IIMs open doors wider to non-engineers

Bengaluru: Top Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are steadily moving away from engineer-dominated classrooms as recruiters increasingly value interdisciplinary thinking and diverse problem-solving skills alongside technical expertise in the AI era.

Admissions data from five leading IIMs-Bangalore, Calcutta, Kozhikode, Indore and Ahmedabad-show the combined share of non-engineers has risen to about 44% in the 2026-28 batch from about 37% in 2024-26, reflecting a sustained push by the schools to build more balanced cohorts.

The number of non-engineers across the five IIMs has increased to 1,065 this year from 1,049 in the previous batch and 884 two years ago. They come from disciplines including commerce, economics, science, humanities, law, medicine and architecture.


While the year-on-year increase is modest, non-engineers account for a majority of students at IIM Indore and IIM Kozhikode, at about 54% and 57% of their respective 2026-28 batches. At the other end, they make up a third of the class at IIM Bangalore, a marked shift from more than a decade ago, when they accounted for only 10-15% of students across the IIMs.

"A classroom with varied experiences enriches discussions, strengthens collaborative learning and prepares students to solve complex business challenges from multiple perspectives," said Himanshu Rai, director, IIM Indore. "This approach enhances peer learning, promotes interdisciplinary thinking and equips students to work effectively in diverse teams."

B-school officials said the changing classroom profile reflects growing recognition among institutes and recruiters that successful managers can come from a wide range of academic backgrounds. Admission policies that reward academic and gender diversity have steadily increased the representation of non-engineers and women across the top IIMs.

"Our admission policy deliberately balances quantitative metrics with academic diversity points. This neutralises the systemic advantage historically held by specific technical streams, ensuring brilliant minds from commerce, humanities, medicine and the arts are equitably represented," said Debashis Chatterjee, director of IIM Kozhikode.

Non-engineers make up about 57% of IIM Kozhikode's 2026-28 batch, up from 53.3% in 2025-27 and 46.2% in 2024-26.

The institute is also placing greater emphasis on integrating students from diverse academic backgrounds after admission, Chatterjee said, to "ensure that the intersection of engineering logic and non-engineering creativity produces a superior holistic outcome for the entire batch".

Recruiters, too, are increasingly seeking more diverse talent pools.

Rajkamal Vempati, HR head at Axis Bank, said the lender has stepped up efforts to hire candidates from varied academic backgrounds, including non-engineers. "We need not just analytical thinkers but also people with creative problem-solving abilities, and that comes from diverse backgrounds."

At IIM Bangalore, non-engineers account for 33.3% of the 2026-28 batch, compared to 29.6% in 2025-27 and 26.4% in 2024-26. At IIM Calcutta, their share has risen to 36% from 31% last year.

IIM Ahmedabad has recorded a decline this year, with non-enginners accounting for 39.1% of the incoming class, down from around 50% last year but still slightly above the 38.6% recorded in 2024-26.

IIM-Ahmedabad chairperson (admission) Karthik Sriram said however that the “admission policy for the past years has endeavoured to identify exceptional performers across diverse academic backgrounds while shortlisting candidates for the interviews”.