The Truth about Indian Business
Schools
Page - 1
The recent Business School
rankings remind me of Salman Rushdie and MF Hussein. I can only label it
provocative posturing for selling more copies. Symbiosis is ranked higher than
three Indian Institutes of Management. I am sure that campus and their alumni
are delighted.
They would be definitely buying more of the concerned magazine.
That's right, Symbiosis is now
the certified No. 4 Business School in India. A couple of years ago, it was MDI
Gurgaon which was the No. 4 Business School in India. What can we say, it must
be tough to be the No. 4 business school in India. A bit like being the opener
of the Indian cricket team. The position is inherent to dynamics and regional
politics, with unpredictability and performance varying as per pulls, pressures,
whims and fancies.
The Logical
Absurdity
Hold on - If you are an MBA or a
PGDM (present, or future) - doesn't this confuse you? I mean, in a country of
400,000 annual MBA aspirants, surely some people must be taking these surveys
seriously. Imagine if say 0.01% believe this survey, it would lead to some 40
people to choose Symbiosis over IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore and IIM Kozikode. I bet
those forty people will remember this survey forever and thank God that they
took the correct decision. But what about the 40 people who chose MDI Gurgaon
over IIM-L, IIM-K and IIM-I three years ago. One of them out of these at least
is going to feel slightly bad. But that should be compensated with the extra
sales of the business daily in the campus that got elevated. After all, MBA
surveys change yearly but the tag sticks on forever.
The Truth
Students enter music school
because they love music. They enter art school because they love art. Nobody
enters a business school because they love business. They enter it, because it
represents the great middle class Indian dream - a ticket to riches and fame.
This is serious business, and people make millions selling this great Indian
dream to business school aspirants. The ultimate test for what makes a business
school rank higher are the skills that these students and alumni gain that
enable them to perform long term, and the quantity and quality of recruitment
interviews that give the students the initial break.
