For years, every class at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) was boringly
uniform. Students were mostly boys, with only a sprinkling of the other sex.
In class, these young men thought similarly, used identical
logic and took decisions that were alike, for they were all hardwired to behave
in a certain fashion at the engineering campuses they came from.
In a strange correction to break the monotony of these two singularly large constituencies
that cornered seats for years at the IIMs, the management schools have decided to
award special marks to girls and non-engineering students.
All the six new IIMs and the ones at Lucknow and Kozhikode feel it`s time to rebalance
the gender scales in office spaces. So while IIM-Rohtak will give 20 marks to each
girl and another 20 to a non-engineer, IIM-Raipur will add 30 marks to the overall
scores of each girl-non-engineer. IIM-Lucknow has decided to grant five marks to
each girl and two to non-engineers.
"It`s for the first time that we have taken a conscious decision to make the diversity
on our campus richer. Hence apart from the CAT scores, academic performance in class
X and at the graduation level, and work experience, we will award marks for two
diversity factors-gender and academics," said IIM-L admissions chairman Arunabha
Mukhopadhyay. Echoing his feelings was B S Sahay, IIM-Raipur director, who said
that all the new management schools jointly took a call to benefit girls and non-engineers.
Seven IIMs released their admission criteria months before the Common Admission
Test. The new IIMs have decided to do away with group discussions and will instead
jointly hold a Written Ability Test (WAT). "The aim of the GDs was to test candidates`
communication skills, their convincing prowess, their leadership abilities and their
teamwork. But then many students get coached to participate in GDs. And sometimes,
students who can`t raise their voices and are not aggressive just go unheard," says
IIM-Trichy director Prafulla Agnihotri.
The older management schools-IIM-Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Kozhikode,
Indore, will, like IIM-Ahmedabad, expect students to clear a "writing task" as well
as conduct GDs and personal interviews.
Courtesy: Times of India
