Mint Explainer: Why gender composition at IIMs is getting better

IIM Raipur and IIM Kozhikode make history by handing over almost half of the seats in their flagship PGP program to women. All this was done by reorienting their admission process and reducing the weightage given to the Common Admission Test (CAT) in selecting candidates. Gender diversity is now given significant weight in the selection criteria. We tell you all about these winds of change sweeping the IIMs.

Why so few women went to IIMs

CAT, the entrance test to the 20 IIMs, is feared by many, with its emphasis on complex problem solving and quantitative skills. This is an exam that engineers have historically found easier to crack, creating a particular problem for B-schools over the years. The sheer number of engineers in their classrooms meant that very few girls managed to get into these top B-schools – in fact the number was only around 10% just a decade ago at many IIMs. Remember that engineering schools are traditionally a male stronghold. Over the years, the IIMs have sought to correct their mistakes and are actively recruiting more women by changing their admission process. Women now constitute about 30% or more in most of the IIMs.

But now the younger IIMs – IIM Raipur and IIM Kozhikode – are taking this reform a step further by making women almost half the batch size of their flagship PGP programme. They made their admissions process more multi-dimensional and comprehensive.

Although the number of women has grown since the IIMs made a course correction, they have been stagnant at around 30% levels for the past few years. Two younger IIMs – IIM Kozhikode and IIM Raipur – have now broken ranks and are further improving the gender mix in their classrooms, perhaps setting the pace for other IIMs in the coming years.

In their drive for gender diversity, most IIMs have reduced the importance of CAT in the admission process. IIMs have added more layers to the admission process, making it multi-dimensional and even a bit more complicated to achieve a fair mix of candidates. IIM Kozhikode and IIM Raipur may have just pushed the envelope a bit further than the rest.

What has changed now?

Not so long ago, till the late 90s, CAT decided the fate of most candidates with a lot of weightage for this exam in the final selection process (for many years IIMs did not reveal the CAT score to the candidates and the exact weightage given to it). Now, most of the IIMs, led by the younger IIM Kozhikode and IIM Raipur, have adopted a two-pronged strategy to make their batches more gender diverse.

1. Although CAT remains the main tool for selecting candidates for personal interviews, most of the IIMs maintain relatively low cut-offs. IIM Raipur, for example, sets the cut-off at 70 percentile for the various sections and an overall cut-off of 92 percentile. IIM Ahmedabad keeps the overall CAT cutoff even lower but calculates a composite score to shortlist candidates for the analytical written test and personal interview. IIM Calcutta also screens candidates based on a composite score with CAT as only one of the components.

2. Now, in the final selection process, CAT score counts even less – below 50% of the total score in most institutes. And crucially, gender diversity can also become a key component of active candidate selection in the later stages of the admissions process. Almost 8% weightage is given to gender diversity by IIM Raipur. IIM Kozhikode also gives significant weightage to the gender diversity quotient. IIM Kozhikode says it puts more emphasis on students’ academic records. Since girls generally outperform boys in board exams, this means more women on their campuses.

This is where the younger IIMs differ from the more respected IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore. These older institutions also emphasized gender diversity but avoided making it an overtly stated component of their selection process. IIM Calcutta considers gender diversity in the initial stages of the admission process.

The new school mix

IIM Kozhikode inducted more women than men into its PGP program in 2013, but the number dropped to below 30% in later years. Weaving gender diversity into the admissions process and greater stress on academic records helped and girls outnumbered boys in 2020 at the institute. IIM Raipur now has what it calls a “gender-blind admissions process”—which may not be an accurate descriptor, as weighting gender diversity can easily make the difference between selection and rejection in such a hyper-competitive admissions process. The results tell a story in themselves: IIM Raipur has 62% girls on its campuses this year, while IIM Kozhikode has 47%. IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Calcutta and IIM Bangalore lag behind with 23%, 29% and 34%.

The global picture

Globally, B-schools are making their classrooms more diverse. The percentage of women on B-school campuses has risen from just over 30% to 40% over the past decade, according to the Forte Foundation, a consortium of leading companies and top business schools. Top schools such as Harvard, Yale and Stanford have more than 40% women, while some of the Chinese schools even have women making up more than half of their numbers. According to some estimates, India lags behind with only 17% women in B-school classrooms. This difference between the global and Indian figures is partly a reflection of the differences between the GMA – the admissions test that most global B-schools have adopted – and the CAT, some experts say. The GMAT has an easier quantitative section and takes a holistic approach to management education (even with essays to test students’ overall abilities). But maybe it’s never too late. Some of India’s leading high schools are finally waking up to the urgent need to have women on their campuses. This movement should gather momentum in the coming days, months and years.

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