AHMEDABAD: The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has plans to do away with Group Discussion (GD) for the second consecutive year for admissions to the post-graduate programmes this year. The group discussion is held after the results of the Common Admission Test (CAT).
IIM-A authorities believe that changing the admission selection format will help them in selecting right candidates who are more spontaneous in their responses and also provide more insights into them.
Chairman of the Admission Committee, IIM-A, Prof Satish Deodhar, said, “The group discussion was not conducted last year. In the time given to candidates for interviews at IIM-A, they go for coaching classes to prepare themselves for the group discussion where they are taught how to present themselves during GD so it becomes quite repetitive to watch every other candidate repeating and enacting in the same manner.”
“The spontaneity in the candidates is lost and it also becomes difficult to discern the qualities of a right candidate for the programme,” said Deodhar.
While, an IIM- A official said, “The admission committee will take a final decision whether to continue with it or re-introduce the group discussion component for next year’s programme.”
Instead of appearing for GD last year, the candidates were asked to write an essay on topics like social issues, economics and politics, in a stipulated time limit of 10 minutes. “I had prepared hard for GD but got a surprise when we were asked to write an essay instead of going for group discussion,” said a first-year student at IIM-A.
Hemang Patel, marketing manager at a city-based private coaching institute, said, “Writing skills are a creative way to analyze a candidate’s thought process. It will help understand the logical abilities and also the grasp of students on current affairs and their view points on the concerned topics.”
Source by Indiatimes
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