Couple of times, people call me to seek guidance on B-School selection. If they ever know how I selected MINE, they would not ask me again. Thats a different matter, at least even if I didnt use it, I know how you choose B-Schools.
The most irritating question is ‘I got into SJMSOM, IITB; Is it good?’ For God’s sake man! I went to that school. What do you expect me to reply ‘Nah, thats not a good school’. People who ask this question dont know what they want to do, let alone which school to go. If I am patient enough, I ask them ‘What exactly you want to do?’ Not always, but somepeople come up with fairly decent answers and I am able to guide them. Lest anyone of you would actually ask me the foolish question, I am putting my personal opinion about choosing B-Schools.
If I had anyone of IIMA, B, C in my belt, I would care a damn about the rest of the B-Schools and whatever Outlook, BW and any run-of-the-mill magazine would rank. Not all are this lucky, if I had IIML, I, K – I would pounce on L. IIMI & K, I would examine my other options. Atleast, when I went to B-School, I would have easily given up I & K for my school. But today, I would think twice.
Once you cross IIMA,B,C and okay L. It is no more a standard scale! its about personal choices – what you want to specialise, what environment you are looking for. What jobs do you want to land into?
So herez the thesis: I & K . Upcoming IIMs, have been struggling to keep up with the older cousins. Way to go, in terms of quality of input, professors, level of activities and inevitable Alumni base! Although unnees-bees I would rate K higher than I. IIMK has its prescence felt more than IIMI among its peers for whatever reason. The beauty of infrastructure is unparallel amidst the hills and forest. It could quite be true recruiters go there for the ‘holiday’ and keep coming back.
JBIMS, NMIMS: Great schools, I have very good friends who slogged their way into it. But I would not have taken it, simply because all of us know apart from the cream, how the others get into them. So the ‘overall’ picture is not great. The crowd is slightly localised taking away the variety. But if you are freak-out kinds, they are in Mumbai, very open culture, good babes. you dont care anything about these, better look the other way.
SP Jain: Good positioning with good work-ex balance and some of the Mumbai benefits I mentioned above. Infrastructure sucks! If you are carried away by the picture of infrastructure in their glossy brochure, beware that is ALL they have. Shared rooms! please! But alumni base is sound with consistent efforts of the students and the faculty.
SJMSOM(IITB) & NITIE: I put them in the same bracket because both compete neck-to-neck. Both have the boring Engineers crowd, both try hard to convince the recruiters that they not ONLY have what they are known for – Systems and Operations, respectively. NITIE, wasnt on my list because of the irrelevant exam pattern they had. NITIE would not on my list now, because they have confused positioning and no USP, worst you get PG in Industrial Management.
SOM has some of its own problems, newer school and hence the smallest alumni base among the above ones. Is leveraging very well on the larger IITB community – whose success is the envy of everyone. IITB Infra – need I say more? Entrepreneurship – I place it the best. There have been fewer success stories but huge potential. You cannot learn about entrepreneurship anywhere better than the place which has the best technology incubator in the country. Brilliant people (stars of their engineering college) but I believe you would miss out on variety which is a huge plus in MBA. Academics is rigourous and the best thing is you get a masters degree. More here, I went to this school man, I ought to write more>>
IIT, B-Schools. Delhi is doing well because of the placements and the location. The other IITs have miles to go inspite of the best of their efforts.
ISB is one schools which I wouldnt have missed mentioning if I had written this last year. ISB has positioned itself so clearly – oldies school (just kidding). If you have more than 5 years work-ex, you can easily look at ISB as a good option. All the best schools ABC notwithstanding score poorly while handling high work-ex people, simply because of stupid trend of doing your MBA just after college.
Placements are good every where! India is booming man. See what do you want to in life and what environment you want to live in. Dont choose colleges by absurd numbers like ‘Intellectual Capital rating’ or because x school had 50k better salary average. Hold on buddy, are you going to a school to get a average salary!
Make the right choice, this is the stamp you would carry all your life!
