IIM-K sets new record, over half of 2015 batch will be women

BANGALORE: The Class of 2015 at Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIM-K) will be unlike any other in any other premier B-School in the country - it will have more women than men.

Of the 361 students admitted this year, 54.29% are women, according to the institute. This is a first for any IIM. "This will help with our placements, with companies looking at hiring more women employees," says Debashis Chatterjee, Director, IIM-K. "Besides, gender diversity brings in a different perspective to learning."

Only 28% of students in IIM-K's last year batch were women.

The other IIMs too have admitted a larger pool of women this year, as ET reported (June 17), but none have managed to run the diversity score this high. The top three IIMs, namely Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta, have 20.8%, 26.8% and 23.2% women in their 2015 batch respectively, as of June 17. The admission process in the country's top management schools was recently tweaked to ease gender inequality. IIM-K gave 5 extra points to a woman candidate for an interview call, after which all candidates were admitted on merit.

Many others like IIM Calcutta, Rohtak and Udaipur awarded extra marks to women candidates.

The number of women appearing for CAT has been climbing gradually. From 53,732 in 2010, it went up to 60,876 in 2012.