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Revealed: Are non-engineers preferred at IIM Bangalore?
Updated: Jun 29, 2020
In the recent post on number of non-engineers at IIM Ahmedabad, I shared how non-engineers have a golden window of opportunity to get into the MBA program at the IIMs. In response to the post, one of the blog members requested for a similar analysis of IIM Bangalore's batch profile as well. So, I got in touch with Arpit Agarwal, an IIM Bangalore Alumnus of the 2020 Batch, who explained how the scenario of non-engineers is at IIM-B. So, let's see what he has to say. He even shared an interesting fact about his batch which has been mentioned at the end of this post.
In the words of Arpit Agarwal:
Take on Academic Diversity
The essence of any business school is the academic and professional diversity that any batch brings along. The dominance of a particular field sure leads to a slight decrease in the quality of experience, and hence, institutes across the globe are recognizing this and addressing the issue.
The batch profile and diversity at IIMs has always been a topic of discussion and debates among the faculty, alumni, students, and aspirants alike and one that draws a lot of opinions from circles across the nation.
IIM Bangalore, like other B schools, has been incorporating all feasible opinions and recommendations to ensure equal opportunities and be as fair as possible in its admission criteria. Here I shall be discussing the batch profiles of PGP class of 2018-2020 and PGP 2019-2020 at IIMB:
Non-engineers at IIM-B
The class of 2020 at IIM Bangalore had a total batch strength of 430 out of which 46 were non-engineers, which is approximately 10.70% of the batch.
Out of these 46 students:
27 were from Commerce
9 were from Arts & Humanities
6 were from Science
4 were from Pharma/Medicine
While it can be agreed that the numbers were lesser in comparison to that at IIM Ahmedabad, which stands at 30% non-engineers and IIM Calcutta, which stands at 12.74% non-engineers for the batch of 2018-20, the number of non-engineers at IIM Bangalore rose by a staggering 6.30 percentage points to about 17% of the batch strength for PGP batch of 2019-21.
Out of 441 students in the Class of 2021, 75 students were from the non-engineering backgrounds, an increase of about 63% in the number of non-engineers as compared to the previous year. Of these:
46 were from Commerce
19 were from Arts & Humanities
9 were from Science
1 was from Pharma
IIM Bangalore has been keeping up with its peers on this front and given the rising trend of students from the non-engineering backgrounds, one can be sure to see more representation from fields other than engineering.
In a discussion I had with one of the faculty members, I distinctly remember him saying that in any case discussion, he could point out if the student was an engineer or a non-engineer because the thought process of almost all the engineers runs in the same way, while students from diverse backgrounds brought in fresh ideas to the classroom.
On a personal note, I’d want to say that I had some of the best discussions on campus with students from diverse academic backgrounds and in my opinion, it brings its own sweet charm to the campus.
If not for my Chartered Accountant friends, I would never have passed in Financial Accounting or be able to maintain my cool in a finance interview and if not for my friends from economics background, it would have been difficult for me to ace the economics courses at IIM-B.
Fun Fact:
The Institute Rank 1 of PGP 2018-2020 Batch at IIM-B was a non-engineer.
So, this was the analysis presented by Arpit Agarwal, I'd like to thank him for taking out time to answer this query. If you wish to read the detailed reports of IIM Bangalore and IIM Calcutta's batch profile, Arpit has shared some links that you can go through:
A note from my side:
I just want to share a piece of advice for anyone who thinks they don't have a good enough chance to get into an IIM due to the lesser number of non-engineers present there. I've seen non-engineers from not so renowned institutes across the country getting the best placement offers (in consulting, finance, marketing, you name any field) before graduating from IIMs. I've also seen a lot of non-engineers struggling during the placement season. But, so is true for the engineers as well. It's not your academic background, but what you do with that background, that defines you. So, don't aim for the 75-100 seats that non-engineers secure every year at IIMs, aim for that one seat out of the 400 seats. Ultimately, you're only going to need one seat to get in.
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