FMS 2009 admissions an open book, transparency a dicey issue at b-schools

After its encounter with the RTI case, the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi has decided to take no chances with this year’s admissions. It took more than a year for the institute to reveal the marks breakup for written test, group discussion, interview and extempore conducted for 2008 admissions. These marks were revealed a few days back and continuing in the flow of things, FMS has declared the breakup of marks and percentiles for all students who took the 2009 written test. The marks breakup for the interview process has also been revealed.

These details are available for all programs offered by FMS and can be downloaded from the official FMS website. Links to the breakup of marks for the two MBA programs are provided below. Previously, FMS would only declare the percentile scores for the written test and the list of selected candidates. Students can now get a very clear idea of how they performed in the admissions process and what scores they got in the various stages. It is also possible to know the exact cut-offs needed to get an interview call from FMS. A general category student needed a test score of 230 to qualify for the interview stage for the MBA full time program while a score of 235 was the general category cut-off for the MBA-MS program.

Is it possible then that other institutes will voluntarily reveal such details? Prof Subhashish Gupta, Admissions Chairperson at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) says, “We do not give out total scores because we think that there should not be any hierarchy or division between the selected students. There are eight nine criteria in the admissions screening and it will be difficult to judge the exact reasons for students not being selected.

Everyone who writes the entrance test of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi gets the details of the test score. The plot thickens after the written test though. The eventually selected candidates cannot access the marks scored by them in the interview stage. Dr Mago, the university registrar says, “Earlier we used to provide the detailed marks to the selected candidates also. However, the students themselves came and told us to change the system. The reason was that teachers were getting biased as they knew who had scored the highest and lowest marks. Students who have not been selected can get to know how they scored in the interview process.”

Transparency in the admissions process seems to be a tricky issue. All details should definitely be available to candidates who were not selected. If other institutes were to also reveal interview scores to selected candidates then will it really cause problems?

MBA : Overall marks breakup

MBA – MS :Overall marks breakup