6 IIMs say goodbye to group discussion

Updated on: Thursday, January 12, 2012

There’s good news for B-school aspirants. Raipur, Rohtak, Ranchi, Udaipur, Tiruchirappalli and Kashipur IIMs have done away with the often-traumatic group discussion (GD) and replaced it with a written test.

IIM-Ranchi director Prof M.J. Xavier told Deccan Chronicle Education the institute had started to accord more weight to language skills.

Earlier, there were 33 per cent marks each for mathematics, language and logic. The pattern has been changed to 50 per cent marks for data interpretation and the remaining for language, Prof Xavier said.

He said students had started using SMS language in examinations. “As managers of big companies these students need to have good command over the language and that is why we have removed group discussion and replaced it with written analysis of any given topic.”

Prof Xavier said different IIMs had different selection processes after a student is selected in CAT. “For example, at Ranchi we don’t have GD but IIM-Kolkata has it,” he said.

Prof. Xavier obtained his doctorate in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. He is an engineer with an M.Tech. in chemical plant engineering from Regional Engineering College,

Warangal and B.Tech. in chemical engineering from Coimbatore Institute of Technology. He has more than 25 years of professional experience in teaching, research, and consultancy.

More Education news