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Targeting the middle and senior level professionals from corporate, banking, insurance, government sector and cost accountants, IIM Lucknow has announced International Program in Finance for Executives (IPFX 2010-11), a one year full time residential MBA program. Starting from October 1, 2010, IPFX will be conducted in the Noida Campus of IIM Lucknow in collaboration with Mc Gill University, Canada.
IPFX program, with an emphasis on the Indian and international business environments, will be jointly delivered by IIM Lucknow and McGill University, Canada and will prepare the financial executive for more challenging careers in Finance. Upon the completion of the program, the Post Graduate Diploma in Finance for Executives will be awarded by IIM Lucknow while McGill University, Canada will provide Master of Management, thus awarding dual degrees to the successful candidates.
Bachelor’s degree with minimum 55 per cent marks along with quantitative skills and a minimum of five years full time post qualification work experience as on September 30, 2010 are the prerequisites to get admission in to this program. Besides this, GMAT scores, not older than two years will also be considered for granting admission.
Eduniversal, a unit of the French consulting firm SMBG has ranked the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) as the top B-School in India. According to the 2009 worldwide business school ranking carried out by Eduniversal, IIM-B, for the second consecutive year, has been recognized as the No. 1 MBA School in India.
In the Eduniversal Palmes 2009, IIMB has been awarded ‘5 Palmes’, the highest recognition under the evaluation, accorded to “Universal Business Schools with major international influence”. “We are delighted to once again receive this recognition as India’s top management school,” said Prof. Pankaj Chandra, Director, IIMB. “We are making several efforts to enhance the quality of learning and impact of our research so that IIMB remains the preferred management school for students with global aspirations.”
Notably, the Deans of the 1000 Best Business Schools from 153 countries have voted for IIMB with a recommendation rate of 395 per thousand, followed by IIM Ahmedabad (345).
With an aim to give more information about the upcoming online CAT, which is being conducted by Prometric, IIMs and Prometric released “A Practical Guide to the CAT 2009, which is available for download on www.catiim.in . In addition to this a YouTube video What to expect on test day, which serves as a supplement to this guide, is available on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaKHWpiFToE . A link to this video is also available on www.catiim.in . In addition to taking applicants through the expectations on test day, the guide also offers some practical tips to help reduce candidate anxiety.
CAT 2009, a computer based test, will be conducted by Prometric across different tests centers in the country from Nov 28 to Dec 7. About 2.4 lakh aspirants applied for CAT this year will test their fortunes by taking the first ever online CAT starting from this November end.
A committee set up by the UGC last year under the leadership of Pondicherry University Vice Chancellor Prof. J.A.K. Tareen after examining the admission process and fee structure in the institutes which were under UGC’s lens to acquire the deemed status suggested that a common entrance test for admissions must be conducted in all the deemed universities. With both the UGC and HRD’s review committee, a committee set up by the minister S.K.Sibal to study the functioning of all the deemed universities in the country, accepting to the reforms suggested by the UGC’s committee, UGC has issued directives to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to conduct admissions in the deemed universities on the basis of an entrance exam while the admission fees should be regulated according to the proposal setup by the fee fixation panels. “Admissions and high fees are two major accusations against the deemed universities. At least for medical and engineering programmes, the UGC committee is in favor of conducting an all-India based entrance exam for admissions while the deemed universities can conduct their entrance exams individually. The basic idea is to increase the transparency in the admission process,” said an official.
However, adding on to his comment he also cited that, “It has been recommended that the fees should be pre-determined either by a national- or a state-level fee fixation committee.”
After a year-long tense times that saw billion-dollar names shying away from campuses in the wake of the global financial slowdown, the Indian Institutes of Management are waking up to a buzzing summer internship season, a pointer to a packed final placement list.
Goldman Sachs, the investment bank that just emerged a tad stronger from the slowdown, is back at IIM campuses with a bigger number of offers, and so are the traditional Slot Zero names-the B-school jargon for the most coveted-like McKinsey & Co, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, UBS and Boston Consulting Group.
