“Top consulting firms like McKinsey and Co and Bain and Co, along with leaders in the investment banking industry such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank among other prominent firms have extended fulltime offers to all their summer interns from IIM Ahmedabad,” announced an IIM Ahmedabad press statement released today.

The number of PPOs, even though the highest at 79, are still lower than those in other IIMs in terms of percentage of the batch size. IIM Kozhikode, for example, reported 48 PPOs in a class of 133 students in 2006. That’s 36 percent of the batch as opposed to IIM Ahmedabad’s 79 offers in a batch of 250, about 31.6 percent. One could attribute this to the presence of more experienced students at IIM Kozhikode in recent years than at the other IIMs.

It is noteworthy that IIM Bangalore announced their 70 PPOs for the class of 2008 as the highest ever in India. “They did it without verifying the figures in other b-schools,” said an IIM Ahmedabad student.

The figure of nine associate offers in investment banks straight out of IIM Ahmedabad is also by far the highest across all Indian MBA programs.

“International banks are willing to place large amounts of responsibility on IIM Ahmedabad products in the form of associate-level positions,” says the press release.

The school has also reported graduating double the number of entrepreneurs in its class of 2007. It attributes the trend to the school’s entrepreneurship drive, wherein students are allowed to participate in the formal placements process until two years after graduating, which gives them the space to experiment with starting their own businesses.

“In recent times, the focus of students has risen above PPOs and job offers to starting their own ventures, joining startups and realizing their dreams,” says Kunal Upadhyay, Head of the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship at IIM Ahmedabad.

IIM Ahmedabad has also reported dual-degree students from ESSEC Business School, France opting to sit in the placements at IIM Ahmedabad rather than back home in France. The release quotes Diane Gabriel, one such exchange student as saying, “As a French IIMA-ESSEC dual-degree student, I intend to sit for placement at IIMA because it offers great professional opportunities both in India and abroad. The companies that come to the campus are among the world’s best and the roles that they offer are as diverse and challenging as they come.”