The key parameters to be considered while choosing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme before or after the CAT are (a) placement data; (b) cut-off score; (c) location; (d) institute's age, and (e) programme fee.
The career opportunities that an MBA provides in the short- and the long-term, the speed of growth it offers, the variety of roles it can help one get into, and so on, should be the main reasons for pursuing an MBA.
Salaries are only a concomitant factor and should not be the only reason for one to get into an MBA programme. However, as the other factors can only be visualised and objectively measured long later after one graduates from the MBA programme, salaries at the time of campus placements are used as an indirect measure to gauge the quality of the MBA programme.
The advantage with salary data is that such data are broadly objective — one can lay a finger on them and come to a general understanding about the quality of placements at a B-School. The data becomes especially important as students at B-Schools invest not just two valuable years but also a considerable amount of money (in fee).
To expect a commensurate return from this high investment — more of time than money — is only natural. The salary data hence reflects the ‘quality' of return.
One, however, needs to be careful. Many B-Schools resort to statistical (and other kinds of) gimmickry while reporting the salary data. While some schools may not release any placement data, some list only the names of companies that visit the campus for recruitment without revealing other info (like salary and job profiles offered).
Others carry historical data of the names of companies to create an impression as if all of them visited the campus for the recent round of placements.
While inflating the salary figures is old style gimmickry, adding ‘signing or joining bonuses' or ‘variable pay' into the reported pay packages is becoming commonplace of late.
Most schools do not reveal the percentage, or the number, of students who do not secure jobs.
This kind of manipulation is fairly common. As such, one needs to be careful while trying to understand the placements at b-schools.
Good quality of students helps strengthen the B-School brand while the B-School's high brand value, in turn, helps the students get ahead faster in their career. It is only natural for the schools to select the best students while the brightest students would wish to get into only the best B-Schools.
It is also important to note that the quality of students directly impacts the quality of learning, especially as the amount of peer learning that happens at a top B-School is quite significant.
In this context, cut-off percentile is, therefore, a strong indicator of the quality of the students at a B-School — the higher the cut-off, the better the quality of the students.
A few B-Schools give significant weightage to other important parameters like academics and work experience. However, even at these schools, the entrance test percentile cutoffs are significantly higher than some of the schools which are generally deemed to be much lower in overall performance.
The location of a B-School is not a straight-forward parameter to handle. There could be an excellent school in a relatively remote location or vice versa. However, please remember that location plays not a minor role in attracting faculty and industry (for placements) to the campus.
The brand strength of an institute can counter the effect of location to a large extent. A good brand can attract faculty and industry even to a relatively less popular location.
This is the primary reason why the new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), despite being in so-called ‘remote' places, have been able to earn the respect of both the academia and the industry within a short span of time. But, as one moves down the categorisation list, particularly outside the top 50, the brand strength wanes, and the influence of location plays a bigger role.
While the B-School's age may not have much to do with its performance, it is a major contributing factor to the B-School's brand strength or the lack of it. Many B-Schools, particularly those with a good pedigree, tend to perform well over time.
Top B-Schools like IIM Indore, IIM Kozhikode, and IIM Shillong are good examples. However, at the time of their inception, a significant number of students preferred other non-IIM schools over these three schools.
Of course, that's not the case anymore.
In fact, this also happened in the case of the six new IIMs. A decade after their inception, the new IIMs are giving tough competition to those schools which were preferred by some students over the former.
Older the school, better and stronger would be the alumni network, enabling the students at the school to get better not only placements and internships but also better opportunities during their careers later on. Sometimes, this also helps the school get better faculty as well.
Fee is not a direct indicator of the quality of a school. One should not rate a school high just because of its fee nor should it be trashed solely because of it.
Many top schools (like the ‘older IIMs') charge a pretty high fee of over Rs 20 lakh while a few top schools charge as low as Rs 2 lakh. As fee cannot be an independent parameter to evaluate a B-School, it should be used in conjunction with parameters like placement record and brand value of the B-School.
The RoI (Return on Investment) needs to be considered carefully, particularly when the fee level is high. This would mean that unless a student gets a pay package of a certain value, the fee expense doesn't make much financial sense.
The RoI becomes a significant factor as one moves down the list of B-Schools, particularly in schools beyond the top three categories.
The quality of faculty and the quality of infrastructure are two other vital factors to be considered while evaluating a B-School. Necessary care should be taken while reading into these data points, as some things are not quite as straightforward as they seem.
Claims like the number of PhD faculty and visiting faculty should not be taken at face value as some of the persons named may not actually be teaching at those schools.
Accreditations, both national and international are good to have but should not play a major role in students selecting the school or not.
Lack of accreditations does not directly hamper a school’s ability to provide good quality education or placements to its students. Presence of accreditations on the other hand may not always guarantee good quality education and does not directly contribute to placements.
All the objective parameters that we discussed above provide a much clearer basis for students to decide,
One may be tempted to consider the lack of infrastructure as a severe handicap. However, it is to be noted that some of the new B-Schools, which have a good ‘parent' brand, have been able to overcome the infrastructure handicap and have performed well.
The new IIMs (Kashipur, Raipur, Ranchi, Rohtak, Trichy, and Udaipur) and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) Kolkata are prime examples.
