IIM-A conducts outreach activities overseas including Africa, Singapore

NEW DELHI: IIM Ahmedabad ( IIM-A) is conducting outreach activities in markets such as Africa, Singapore and the Middle East to attract foreign students, almost a year after allocating supernumerary seats to foreign nationals in its two-year flagship post graduate programme in management.

IIM-A also plans to conduct promotional activities in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam this year.

Professor Ashish Nanda, director at IIM A said the institute is pleased by the initial response to the outreach. "We are confident that the opportunity to study in one of the premier global institutes will be an attraction in itself to some of the best and brightest international applicants, and our international students will contribute with their knowledge and perspective to the learning of the entire class," he added.

The institute, in a bid to increase diversity in the classroom, had allocated supernumerary seats to foreign students amounting to 10 per cent of the total batch size (which currently accounts for about 40 seats) last year, besides introducing deferred admissions which allowed freshers to come back to IIM-A after gathering some work experience. About 4-5 foreign students had applied for this year's programme, it said.
"We hadn't really advertised this last year as the decision was taken late in the admission cycle, and this year, we chose to visit a few markets to study and evaluate the prospects there," said professor Ajay Pandey, dean, programmes, at IIM-A.

The institute has been conducting promotional activities in overseas markets through Graduate Management Admission Council, administrator of the GMAT Test, Indian embassies and consulates in other countries and a QS World MBA Tour conducted by ranking agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).

"We have visited South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya in Africa besides Singapore, Dubai and Middle Eastern regions apart from the Saarc nations. We are not going to compromise on the criteria which is a GMAT score of at least 650. Through GMAC, we are also able to reach out to students directly. We hope we get about 20 students for next year's programme," said Pandey.

The idea to bring in foreign students had been initiated after director Ashish Nanda came on board, as IIM-A strives to boost its international presence through such measures.

IIM-A was ranked 26th in the 100 global MBA rankings of Financial Times this year, up from 30 last year.