Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) is one of the top 100 B-schools in India. Founded by the Father of the White Revolution, Dr.VergheseKurien, IRMA is a leading institution for education in the rural and agribusiness sector. Its flagship programme Post-Graduate Diploma in Management (Rural Management), is directed toward creating sustainable and equitable development at the grassroots level. The institute shortlists candidates for PGDM (RM) based on their CAT/ XAT score. The final admissions are decided as per a range of factors, including past academic records, academic diversity, gender diversity, regional diversity, sports diversity, work experience, CAT/ XAT score, and performance in WAT-PI.
Selection Process
The admissions for PGDM (RM) 2022 were carried out as follows:
- Shortlisting (based on CAT/XAT score)
- Written Ability Test (WAT)
- Personal Interview
WAT Topics
In the WAT round, candidates were required to write a 200-300 words essay on the given topic. The time limit for essay-writing was 30 minutes. These topics were based on general themes, agriculture or farmer-based issues, or any current event. Some of the topics allotted during admissions 2022 were:
- Sustainable agriculture and agritech ecosystem
- Privatization of the Indian education system
Interview Experiences
A panel of two interviewers probed the candidates on their career goals, course preferences, experiences, personality traits, family background, and general knowledge. The focus of the interviews was mainly on farmer-related issues and agricultural awareness. While some interviews were just of 15 minutes, some went on for 40 minutes. Here are some of the experiences shared by candidates interviewed for PGDM (RM) ‘22:
Interview 1:
Background: B.Sc. (Agriculture)
Questions:
- Introduce yourself
- In such a tender age, what will you add in the IRMA classroom?
- What do you think, where are the farmers lacking to fetch good price?
- What is the difference between Organic Farming and Natural Farming?
- Why are people poor?
- If you are a team leader and your team members aren't efficiently contributing to the project, what will you do?
- What are the loopholes in farm laws?
- Why has Morbi done well in the ceramic industry? (Candidate belonged to the city called Morbi)
- Are you promoting Organic Agriculture?
- How can farmers reduce Carbon Footprint?
- Any questions for us?
Interview 2:
Background:B.Tech (Civil), Work Ex of 18 months
Questions:
- What is the speciality of your local place?
- Tell me about your work experience and job role.
- Why is the farmer's suicide rate high in Maharashtra? What will you do to decrease those suicide rates?
- Why are farm laws repulsed? What will you do to introduce those farm laws?
- What will you do to increase the average income of farmers?
- Can you tell us about your leadership roles?
- According to you, what are the important values?
Interview 3:
Background: B.Sc. (Economics), Freelanced as Content Writer
Questions:
- How are you?
- Where are you joining from?
- You graduated last year. So, what did you do in the gap year?
- What is your thought process when you write? Which sources do you refer to? Don't you think news articles can create a bias?
- What aremicroeconomics and macroeconomics? So, as per your definition, is microeconomics a subset of macroeconomics? Then we don't need microeconomics, since macro covers the larger picture?
- How does consumer behaviour affectthe market? How does it affect the price? Is it ethical to increase a product’s price when demand increases? So, you are saying in the case of vaccines, it is okay to increase the price of vaccines? So, you are saying that when the price of onions and potatoes was rising, it was ethical?
- Why IRMA? Who is its founder? What are his achievements apart from establishing IRMA?
- Who is the current head of AMUL?
- Do you know about any government schemes of the rural sector? Do you think the mid-day meal scheme is to give a boost to the rural sector?
- Do you know any state schemes, particularly of West Bengal? (The candidate belonged to Kolkata)
- Tell me about your undergrad college experience.
- Tell me about an instance where you worked in a team and had to convince them to get your idea approved.
- Who all are there in your family? How do you spend time with your grandparents?
- What are your other calls? If you get all converted, what will be your preference order?
- Any questions for us?
Interview 4:
Background: B.Sc. (Agriculture)
Questions:
- Where are you now?
- How's everyone in your family? Who all are there in your family? What does your father do? And your mother? And your brother?
- What other calls do you have?
- Why RM after B.Sc. (Agriculture)?
- Why not general MBA or HR? Why RM? Why IRMA? Why not Agribusiness Management?
- Why not M.Sc. in Agri Marketing? Why not general M.Sc.?
- Why not join some FMCG now and get experience, then join the fellowship program at IRMA?
- You studied at a reputed university. They put so much resources and effort into you and expected you to do research. Academically also, you did quite well. Why waste their effort?
- Tell us about your national achievements. Tell the whole process.
- What will be the similarities between your future firm and Amul?
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