Essay writing will replace group discussions (GD) during admissions to IIM Bangalore this year. According to sources at IIM Bangalore, “Yes, scrapping GD in favor of essays has been approved.” Candidates will have to write an essay in 30 minutes on any topic related to the current political, economic and business scenario or on topics such as sports and those that require more creative thinking. IIM B has not disclosed any conclusive reasons behind this decision. Note that IIM Ahmedabad had also eliminated the GD from its admission process in 2007.

IIM Kozhikode will use a ‘profile based’ selection procedure starting this year and will decrease the weightage given to the CAT scores. The exact decrease, however, has not been specified. IIM Kozhikode will lay more stress on criteria such as consistent academic record and work experience of a candidate from this year. “This has been done to make the selection more broad-based and to get better, diversified and balanced profiles,” said Professor Anandakuttan B Unnithan, Assistant Professor and Admissions Head at IIM Kozhikode. He added that this revision is a part of routine revision of the admission process at the institute and is no way connected to CAT and how it was conducted this year.

No valuable information could be obtained from IIM Calcutta about any change in process for admissions of 2010. Himanshu Rai, Admissions Chairperson at IIM Lucknow said, “The admission process at IIM Lucknow will remain the same as last year.” Professor GR Chandrashekhar at IIM Indore told PaGaLGuY that the admissions committee will come to a decision only in the third week of February about any changes in admissions at IIM I. Nothing official has been decided at IIM Ahmedabad either, CAT being their priority for now.

Update: IIM Bangalore has released a document to explain their entire admission process in detail. According to the document, The note (essay) written by the candidate will be evaluated on the basis of its ‘content’ and ‘style’. Two interviewers will evaluate each candidate and the average of the scores given by them for the essay and the personal interview will be taken into consideration for final admission. Read the document here.