Hello Friends, I don’t know if you have noticed but there have been various reports over the last few days about how the average GMAT scores at IIM-A and IIM-B are 767 and 780 respectively. The TopMBA report can be found here:http://ww…
Hello Friends,
I don't know if you have noticed but there have been various reports over the last few days about how the average GMAT scores at IIM-A and IIM-B are 767 and 780 respectively.
The TopMBA report can be found here:http://www.topmba.com/sites/default/files/snippet/qs-global200-business-schools-report-2013.pdf
It states "Indian MBA candidates are the world창€™s most
academically distinguished. Students at Indian
Institute of Management, Bangalore (780) and
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
(767) have the highest average GMAT scores in the
world, well ahead of the leading US institution
Stanford (730), and INSEAD in Europe (704)"
academically distinguished. Students at Indian
Institute of Management, Bangalore (780) and
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
(767) have the highest average GMAT scores in the
world, well ahead of the leading US institution
Stanford (730), and INSEAD in Europe (704)"
It has been picked by various Indian newspapers which have not bothered to crosscheck but just publish the same data:
I have serious disagreement with the numbers published.
Firstly, the IIM-A or IIM-B websites themselves do not seem to have this data anywhere on their website. Clearly the PGPX and EPGP programs at these places have a far lower GMAT requirement - 717 and 689 respectively. See this:
The PGP expects GMAT only from foreign applicants - and we all know the threshold for it is very low.
Secondly, there is data on IIM-B website from 2009 (close to 4 years old!) which interesting talks about the same "780" number from QSMBA/TopMBA: http://www.iimb.ernet.in/newsletter-archive/IIMB%20%20Fortnightly%20May%2016.pdf
What do you have to say? I feel in Pagalguy as part of the education community at India where students look upto for important career decisions, it is important we help in seeking out the right information.
Arun
Yes, this tells a lot about our study culture..How we are made to study as much as we can since Grade - I , no matter how much of that actual we are going to use in our future.Biggest example is Engineers how much of the theory mugged up in our 4 years we actually use now in our jobs ...:)
BTW hats off to IIM - A and B guys for scoring so high in GMAT , they are undoubtedly the Cream , even if the published stats arent true 😃
Wow, I was going to write an article about this. Like @Psychodementia , I too have serious doubts about the veracity of this report. I have tried to connect the dots here based on my experience of how schools and QS-like companies function and am pretty sure of the following points,
1. The impressive average IIM GMAT scores in the QS report actually belong to the handful of NRI students who entered the two-year PGP through the GMAT route. Since they have to match up to the CAT benchmarks of 99+ percentiles, it is quite likely that both IIMA and IIMB only consider the very highest GMAT scorers only.
If you read the following link,
It says,
"The survey also states that the average GMAT score of students enrolled in the Post- Graduate Programme in Management at IIMB is 780, which is the highest in the entire region 창€“ testimony to the talent and caliber of students at IIMB "
It appears that they have gotten this piece of data about IIMB's 2-year PGPM once and have been dubiously reusing it as per convenience for any mention of IIMB in their surveys. The QS survey does not explicitly mention which course they are talking about, and it is realistically impossible for EPGP to select an entire class with such high GMAT scores who also excel on their essays and recommendation requirements.
Additionally, IIMB's own claim that a handful minority of NRI students give it the boasting rights of having the highest average GMAT in the region is highly questionable and shows intellectual dishonesty on the institute's part. I won't even begin to describe how unrelated "talent" and high test scores are, "caliber" maybe.
Coming back to QS, I think this is a case of a British company mixing up numbers about another country's b-schools --- whose education system they don't understand very well --- in order to make their research report look newsworthy to the press of various nationalities. More on this later.
2. If the above assumption is correct, then it is totally retarded of QS to compare the average GMAT scores of 800+ HBS/INSEAD students and 390 Stanford students with some 10-20 NRI-quota students at the IIMs and draw such conclusions.
3. Please understand, that b-schools the world over routinely REJECT applicants with exceptionally high GMAT scores because unlike Indian b-schools, they don't consider aptitude tests to be the dominant indicator of leadership ability.
Just because Indian b-schools follow the questionable practice of shortlisting the top X candidates from a descending order list of test scores and international schools do not, does not make Indian MBA students any particularly academically distinguished. You can see the average GPAs of the class at HBS/Stanford/INSEAD and they are usually in the range of 3.5+/4 from top US universities, which makes their classes as academically distinguished as education can allow.
All top schools of the world get applications from exceptionally high GMAT applicants. It's just that the top schools don't take the GMAT too seriously beyond a point.
4. QS as a company makes its money by getting b-schools to pay for expensive stalls at its education fairs across the world. Now b-schools wouldn't pay them the money if QS fails to muster large number of student footfalls at its fairs. So it uses all these research reports merely as a marketing tool for QS to remain in the news and create a brand familiarity about it among students in various countries. QS is not a research agency.
In this case, the QS PR managers might have decided to play up the Indian GMAT scores aspect in order to convince local journalists to cover their survey. Just that in the process of playing it up, they might not have cared too much about the veracity of the data.
As for Indian media, we all know how they will lap up any press release that makes for front page headlines, without applying their brains.
Cheers,
Apurv
@Apurv I seriously doubt that the guy who is not an Indian would apply to the 2 year PGP at IIM Bangalore with a GMAT of 780! :)
I really think it is the "highest" GMAT score at IIM-B at *some point*. However, this still beats how the 768 number came up for IIM-A :mg:
Arun
@Psychodementia Either it is the highest, or it may be the average calculated in the very initial years of the GMAT/NRI quota when some 2-3 people with very high scores joined IIMB.
As for the guy with the 768, it could only have been Rajnikanth :mg:
Agree, 100% with what has been written above by @Apurv and @Psychodementia . "Badly researched "Research Report on QS part, which actually looks like a PR strategy gone horribly wrong. Only our Indian Media latches up to these kind of fact less reports without any questions asked.
Have also been involved with couple of QS sales team guys and I agree with what Apurv has to say about QS wanting to keep a tab on the Indian MBA market by publishing some or the other research report every fortnight. With brains or without brains, who cares, It is India after all.
Sorry state of Media in our Country.
-Ankur
-Ankur
Some updates. I had written to topMBA/tweeted to them about this and they have got back to me with the following response:
The average GMAT scores have been provided by the IIM themselves as part of our annual data collection. The questions about the GMAT are not mandatory, hence the schools in question have willingly and voluntarily provided the scores. We have a record with the names of the staff who entered the scores in our system and the date and time of when the information was submitted. The scores reported by the schools in 2012 are in line with the scores reported the previous year.
I am personally fine with this response - most of the surveys depend on "self-reported" scores/figures. So I think what has happened is someone at the IIMs has blindly filled out this number without so much trying to understand what it means.
Arun