IIM Indore Shifts to April-March Cycle for its One Year MBA

IIM Indore has shifted to a April-March academic calender for its One Year Full Time MBA course (Executive Post Graduate Programme in Management – EPGP). The move comes in response to a demand from current students and  alumni of the course to align the calender to the hiring cycle of corporates in India. 

Speaking to OneYearMBA.co.in, Prof. Jayasimha, Chairperson, EPGP said, “It’s been a long standing demand of the alumni to synchronize the EPGP cycle with that of the other flagship programs of IIM Indore. One of primary reasons for following the September-June cycle was the need to synchronize the EPGP terms with the international partner. EPGP at IIM Indore is unique as the participants spend an entire term (6 weeks) doing course work at the partner institute.”

“Last year we signed a Memorandum of understanding with McCombs School of Business, University at Texas, Austin, which offered us a great amount of flexibility in term of timing of the immersion program. Now we are in a position to tweak the EPGP cycle. Starting from 2015 batch, the program will commence from April.”

 IIM Indore (IIM I) is expecting the move to have a positive impact on placements for One Year MBA students at the B-School. 

The change will allow IIM I to synchronize EPGP placements with the hiring cycle of corporates as well as with the lateral hiring process for the two-year Post Graduate Programme (PGP) at the institute.

The PGP, a Masters in Management level course inducts largely recent graduates with 0-1 year work experience – 40% of the Class of 2014 for instance had zero work experience, 17% of the class had 0-1 years of work experience and 23% of the class had 1-2 years of work experience. 

However about 6% of the PGP Class at IIM I had 3+ years of work experience – these students typically participate in ‘lateral placements’ – a process that is closer to the placement process followed for the One Year MBA students – instead of bulk offers on day zero etc, this process helps companies cherry-pick students for specific positions in-tune with students’ past experience and future aspirations.

Combining the two placement processes for PGP candidates with work-experience with that of the EPGP students (all with 5+ years of work experience and average 8+ years of work experience) is surely a positive step and will bring synergy to the placement process of the B-School. 

With this change, EPGP participants and PGP participants will graduate in March together – earlier EPGP students would graduate in August.

This year will be the first time in the history of the course that two-classes of the EPGP will be present on campus at the same time and will have overlapping schedules. While its going to be great for the Class of 2016 to have the Class of 2015 at hand to learn from, the B-School expects it to create challenges too.

IIM I is already stretched to the seams with the recent expansion in courses as well as intake for various programmes. The PGP programme has increased its intake to almost 1050 seats and the B-School’s 5 year IPM programme recruits 480 students every year.

The B-school says this is the reason behind a smaller Class size for the Class of 2015 – as per reports the B-School has admitted just 20 students to the course this year as opposed to 40+ students in each Class for the past 5 years.

Says Professor Jayasimha, “Given the major transition that is underway (April / March cycle) it helps to have a smaller batch in 2014. Currently the last working day for the outgoing batch is 30^th June and the incoming batch arrives on September 15^th . When we move to April – March cycle, for the first time, the two batches [2014 and 2015 batch] will be on campus simultaneously for at least a term. A smaller batch in that sense is easy to handle.”

The changes have come as a pleasant surprise for alumni of the course, who have been pressing for much needed changes in the course for some time. Most recently the alumni had raised a wishlist of the top 10 changes required in the One Year MBA at IIM I.

Well, for now, it seems the B-School is listening!