All Articles

[pagalguy (Allwin Agnel)]

The IIMs and the HRD ministry have decided to not go down the retest route. CAT 2009 has been the most mismanaged mess of an exam in recent history and yet the IIMs have decided that it would be better to harm a few thousand students than to do the right thing. Right from day one, the complaints have been both loud and diverse. Cheating, mismanagement, leaks, rampant reboots, viruses and general all round mismanagement - all issues have been brought forth by the students and the powers to be have chosen to ignore them all.

During CAT 2003, a handful of people were affected by the CAT leak but the blatant compromise of the exam got the authorities to act fast and preserve the 'sanctity' of the exam. This time however, the authorities didn't seem to care. The media reported about same questions being repeated, questions being leaked, mismanagement at centers, all around inconvenience to candidates, the rampant cheating - but nothing was able to move the IIMs towards preserving the sanctity of the exam. An institution that espouses world-class values has fallen short of the character it should have had. They seem to have forgotten that doing the right thing is the only thing.

For those who haven't yet taken the test this year: New test dates will be available in the middle of January, said Prof. Barua, Director IIM-A.

[wengi (Shivangi Narayan)]

A huge neon-sign displaying 'Symbiosis International University and Symbiosis Institute of Management' in English, Hindi and Kannada informs you that the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management-Bangalore or SIBM-B is the center of Symbiosis International University's campus in Bangalore apart from being another institute from the Symbiosis group. Situated in the Electronic City of Bangalore at Hosur Road which is a hotbed of IT companies in the city, it is the first offshore-campus of the Symbiosis International University and hosts SIBM-B and Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication-Bangalore (SIMC-B). Bring up SIBM Pune to anyone from SIBM-B and they will be quick to assert that the name is all that they share in common with its 31-year old namesake.

The campus itself is compact. It has two entrances, one of which opens directly into the students' residential area and the other, which leads to the reception and is the main entrance. There are three buildings; two nine-storey buildings that house the girls' and boys' hostels and a seven-story tall academic block. On the ground floor of the academic block are present a recreational center, which is a TV room for the students to relax, a well equipped gymnasium and a cafeteria. A small amphitheater is also under construction at the far end of the cafeteria. A flight of stairs from the cafeteria will lead you to the classrooms which are spacious with large-sized windows overlooking the electronic city. The windows, when opened, render a pleasant air to the rooms. No wonder the classes do not have air-conditioning.

The campus follows a dress code of formal wear on weekdays and a uniform on Saturdays (when, by the way, most guest lectures take place). The formal dress code is, however, strictly followed only by the junior batch while most seniors can be seen attending classes in t-shirts, although this is where the informality ends. The classes start as early as 8:30 in the morning and stretch to around 5 to 6 pm in the evening and sometimes extend to as far as 9 pm. As student and College President Rohit Garg says, "The Academic block is my home. I come here at 8 in the morning and only leave late at night."

SIBM-B takes the 'no-ragging' rule to newer levels altogether. The number of notices announcing that it is an 'anti-ragging campus' and containing phone numbers of the wardens of the girls' and the boys' hostel whom one can complain to in case of an incident leave no ambiguity that it is almost a sin to rag in there. There is also a large poster categorizing the 'actions' that fall under ragging put up in the girls hostel indicating again the low-levels of tolerance the authorities had towards the act. The floors in the hostel are divided into senior and junior floors and during the first few weeks of the start of the session the seniors are not even allowed to enter the floors meant for the juniors. The girls' hostel at SIBM-B incidentally, was also the quietest girls' hostel I had ever been to. I was told by one of the inmates that because the students spent most of their day at the academic block and came back only after midnight (12:30 am is the in-time of the hostels), the hostels were generally not a place of a lot of activity.

As the college is in its early years (the first batch will graduate in 2010), informal clubs and committees are still being added to the institute setup and many new ones are coming up each day. The literary club that has been recently formed aims to spread the habit of reading and writing amongst students. The club's main aim is to dissect the writing styles of various writers and understand both the superficial and in-depth meaning of their works. It also aims to improve the writing skills of its members and has adopted blogging, the latest and the most popular way of writing today. Each member has been asked to maintain a blog on which they can write anything that catches their fancy. These new bloggers will get help from the existing bloggers for improving their penmanship. The literary club looks quite determined to develop a writer in all MBA students at SIBM-B.

At SIBM-B, the committee level interaction between the students and the faculty is different from other b-schools and all the communication is channelized through the College President. There are eleven committees, heads of whom interact on a weekly basis with the President who then reports to the faculty. Committees like the placement committee are strictly supervised to avoid any undue advantage the students might derive out of their positions.

The cafeteria, ironically, is where the students gather for work. Towards the later half of the day one can see them sitting in small groups in the tables scattered around, discussing their projects, assignments or club activities amidst incessant chatter and food. If not the cafeteria then the next best place to find them working at is the 'placement room', situated on the fifth floor of the academic block. The 'placement room' as the name suggests, is a room for the placement cell to work in. It's well equipped with all the facilities and is open 24 hours a day. It was converted into an 'always open' room because of the demands of the College President and also a part of the placement cell who insisted that they needed full freedom to work. The room is now the hub of all activities at the institute.

As for chilling out after a hard day's work, the students head out to Koramangla, one of Bangalore's more jazzed-up hubs to eat out at a restaurant, catch a movie or shop. It is the nearest enjoyment center that the students can go to relax without burning a hole in their pockets with the auto bills (the auto rates are quite high in Bangalore and thus the bus is the most preferred means of transport). The Forum shopping mall at Koramangla is the most haunted spot by the students and most of them agree that this is a good place to catch SIBM-B students away from work and academic life.

This is a backpacker story, email [email protected] if you want the backpacker to visit your institute. Also let us have more feedback on what you want covered in the future series of backpacker stories.

[wengi (Shivangi Narayan)]

Results of the entrance test to the PRM course (2010-2012) of Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) have been declared. Candidates who appeared for the test on November 8, 2009 can check their results at:

https://www.irma.ac.in/admissions/written_test_result_prm.php

You will have to enter either your form number or your roll number to see the results.

The cut-offs marks (category wise) have been declared as below:

Sections	General Category and OBC	SC/ST and PWD	Sponsored
Analytical Reasoning (50 Marks)	25	22	18
Quantitative Ability (50 Marks)	25	22	18
English Comprehension (40 Marks)	20	18	14
Issues of Social Concern (60 Marks)	24	21	18
Total	110	100	86

Note: To qualify for GD-PI, a candidate will have to qualify in each section along with the total score.

Discuss your results on PaGaLGuY forums

[pagalguy (Allwin Agnel)]

As per an Economic Times news report, the CAT results will be delayed. According to the article "While the convenor of the exam told ET that the results could be delayed by a few days from the originally-scheduled January 22, another person close to the developments said it could stretch to February 2010." When asked about new dates for the people who have been unable to take the exam due to technical glitches, the convenor answered We have not yet decided on the new date. IIMs, Promeric and NIIT are working on co-ordinating labs and test centres for the final test date. Hopefully, we will announce something by Monday

[pagalguy (Allwin Agnel)]

As per catiim.in, The first phase of CAT 2009 was from November 28th to December 8th, 2009. The second phase of CAT 2009 will be on January 30th and 31st, 2010. The candidates identified for the re-test in phase two would receive communication from Prometric by January 10, 2010. The results of CAT 2009 are likely to be declared by the third week of February 2010.

