The XLRI campus in Jamshedpur on Wednesday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

From nervous 90 to ecstatic 80, wannabe managers can rejoice at XLRI’s slashed percentile primarily aimed at creating a motley talent pool in one of the country’s premier B-schools.

The elite cradle in Jamshedpur, which had last year reduced its cut-off percentile on an experimental basis, has decided to keep the bar lowered to usher in quality students from various academic backgrounds and not just engineering. The mandatory 80 percentile instead of earlier 90 in Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) — the second most prestigious management exam after IIM gateway CAT — would also help the school of business sieve through GD (group discussion) and PI (personal interview) students who have natural and positive attitude, besides honed aptitude.

In a nutshell, if a XAT candidate who has applied for XLRI scores 80 percentile and does exceptionally well in GD and PI, he or she will have a fair chance of making it to the best private B-school in the country. Currently, XLRI offers courses in business management and human resource management.

Normally, most candidates who qualify B-school entrance tests happen to be from engineering streams. The reason being their mathematical and analytical skills, which compliment the pattern of questions in CAT, XAT or MAT. However, faculty members at XLRI contended that while engineers manage to score very high in written tests, they sometimes fail miserably in GD and PI, which are two very important criteria to make it to XLRI.

It is not just XAT scores, the premier cradle prefers students with strong verbal communication skills, thorough knowledge on a particular subject and high level of confidence.

Soumendra Bagchi, chairperson (admissions), at XLRI conceded that the “experiment” started last year had helped them raise a “mixed group” of students. “Doctors and other professionals, apart from engineers, enrolled for both our flagship management programmes. We don’t wish to be biased towards a particular profession, gender or region. This is the reason why the percentile has been reduced and the trend will continue from now on,” he said.

Bagchi reiterated that there were indeed students who despite scoring very high in XAT, fumbled for answers in front of the interview panel. “The experts do not care which stream a student belongs to or what he or she has scored in XAT. All they look for is unwavering confidence. We also find most of these students read books that give you nothing but shallow knowledge on a subject. Many are caught pretending to know a lot, but the truth is out when quizzed. So, the best thing to do is to be genuine,” he added.

This year, XAT was held on January 8 and 55,000 candidates from India, Dubai and Kathmandu appeared for the test. XLRI, as a novel initiative, also included direct questions in the decision-making segment to analyse the managerial qualities in aspirants, besides questions on ethics. The XAT results will be out on January 31.

Sandeep Patra, a Tata Steel employee who took XAT for the third time, hopes to make it to XLRI. “Last year, I scored 97 percentile, but still did not receive a call. The slashed cut-off will be a boon. It will attract a heterogeneous group. I think XAT examinees will be really happy,” he said.