At a time when the Supreme Court is hearing a case on higher-education quota for OBCs where the petitioners have argued, among other things, that any reservation will dilute merit, there is data from IIM Bangalore to show otherwise — OBC students scored barely two percentile points below general category students in the final shortlist for 2006.

In the average Combined Admission Test percentile scores of candidates shortlisted for the group discussion and interview stages, OBCs earned 97.73 below the general category’s 99.14. Candidates from the SC/ST segment got 89.04 and 81.46 respectively.

IIM-B has released academic profiles of the 1,065 students shortlisted this year from across categories of general candidates (707), OBCs (104), SC (147) and STs (79).

While the scores of general category, OBC and SC/ST students display differences at the CAT level, the gaps are narrower at Class X or XII level. A report in The Indian Express report had earlier revealed how in the IIMs’ admissions procedure, school-leaving marks play a greater role than the CAT score itself.

While the average marks of all general category students in their Class XII exams is 88.74 per cent, the average for OBCs is 87.70 per cent. Again, if Class X scores of shortlisted students are considered, the difference between the general category and OBCs is a fraction of a percentage point — 88.94 per cent against 88.85 per cent.

The IIM-B data also shows that an overwhelming majority — just under 85 per cent — of shortlisted candidates came from an engineering background. Another interesting fact is the percentage of women across categories.

... contd.