GD out, excellent communication skills and case-study analysis in at NMIMS
Lajwanti D'Souza
SVKMs Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), is going to herald in big changes in its admission process for the 2013 batch. Besides doing away with the conventional ‘Group Discussion’ (GD), it is planning to introduce additional elements in its online entrance test – NMIMS Management Aptitude Test (NMAT) 2013.
Speaking exclusively to PaGaLGuY.com, Dr. Rajan Saxena, Vice-Chancellor, NMIMS, said that the institute has been experimenting with the GD for two years and this year the changes will be cemented. “We moved away from the typical GD method and introduced the case-study one. We have seen over the years that a traditional GD throws up the same set of students.Those that come in after getting trained at coaching institutes. They all behave and speak in an expected manner. We wanted individual capabilities to come to the fore and the case study method allows it,” said Dr Saxena.
In this rather different kind of a GD, aspirants are given a case study to analyse and then discuss.” This method, helps us unearth characteristics such as logical thinking, decision-making, leadership and data analysis qualities in the aspirants,” added Dr Saxena.
Additionally, the term ‘GD’ will also meet its end this year and a new term, something on the lines of ‘Case-study discussion’ will be used at NMIMS.
Another big decision that NMIMS has taken, is to look at communication skills of applicants more keenly.” We believe that proper and efficient communication skills are very important to excel in corporate life and we will particularly look at them when admitting students,” added Dr Saxena.
One more big shift that NMIMS is working on is to add an ‘ethical’ dimension to the written test. “We have not fully thought through it but we are speaking to Pearson VUE. The plan is to test candidates on ethical decision making. Aspirants will be given typical corporate problems and asked to take hypothetical ethical decisions .” Dr Saxena disclosed.
It is the same story everywhere. B-schools tweaking admission procedures to increase diversity (read more non-engineers and women candidates.) “Next year we will come up with some more changes in the exam pattern to bring in additional diversity,” hinted the Vice-chancellor.
Registrations from NMAT 2013 have opened. Like last year, students will be be able to take the online test in a window period of about one and a half months from October 11 to December 19, 2012 with a choice of two retakes. In the cases of retakes, the best of three scores shall be considered for admissions to all the MBa programmes by the NMIMS institute at its Mumbai, Bengaluru & Hyderabad Campuses. NMAT 2013 will be conducted at 18 centers across the country.