The latest update also talks about the circumstances under which the candidates will be scheduled for the test.

According to Prometric, " The following candidates would be scheduled for a test in the second phase of CAT 2009:

1. those who could not take the test due to planned or unplanned closure of their test lab and were not rescheduled later in the first phase. (This does not include voluntary no-shows.)


2. those who were rescheduled but could not appear for the test because of notice period of less than 48 hours.


3. those who were rescheduled but could not appear for the test as they were rescheduled in a city different from their original choice.


4. those who pressed the End/Quit button within the first 120 minutes during the first three days of the testing window and have not been rescheduled yet. (If a candidate in this category chooses not to take the rescheduled test, then his/her score from the first phase of testing will be retained.)


5. those who completed the test in more than 140 minutes of clock-time* due to computer disruptions. (If a candidate in this category does not appear for the rescheduled test, then his/her score from the first phase of testing will be considered null and void.)


6. those who completed the test in 136 minutes to 140 minutes of clock-time* due to computer disruptions would have an option to take the rescheduled test. (If a candidate in this category does not appear for the rescheduled test, then his/her score from the first phase of testing will be retained.)


7. those who experienced difficulties due to various kinds of disruptions such as frozen computer screen, blank screen, and data/graphic elements not displaying properly; identified through site reports recorded at the test labs and have not been rescheduled yet.

(* Clock-time refers to actual elapsed time from the start of the test to the end of the test for a candidate. This is different from the time indicated by the count-down timer which was displayed on the computer screen.)

The above criteria have been arrived at based on the analysis of calls and emails received from the candidates; site reports filed by the site managers; computer logs; and information gathered from websites and blogs. The rescheduling (based on the above criteria) and the psychometric equivalences that will be established across the test address all issues of equity and fairness raised in various forums (including those pertaining to candidates getting additional clock-time)."

[wengi (Shivangi Narayan)]

School of Management and Labour Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, will consider academic background of a candidate only as an eligibility criterion from 2009. This step has been taken to bring all students from various disparate educational boards on the same level. We talked to Sasmita Palo, Chairperson, Centre for Human Resource Management and Labour Relations about the changes in, and the salient aspects of, the Human Resource Management and Labour relations (HRM & LR) program at TISS.

Most of the management institutes across India offer an MBA in HR. What is unique about the HRM & LR course at TISS?

At first, TISS is not a management institute, we are a social science institute with a focus on developing a socially sensitive HR professional. Other institutes offer an MBA course of which HR, amongst many others, is a specialization. While at TISS, the HRM & LR course as a whole is specialized. We teach subjects like Marketing and Finance too, such that our students get a basic understanding of these courses because no HR professional today can work in isolation. In the 1960s, Industrial relations and Labour relations were a part of the 'Social work' course at TISS and were made into a separate course (then known as Personnel Management and Industrial Relations or PMIR) due to their popularity. Today, it is known as Human Resource Management and Labour Relations though the ethos of the course remain the same and that is, to develop an HR professional with a strong understanding of society.

With such a specialized course, how do you zero down to the right kind of candidate? Could you elaborate your admission process?

Our admission process is elaborate and is divided into two stages: a) Entrance test b) Group discussion and personal interview (GD-PI). The entrance test is a national level written test consisting of two distinct parts. Part one is common to all those who apply to TISS, irrespective of the course. This helps us make sure that we select individuals with an orientation towards social science. Part two of the test is program specific. For the HRM & LR program we examine a candidate's technical or mathematical abilities, his reading and comprehension abilities and his understanding of the society and the way it functions. We also examine his knowledge of current affairs and economy and basic knowledge of management, psychology and sociology. From this year, we have discontinued allotting marks for academic background of a candidate and will only be considering it for eligibility purposes. This is because the disparity in marking schemes between different examination boards makes it difficult standardize the marks of various candidates.

In GD-PI process we try to gauge a candidate's intent of joining an institute; whether he wants to pursue HR as a career or has applied because he did not get admitted in other MBA schools. We also want to perceive the candidate's flair for HR as not every person is suited for this area of work. The Group Discussion or the GD is one level of gauging this, which is followed by an interview. The interview is the second level where we refine our search by analysing the presence of mind of a candidate.

What is the general profile of the candidate at the HRM & LR program at TISS?

Most of the candidates who apply are Engineers, though this is because of the large number of Engineers who apply and not because of any preference given to them by the institute. Apart from that we have a very diverse profile of students who come from all areas such as Economics, Medicine, psychology, sociology. We do not make any conscious effort to admit students with a particular amount of work experience or of a certain age. If a candidate is suitable, he is admitted.

Considering this is a two-year specialized program, could you give us details of the curriculum followed in the school? What specializations can a student pursue in HRM & LR at TISS?

There are three foundation courses in political science, economics and psychology and Business Communication, Business understanding, Labour Laws. Subjects like organizational behaviour are taught in the second semester. Until now, a student could specialize under three baskets in the third semester called a) Training and development b) Employee relations and c) Compensation & benefits or do a generic course with one subject from all the three baskets (which was the most popular). However, from this year we have discontinued these 'specializations' because we believe that more 'specialization' is not needed in HRM & LR, which in itself is a highly specialized program. Instead the students can now choose courses from a group of courses which will include the most popular ones chosen by students over the past years. Hence the students will be able to create a mix of subjects they want to study without attaching it to a specialization.

What is the teaching methodology followed at TISS School of Management and Labour Studies?

Our pedagogy is a combination of class-room teaching and field work. Class-room teaching includes teaching through case-studies, lectures, assignments and project work. Field-work includes internships and live projects. As a part of field work, the present batch of students work every Monday and Tuesday on live projects with organizations in sectors such as Manufacturing, IT-ITES and Banking. After the fourth semester, the students have to compulsorily work an NGO.

What are the job profiles that students pursue after completing the HRM & LR course at TISS?

The students work in different profiles in the HR sector after the completion of the program and their profiles post the HRM & LR program depend upon their job-profiles and experience before joining the program. For example, a student with a work experience of four years of more would end up working for the consulting industry. The career path that an average TISS graduate chalks out starts from an HR Manager in a corporate organization and moves to Vice President (HR) within six to eight years of graduation. Regional Head and Country Head (HR) is the next step in the ladder. A small percentage of students also reach the positions of CEOs in the their respective organizations. Presently, as a trend, students work in the industry for six to seven years and start their own businesses as they believe that they can add more value to the industry by starting their own ventures.

