IMT Ghaziabad is one of the most popular colleges for MBA. To get admission here, you have to appear for MBA entrance exams like CAT, XAT, GMAT, and CMAT. On clearing those you can apply for IMT Ghaziabad and its various branches in Nagpur, Hyderabad, and Dubai. Further, for the selection, you need to go through a few stages which include Critical thinking, Group Exercise, and Personal Interview.

It consists of three simple stages as CT-GE-PI and Common Application form for its final selection process.

The Critical Thinking Test:

• After arrival and registration of the shortlisted candidates, there will be a thorough long Critical Thinking Test for the duration of 30 minutes.
• This will boil down on three parameters - critical thinking, written communication skills, and innovation & creativity.

Group Exercise:

• After the critical thinking test, the candidates will be divided into small groups for the Group Exercise.
• The group will be given a problem to solve or a task to perform, which they must do together while discussing among themselves.
• For instance, they might be asked to do a short case study, solve a puzzle, or solve a business problem.
• This will take approximately 30 minutes and will evaluate the candidate on four parameters – contribution of ideas, leadership potential, interpersonal skills and communication & attitude.

Personal Interview:

• Post the Group Exercise, the candidate will have a personal interview of approximately 15 minutes, during which he/she will be evaluated on four parameters: domain knowledge, communication skills, versatility (extra-curricular/general awareness), as well as values & maturity.
• Work Experience candidates will be additionally evaluated on the relevance of their work experience in relation to the PGDM program.

The final merit of the candidate will be a cumulative weighted average which has the Academic Scores, Work Experience, and the scores obtained during the CT-GE-PI process.

Both merit and campus score cut-offs will be the foundation of selection for IMT campuses, i.e. Ghaziabad, Nagpur, Hyderabad, and Dubai.

IMT Ghaziabad offers group exercise topics which basically require team approach and ability to complete a particular exercise within the time period as mentioned. However, it is not GD where an individual is seen to dominate over the other members of the team, but it is all about team endeavor and about people acquiring equal chance to speak. 

You should try maintaining a healthy environment throughout the discussion, and come to the completion of every single topic as assigned with a good source of effort.

The group will likewise be provided with a personalised topic or a task to perform within the allocated time. Alongside, after the topic is being assigned, they are expected to run discussions among their group members. For instance, the group members might be asked to perform a brief case study, or solve a specific problem, or tackle a circumstance risen in some business areas. 

Having said that, it can particularly range from anything and is supposed to take 30 minutes which later will estimate the candidate’s performance based on four distributive parameters, namely, contribution of ideas, leadership potential, interpersonal skills and communication and attitude.

. You are only required to enjoy and consume the procedure as much as you can, because, becoming totally clueless on site can be one point which might affect your presence. You can however try to become more engaging and contributive to the ideas, in spite of having little knowledge of the topic itself.

From the above-mentioned management institutes, TAPMI and IMT-G are good for Finance. Given below is a brief comparison of the three institutes.

TAPMI offers excellent infrastructure for Finance. There is a separate laboratory that provides real-life hands-on experience. It also offers good core placement in the finance sector due to its close proximity to Mumbai. IMT-G considered having the best facility and better faculty profile than any of the good B-Schools in India. Also, IMT-G has a better placement record than TAPMI and KJ Somaiya.

The placement record at three of these management institutes is quite impressive and especially at IMT, they offer an average salary of up to 13.16 lakhs per annum whereas in TAPMI the average CTC is about 12.7 lakhs p.a. KJ Somaiya provides an average salary package up to 10.08 lakhs p.a.

Given a choice between the mentioned colleges, the best institution for Finance will surely be TAPMI School of Business for various reasons.

Let us first have a look at some statistics about all the three colleges.

TAPMI:

• Laboratories: One of the most exclusive reasons for choosing TAPMI is a well-equipped Finance Lab which helps students gain hands-on experience and understand core financial concepts through practical studies as opposed to only theory. The lab is equipped with 16 Bloomberg terminals and 7 Thomson Reuters terminals.

• Curriculum: The course curriculum for PGDM BKFS at the institute is CFA C-BOK (certified body of knowledge) and FRM (Financial Risk Management) certified and meets the latest global industry standards.

• Faculty: The program in Banking and Finance is backed by experienced faculty members who have years of experience in academics and industry.

• Accreditation: It is one of the few management institutions in the country to have a two-tier global accreditation, i.e AMBA, and AACSB.

• Extra-Curricular: The institute organizes multiple events, workshops, and industry visits to provide students with a well-rounded experience. Student managed investment funds and multiple club activities are all part of the module in finance.

IMT-G:

• It offers a PGDM program in Finance that has an industrial and financial backing overlooking a high number of companies for recruitments but fails to provide a high placement rate considering an exceptionally high batch size, which keeps the majority of the students from getting a full-time job.

• It observes the highest placements in the marketing department and sees very few core companies for finance, with corporate finance and banking jobs marking the minority. Apart from the brand name of IMT, it is not considered to be the best institute for a program in Finance.

KJ Somaiya:

The institute offers PGDM programs in Finance which are well-structured but fail to impress in terms of management and placements. While the fee structure of the program is lower compared to the other institutes, it observes many good companies as part of their recruitment drive due to the location, but still has an overall low placement rate within the Finance sector.

Given the three options, the best institute for a program in Finance would definitely be TAPMI School of Business for the well-structured curriculum, good placement opportunities, and facilities provided.