How does IIM Indore stand out in comparison with IIM Ahmedabad?

Having known some students of both IIM Indore and Ahmedabad, I can say that both are excellent and well-reputed colleges. Your answer can be segregated into four different categories ranging from peers, academics, faculty and finally, the one everyone is highly interested in – placements:

Your peers:

• The people in your cohort will all be very intelligent and hardworking folks on both campuses.
• The basic numbers are obviously high but that is the requirement of the college every year.
• The talent pool is equally high in IIM Indore as compared to IIM Ahmedabad.
• Many students from the college have won multiple B school competitions while competing directly with IIM A, B, C, and FMS among others.
• This is the main way to judge how good your cohort and peers are across various B-schools.

Academics:

• IIM Indore acquires its inspiration from IIM Ahmedabad.
• A lot of the courses offered at IIM Ahmedabad are also offered at IIM Indore.
• IIM Indore campus also has a finance lab that was inspired by IIM Calcutta.
• The opportunities for learning and exploring various fields have also increased quite a lot.

Faculty:

• As far as IIM Ahmedabad is concerned, the faculty is splendid and well versed since the school is much older.
• It would not exactly be fair to compare the faculty at IIM Indore with IIM A.
• But IIM Indore faculty have also worked with IIM A faculty. Especially the senior faculty.
• In a few years, the same faculty will be in touch with you and you will get to experience learning under their wing.

Placements:

• As far as IIM Ahmedabad is concerned, the college publishes a complete audit by CRISIL where they claim their average placements to be INR 18 to 20 lakhs per annum.
• The placement report generated by IIM Indore is not audited and is generated by the college internally.
• They claim the placements to be INR 14 lakhs per annum but this might not be entirely true.

This comparison is slightly unfair as IIM A has better ROI and is comparable to world B-schools whereas IIM Indore is a good business school in central India.