IIMs add final touches to 2020 list

Kolkata | New Delhi: Mission Admission has entered its final stage at Indian Institutes of Management, as the prestigious business schools on Friday began announcing the names of candidates shortlisted for their flagship postgraduate programme in management.

Amid the uncertainty around the Covid-19 pandemic, most IIMs have decided to push back their academic sessions to August, instead of June when those typically begin.

Digital was the medium of choice at several institutes to finalise the candidates. While IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Raipur had managed to complete their admission process before the lockdown, others like Lucknow, Calcutta, Kozhikode, Indore, Sambalpur and Jammu had to partly resort to the virtual route to zero in on the candidates.

Virtual interviews were just as effective as face-to-face ones in evaluating candidates, according to those IIMs. Some said it improved productivity and might even become a norm in times to come.

“Virtual medium of student selection may be extremely feasible given that we have well-established technology providers in India. If the digital environment, such as bandwidth, audio-visual set-up, etc., can be standardised, a virtual medium may be preferable, given that a large number of IIM aspirants often have to bear significant travel, boarding and time costs during the IIM interview cycle every year,” Shubhasis Dey, the CAT 2019 convener and the admissions chair at IIM-Kozhikode, told ET.

How was it done: Typically, after the Common Admission Test results, IIMs shortlist candidates based on a variety of factors besides the CAT scores. These could include previous academic records, work experience, diversity of background, etc. IIM aspirants then make it to the final shortlist based on performance in the written ability test (WAT) and personal interviews conducted by individual institutes.

For the Batch of 2020-22, however, some institutes like IIM-Calcutta and those in Indore and Lucknow decided to do away with factoring in scores of the WAT. IIM-Sambalpur, which had more than 400 students taking the online test from home, roped in a third-party online proctoring system. “This allowed each student to be monitored and invigilated through an artificial intelligence-based tool so that they did not receive any external help,” IIM-Sambalpur director Mahadeo Jaiswal said.

IIM-Indore director Himanshu Rai said the institute had decided to not consider the weightage of the WAT component this year. “This is to maintain the fairness and consistency of the admissions process for all candidates who appeared for interviews either in-person or through the online platform,” he said.

At IIM-Calcutta, online interviews were conducted through a third-party videoconferencing software that the candidates could access from home, said admissions chair Sumanta Basu. For IIM-Lucknow, about 40% of the interviews were being conducted online.

Even for IIM-Bangalore, where the PGP shortlist is done, the virtual medium will be used for student selection for the PhD, PGPPM and PGPBA programmes, said director G Raghuram.

IIM-Jammu conducted some interviews through the Zoom video app and evaluated students on extempore sessions instead of WAT. Institute director BS Sahay said the virtual medium should be considered in the future as well as it saved both time and resources.

“You can capture someone’s attitude online as well. We have to live with the times and evolve with it. This is good for everybody,” said Sahay.