Group Discussion (GD) round in the final admission process for MBA/PGDM programmes in B-schools is considered as a very important aspect of group communication. Group discussion is a creative and dynamic activity which stimulates reflective thinking among the members. Group discussion is the activity in which a small number of persons say 8 to 12, meet face to face and exchange and share ideas freely on a given topic of a common issue.
Accordingly, Group Discussion (GD) is an important testing tool of participants’ skills in final admission round for MBA/PGDM after getting shortlisted by the B school. Most of the top MBA colleges including a few IIMs conduct GD along with Personal Interview in the final admission round.
Group discussions are unstructured and less formal compared to other components of final admission round like extempore, case studies and PI round where candidates focus only on specific type of questions and respond to them. In the GD round an individual’s thought process is influenced by the views and opinions of the other members. It can be other way round also that an individual may influence the other group members with his/her views. In the group discussion round, each participant is free to speak his views. A successful discussion involves both listening and meaningful speaking.
The effectiveness and efficiency of the group discussion depends, to a large extent, upon the active participation of the members. The group has to follow a pre-defined and established standards.