The summer placement season-set to begin early November-often mirrors the final placement lineup as companies tend to make job offers depending on the candidates’ performance during the two-month internship. IIM-Bangalore , for instance, has scored a 100% conversion rate for the current batch in consultancy summer jobs.
“Companies are bullish this year,” says IIM-Calcutta’s Prafulla Agnihotri, who is the chairperson for career development and placements.
Around 100-odd companies have confirmed their participation across the seven IIM campuses for picking up summer internees , and the list includes top Indian names such as Hindustan Unilever (HUL) and Procter & Gamble (P&G ). The return of i-banks to the campuses is significant since they traditionally opt to select from their internees instead of scouting the campuses with final recruitment offers.
There will be 560 more seats on offer for students taking the common admission test for admission to the Indian Institutes of Management this year. Human resource development ministry sources said the CAT committee for 2009 had been asked to include these additional seats.
The cabinet had cleared the setting up of four new IIMs — in Tiruchirappalli (Tamil Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Rohtak (Haryana) — in August. But the institutes are yet to be established.
Each of the new IIMs is supposed to admit 140 students. The directors of some of the existing IIMs are believed to have objected, saying these many seats will be too much for a new institute to manage. “The older IIMs will help the new institutes decide the content of the academic courses, but only after the new directors are appointed,” said a government official. While the ministry has called for applications, it is yet to form a panel to appoint directors to the new IIMs. The ministry has also been unable to finalise temporary infrastructure for setting up the new institutes — except for IIM Rohtak, which will initially get a campus at the Maharishi Dayanand University.
CAT 2009 will be held from November 28 to December 7. The announcement for the exam had not mentioned the new IIMs.
Top Indian B-Schools have managed to attract some big names across the spectrum during the current summer placement season from the troubled banking and financial services sectors to FMCG.
The recruiters, who have made their presence felt at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies), include Nomura, ICICI Bank, JP Morgan, GE, M&M, L’Oreal, Britannia and Idea Cellular. While L’Oreal has so far recruited eight students, Idea has hired five. “All sectors are making their presence felt this time, including financial services. While it is certainly better than last year, the scenario is still not completely gung-ho,” said the institute’s vice-chancellor, Rajan Saxena.
At the SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, Microsoft picked up 22 students this year, while 15 joined Citigroup. Other recruiters include P&G and HUL.
The summer placement story is under way for the class of 120 students at Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS). While Arul Doshi, a member of the institute’s placement committee, declined to share names of the recruiters, he said: “We are having MNC banks, equity research houses and top international FMCG houses on campus this year. We have not lost out on any of the recruiters.” In the past couple of years, JBIMS has attracted names such as Coca-Cola, ITC, P&G, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and ICICI Bank.
The plan to conduct a common admissions interview for all the IIMs in one city is unlikely to start from the 2010 academic session. Aimed at easing admissions for CAT aspirants , the common interview plan process may not be implemented for CAT 2010 aspirants as IIMs are juggling with different issues that are causing the delay.
The Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry urged the IIMs in July this year to follow the integrated interview process followed by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
A common admission process is also expected to reduce the cost faced by students, including traveling to different cities for interviews at different IIMs. This is expected to increase even more with new IIMs coming up. At present, IIM students who clear the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) exam have to travel five or six times to different cities for interviews. Each IIM conducts interviews in major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and cities where the respective IIMs are situated.
There are a few challenges, though, which are hampering the adoption of this process. IIM-Kozhikode is of the opinion that a common admission procedure, like the IITs, involves lots of major changes, like common short listing criterion among IIMs, and logistical issues. Moreover, while some IIMs have group discussions as part of the selection process, others do not, which makes a common interview for admissions difficult.
But the IIMs do acknowledge that there are benefits too. An official in IIM Calcutta’s admissions department, on condition of anonymity, acknowledges that “an integrated interview process helps the institute as well, especially with several new IIMs coming up. While the oldest IIMs enjoy 90 per cent conversion rate, the new IIMs would enjoy less with students applying to all IIMs and then making their own choice. An integrated interview process could help all institutes to know whether or not selected students are joining or they would have to redo merit lists.”
