What's your dream B-School?

You must have noticed the 'Dream B-School' poll on this blog some time or the other in the last few months. Already 1164 votes have been polled and we have decided to finally close the poll now, as we have arrived at a very unambiguous conclusion.

B-School	No. of Votes
IIMs	584
MICA	98
MDI	58
FMS	106
GIM (Goa)	28
XLRI	136
TISS	43
Other Indian	66
B-School Abroad	45
Total Votes Polled	1164

No surprises at all at no.1 - the IIMs are definitely India's most popular B-Schools. Little wonder that the number of CAT takers is now swelling to close to the 3 lakh figure. XLRI Jamshedpur was ranked no.2 in our poll with 136 votes. FMS was not far behind, ranked at no.3 with 106 votes.

The two specialized B-Schools, MICA and TISS together garnered over 12% of the total votes indicating a huge marketing for specialized Business Schools. 28 MBA aspirants showed their keenness to do their studies from GIM, Goa. Located on the beautiful Mandovi, the Goa Institute of Management is the most picturesque of the Indian B-Schools, and the ideal place to mix partying and studying. What was the most surprising was the lack of interest shown in overseas B-Schools. Less than 5% of the voters said they want to study abroad; an indication of the student community's faith in the booming Indian economy. But given a choice between Harvard and IIM Ahmedabad, will they prefer the Indian school? I have my doubts there.

Business Today Indian B-School Rankings 2007

The fifth annual Business Today - Nielsen Best Business Schools of India survey's findings have just been released. Here are a few of the key results:

Top 10 Business Schools of India:

(In some browsers, the 'Tick' may appear as 'a' in the Our Remarks column)

Rank 2007	Rank in 2006	Business School	Our Remarks
1	1	IIM Ahmedabad	a
2	2	IIM Bangalore	a
3	3	IIM Calcutta	a
4	4	Symbiosis-Pune	Symbiosis at No.4?? Over IIM-L and XLRI?
5	5	IIM Lucknow	Should be at No.4 or at No.5, just after XLRI
6	8	IIM Indore	? We suspend our decision on IIM-I
6	7	Bajaj(JBIMS), Mumbai	Could be anywhere between Ranks 7 and 12
8	6	XLRI Jamshedpur	Should be at Rank 4 or 5
9	13	ICFAI Hyderabad	This business school has no business to be in the top 15
10	17	Narsee Monjee (NMIMS) Mumbai	Could be anywhere between Ranks 10 and 13

Forbes ranks top B-Schools(2007) on ROI criteria

In its 2007 rankings of the top Business Schools of the world, Forbes has gone in for the 'Return on Investment'* criteria to rank the best B-Schools across the globe. (though the sample used for this is not from the immediate past batches, which raises a question mark over the current validity of the results - however, the rankings can be a good indicator of the top B-Schools. Word of warning: Should you see some very surprising results, do take a second opinion. Do i see you running to the FT rankings already!!)

Here are the FORBES B-School Rankings for 2007.

Forbes Top 10 US B-schools 2007:
Rank 1. Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth 2. Stanford 3. Harvard 4. Virginia (Darden) 5. Pennsylvania (Wharton) 6. Columbia 7. Chicago 8. Yale 9. Northwestern (Kellogg) 10. Cornell (Johnson)

Forbes Top Non-US One-Year Business Schools 2007:
Rank 1. IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland 2. Insead, Fountainbleau, France 3. Judge Business School, University ofCambridge, UK 4. Instituto de Empresa, Madrid, Spain 5. Cranfield, Bedford, UK

Forbes Top Non-US Two-Year Business Schools 2007

Rank 1. Australian Graduate School of Management 2. British Columbia (Sauder), Canada

3. Esade, Spain 4. Ceibs, China 5. McGill, Canada

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Related Posts:

1. US Top B-School Rankings

2. UK Top B-School Rankings

3. India's Top B-School Rankings

4. India's Top B-School Rankings Part 2

*What is Return on Investment?

- ROI is return on invested capital. While using this criteria for b-school rankings, a simple way of going about it would be to weigh the average placement salaries against the tution fees or the total expenses incurred to complete your MBA. A more complicated approach might try and factor in the cost of 'lost opportunities' as well. For example, if you gave up a 45,000 USD job to join Tuck that goes into the investments!

Favourite B-School: Opinion Poll Results

I had been running this "My Favourite B-School" opinion poll on this blog for the past 3 months and it's time now to share the results with you.

A total of 413 MBA aspirants have taken part in this poll so far. (still running) The b-school at No.1 is not very surprisingly the IIMs ( the six IIMs clustered together) - the IIMs were chosen as the B-School of choice by 193 respondents, a little under half the total number of respondents. B-School Rank 2 is XLRI, Jamshedpur - with 57 votes. At no.3 is MICA, the specialised b-school for marketing communications in Ahmedabad. 'Others' make it to No.4, closely followed behind by FMS, Delhi with 30 votes. 20 students voted a non-Indian B-School as their preferred place to do an MBA.

Are you preparing for CAT 2007 or CAT 2008? Or are you amongst the few that are not looking at the IIMs but at the specialised b-schools like MICA, TISS or IRMA - do let us know your favourite b-school by participating in the poll.

B-School Ranks: Top US Business Schools

United States B-School Rankings : Top Schools for your MBA

Rank 1: Wharton, University of Pennsylvania
( Rank 1 in Financial Times B-School Rankings and Rank 2 in Business Week Top MBA Schools 2007)
Wharton, founded in 1881, besides being the best place to do your MBA in the US is also the best in the world। This school places emphasis on solid grounding in the basis principles of management and as such the first years’s curriculum provides an intensive foundation in general management skills. Students can choose from a variety of dual and joint degree programmes.

