© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
After IIM Sambalpur, IIM Raipur has also announced its exit from the Common Admission Process (CAP). The third-generation IIMs use this process to shortlist and interview candidates for admission to their MBA/PGP programmes. Last year, 10 IIMs (IIM Jammu, Bodhgaya, Kashipur, Raipur, Ranchi, Sambalpur, Sirmaur, Trichy, Nagpur, and Udaipur) participated. However, the above two have opted out of the process this time.
The reason behind this departure is the focus on a “certain type of students” that these management colleges were aiming at. IIM Raipur believes that CAP fails to bring them students who match their motto of “building business owners.”
“We are more focused on admitting candidates who have an entrepreneurial mindset, which we were unable to procure from CAP. Through our independent interview process, we will concentrate more on finding candidates who have an entrepreneurial mindset,” Professor Ram Kumar Kakani, IIM Raipur director told indianexpress.com.
The same thought process is followed by IIM Sambalpur too who claimed that their new course MBA Business Analytics in the Delhi campus requires a specific type of eligibility which is not possible to get through CAP. “Our new programme requires minimum eligibility of one year of work experience and specialisation in STEM. We give a lot of importance to profiles and we could not have gotten that through CAP. Also, we give priority to women students, so opting out of CAP felt like the right decision,” Mahadeo Jaiswal, IIM Sambalpur director explained.
Kakani also sighted online process to be another big reason behind this shift in the admission process. CAP, which includes Writing Ability Test (WAT) and Personal Interview (PI), is an all-online process. This does not let the IIMs figure out a candidate’s mindset and personality per se. “IIM Raipur will now be holding offline interviews in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Raipur, Lucknow and Guwahati. Through these offline interviews, we will be able to meet candidates from all regions of the country so there will be wider diversity. Also, we will also be able to judge them in a better way when we meet these candidates face-to-face. We will also give candidates an option to get feedback of their interview, which is the first time an IIM is doing so. This feedback will be very helpful for candidates — whether they get selected or not,” Kakani added.
IIM Sambalpur, however, will be conducting interviews in offline as well as online manner to ensure students can opt for whatever medium suits them better. The offline interviews will only happen in Sambalpur and Delhi campus.
These two IIMs will also have an industry expert in the interview panel, a facility which is not available in CAP.
Similarly, IIM Amritsar, too, joined the chorus and confirmed to indianexpress.com that the faculty of the institute prefers more control over the admission process, due to which the institute has decided to not join CAP with other IIMs.
However, other second and third generation IIMs such as IIM Nagpur consider the online interview process to be an advantage as it helps save money, time and other resources. “We joined CAP last year (2024) because we realised that the independent admission process was time and money consuming. With the help of CAP, we have been able to decrease the expenditure, and also bring down the number of weeks that were spent in this process. This has been very beneficial for us when it comes to optimum utilisation of resources,” says Bhimaraya Metri, IIM Nagpur director.
The CAP participating IIMs also believe that common admission process is more convenient for aspirants. IIM Bodh Gaya, which is hosting CAP 2025, believes in the same. “It is more convenient for students as they only have to apply for one exam and appear for one interview. It surely is cumbersome for one IIM to conduct the process, but our intention is always to reduce the burden for students, and that is why we prefer CAP,” said Sunil Kumar, chairperson of Admissions Committee of IIM Bodh Gaya. “This process also gives us the advantage of a greater pool of talent, which gives us the freedom to choose better candidates.”
There are 21 IIMs in India that offer various MBA, PGP, PGDM, Executive MBA and Fellowship programmes. The first and second generation IIMs such as IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Kozhikode, Indore and Lucknow follow their own admission criteria. The only common point is the CAT score. The Common Admission Test is held annually for selecting management aspirants in these 21 IIMs and other B schools.
IIMs give weightage to CAT score, personal appearance and profile and that varies. For example, IIM Bodhgaya has listed a minimum 45 per cent CAT score (scaled score not the percentile), and 25 per cent personal appearance of which 20 per cent weightage for PI and 5 per cent weightage for WAT. They divided the profile into two segments — 14 per cent academic profile and 16 per cent work experience.
“The CAP is created to help students who can shortlist the IIM they wish to study. These new IIMs were setting up their base and needed a common platform to ease the admission process. However, IIM Sambalpur and Raipur are now ready to explore their admission policy like the first generation institutes. For example, some of the first and second-generation IIMs focus on gender diversity. These criteria attract women students who otherwise find it hard to reach the top B-schools,” said a senior IIM director.
— with inputs from Neeti Nigam
