Group Discussion (GD) Topics for MBA Entrance

Group Discussions are a major and essential component of admission process of any Indian B-schools including IIMs. Once students are short-listed on the basis of their CAT / XAT / SNAP / any other MBA Entrance Test Score, or short-listed on the basis of their application and academic records, the next stage they have to participate in turns out to be a Group Discussion.

A Group Discussion is a methodology used by any institution / organization to gauge whether the candidate has certain personality traits and/or skills that are desired by the concerned institute / organization. In this methodology, all short-listed candidates are divided into groups of 8-12 students. Each group is given a topic or a situation. The group is allowed a few minutes to think about the same, and then asked to discuss it among themselves for 15-20 minutes, while a panel of judges observes and analyzes the proceedings.

The topic can be anything ranging from current events to some political issues, from social issues to some Bollywood flick. And based on the performance of candidates in these Group Discussions, they are short-listed to the next or final stage of admission - Personal Interview.

Hence, good performance in Group Discussions is a pre-requisite for admission to any good B-school. Though it's not feasible to prepare in advance for all possible GD topics, what an aspirant can do is take some topics discussed in recent times in previously held GDs, and prepare some key points for each.

Given below are some such general topics that have been discussed at B-schools in recent times.