CAT 2024: Older IIMs attract more students with work experience; engineers’ count falls

NEW DELHI: With Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) starting their new batches of Masters of Business Administration (MBA), a distinct trend of difference among the older and the second-generation institutes, in terms of work experiences, has come to the fore. As more students with work experience are joining the older IIMs, the percentage of freshers in the second-generation ones has witnessed a sharp increase compared to that in 2023.

An analysis of the batch profiles of Postgraduate Programmes (PGP) also reveals that representation of engineering students in the newer institutes is slowly reducing. In terms of gender ratio, though there is mild improvement, the oldest institute – IIM Calcutta – is struggling to improve its gender disparity. Only 10% of its small batch is female, lower than last year’s 13%. At IIM Ahmedabad, female representation in the batch has jumped by 16 percentage points and IIM Bangalore’s by eight points.

In terms of diversity, IIM Rohtak stands out among the lot; it has more commerce graduates joining than engineers. The Common Admission Test (CAT) has been seen as favouring engineers but recently, IIMs have started taking steps to ensure diversity in academic backgrounds. The CAT exam date is November 24 and registration is open at iimcat.ac.in.

Newer vs Older IIMs: Students’ work experience

The PGP profile of seven IIMs of the 2024-26 batch, which have been released, were analysed.

This year, the average work experience of students has changed in second-generation institutes, such as IIM Udaipur and IIM Kashipur. At IIM Udaipur, 60% of this year’s students had prior work experience, while in 2023 it was 75%.

Similar is the trend at IIM Kashipur where 76% of students in 2023 had work experience; this year it is 67%. The average work experience at the institute has reduced to 16 months from 23 months earlier.

For IIM Rohtak, the average work experience of students has reduced to 16.4 months from 19 months in 2023. In the 2023-25 batch, 49% of students had less than 12 months of experience and 27% had 12-24 months of experience. In 2024-26 those who had between 7-24 months of work experience stood at 62.5%.

About 72% of this year’s batch at IIM Shillong had prior work experience. In the 2023 batch, it was a little higher at 74%

On the contrary, older IIMs are seeing the opposite trend. At IIM Ahmedabad, the top-ranking MBA institute in the country, the number of students with work experience has increased – this year 71% of the students have work experience and 29% are freshers. The average work experience has increased to 26 months from 21 months last year.

IIM Bangalore, which ranks at the second place in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2024, has about 178 students – out of a batch of 535 – with 25-36 months’ work experience. In 2023, the average work experience here was 24 months.

At IIM Calcutta, the oldest in the country, in 2024 the average work experience stood at 8.6 years as against 8.5 in 2023. Students with international experience have increased to 21% from 20% last year.

As per CAT 2024 rules, candidates with work experience will have some added preference/ weightage. However, work experience is not mandatory.

IIM MBA Admission: Gender diversity

Over the years, IIMs have been taking steps to balance their very lopsided gender ratios. These include allocating extra points for women while shortlisting, providing reimbursement for travel and other outreach programmes. At most older IIMs, change has been slow but steady, with IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad recording highest representation of women in their batches in 2024; IIM Calcutta has regressed.

The table below shows the representation of women in IIMs in 2023 and 2024.

CAT 2024: Women in IIMs

At IIM Rohtak, women outnumber men and their representation has grown since last year. IIM Calcutta has comparatively small batch sizes where gender disparity is wide.

To some extent, the skew reflects the one in the participation in IIM CAT exam. In 2023, 3.3 lakh applicants had registered for the IIM entrance exam of whom 38% were female. In 2022 their numbers stood at 35%.

The total number of applicants for CAT 2024 is expected to cross the 3-lakh mark and approximately 2-2.5 lakh candidates will take the exam. The last date for CAT 2024 application is September 13, 2024. The application process started on August 1.

MBA in IIM: Non-engineering students

Another changing trend is the growing cohort of non-engineering students at IIMs. Here, too, several IIMs have deliberately tweaked their MBA eligibility criteria to allow for greater academic diversity.

At IIM Shillong 65% of the 2024 batch is from non-engineering disciplines. The institute, apart from undergraduate degrees, also has a variety of master’s degrees such as MA, MCom, ME, MS/MSc, MSc-Integrated, and MTech-Integrated.

At IIM Rohtak, 54.5% of students are from commerce disciplines and just 16% were from engineering. In 2023, the number of commerce graduates joining the institute was even higher at 62%, followed by 26% from science and 12% from arts.

Interestingly at IIM Kashipur, after engineering, the second largest cohort (27%) is from arts and science, followed by commerce (25%).

The table below shows the distribution of engineering and non-engineering students at different IIMs.

IIM CAT Exam 2024: Engineering and non-engineering

Most IIMs publish their admission policies after CAT 2024.