IIM Kozhikode Review

IIM Kozhikode is the fifth highest-ranking IIM in India. The college accepts CAT and GMAT scores for initial shortlisting, but CAT scores are used only as a shortlisting criterion- further selection procedure depends on other parameters also such as profile, interview, previous work-experience, etc with different weights been given to each component. The college also gives a separate 10% weightage for profile score which includes work-ex, any State/National level rankings, CA/CFA level scores, etc. The college has awesome faculty members who share their knowledge, help students gain unique insights and to better understand the world. IIM K also provides a very diverse environment with 52% girls in the current batch-size having very work-ex ranging from medical, engineering to CA, Social work, etc. This diversity aids in getting a very enriching peer learning experience for the students. The College also has recently started two inaugural programs- PGP Fin and PGP LSM.

The first-year subject courses are mandatory for all in order to provide a complete insight into the practical world. The second year of the program offers all elective courses where the students can choose the subjects as per their specialization. However, the college doesn't specifically provide any specialization degree to its students for the PGP batch. The College gave admission to a batch-size of 492 students with forty for PGP LSM and forty-two for PGP Fin this year. The course structure involves lots of fieldwork which enriches the students about practical real-life experiences. The faculty of this college is great with famous profs like A F Mathew as part of this Institute.

The College has about 40% batch from a non-engineering background. The placements of college were very good with the highest package of INR 3.2 lakhs. The top 5 percentile students achieved an average repackage of INR 3.07 lakhs while the top 25 percentile achieved an average of INR 2.92 lakhs. The college also got offers for front-end IB and PE/VC roles. The college successfully placed its highest batch size even in the pandemic times within a week for all of its programs.

The college very smoothly and successfully placed all the students of its 24th PGP batch along with the first batches of PGP LSM and PGP Fin within a week even during the online summer internship process due to Covid-19 in 2020. A total of 541 students participated in the placements process. This is the biggest batch size of IIM K and everyone got placed within a week. The highest stipend for IIM K went INR 3.2 Lakhs with an average stipend of 1.88 lakhs and the median of INR 2 lakhs for its 2 months-long summer internship program. 50 % of the students secured an average stipend of 2.6 lakhs during the summer internship process. The college's top recruiters include Companies like Deloitte, BCG, Accenture, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Google, HUL, Nestle, Coca-cola, Colgate Palmolive, Samsung, Amazon, Flipkart, etc.

The fees for the batch is 9,75,000 + mess charges. A loan facility is available for all the students, the students can take a loan from the Institue's campus branch or they can opt from any other place also. The college also provides certain scholarship students based on merit as well as a financial basis. The scholarships include IIM Merit Scholarship, Merit-cum-means scholarship, Rajashree Sahu Maharaj Scholarship, OPJEMS Scholarship, National NSP Scholarships, etc. The PGP program offered by IIM K is a fully-residential program and it is not allowed to work anywhere outside while being a part of this program.

IIM K has many committees as well as clubs in the college. All the festivals are celebrated including annual and tech fests. The annual management fest of IIMK is known as Backwaters and the annual cultural fest is called Echoes. Situated on a hill-top in the laps of nature and known as God's own Kampus, IIM K follows a beautiful tradition of Camaraderie as part of its culture. The classes on the clouds provide the best suiting atmosphere to focus on studies and prepare ourselves for the future. Living in the college hostels is like living in a resort at this place and the beauty is really breathtaking.

The hostel facility of IIM K is good. The college offers both single as well as double sharing hostel rooms. Single rooms have sharing washrooms with no AC facility while the double sharing rooms have attached washrooms with AC. IIM K has many new hostel buildings and therefore, the infrastructure is well developed with all the basic amenities available. The quality of the food is also good at the Campus and it also has restaurants if students wish to eat outside the canteen.

IIM K took both Personal Interviews as well as a written exam known as WAT for admission. The time duration for WAT is given around 15-20 min with no word limit as such. The weightage of the Interview for final admission was 35% and of WAT was 20%. The topics for WAT included Social Issues, Economics, Politics, Finance, etc. The interviews last from 10 minutes to 40 minutes per candidate. For interviews, the focus is on analyzing the core strength of the student and his/her expertise in it. Being able to explain the application of any topic really helps a student score well during PIs. Questions on current affairs are also often asked in the interview process.