efforts and disposition, general awareness and social disposition, attitude, personality and communication and the quality of work experience. Also, the resume score plays an important role here. The factors that will be evaluated are the quality of academic and professional qualifications, length of work experience, and exceptional academic, co-curricular and extracurricular achievements of candidates.

The panelists consisted of two interviewers. They kept the interview short and simple with an average of 10-15 minutes. It kick-started with very casual and intriguing questions but ended on a technical note. Let’s take a quick recap of the candidates’ experiences.

Questions as posed to Candidate I:

Tell me something about yourself

Why did you choose Marketing over your passion for acting?

You said you didn't do well academically in the first two years of college. Why did you tell us that?

Why MBA?

You love marketing, why IIM Kozhikode and not MICA?

Oh! you like maths. What is the slope of a line? What is curvature?

Questions as posed to Candidate II:

Tell us about yourself.

Everything was going well in your life then what made you opt for an MBA?

Since you tried to run your own business, you must have incurred a lot of losses. How will you manage to pay for the program?

Oh! you didn't lose your money in business? Good good. Then, why did you shut it down?

Tell us about your college. What is best about your college?

Some questions on general politics and social policies.

What is blockchain? (followed by technical questions)

Questions as posed to Candidate III:

Introduce yourself

What is NSS?

Why haven't you mentioned your sports achievement in the form?

How did you reach SRCC?

Taxation laws for loss-making companies?

What is a partnership and what are maximum no. of partners in it?

What is OPC?

Difference between OPC and sole proprietorship?

What is more important for a person - religious identity, class identity, personal identity?

Difference between class identity and caste identity?

Which identity is the most important for economic development?

What is the shortest route to economic development?

As is evident, the objective of the panelists for the IIM Kozhikode admission process is to understand the thought process behind your decisions apart from the technical knowledge. So, brush up the facts mentioned in your resume with appropriate and logical facts.

Bonus Tips: It is okay if your college grades are not good enough or you did not get anything productive in return while following your passion. Don’t be ashamed of anything. Just back up your misses with sensible reasonings and learnings.

Good Luck!