[wengi (Shivangi Narayan)]

Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA) will not consider CAT scores for admissions to its flagship program, PGDM (C) 2010-2012. According to Deval Kartik, faculty and admissions co-ordinator, MICA, the admission process followed by the institute this year will be MICAT, Group Exercise and Personal Interview (GE-PI). MICAT is the internal test conducted by the institute every year to further filter candidates short-listed on the basis of their CAT scores. Taking the CAT and GMAT will be a pre-requisite for admissions. However, as stated before, their scores will not be used for evaluation. Kartik assigns the reason for such a step to the delay in declaration of CAT results by the IIMs. She says, "We have booked our centers for MICAT for 7th march and wish to abide by our academic calendar and hence have taken this decision." She however, denies that it has anything to do with the mismanagement of CAT or the way it was conducted.

Thus, all candidates who aspire to pursue their MBA from MICA will have to apply to the institute till January 27, 2010. All those who apply will have to take MICAT on March 7, 2010. The rest of the admission process remains the same. For details, check out MICA website and PaGaLGuY forums.

One might wonder why is CAT a pre-requisite for admissions when its score does not affect the final decision of the admission committee? On this, Kartik says, "Since our announcement advertisement had mentioned CAT, we are calling all those who have taken CAT and are applying to MICA for MICAT. We had declared that we will take CAT and we are staying by it. It is the delay in result of CAT that has made us think on these lines (not considering its score for admissions)."

Kartik is confident that MICAT which as stated before, was initially a test to further filter candidates after they were short-listed on the basis of their CAT scores, will serve as a good enough indicator of a suitable candidate for MICA. According to her, as MICAT has components of Quantitative Aptitude, Data Interpretation and Verbal Ability besides tests for creativity and General Awareness, it will be able to test the candidates adequately.

[pagalguy_news (PaGaLGuY.com News Service)]

The work done by the PaGaLGuY editorial team is notoriously challenging. Some days they deal with a ridiculously self-important MBA student who stalks them every 20 minutes through all possible forms of communication for his press release to be published on this blog, some days it is a poor sap who's dealing with the existential dilemma of why his literary pursuits haven't been given their appropriate due. Most press releases are written rather poorly; some press releases insinuate that the speech given by a CEO at their school deserves home page pluggage, some of them talk about things that would bore even the least curious press reporter, some talk about the ten saplings that have been planted in a campus, some wax eloquent about how twenty-eight people enjoyed the recent fest held at their college.

Now, amidst all of this, comes a literary masterpiece that just begs sharing. This brightened up our day. Most of our morning has been spent laughing. Some people in office are now claiming stomach cramps and the other half are just on the verge of busting a gut open.

Here is the press release in total, uncensored.

"Dr. V. Kasturi Rangan of Harvard Business School talks teaches Great Lakers about Business at the base of the pyramid

Christmas Eve in the campus can hardly be bettered. Tiny little light bulbs strung round the flower heads ran along the stair case. Glistening purple antennae of ornamental work embroidered around the lonely pillars suffused life into them. So overwhelmed was earth that as if to breathe heavily through the newly acquired life, she metamorphosed a lady from the dead timber with all the bulbs running through the threads of her sari's hem. It was not until the loud music lolloped in the air and ricocheted in the basketball court; it was not until the juices of succulent dishes encircled the tongue in a viscous grip that all the pensive fellows realised the memories that they were going to retain for a long time.

But before any of this happened- as before the species evolved in the ocean bed, sun's ultra violet rays fertilised the primeval Darwinian soup- Dr. Rangan, with his piercing evocation of emotions in patriots, appealed to all the future business leaders to uplift the society. The speaker observed that the 65:35 distribution (base of the pyramid: top of the pyramid) was inching closer to 50:50. He observed that by the year 2040, a good proportion of the world's population would have crossed the $2000/annum mark; today's pyramid would have become a rectangle by then.

Citing examples from HUL's Shakti program, Nestle's diary practices, Manila Water Company's audacious efforts, Dr. Rangan noted that profits were merely means to the ultimate goal- uplifting the society. In his lecture, he delineated the differences between the innovative business practices and the initiatives adopted by businesses in the form of CSR. The former, he assured would lead to the benefit of the society, later he felt were of apocryphal nature.

Towards the end of the session, Dr. Rangan appealed to the class the urgent need for social responsibility and shared a firm belief in the class (of 2010) pursuing the same."

On a serious note (seriously), 90% of the press releases we receive from business schools are not worth publishing. To the media cells: Stop hiring 'literary artists' to head your media teams. Send us news, some real content and not a compilation of business keywords or biblical texts that pretend to be knowledge. Summarize in a 100 words the gist of the news and it would make sense for us to carry it. Else, we will print out your press release and stick it on our dart-boards and resume laughing. We need our entertainment too.

[wengi (Shivangi Narayan)]

In an interview with PaGaLGuY.com, Professor Pankaj Gupta, Director Symbiosis Institute of Business Management-Bangalore (SIBM-B) explains how SIBM-B is not an offshore campus of SIBM-Pune but a management institute under the aegis of Symbiosis International University. He is rooting for prime placements for the first graduating batch of SIBM-B in 2010 which, according to him, will propel the institute to the circle of high-ranking institutes. Following is what he has to say about SIBM-B and his plans as a director.

Some time back, your website stated SIBM-B as the first off-shore campus of SIBM (Pune). However, according to AICTE norms, only Symbiosis International University or SIU can have an offshore campus anywhere in India. Was it a concious effort to ride on the popularity of SIBM-Pune?

First of all, I would like to make it clear that we are the first offshore campus of SIU in Bangalore. SIBM Pune and Bangalore are two different institutes under the same university that is, SIU. We are like the IIMs, though IIM A, B, C share the same name, they are individual institutes. In the same way, we share the same name but are different institutes. However, we do share very good relations with each other. We are not a younger brother of a big brother (SIBM-Pune) but an individual institute. SIU will be building many more SIBMs in the country, like the ones coming up in Hyderabad and Noida in a short while, hence the structure will be a number of SIBMs under SIU where all will be distinct institutes.

We are not riding on the popularity of SIBM as we have maintained our individuality. People are not ignorant and they will not confuse SIBM-Bangalore with SIBM-Pune. I agree that there might have been some confusion regarding the name during the start of the institute, however, today people are well informed and join an institute only after proper research.

Note: Few days after the interview, we noticed that the 'about SIBM-B' section of the SIBM-B website had been changed and now SIBM-B is termed as the first 'outside-Maharashtra' campus of SIU.

Screen shot of the 'About SIBM-B' section of SIBM-B website prior to modification

The rankings page of SIBM-B initially also carried the SIBM-Pune rankings. How will you explain that?

Yes, I did notice that and asked the concerned people to change the rankings; we are a new institute and we have to stand on our own feet. I am in no hurry for any rankings. We are waiting for the final placements at SIBM-B and after that only will we participate in any of them.

Now that we know that SIBM-Pune and SIBM-Bangalore are unrelated except the name, can you tell us three ways in which you are different?

SIBM-Pune has been around for the past 30 years, thus they have a better alumni base and corporate connections. We also aim to be as respected as they are in the corporate circles in the next five years. Three ways in which we different from SIBM-P are in our faculty and academic rigour, monitored student empowerment and International exposure. 95 percent of our faculty holds a PhD and our students go through continuous assessment for academic excellence. They have to make a journal of 'reflective notes on key learnings of the class' where they have to mention what they learnt in the class and how they participated and contributed there. This is the heart of our academic quality. With monitored student empowerment, I make sure that students' input is taken only where it is suitable and no student enjoys absolute power as it might misused. We are not a student driven institute as many other b-schools are. Guest lectures by eminent international personalities and immersion programs abroad provide the much-needed international exposure to our students.

