Indian Institutes of Management (IIM)

Ahmedabad

Bangalore

Indore

Kolkata

Kozhikode(calicut)

Lucknow

Shillong

Location of the seven IIMs

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are India's premier management institutes that also conduct research and provide consultancy services in the field of management to various sectors of the Indian economy. They were created by the Indian Government with the aim of identifing the brightest intellectual talent available in the student community of India and training it in the best management techniques available in the world, to ultimately create a pool of elite world class managers to manage and lead the various sections of the Indian economy. IIMs play a leadership role in the nation’s managerial manpower development and carry out research in emerging areas. These Institutes are recognized as premier management institutions, comparable to the best in the world for teaching, research and interaction with industries. IIMs being "Role Models" have shared knowledge and skills with other institutions to improve their quality and standards in management education. IIMs have earned an international reputation for the quality of their alumni.

The IIMs are considered top business schools in India. All the IIMs are completely autonomous institutes owned and financed by the Central Government of India. In order of establishment, the IIMs are located at Kolkata (Calcutta), Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Lucknow, Kozhikode (Calicut), Indore, and Shillong. They offer post-graduate courses in management (equivalent to an MBA), fellowship programmes in management (equivalent to PhD), executive MBA and industry based programmes. IIMs actively carry out research and consultancy for the industry, including the needs of non-corporate and under-managed sectors such as agriculture, rural development, public systems management, energy, health education, habitat, etc. The IIMs also offer various other management training programs as well as part-time MBA programmes for various organisations and individuals.

Admission process

The CAT (Common Admission Test) conducted by the IIMs is a very competitive test conducted for admission to around 1250 graduate programs in management at the six campuses, and is usually considered one of the most competitive exams in the world, with a supposed success rate of about one in two hundred^[3]. Each institute conducts group discussions and personal interviews to evaluate the students shortlisted after the test.

Some claim that since around 300,000 students compete for less than 1350 general seats (out of 1700 total seats) in the IIMs (2008 figures), IIMs are even more selective than all the top US business schools put together^{[citation needed]}. The remaining 23% of seats are reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes and Tribes and PWD. The average percentile of students admitted through these reserved categories is lesser than the percentile scores of the General class students, which generally hovers around 99 percentile.

The overall IIM acceptance rates range between 0.1% to 0.4% depending on the rank of the individual IIM, compared to acceptance rates of 5-15% for the top US schools, e.g. 12% for Harvard Business School and 8% for Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2008.