One of the most significant trends sweeping the Indian management education domain is the significant importance being attached to prior work-experience of MBA candidates.

Overwhelming percentage of students at IIMs and other top-schools are candidates with some prior work experience.

In the fresh data shared by IIM-L with MBAUniverse.com, a whopping 89% of candidates admitted to the Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) have some prior work experience. Significantly, just a year ago, only 50% of the batch admitted to PGP 2007-2009 were candidates with work-experience.

Informs IIM-L, “The total number of experienced students in 2007-2009 batch were 122 (50.41%) which has increased to 274 (89.25%) for 2008-2010 batch. This is an increase of around 49% in the total number of experienced students.”

As per the IIM-L batch-profile of PGP 2008-10, of the 307 students, there are only 30 female students. Last year the number stood at 14 female students. There are 24 NRI students as well. As much as 93% of the batch at IIM-L is made of students with engineering degree.

IIM-L has also admitted 5 students who have some physical disability, thereby become a more inclusive institution.

Sources : mbauniverse.com

The new admission policy adopted by the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L), has resulted in high “admission acceptance rate”. In 2007, the last admitted candidate was ranked 85th on the waiting list, but this year the rank has dropped to just 25. The fact assumes importance because IIM-L has increased the number of seats from 270 to 330 this year but, despite that, it has managed to fill seats quite easily compared to last year.

The final selections, as per the admission policy 2008, have been done after taking into account the performance of the candidates right from class X till graduation, Combined Admission Test (CAT) results, group discussion and personal interview (GDPI) and work experience. “The comprehensive evaluation also provided us better candidates to select from,” Prof SKB Nair, chairman admissions, told TOI.

The selection was done in two stages. In the first stage, candidates were assessed on a five-point scale that included CAT 2007 score (30%), class X marks (5%), class XII (5%), graduation marks (5%) and experience profile (5%). The experience profile was rated on the basis of the period of work experience in months. Lowest 0.5 marks were given for 9-11 months work experience and highest five marks were allotted for work experience of 72 months or more.

In the second stage that was also on a five-point scale, candidates were assessed on the basis of their written ability test (10%), group discussion (10%), personal interview (20%), quality of academic qualification (5%) and quality of work experience (5%). Sum of all the 10 components (stage one and two take together) were taken for a final score of the candidates for preparing merit list for the final selections. Of 1586 candidates called for GDPI, 375 had been called exclusively by IIM-L.

The main list declared by GDPI had 734 candidates, including SC/ST, OBC and physically-challenged. Besides, a waiting list of 200 candidates, only for general category, was also declared. As a back up plan, a list of 80 OBC candidates was released after Supreme Court’s OBC quota verdict. GDPI of these 80 OBC candidates were held in Delhi on May 16 and 17. “Since we had more number of candidates who got calls only from IIM-L, the acceptance rate was high,” explained Prof Nair. Classes will start at IIM-L by June 26. However, candidates will be accommodated till June 30, as many change from one IIM to another till the last moment.

Another reason, according to the faculty members, for ‘high acceptance rate’ could be that IIM-L was one of the most affordable among all IIMs. The fee hike for the session 2008-09 in PGP course had been only Rs 50,000 (from Rs 2 lakh per annum to Rs 2.50 lakh). Further, the institute had given need-based scholarships worth Rs 48 lakh to 86 students in the previous session, the highest among all IIMs as per the officials. The scholarship amount may go up even further in the coming session.

More : timesofindia.indiatimes.com

With the recent hikes in admission fees, management education at India’s top B-Schools is set to become much more expensive.

In the last few weeks, all six Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) have decided to raise the fees for their Post Graduate Programme (PGP), albeit with varying degrees. Other B-schools of repute too are increasing their fees. MBAUniverse.com presents a review of the new fees scenario.

From the table below, one can make out that IIM-A’s PGP programme is the most expensive amongst the IIMs, while IIM-L is the most affordable of the IIMs. IIM-A has affected the steeped fee hike of over 100%, while IIM-L has increase the fee by a modest 25%. Other IIMs have increased fees by 50% to 80%.