Even as start-ups surprisingly grabbed all the attention at the summer recruitment process for the 2006-08 batch at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad this year, a good 45 per cent of students chose international shores.

Also, there has been a 60 per cent increase in slot zero offers as compared to last year. 49 per cent of the 246 students appearing for placements got placed at the coveted slot zero of placements or the first day of campus recruitment wherein students get to pick some of the best companies in the world.

On this day, certain companies are invited before hand, based on the priority of students. 101 more students were placed by slot one while 110 students out of 246 are going to international locations for their summer internships.

There has also been a substantial elevation in the roles being offered at entry level. Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital recruited students for Associate positions, i.e. at par with Ivy League B-school grads.

The biggest recruiters on slot zero were Lehman Brothers (17), Merrill Lynch (14), JP Morgan (11), Barclays (11) and Citigroup (9). Slot zero saw 25 companies on campus, which included 11 investment banks and seven consulting firms. In slot zero, 82 students got placed in investment banks while 26 students opted for consulting firms.

P K Sinha, Faculty Chairperson for Placements, IIM-A said: "There is an increasingly wider choice of functions, responsibilities and geographies available for the students who are thus able to maximise their learning from the internship."

The diversity across sectors has resulted in students getting greater choice amongst finance, consulting, marketing, IT, operations, general management and private equity firms.

The international locations being offered for summer internships this year are New York, Boston, London, Brussels, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo among others, he added.