IIM Admissions: Female enrolment rises sharply; over 70% at two IIMs

NEW DELHI: The female enrollment in the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) is at a record high this year. IIM Rohtak and IIM Sambalpur witnessed more than 70 percent enrollment of female students in their MBA programmes.

The recently inducted 10th MBA batch of IIM Sambalpur comprises 76% women. Last year, the institute saw 60% female students. Of 320 students who were admitted to the programme, 266 are women, the institute said. The IIM director shared that before 2017, the women participation in MBA classes across IIMs was less than 11%. In 2017, IIM Sambalpur introduced a policy which provides an additional 5% cut-off reduction for female candidates in interviews.

“This initiative made history by achieving a 50% female enrollment from 2017 onwards, a model that has since been adopted by all IIMs,” he said.

An increase of 25% in female enrollment was seen this year in the PGP programme offered at the oldest and top management institute, IIM Ahmedabad. Last year, the IIM saw only 23% women in its MBA programme.

One of the new IIMs, IIM Kashipur, recorded 42% female enrollment in its 2024-26 batch of flagship MBA programmes – MBA and MBA Analytics. Of 471 participants in the IIM’s flagship courses, 196 are women. The percentage of female candidates in the MBA Analytics batch jumped to 75% from last year’s 69%.

IIM Udaipur, which ranked 15th in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) management ranking last year, welcomed 32% female students in its two-year flagship MBA programme for the 2024-25 academic session.

In an exception, 73% female learners were admitted to IIM Rohtak’s 15th batch of postgraduate programme in management. The women enrollment seems to have dropped from last year’s tally when 78% females took admissions.