There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that CAT is one of the most sought after exam in India. One pattern we can observe over the CAT results though the last few years is the stunning percentage of engineers who get into IIM’s. It is worth to take a deep dive into this trend and explore the reasons for the same.

Objective of IIM’s

IIT’s and IIM’s are still the best educational institutions India by a long distance. IIM’s were set up with the sole objective of  producing top notch management professionals. Indian economic liberalization led to enormous growth of the Indian Inc and the setting up of IIM’s was a true icing on the cake as Indian Inc was looking for more and more management talents. 

Even after the recent spurt in the management education with the setting up of many b-schools across the country, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A) and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) continue to be the most sought domestic business schools.

Efforts to increase diversity

For quite a long time, the business schools in India have been engaged in measures to increase the diversity in the institutions. But their efforts have been met with little success. This is the case with this year too.  Admission data collected from various business schools across the country shows that once again engineering graduates dominate when compared to the graduates of other streams in majority of the campuses.

Business Schools dominated by engineering graduates

A Survey conducted by research agency Synovate named BW-Synovate B-school Survey 2010 has found that 87 per cent of participants at the 10 leading management schools are engineering graduates.

For example let us take the case of Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). In the case of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), out of 375 students who were admitted, 349 were engineering graduates, which included 70 women. In the case of Indian Institute of Ahmedabad, among 385 participants 369 are from engineering stream. It is also observed that engineers have secured majority of seats in IIM Calcutta. About 93 per cent of the participants admitted to 2009-2011 batches were engineers, while the rest are from other disciplines.

This is the case with other leading business schools across India as well. This trend is observed in institutions such as MDI at Gurgaon, IMT and the Symbiosis Institute. The 2009 batch at Management Development Institute consisted of 90 per cent engineers, while that in IMT was 80 per cent. In the case of 2009-11 batches at Symbiosis Institute Bangalore, 104 of 177 participants were from engineering stream.

These data contradicts the claim of diversity in business schools.

Why MBA for Engineers?

It is widely accepted that engineering graduates are considered to have an edge over students from other academic backgrounds, which starts right from the time MBA admissions are conducted. In the case of engineers, technical knowledge is a major advantage for them and what they need is managerial skills for their career growth. This is the main reason why MBA degree becomes important for engineers. Dr A M Sherry, Director of the IMT- Centre for Distance Learning says engineers’ posses’ technical knowledge, but most of them do not have managerial skills and knowledge. He added that in order to make a better engineer, managerial skills and expertise are also necessary.

With the help of an MBA degree, participants will be able to integrate a number of functional skills. It is intellectually challenging and it prepares the participants to develop a career in business and management.

Efforts go in vain

Even though engineering graduates are in the forefront in the race for MBA admissions, many of the business schools in India are putting in effort to increase the diversity in their institutes by admitting more female candidates and students from other academic backgrounds.

According to Dr Sherry, even though the number of engineering graduates in IMT is high, they try to recruit the best available students from other backgrounds such as commerce and humanities. They also give lot of importance to extra curricular activities during the process of admission. There are companies which sponsor their employees for MBA programs. At IMT they give preference to participants who are sponsored by companies, and do not give importance to their background so that they turn out to be better managers and assets to companies who sponsor them.

On the other hand IIMs place importance on gender, academic records and professional experience in addition to the test scores in an attempt to include students from other streams. Even after such efforts, engineering students still makes the majority at IIMs.

The case of diversity in foreign universities

However you will get a complete different picture when it comes to admission in B Schools of the Western World like Harvard Business School. The division is: Humanities and Social sciences (43 per cent); technology (33 per cent); business administration (21 per cent). At Wharton the division is: humanities and social science (43 per cent); business administration (29 per cent); technology (25 per cent).

Such diversity has been beneficial for these universities. For example Harvard Business School has many famous alumni who are from diverse academic backgrounds. Right from top executives of MNC’s to even Presidential candidates, the alumni wear diverse caps.

Can CAT be blamed?

Some people are of the opinion that the selection based on the CAT score is to be blamed for the lack of diversity at IIMs and other business schools. The CAT exam depends heavily on quantitative problems which will be tough for the students from non engineering background to crack. Some of the IIMs such as IIMB has reduced the weightage on CAT scores, and has put more weightage on marks during graduation and 10th and 12th exams. But this has not changed the picture.

The IIMs and other leading institutes have to put in more effort to increase the intake of students from other backgrounds.