Top B-schools have noticed an increase in intake of women students this academic year. A change in the selection process and the continuous effort of the institutes to bring diversity to the classrooms has led to a larger representation of women.
The Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) Delhi has witnessed an increase of 110 per cent in the number of women students from last year.
The batch, which comprises 226 students, has 83 girls this time, up from 39 last year. It is expected to increase as the college clears a new wait list in the next 10 days.
“We have made some changes in the admission criteria. Earlier, 85 per cent weightage was given to the CAT exam and the rest 15 per cent was for the interview. However, now the CAT score only holds 60 per cent weightage. And 15 per cent is for interview, 10 per cent is for Group Discussion and 5 per cent each is given for class 10, class 12 and an extempore talk,” said Sunita Singh Sengupta, Dean, FMS.
Also, she said, CAT is just an eligibility test. The FMS screening process is very rigorous and it has brought diversity to the classroom. The Indian School of Business (ISB) across two campuses — Hyderabad and Mohali — has 306 women students in the current PGP class of 2019 out of a total 887. This number was 274 last year, up to 34 per cent from 31 per cent women in class last year.
“The percentage increase is a result of ISB’s consistent efforts, over the years, to ensure much-needed gender diversity in the classroom, which in turn will lead to an increase in the representation of women in the board rooms of the business world,” said Ramana Sonti, Associate Dean, Admissions, ISB. Women are still far outnumbered by their male counterparts at top management roles. As per a January 2018 Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 list, only 5 per cent of women currently hold CEO positions. Similarly, as per data from Randstad India, there are only 7 per cent of women in key management. In short, there is a still a long way to go, Sonti added.
On the other hand, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, which has been consistent in its intake of women students, has seen a similar number this time too. “About 28 per cent of the batch is made up of women in IIM-B’s PGP programme. This has been the case over the last three-four years. IIM-B always attracts a strong pool of good female applicants. Diversity, not just of gender, but of work experience and academic background, enriches the programme experience for the entire batch, and students get the advantage of being exposed to multiple perspectives, which is essential in pluralistic societies and organisations,” said Kavitha Kumar, IIM-B spokesperson.