SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), Mumbai has tweaked its admission process slightly for the two-year full-time Post Graduate Diploma Programme (PGDM) for the academic year 2013-15. The institute will call aspirants separately for interviews based on profiles and scores. The institute also plans to call in more applicants this year.

Until last year, interviews for profile-based calls and score-based calls were clubbed together. Informing PaGaLGuY exclusively of the decision, Parimal Merchant, head of admission, SPJIMR said: “The shift to the online version of Common Admission Test (CAT) made us push all our application deadline dates ahead which came close to the CAT results, hence we had clubbed the interview processes together. This year, however, since we are calling a larger number of aspirants, we have decided to give a larger window for interviews to students.”

Here’s how it will work: Profile-based calls will be released before the CAT results and the interviews will be scheduled sometime in mid-January after the CAT results are out. Score-based calls will be released after the Xavier Aptitude Test (XAT) results, sometime in mid-February. Students who get profile-based calls need not necessarily appear for the interviews in January and they will have the option of rescheduling for the February slot.

So, what advantages does it hold for students? “There will be more convenience for students as students will have an extra option of choosing the slot they are most comfortable in,” replied Mr. Merchant.

Speaking about the decision to call more aspirants, Mr. Merchant stated: “We want to reach out to a wider base of aspirants this year. Last year we called about 1800 applicants, this year the number could increase to around 2500. Most of the increase in student numbers will be on profile based calls only. The increase in numbers will improve the chances of aspirants getting a call from SPJIMR.” It would be noteworthy to know that S P Jain had increased its intake to 240 seats last year. The current batch strength is 229, as told to us by a first-year student.

This online magazine thinks that there may be a slight disadvantage for students who apply to SPJIMR using XAT 2013 scores and get profile-based calls. These students will not have the advantage of knowing their scores before the interviews as opposed to students who apply through CAT 2012 scores. There may be a chance that a student gives the interview in January but is not able to meet the required minimum cut-off of 85 percentile. In such a case, the entire time, money and energy spent on the process will go to waste. Also, SPJIMR might end up wasting resources on these students which will serve no real purpose. When asked about this, Mr. Merchant replied: “Only students who are confident that they have done well in XAT will come for interviews if they get profile based calls. Otherwise they have the option of waiting till the results are out and appearing in the next round of interviews.”

PaGaLGuY also spoke to faculty from b-schools and students who have applied to SP Jain before on these latest changes. A student said: “Early interviews might be a good thing as many other b-schools hold their interview processes in February-March. Many interviews tend to clash as well, so this is a good chance to complete a process before. Also, there is no disadvantage for XAT students as such because if they did not clear the cut-off, they would not have got a call anyway.” Another student added that profile-based calls before the results might help boost confidence in many students. A faculty told PaGaLGuY that such a process will be useful only if they can allocate certain percentage of admissions based on profile-based and score-based calls. “This might be a learning ground for SPJIMR. They might want to test which process helps them fetch the students they are looking out for,” he said. “Based on this experiment, they might re-design the admission process next year,” another faculty from a leading b-school concluded.