Tell us more about the faculty at SIBM-Bangalore. How do you ensure that they deliver the best to the students?

We have eight core faculty members at our institute and we have made offers to five more. We follow stringent selection procedure for our faculty at SIBM-B. In the process, we hold faculty seminar and demo lectures for the applicants. Only after we receive positive feedback for the demo lecture, do we make them an offer.

Every faculty has to prepare a session plan at the beginning of each course which contains essential reading, optional reading, cases and home-work. The objective of the session plan should be such that it should relate with the course objective which in turn should relate with the Institute objective and University objective.

We have a feedback system for the faculty after completion of 10, 50 and 100 percent of the course. If the faculty receives negative feedback at the end of 10 percent of the lecture, he is removed there and then. On the other hand, we have rewards and recognition program for high performing faculty at our institute.

What is the profile of a candidate that you look for during the group discussions and personal interviews (GD-PIs)?

The GD-PIs of our institute are conducted in Delhi and Calcutta, Mumbai along with Bangalore. The panel consists of one internal faculty member, one person from the industry and one alumni of the Symbiosis family. The panel looks for candidates who, apart from other things, have leadership qualities and carry a positive attitude. We also want students who come from all fields, such as medicine, commerce and the likes. We prefer a work experience of maximum three to four years as it becomes difficult to place students with more than four years of work experience. Also this year we have introduced two new features in the admission system, the Statement of purpose or SOP and three references. Thus, from now the panel will also grill the students on the basis of their SOP.

What do you mean by 'Global Business School' as SIBM-B is stated on your website?

We are a global business school because of the various international tie-ups we have with Universities abroad. As of now we are in a process of signing MOUs (memorandum of understanding) with The London Metropolitan University and University of Greenwhich. These MOUs cover student exchange, faculty exchange, joint research collaboration and joint international conferences. We also took a group of 19 students to Singapore and Malaysia to visit Universities such as National University of Singapore and Nanyang University. The students also visited organizations such as HCL which have their campuses in there. It was a great learning experience and I plan to include more such international immersion programs in the curriculum.

How are the palcements at the institute? How did the summer placement go for the first batch?

The placement scene looks optimistic. We already have 32 companies that have signed to participate in the summers and we are going to start with the final placements very soon. All the students who sought summer placements from the institute were provided so, which was about 70 percent of the batch. Rest of the batch got placed using their own contacts in the industry. Now a days, students work with companies on live projects and if the companies like their work, they make an offer. To allow this, we have made our schedule such that the students work with the companies for the first three days of the week and then attend classes in the remaining four days.

What are your plans for SIBM-B as a director?

We have come up very well in the past two years and we plan to grow all the more in the next five years. In the next five years, we plan to grow as respectable as SIBM-Pune has grown in 30 years. As a director, I want to make SIBM-B as a center of quality education which will be a close alternative to IIM Bangalore in Bangalore.

[wengi (Shivangi Narayan)]

The last day for Prometric to notify affected students about their retest slots on January 30 and 31, 2010 was six days back on January 10 and still, confusion prevails among many candidates about their schedule or about whether they even have to take the test at all.

On January 1, the CAT authorities had announced that any candidate who qualified in any one of the seven criteria would be eligible for a retest in the second phase of CAT 2009 and that Prometric would send such candidates notifications containing their test date and venue through both email and SMS. However, according to members on the PaGaLGuY forums, there are many candidates who claim to not having received any notification from Prometric despite being eligible for the retest according to the seven criteria. On the contrary, some candidates have received retest appointments even though they had not faced any problems in CAT 2009 first phase. The candidate-care service has not been helpful, adding to problems. There are broadly three categories of candidates facing problems:

1. Candidates who faced problems of the seven types listed by the IIMs in CAT 2009 first phase but haven't been notified for a retest.


2. Candidates who successfully took the test in the first phase but have been notified for a retest.


3. Candidates who have been asked to appear for a retest because their answers were not saved.

According to CAT convener Professor Satish Deodhar of IIM Ahmedabad, approximately 10,000 candidates, who fit in one of the seven eligibility criterion listed on catiim.in for a retest, have been identified and all have been informed about their retest slots. Professor Deodhar said, "All the candidates have been notified. Any candidate who believes that he or she is eligible for a retest but has not received any information yet should call or email Prometric stating the specific eligibility criterion for the retest."

Is the retest optional or compulsory?

Only those candidates who could not attempt the test because of accidently pressing the 'end' button or those who faced problems due to computer disruptions (criterion 4 and 6) have a choice of not taking the retest, in which case the scores from their previous test will be retained. The email by Prometric regarding test schedule will specifically state if the test is optional or not. In all other cases, the candidate will have to appear for CAT 2009 second phase examination if he has been notified by Prometric.

Professor Deodhar denied that candidates had been asked to reappear for CAT because their answers were not saved in the first phase of the test. Such candidates can write to Professor Deodhar at [email protected] with details such as when and how (through phone or email) they were informed about their answers not being saved. According to him, if the information is proved correct then he would take the matter up with Prometric.

[apurv (Apoorv Pandit)]

We at PaGaLGuY have always observed how eager MBA aspirants are to know about life during and after MBA and what happens after one cracks the CAT or other big entrance examinations. Taking the cue, we have been working on a new feature at PaGaLGuY that will give you deep insights into B-school admissions and the life of an MBA like never before. The feature is especially important for newbies on PG. The feature will be launched shortly today at the auspicious time of 5:59:59 PM, as per the able counsel of our astrologers.

We are giving you a heads up so that you can visit PaGaLGuY at the propitious time given above to witness the launch. As a build-up activity to the launch, we are holding a brief contest that all of you can participate in.

All you have to do to participate in the contest is guess what feature we are going to launch and write your answer as a comment below. You can be as descriptive as you want, or just mention it in brief. The best answer will win a free PaGaLGuY t-shirt delivered right to your home. So start commenting with your entries!

Meanwhile, let the countdown to 5:59:59 PM begin.

Update: Contest closed and feature launched! Contest winner - Alex_Mahone.

[guest_writer (Guest)]

An important voice was lost in the din while the country went into an uproar against the mismanagement of the CAT 2009 - that of the Parents of CAT aspirants. As exam-takers flooded online and offline channels to express their anger about the CAT, their parents suffered the agony vicariously in the background. One such parent, Mr Nirmal Kumar from Noida, whose daughter appeared for the CAT in one of the mismanaged slots in November 2009, wrote to us illustrating how he observed and thought of the commotion surrounding CAT 2009. With his permission, we reproduce the letter here.

(Disclosure: Written on December 30, 2009, the letter does not add the context of the CAT 2009 second phase on January 30 and 31. We are aware of that, but we still decided to publish the letter for the sake of posterity.)

