Indians still fancy a US degree, say GMAC researchers

US, followed by India and UK are top study destinations for Indian GMAT takers

Indian students still prefer to join an educational institution in the United States for higher education, according to Lawrence M Rudner, vice-president of research and development at the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). Though there has been a seven per cent drop from 2008 to 2012 in Indian students wanting to go to the US for education, Rudner said the top five destinations continued to be the same.

The research conducted by GMAC said 51 per cent of Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) takers in India preferred the US as a study destination, followed by India and the United Kingdom. The other nations included Singapore and France.

Michelle Sparkman-Renz, director, research communications at GMAC explained one interesting trend and that is management degrees and MBA degrees in particular, are in demand. “Global employers’ demand for new MBA hires has gone up in 2012. More companies worldwide plan to hire recent MBA graduates in 2012 (79 per cent of companies worldwide, up from 72 per cent of companies that hired MBA graduates in 2011).

In terms of total GMAT exams taken in testing year (TY) 2012, Indians represented the third largest group of prospective students in the B-school pipeline, after the US and China. A total of 30,213 Indians sat for GMAT exam in 2012, representing 27 per cent of the total 1,10,737 test takers by Asian citizens in the last testing year. India was the second highest in score-sending among Asian citizens.

Indians who sat for the GMAT exam in TY 2012 sent a total of 1,33,557 score reports, representing 38 per cent of a total of 3,54,996 score reports sent by Asian citizens. This is second to Chinese citizens, which sent 165,374 (47 per  cent) in TY 2012.

In terms of the gender-statistics, globally, 43 per cent of GMAT takers are women. In this segment, Rudner said there was a wide scope for improvement. In India, about 25 per cent of GMAT candidates are women, compared to 39 per cent women in US. However, he said the number of women has risen from 23 per cent to 25 per cent in the last five years.

While the most preferred destinations occupying the top five positions have almost remained the same, in the past four to five years, Michelle Sparkman-Renz said newer destinations were emerging to become students’ favourites. These regions include Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Australia.

GMAC research said schools in India, Singapore, and Hong Kong collectively received 90 per cent of the total scores sent into the region in TY 2012. Management programs across Asia received 58,919 GMAT score reports from prospective students across the globe in TY 2012, an increase of 54 per cent compared with TY 2008.

In India, the employers’ demand for new MBA hires in 2012 (88 per cent of companies planning to hire) exceeds both the global average (79 per cent companies) for MBA hiring and the Asia-Pacific regional average (80 per cent companies). The percentage of Indian employers planning to hire MBAs in 2012 is on a par with the 89 per cent of Indian employers that reported hiring of MBAs in 2011.

In the Asia-Pacific region, 80 per cent of employers reported plans to hire MBAs in 2012, which represents a 9 per cent increase over the number of companies that hired MBA graduates in 2011.

To create more awareness, Rudner said they were positioning the research among the stakeholders and institutions concerned, to help them understand the market perspectives of the MBA programme and to gauge the value of a degree. Recently, GMAC inducted Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) and Xavier Labour Relations Institute-Jamshedpur, as GMAC members. These institutes will have access to GMAC’s market research on management education in the world.

Other GMAC member institutes in India include IIM-Lucknow, IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore, Indian School of Business-Hyderabad, NMIMS University's School of Business Management, Great Lakes Institute of Management, and S P Jain Institute of Management & Research.

GMAC is a non-profit education organisation of the global graduate business schools and owns the GMAT exam, which is accepted by more than 5,500 graduate business and management programmes in ove 110 nations.