Don’t be surprised if you suddenly receive a call from IIM Ahmedabad to attend the final selection round for admission to PGP 2017-19. More chances to study at IIM Ahmedabad in 2017 exist for CAT 2016 test takers, as the top B-school proposes to add more number of students with effect from the academic session 2017-18. The number is proposed to go up from 800 to 1200 spread in PGDM, PGDM-Ex and also FPM programmes, although the expansion process will take a few years.
However, IIM Ahmedabad proposes to expand the size of flagship PGP class in the 1st phase in first 3 years. It is expected that at least there would be an increase of 100 students to PGP in the academic session 2017-18 and other 200-300 will be added in coming 2 years. In the next phase seats will be added to PGP-ex programme.
IIM Ahmedabad will increase the intake if sufficient funds are provided to the B-school to build the infrastructure to accommodate more number of students. A good investment to build hostels, laboratories, classrooms and to hire faculty is required and the proposal for the same has been sent by IIM Ahmedabad to the HRD Ministry to provide required funds as fee can only cover the present operating expenses.
Decision after IIMs met MHRD in September
After a high level meeting held on September 20, 2016 with the directors of IIMs at IIM Shillong, Mr Prakash Javadekar Union HRD Minister had announced the decision of proposed intake expansion. Now the 20 IIMs are expected to double the intake from present 9500 in various PG Diploma programmes to 20000 in next few years.
The directors of IIMs had also assured the HRD Minister that the detailed proposal to increase the batch strength would be submitted soon to Ministry of HRD. Out of the top 6 IIMs, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Kozhikode are planning to add more seats to their PGP programmes.
The directors of all the IIMs were told by MHRD to submit their expansion plan at the earliest, although no deadline for the proposal was fixed. According to the sources, the intake at IIMs will double to around 20000 from present 9000 plus in PG Diploma courses.
Since the increase in intake will also depend upon the availability of infrastructure, faculty and other resources, the IIMs which have the ingredients are expected to increase the intake earlier than the ones who require capacity building infrastructure before expanding their batch strength.
Waitlisted candidates stand good chance
It is very much possible that you may be waitlisted at IIM Ahmedabad for admission if you have secured qualifying sectional percentile of 70 and overall percentile of 80 in CAT 2016. Later on, once the decision to add the required number of seats is taken, you may get shortlisted by IIM Ahmedabad. So keep your hope to get IIMA live.
Focus also on well qualified faculty
The meeting between MHRD and IIM directors also focused on increasing the batch size of doctoral programmes at IIMs. In view of Mr Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister of HRD, the expansion of intake in doctoral batch will be a good source of faculty at IIMs who are fighting with the faculty crunch in their different programmes.
HRD Minister is of the view that more fellowships can be offered to the candidates opting for doctoral programmes. The Prime Minister’s scholarship offered to doctoral (PhD) students at IITs can also be offered to doctoral scholars at IIMs.
20 IIMs offer more than 45 management and doctoral programmes. Present intake except in doctoral programmes is more than 9000 and if the intake is doubled to all the programmes, it is expected that IIMs would offer admission to about 20000 candidates instead of present 9500 across all the programmes.
Sources say that Ministry of HRD also favours and finds it more practical to strengthen the existing IIMs that need no brand promotion instead of launching more new ones and finding it more difficult to get suitable students for them.
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