In 2004, the CAT exam was re-held since the question papers had leaked. It was a wise decision taken by the IIMs that ended up upholding the credibility of the CAT and that of the IIMs, giving all aspirants a fair chance to bell the CAT.

However in 2009, the IIMs' decision to not scrap the CAT 2009 is shocking to say the least. The CAT 2009 exams had a number of technical glitches such as non-working biometric systems, repeated and non-visible questions, repeated answer options, malfunctioning computers and features (review buttons, timers etc.), missing graphs & charts, screens going blank in the middle of the test, computers rebooting and much more. While the IIMs and Prometric claim that 2.15 Lakhs candidates out of total 2.41 Lakhs successfully completed their exams (in the first phase), few of the technical issues were attended to during the exams causing distraction and anxiety. Confused invigilators were constantly discussing and talking to each other and to the Prometric phone helpline in-between the exam, causing disturbance which obviously had its impact on performance of candidates.

A most important aspect in the whole episode was that several questions were repeated from previous slots with slight changes in numerical values, giving unfair advantage to those who took the tests later. It's a known fact that major coaching institutes had placed their faculty members as dummy candidates in the tests, who together could reproduce all the questions and pass them on in sessions with their students to prepare them better for later dates. Such questions were also discussed and listed out in forums on social networking sites such as Facebook, Orkut, etc.

I find it hard to understand that while all major coaching institutes could each have around 25-30 mock tests for their students during the preparation months without repeating a single question, why was it not possible for the IIMs to do so in these ten or eleven sets of tests?

The demand for scrapping CAT 2009 was initially raised by candidates, coaching institutes, Faculty Associations of the IIMs with active support from the media, amidst concerns raised by the Union HRD Ministry, but IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore did not agree, since they were reportedly more concerned about the credibility of IIMs in conducting CAT exams, justifying spending large amount of public money on the first ever computer-based CAT and avoiding efforts required for a retest. Also since the subject was not of larger public interest, the media shifted their interest to more sensational issues such as Madhu Koda, Jharkhand elections, Telangana stir, Ruchika case or the Andhra Pradesh Raj Bhawan scandal, leaving the future of CAT aspirants at the mercy of IIMs.

As a parent, we have seen and lived the trauma and frustration of a candidate (our daughter) who was preparing for the test since the last 18 to 24 months. She has been scoring greater than 90 percentile in her coaching institute mock tests (Career Launcher and TIME), but could not do well enough in the actual CAT because she chose to appear in first three chaotic days of CAT. At her center, among other problems, she faced disturbance of over 45 minutes due to invigilators talking and making noise at next table.

The mismanaged two hours have totally shattered our daughter's career plans since she had filled up forms for around 25-30 Business Schools taking the CAT score and spent between Rs 35,000 to 40,000 on this account. We do not know what will happen to her career now since she had rested her future entirely on the CAT 2009 (for which she had prepared well), and we never expected that the test organised by the IIMs will end up the way it has.

There is more. Later, she found that many questions that she had struggled through during the chaos were either discussed in her coaching institute or were available on social networking sites for the use of candidates appearing on later dates.

Therefore, it seems to me that the only eligibility for getting into the IIMs - one of the most prestigious business schools of the world, at least for this year - will be the cunning and shrewdness of the candidates in looking up questions from previous test slots through friends, social networking sites and coaching institutes.

Nirmal Kumar, NOIDA, 30 December 2009

[apurv (Apoorv Pandit)]

Folks, this year's edition of PaGaLGuY GD-PI Connect is now live for those with Group Discussion and Personal Interview (GD-PI) calls from IIFT Delhi and Kolkata, IRMA Anand and most business schools under the Symbiosis group. If you have a GD-PI call from one of these institutes, enter your venue and date into PG Connect and instantly know who else from PaGaLGuY is also in the same slot and then get in touch with them.

Once you get in touch with them, you can help each other prepare better and share resources, or just become friends with them so that you are not faced with complete strangers when you land up for your GD-PI.

We will keep adding more b-schools to PG Connect as their results are declared.

Link to PaGaLGuY GD-PI Connect - http://www.pagalguy.com/connect/

Here is a screen-by-screen walk-through of some of the main features of PaGaLGuY GD-PI Connect (from hereon referred to simply as PG Connect).

1. Once you direct your browser to http://www.pagalguy.com/connect/, you'll be taken to your profile on PG Connect. You can 'Add GD-PI Details' to reach a form that looks like the image below.

Be careful about entering information, though. If you don't have a GD-PI call but still enter it, someone will do a 'Report Abuse' on you and we'll be too happy to see you banned from PaGaLGuY. So don't test-drive and be good Samaritans!

2. Once you add a GD-PI schedule, you'll immediately see people with the same slot. Do a 'Show all' to see the complete list.

3. If you don't have a GD-PI call, you may still browse through the list of people with GD-PI calls in various schools.

4. By clicking on a b-school, you can see all the PaGaLGuY members with a GD-PI call from that school along with their venues and schedules.

So that's what PaGaLGuY Connect essentially is - a matchmaking application for GD-PI call-getters. There are a few more features in PG Connect that I haven't written about, so I leave them to you to figure out. Hope PG Connect helps you all!

[wengi (Shivangi Narayan)]

After a miserable first phase of CAT-2009 that went online for the first time, CAT is now in its second phase. Candidates who could not take the test due to various reasons during November 28, 2009 to December 7, 2009 have been allotted new slots for taking the test on January 30 and 31, 2010.

A statement by Prometric promises all test takers a fair testing environment. However, I do not understand what they mean when they say,"We expect the administration will go well and meet the high standards we set during the final 5 days of the original administration." Even after the assurance to provide hassle-free testing for all the candidates, CAT authorities are still skeptical if they will be able to administer the test without the problems that they faced in the first phase. The press note says:

While computer-based testing (CBT) provides many advantages over pencil and paper testing (PPT), no approach is perfect. As with PPTs that may be subject to misprints or power outages, a CBT such as the CAT is reliant on third party networks that can be subject to hardware failures or other problems beyond the absolute control of any organization. We do have contingency plans for the second phase of testing, but there is no way to adequately cover every potential occurrence. As a result it is possible that a small percentage of candidates could be affected by difficulties. We do not anticipate difficulties, but should any occur, genuinely affected candidates can rest assured that they will get the opportunity to take the test in the best possible circumstances".

After reading this, one wonders what exactly is going on in the minds of those conducting the CAT. Are they announcing the problem-free-testing that they have finally been able to master or are they subtly telling candidates that second phase of testing will also be full of glitches?

The full version of the Prometric statement reads as under:

"We have taken every step possible to ensure a successful administration of the retest and we expect the administration will go well and meet the high standards we set during the final 5 days of the original administration; We are following the protocols established in the final 5 days of Phase One and are implementing several additional enhancements to ensure a successful test on January 30 and 31.

One specific action taken during those five days was dispatching senior technicians to centers that were experiencing virus issues. The senior staff at each site were able to troubleshoot issues in real time, and that had a profound impact on the successful administration during the last five days of the original test period.

