By Mashum Mollah
IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta are undoubtedly among the most prestigious educational institutions for management education in India. Both the esteemed and distinguished establishments have rigorous entry criteria, i.e. clearing the strenuous entrance exam, CAT and select approximately 300 MBA (more accurately, PGDM) students roughly out of around 1, 50,000 applicants every year.
Management aspirants all over the country wish to study in this prestigious institutes, but get confused when faced with a choice. While some may have already made up their mind as to which institute they shall be trying for, others are still wondering which IIM is the best for them. In this article, we shall talk about two of the oldest and best IIMs in this country, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta.
Rankings and Standings :
According to the National Institutional Ranking Framework by Government of India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development, IIM Ahmedabad stands at number 1 and IIM Calcutta is on number 3 among the top MBA colleges in India. Another survey by the Business Today has given IIM Ahmedabad a top stop in its ranking and second position to IIM Calcutta. However, HT campus has ranked IIM Ahmedabad at the second position and the third position is given to IIM Calcutta.
CAT Cut off and International Accreditations :
For CAT 2017, the cut-off for IIM Ahmedabad was 100 percentile in general category, giving a tough and rigorous fight to the students and the cut-off for IIM Calcutta was above 95 percentile. The major international Accreditations achieved by IIM Ahmedabad are AACSB, EFMD EQUIS, and AMBA while the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta is accredited by EFMD, EQUIS.
Courses Offered :
IIM Ahmedabad offers
- PGP-ABM (Agri-Business)
- PGPX for executives
IIM Calcutta offers
- PGDCM (focus on Information Systems)
- PGPEX for executives
- PGPEX-VLMP
Extracurricular Activities :
Extracurricular activities have been a major assortment in the IIMs to boost student’s confidence and gain experience in multiple areas to enhance their future by learning cooperation, teamwork and time management. The extracurricular activities in both the institutions such as Dramatics, photography, and sports enhance personality to build up.
IIM Calcutta also has an organization called InCA (Initiative for Community Action) to provide support to NGOs and a series called Colloquia for talks with notable personalities around the world. Through participation in sports, students learn cooperation, teamwork and time management. Confluence (Management summit), Chaos (Cultural festival), T nite, an IIMA, IIML and MICA sports meet. Similarly, IIM Calcutta offers Intaglio (Management meet), Carpe Diem (Cultural Festival), World War (Inter-hostel sports and cultural competition, IIMC-XL sports meet, IIMC-IIMB sports meet are the events organized by IIM Calcutta.
Placements and Top Recruiters :
Placements have always been a major proposition for a tug-of-war between the IIMs. The strife for placements between both the eminent management institutions for placement is not only tantamount between them but is proportionate to Ivy League business schools in the US. Global investment banking and enormous management consulting companies offer Associate positions to students from both the prestigious institutions.
According to reports from the Economic Times, the placement process for the class of 2018 of the postgraduate program (PGP) in management at IIM Ahmedabad has been concluded. The students have been placed in more than 23 cohorts with offers from firms of multiple domains.
Major recruiters :
IIM Ahmedabad are Accenture Strategy, A.T. Kearney, Bain & Co., McKinsey & Co., Monitor Deloitte, Oliver Wyman and Barclays, Citi Bank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Standard Chartered, Kedaara Capital and Matrix Partners., American Express, Bajaj Finserv, FinIQ, Fullerton, HSBC, and Yes Bank. In the placement drive of IIM-Ahmedabad, approximately 125 firms participated in 150 different roles in the placement process in 2018.
The major recruiters for IIM Calcutta are Accenture Strategy, The Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company and AT Kearney, .P. Morgan & Co., Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Bessemer Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs, Citi Bank, Credit Suisse and IVFA, Bessemer Venture Partners, Amazon, Aditya Birla Group, Star and EXL.
Average salary and Alumni :
The highest package for an MBA graduate from IIM Ahmedabad was 58 lakhs in 2017, the average salary is 22.00 Lakhs with a 10% increase from the year of 2016 where highest salary was 48 lakhs and the average salary was 21.00 Lakhs. The international trends are much higher with a maximum average salary of 85.27 lakhs for IIM A MBA graduate with a median salary of 43.78 lakhs.
The notable Alumni of IIM Ahmedabad are Ivan Menezes who is the president and CEO of Diageo North America, Harsha Bhogle from IIM Ahmedabad is a cricket commentator, Chetan Bhagat is a well-renowned author. Again the highest salary for the MBA graduate from IIM Calcutta for its 10 batches was 54 lakhs with a median salary of 25.33 lakhs
IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta: A comparison :
While both the institutes are among the best business schools in our country, offering the best study experience along with the most remarkable of resources, there can be only one clear winner. As such, we can conclude that IIM Ahmedabad is the better of the two. It has better rankings in both national and international standings, which is the primary reason why IIM-A is considered by many to be the best IIM out of all. This isn’t to say that the IIM Calcutta isn’t a good institute. It is certainly up there with the best having taught and trained a few of the best minds of the present times, but as must have become clear in this article, IIM Ahmedabad clearly ranks above the IIM Calcutta.
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