Rakshit Agarwal's Review On IIMA - Indian Institute Of Management, Ahmedabad

CAT (99.71). I had calls from all IIMs - chose IIMA because of the brand and also because Ahmedabad is my hometown. Once the CAT results were announced, IIMA came with its shortlist of candidates for interview. I was interviewed by 2 current professors. It was a 40-minute interview, with one professor playing the good cop and another one playing the bad cop role.

The course curriculum was good and it was a complete case pedagogy. Most of the cases were picked from Harvard Business School. Some of the cases were written by current professors to bring in more of an Indian color. Also, the new Director is trying to get more industry professionals to take up certain courses to keep the curriculum relevant.

All top companies come for internships across consulting, banking, marketing, technology, and general administration domains. The stipend was also top-notch (ranging from 50k to 5 lakhs per month).

I would rate the placement and job opportunities as one of the best in the country. All the top companies across all the domains come to campus for placements. 100% of the students got placed. Examples of companies and packages are as follows: Consult - McK, BCG, Bain (around 30 lakhs p.a. including bonus), Banks - Citi, CS, HSBC, BAML (around 50-70 lakhs p.a. including bonus).

Mine was 16 lakhs for 2 years (8 lakhs p.a.). This covered tuition, books, and hostel expenses. Food was around 8k per month. Students can easily get loans to meet their educational expenses. Fees had to paid thrice every year over the course of 2 years. There were decent scholarships available for selected categories of students.

I was awarded a couple of scholarships based on my academic performance. I was offered Sir Ratan Tata Scholarship (1 lakh), which is given to the top 5 students after the first year. Then I was awarded the P C Rath scholarship (1 lakhs), which is given to the institute rank 1 for the second year.

Campus life was pretty vibrant with multiple activities happening all throughout. Students could be found in the library, hostel, cafeteria, or sports complex. Everyone had complete freedom to do whatever they wanted. The gender ratio was pretty decent with 80 girls in a batch of 400. Diversity in terms of the background was not good, with the majority of students being engineers.

The Alumni network is helpful and brand IIMA itself counts for a lot. You will find a few alumni at the top position in almost every firm. Also, the institute is trying very hard to bring back alums to campus for fund-raising and expanding the alum network.

I would say only 20% of the overall faculty is up to the international standards. Faculty in finance, economics, and operations is pretty good, whereas marketing and HR faculty is not up to the mark. However, of late, there has been an increased focus on research by faculty and faculty promotions and tenure are now going to be decided by the quality of research output.