As result of this work, and despite the difficulties experienced on the first days of testing, more than 2.16 lakh candidates successfully completed the 2009 CAT test. Over the course of 11 days, tests were administered on 17,000 computers in 361 temporary testing labs at 104 centers in 32 cities throughout India. Never have so many candidates successfully completed a computer-based test in such a condensed period of time.

While computer-based testing (CBT) provides many advantages over pencil and paper testing (PPT), no approach is perfect. As with PPTs that may be subject to misprints or power outages, a CBT such as the CAT is reliant on 3 rd party networks that can be subject to hardware failures or other problems beyond the absolute control of any organization. We do have contingency plans for the second phase of testing, but there is no way to adequately cover every potential occurrence. As a result it is possible that a small percentage of candidates could be affected by difficulties. We do not anticipate difficulties, but should any occur, genuinely affected candidates can rest assured that they will get the opportunity to take the test in the best possible circumstances".

[wengi (Shivangi Narayan)]

One of the criterion to be eligible for taking the test in the second phase of CAT, according to the CAT-IIM website states: 'Those who could not take the test due to planned or unplanned closure of their test lab and were not rescheduled later in the first phase. (This does not include voluntary no-shows.)'. Looks like it wasn't an important one after all. Ankit Arora, an employee in the sales division at PaGaLGuY.com was able to reschedule his CAT test after he voluntarily did not take it in the first phase.

Arora was supposed to take the CAT on November 30, 2009 which he could not as he had to go to Delhi. Later, he called up Prometric's candidate care service and requested them to reschedule his examination. The representative there told him that according to their investigations, Arora had not appeared for the test. He sent an email to Candidate Services stating his 'problem' and requested to reschedule. There was no response to the email until January 20, 2010 when he received an admit card for taking the CAT in its second phase, on January 31, 2010.

Ankit Arora's admit card for CAT retest on January 31, 2010

Arora took the test on January 31, 2010, without facing any of the problems that candidates in the first phase had to. There were fewer candidates at the center and the invigilators were brisk and alert. He was frisked thoroughly, down to his shoes and was warned that as the overhead cameras would capture all his movements, he should not even try using any unfair means.

CAT Update: According to the press statement released by CAT-IIM: "Approximately 48,000 candidates took the CAT in the second phase. The weekend administration involved 42 testing locations located throughout the country in 26 cities.

While approximately 11,000 candidates were offered appointments to take the test, only 4,500 of these candidates did not have opportunity to test before and thus did not have a score. Approximately 6,500 of those invited to the second phase already had a valid score for potential selection to the IIMs and opted not to test in the second phase."

[apurv (Apoorv Pandit)]

Business School Rankings have earned a bad name in India for all the wrong reasons. It would have been great to be in an environment where methodologies of various rankings were pitted against each other in an intelligent debate spanning students, professors, recruiters and what have you. Instead, b-school rankings in India have lost credibility to the speculation that they could have the taint of advertising revenue.

In the midst of all this, we started our b-school rankings in the 2007-08 admission season. The PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings is in its third year now and we take special care within PaGaLGuY to keep it light years away from our business dealings with b-schools. For us, it is heartening to be appreciated by our readers as an ethically sound rankings.

With so much goodwill for our rankings, conducting the annual survey exercise for the rankings must be a breeze for us, you might say.

Sadly, not.

After the survey is over and we get down to analyzing the data, we come across the odd case who decides to answer the survey twice in the hopes that it might get his b-school one rank up. Identifying such responses makes our job a tad more tedious, but in most such cases we simply delete that extra response so that the sanctity of the survey remains intact.

But this article is really about the second category of riggers, to whom we show no mercy. This year, we uncovered strange voting patterns from two business schools showing complete disregard for the survey exercise.

The first b-school is Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM), IIT Kharagpur. At least 10 students from this b-school created multiple fake IDs to answer the survey. One of them went to the extent of creating 14 such IDs, while the other nine used between six and two fake IDs. There is also evidence to suggest that some of them worked in collusion, since they had used similar email addresses while entering their demographic data.

The second school, International Management Institute (IMI), Delhi had at least five gentlemen who attempted to rig the rankings with three to six fake IDs each.

From the beginning, we were clear in our expicit disclaimers that those trying to rig the rankings may face action by way of disqualification of their b-school. We were not kidding.

As a result, we are disqualifying VGSoM, IIT Kharagpur and IMI, Delhi from the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings 2010.

Efforts at our end have been earnest at giving the MBA community a sound, foolproof and clean rankings they could enhance their career decisions with. B-schools that do not respect this commitment and try to cheat to increase their rankings can be assured of appearing in the disqualification list such as this one.

Related post: How we arrived at the rankings + Methodology

In view of the comment spam on this page, the comments stand closed. Anyone having further grievances may email [email protected]

[apurv (Apoorv Pandit)]

How we arrived at the rankings

Before you read further, we should remind you that the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings are a perception rankings that measure the preferences of the population polled. We believe that it is logically impossible to rank abstract entities such as b-schools by quality and be accurate too (read why). What a rankings can do, however, is pick one problem faced by aspirants and solve it really well. In that sense, the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings is an accurate measure of the brand value of a b-school with respect to others, which is a parameter that aspirants hold paramount when applying to and joining MBA programs.

Salient features of the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings, 2010

Total number of valid respondents polled (sample size): 9,576

Total number of b-schools in the initial list: 184

Total number of b-schools in the final rankings: 92

Of which Nationally Aspired-to b-schools: 55*

And Regionally Aspired-to b-schools: 37

(5 from Jaipur

14 from Mumbai

10 from Hyderabad

8 from Chennai)

* Two b-schools have been disqualified for trying to rig the rankings.

Selection of b-schools



For this year's PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings, we took a bold jump by adding 100 more business schools to our initial list, taking the total number of b-schools ranked to 184 (as opposed to 85 in the previous year).

Where did the 100 new b-schools come from? Apart from the 85 b-schools from the 2009 rankings, we added prominent b-schools from the National Capital Region (New Delhi, Ghaziabad, Noida and Gurgaon), Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai to the list. These cities were chosen on account of their being the highest growing markets in business education, both in terms of the number of MBA aspirants and the proliferation of new business schools.

However, not all of these 184 b-schools catered to the same market. So we made a broad division of the 184 b-schools to 'Nationally Aspired' b-schools and 'Regionally Aspired' b-schools. 57 b-schools that were broadly aspired to by applicants from across the country went into the National list, while those known primarily in their local regions, or having a channel of entry restricted to locals went into the Regional list. To identify b-schools known primarily in their local regions, we used ranking vote pattern data from the previous two editions of PaGaLGuY Rankings.

The survey

The nucleus of the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings is the CommunityRank methodology, which crowdsources the comparison of items in a list (such as that of b-schools) to a large mass of people to yield highly accurate results on how the mass thinks about the items.

(Certain parts of the text from here onwards require prior understanding of how 'CommunityRank' - our proprietary ranking methodology - works. So you might want to first get a basic understanding of CommunityRank and then come back here to resume reading.)

During last year's b-school rankings survey in which 85 b-schools were compared using CommunityRank, we were constantly being asked why the survey contained comparisons such as 'IIM Ahmedabad vs Chetana, Mumbai', when the two b-schools clearly attracted different type of serious applicants. We were also questioned on how comparisons such as 'Chetana, Mumbai vs ISME, Bangalore' made sense when in real life, very rarely would an MBA applicant face a choice between joining one of these schools (Chetana admits students through the CET exam regulated by the Maharashtra government, with most seats reserved for candidates residing in Maharashtra. ISME on the other hand is a regional player in Bangalore).

Thus this year, we decided to add a necessary element of relevance to the surveys, and thus was born the regional list with b-schools segregated by city. The rationale being - that the National rankings would measure the perception of b-schools desired across the nation, while the regional ranking for a city would rank regionally known b-schools for the benefit of local applicants who are looking for MBA programs in or near their own city. Since familiarity about regional-level b-schools lies best with the local aspirant population, the survey would automatically serve relevant comparison questions about regional b-schools based on a respondent's location.

In simple terms, the following is how the survey worked:

While everybody's survey asked them to compare national b-schools, the comparison for regional b-schools was only given to respondents from that city.

Each time a respondent signed on to the survey, we would ask him for his city/hometown/place where he had stayed the most. All respondents were given comparison questions about schools from the National list, while those residing in one of the eight cities in the regional list were given comparison questions about b-schools in that city's list.

Example: If a respondent entered 'Mumbai' as his city, his survey contained 38 comparisons from the national list, and a dozen more from the Mumbai list.

Based on the person's declaration of work experience, gender and MBA interest, simultaneous rankings of most preferred b-schools according to women, freshers, work experienced aspirants, MBA students and MBA alumni too were generated.

In total, we received a total of 12.077 responses, from which we filtered out 9,576 valid respondents. These 9,576 respondents were used to calculate the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings survey 2010, an increase of over 73% over last year's sample size of 5,510 respondents.

Data cleaning

The following checks and balances were in place to iron out spurious survey responses:

The survey delivery system automatically kept track of each computer that the survey was delivered to. So if a respondent answered the survey multiple times, all the responses would show up together.

1. Extensive pattern-matching algorithms were applied to the database of responses to uncover unusual similarities in demographic information. These were also applied to multiple responses that originated from a single IP address.


2. Majority of the spurious responses were uncovered by the above two foolproof methods.
   
   

   Additionally, the following extra measures were taken:



3. Responses originating from public proxy servers were rejected.


4. We looked for suspicious voting patterns throughout the rankings, wherein a person or group of people had taken the survey with the methodical intention of pushing one b-school up and one or more b-schools down. Such scandals usually take place in collusion, wherein a b-school's students pre-plan responding to the survey by always voting their b-school up and voting rival b-schools down. All responses displaying such behaviour were rejected.


5. As extra attention to detail, we also manually went through the entire list of responses to uncover any non-machine-readable abstract patterns and rejected suspicious responses.

In particular, two widespread cases of rigging were found, one from the Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur and International Management Institute, Delhi. Both b-schools were disqualified from the rankings for unethical conduct in the survey by sections of their student communities.

Checking for validity of the rankings

Being a crowdsourced survey, the best and most important check for consistency in the rankings is to put it to the test of recursive induction.

In layman'ss terms, we measured this in two ways:

Method A: If a crowd size of 9,576 ranks b-schools in a certain way, any sufficiently large and randomly-selected slice from the total crowd size should rank the schools in the same order, with minimal variation.

Method B: Further, the rankings generated using any three randomly selected and disjoint slices from the total crowd size too should have minimal variation. For example, out of the total crowd size of 9,576, we chose three slices of 3,000 respondents each, with no common respondents between these slices. We then looked for any major variations in the rankings generated using each of the three slices.

After consistency checks, the following rankings were validated as fit for publishing:

National b-schools (Overall, Women, Freshers, Work-Ex, Alumni, Students and Aspirants)

Among Regional b-schools:

Mumbai

Jaipur

Chennai

Hyderabad

The following rankings were rejected either due to lack of consistency or too low a sample size:

New Delhi

Bangalore

Pune

Kolkata

[apurv (Apoorv Pandit)]

(This article is based on the National Rankings list of the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings, 2010.)

The years 2008 and 2009 made business schools extremely vulnerable to the same market forces that they had been training managers to deal with. In many ways, the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings 2010 mirror the performances of b-schools during the economic recession of 2008-09.

Take the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad for example. Ranked 4th right after the top three Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in 2009 PaGaLGuY rankings, ISB Hyderabad has dropped to rank 7 this year. ISB's nightmarish experience in placing its class of 2009 has arguably hit its perception.

The biggest gainer at ISB's expense is Delhi University's Faculty of Management Studies, which now shares rank 4 with XLRI, Jamshedpur. Between ISB and FMS, the return on investment might have been the deal breaker. With total expenses amounting to nearly Rs 19 lakh at ISB, many students were reported to have graduated with annual salaries as low as Rs 8 lakhs as employment dried up in the market. In times as adverse as these, graduating with any salary at FMS was utopian, since the institute's total feel for the two years is less than Rs one lakh.

The top three slots in PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings 2010 were retained by the IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta respectively.

Here's one thing you might wonder about while browsing the rankings. See the screenshot below.

Why does is ISB Hyderabad ranked 7 Overall but 5 in freshers, work experience, women, alumni, aspirants and students? Or why is FMS ranked number 4 overall but 5 or 6 in other heads?

The answer to that is in understanding that the aggregate of Women, Freshers, Alumni, etc is not the universal set of respondents. They are all subsets with common elements (some women are freshers, some aspirants have work experience, and vice versa). The overall ranking also includes respondents under the 'Others' category, which might swing the aggregate rank despite the rank in the individual heads. So if you find cases such as these, do not be alarmed. All is well.

One clear trend emerges in the movements within the top 20 b-schools of this year's rankings: older institutions that have been around for ages overtook newer institutions, perhaps implying that in an uncertain job market, the respondents are showing preference for a stable brand over newer b-schools.

So SP Jain, Mumbai displaced the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Delhi to reach rank 10, while the 47-year old National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) jumped two places up despite being open only to engineers. Similarly, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM), Pune jumped one rank up to 16 over the previous year.

All IIMs except IIM Lucknow either retained or increased their ranks between the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings of 2009 and 2010. IIM Lucknow fell one rank to number 6 (to the gain of FMS, Delhi University) while IIM Shillong received pretty much the same votes as Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA) and Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi, sharing rank 21 with the two.

We have always stressed on the importance of ethical integrity in the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings and have been warning the b-school student communities of dire consequences of trying to rig the rankings. Two years ago, one business school in South India came close to expulsion from the rankings, but the school's administration saved the day by penalizing the students with compulsory social service.

This year however, two b-schools pushed our tolerance of survey rigging to the very limits. Reluctant as it was, we decided to disqualify these two schools: Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM), IIT Kharagpur and International Management Institute (IMI, Delhi) fron the rankings. These two schools have not received a rank in PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings 2010. More about it here.

Here are some more interesting trends in PaGaLGuY.com B-school Rankings 2010 compared to previous year's rankings:

• Among the IIT schools of management, IIT Madras (27) overtook IIT Kanpur (33) to become the third most preferred IIT MBA after IIT Bombay (19) and IIT Delhi (21).


• Among business schools accepting the SNAP exam score, SIBM Bangalore (26)overtook Symbiosis Institute of International Business (SIIB), Pune (29) to become the third-most preferred Symbiosis b-school after SIBM Pune (16) and SCMHRD, Pune (20).


• Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), Chennai (37) became the fourth most preferred institute accepting the XAT score exclusively, after XLRI Jamshedpur (4), XIM Bhubhaneswar (16) and Goa Institute of Management (26). Last year, XIME Bangalore (43) occupied this position.

You can view further comparisons between national schools here by using the 'filter by exam' feature.

The National rankings also lists the most preferred b-schools according to Women, Freshers, Work-Experienced aspirants, MBA students and MBA alumni. Use the slick interface and the 'Compare B-schools' feature to contrast the rankings of b-schools with each other and across demographic parameters.

[guest_writer (Guest)]

A women-only IIM would ensure equitable management education to women, make for research opportunities on leadership issues faced by women and be a good proposition to recruiters who increasingly prefer women over men for competitive jobs, argues Prof Ganesh Prabhu, Professor of Strategy at IIM Bangalore. (Special column written for the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings, 2010)

Women are under-represented at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), with the ratio ranging from 1:4 to 1:6. The CAT itself has a low women applicant ratio of about 1:3 indicating that fewer women apply to the IIMs. Given the growing research evidence that women can be better managers and more successful entrepreneurs, it is desirable for the IIMs to enable more women apply. The IIMs have debated on ways to improve this ratio without much success. The recent decisions in some IIMs to increase the weight of school grades in their selection process may help, as girls typically do better than boys at the school level. However this may not increase the women applicants for CAT.

Fewer women in an IIM classroom may lead to them being isolated from informal class learning processes and may prevent them from contesting elections to student bodies. These effects are countered by instituting inclusive norms at the IIMs, but more women in the batch will effectively negate the need for such norms and will let women take up leadership roles on campus more easily. The low proportion of women in the IIMs may also have a negative impact on potential woman applicants as they find fewer women from their senior batches in the IIMs. Where the proportion of women is high (for example in the human resources stream at XLRI or TISS), there is usually an increase in women applicants over time. The low percentage of women at the IIMs may give a false impression to applicants that getting into the IIMs may be tougher or that sufficient opportunities do not exist for women in management careers. In reality, women who do well at the IIMs are often sought after by the top recruiters, who typically offer them better job profiles across a variety of functional areas.

The rising cost of an IIM education has also possibly affected women from middle class or lower middle class families applying for the IIMs, as parents may be reluctant to risk taking large educational loans that exceed their annual family income, especially when the applicant has siblings who seek family funding for higher education. The quantum of financial aid given at the IIMs to students from poorer families is typically decided on the basis of family income but this may not adequately meet the resource gap of women applicants with siblings. Women from conservative families also face additional constraints in applying to the IIMs. A major issue is the reluctance of Indian parents to send their daughters for higher education outside their home city, a reluctance that may stem from the low percentage of women in the IIMs. This means that many women applicants may be actively discouraged from applying, if there is no IIM in their home city. The initiative to start a number of new IIMs in every state will hopefully address this issue and should lead to more women applicants.

One possible way of encouraging more women applicants to the IIMs is to designate atleast one of the new IIMs exclusively for women, preferably one in a central location in the country. An IIM exclusively for women can offer an initial lower fee to enable promising students from less affluent families to join, with scholarships replacing the lower fee over time as the IIM gains in reputation. The mere presence of one such IIM will encourage more women applicants to all the IIMs as they see greater chance of being selected. Women will be also able to get parental permission more easily and thereby apply to all the IIMs. Apart from those who join the IIM exclusively for women, this will lead to more women being selected at all the IIMs. If the daughter does gain admission to an IIM outside her home city, her parents may be less likely to discourage her from taking up the IIM offer on hand.

Our experience of running a summer program for women entrepreneurs indicates that faculty gain new perspectives on management issues by teaching an all women group with a more diverse educational background. An IIM exclusively for women is also likely to have greater diversity of educational backgrounds then the typically engineer dominated IIMs. Faculty at this IIM will therefore be able to offer some unique elective courses that are based on the diverse interest of its batch; courses that cannot be offered at other IIMs due to the lack of sufficient interest. For example, women may have a greater interest in starting or running service oriented businesses or social enterprises while better managing work life balance. Women may be concerned with managing changes in careers and often have to deal with significant timeouts in their careers. Given the range of family commitments over their lifetime, many women may find self employment options more suitable than full-time jobs, due to the greater flexibility that self employment allows. Women also face distinctly different leadership issues. An IIM exclusively for women may draw many women faculty who may want to offer elective courses as well as do research in these areas. It may also draw faculty from other IIMs to teach here attracted by the greater diversity of the batch. There is significant funding available from various government sources for women related issues across sectors and the IIM faculty may be able to draw on such funds more easily. This may help faculty initiate new research projects and build their research careers.

We find that most of the top recruiters at the IIMs prefer women applicants over men of equal calibre in the batch for almost all the job profiles they offer. An IIM exclusively for women is very likely to draw most of the top recruiters at the other IIMs even in its initial years. Such an IIM may also attract many new recruiters who may find its students more suited for the positions they offer due to the greater diversity of educational backgrounds and the unique courses that they have undergone. While the liability of newness may affect a new IIM exclusively for women, as it would affect any other new IIMs, it is likely that its uniqueness will enable it to create a brand and a position that will attract high quality students, good faculty and the best of recruiters, as its alumni prove themselves over time.

Prof Ganesh N Prabhu is Professor of Strategy at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore and has previously chaired the Post Graduate Program and Placements at the school. The views presented here are personal.

[apurv (Apoorv Pandit)]

The Regional Rankings for each city portray the preferences of candidates familiar with the colleges. In that sense, these are the most preferred regional-level b-schools for each of the featured cities - Mumbai, Jaipur, Chennai and Hyderabad.

Most college included in the regional rankings accept the Management Aptitude Test (MAT). So if you have taken the MAT exam and are looking for a college in one of these cities that accepts the MAT score, you should consult the rankings to find out how people from that city stack the b-schools with respect to each other.

We originally set out to rank the most preferred regional level schools in a total of eight cities, subject to sufficient sample size and consistency in the resultant rankings. Eventually, we were able to generate consistent rankings for four of those cities - Jaipur, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.

Surveys for the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings 2010 were delivered in a way that regional b-schools in each city could be compared by respondents from that city/region. While the surveys were going on, a lot of respondents expressed concern that they had never heard of the b-schools they were asked to compare, and that the regional rankings might not be credible.

Our hypothesis turned out right in the end wherever we had enough respondents, and this is how we validated it (see the last heading, 'Checking for validity of the rankings'). We did not release a rankings for cities that did not qualify the validation criteria.