Average GMAT Score = 713
GMAT score range = 660 - 760
No. of full-time MBA enrollments: 800
Percentage of female students = 36%
Percentage of Asian students = 22%
Average age of student = 28 years
Average work-experience = 5.8 years
Application Fee = 215 $ (Credit card only)

Rank 2: The Stanford Graduate School of Business
Stanford Graduate School of Business offers an MBA Program that is a two-year, full-time residential program, focusing on the academic facets of general business management, a Ph. D Program and the Stanford Sloan Program, a ten-month general management program for mid-career executives, leading to a master of science in management.

Average GMAT Score = 711
GMAT score range = 530-800
(GRE score may be accepted in lieu of GMAT score)
No. of full-time MBA enrollments: 749
Percentage of female students = 32%
Percentage of Asian students = 11%
Average age of student = 28 years
Average work-experience = 4 years
Application Fee = 245$ (Credit card preferable though you may pay through checks and money orders in US currency)

Rank 3. Harvard Business School
This home of the “case-study” method of teaching offers a two-year, full-time program that starts in the fall with the summer off between the first and second year. Harvard also offers a number of short-term courses for working executives.

Average GMAT Score = 707
GMAT score range = 600-800 ( TG Guessestimate)
No. of full-time MBA enrollments: 907
Percentage of female students = 35%
Percentage of Asian students = 10-14%
Average age of student = 27 years
Application Fee = 237 $ ( by credit card only)
Average Work Experience = 4 years 6 months
( No minimum work-experience criteria)

Rank 4. MIT Sloan School of Management
Sloan offers a Full Time MBA and Executive Programs. Sloan offers a Doctoral Program leading to PhD in management and an

Undergraduate Program leading to a Bachelor of Science degree in Management.

Average GMAT Score = 702
GMAT score range (middle 80% range) : 640 - 760
No. of full-time MBA enrollments: 328
Percentage of female students = 31%
Percentage of Asian students = 23%
Average age of student = 27.9 years
Average Work-experience = 5 years
Application Fee = 230$ (payable by credit card only)

Rank 5. Kellogg School of Management
Kellogg School of Management offers full-time, part-time, executive and international executive MBA programs. Kellogg is organized into six academic departments and each area offers individual Doctoral Programs

Average GMAT Score = 703
GMAT score range (74% of students) = 650-740
No. of full-time 2 yr MBA enrollments: 506
Percentage of female students = 38%
Percentage of Asian students = 28%
Average age of student = 32%
Average Work experience = 5.2 years
Application Fee = $ 225

Other Top Business Schools in the United States:

- GSB, University of Chicago
(Rank 1 in Business Week Top MBA School Rating)

- University of Columbia
(Rank 2 in Financial Times Top B-Schools 2007)

- Dartmouth College, Tuck

- New York University – Stern

- Yale School of Management
(FT B-School Rank 2007: 10)

Disclaimer:
Unless mentioned, the data given is for the full-time MBA program in each college. Wherever possible, we have tried to use the official websites and the prospectus as the source for the information, else we have employed other credible sources. However, we suggest that before taking a decision, you cross-check this information with at least one more source. Most of the data given above is dynamic and may change within a given range over a period of time.

B-School Ranking: UK Top 5

Rank 1: Oxford - Said Business School








Rank 2: London School of Economics

Rank 3: Warwick Business School

Rank 4: University of Cambridge - Judge Business School

Rank 5: University of Bath - School of Management

India's Best B-Schools - A Ranking (continued)

This post is in continuation to my earlier post where we had discussed the country's top ten b-schools. Let's now look at other good options for India's MBA aspirants. This list contains those management schools which may probably not fetch you the mind-boggling dollar salaries that the IIMs can. However, an MBA from these places will get you an assured placement at a reasonably great organisation of your choice and over a period of 3-5 years, if you can display your competitiveness at the workplace, you can reach at par with your contemporary IIM alumni or atleast very very close. From there it will be all upto you, as you compete with them for money, power and glory.

There are two distinct clusters in this second list:
1) b-schools offering the regular MBA degree / PG Diploma in Business Managment and
2) management schools offering specialised programmes. We will take up the second one first.

India's Best Specialised Management Programmes: ( not ranked )

1. Post Graduate Programme in Communications Management offered by the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA)

2. Post Graduate Programme in Agri Business Management offered by IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Lucknow

3. Master of Arts in Human Resource Management and Labour from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai

4. Post Graduate Diploma in Rural Management at Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA)

5. MBA in International Business offered by Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi

6. P.G. Diploma in Computer Aided Management offered by IIM Calcuatta

7. Post Graduate Diploma in Forestry Management from Indian Institute of Foreign Management (IIFM), Bhopal

8. Masters programme in Social Work at TISS ( refer to 3 above)

9. XLRI's post graduate programme in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations.

10. Post Graduate Programme in Fashion Management offered by National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Delhi

Dark-horse:
2-yr Programme in the Business of Film & Television at Subhash Ghai's Whistling Woods International, Mumbai

( will update the post soon to discuss the general b-schools)

India's Best B-Schools - A Ranking

1.Indian Institute of Management(IIM) - Ahmedabad
2.Indian School of Business(ISB) - Hyderabad
3.IIM - Bangalore
4.IIM - Calcutta
5.IIM - Lucknow
6.Xavier's Labour Relations Instiute(XLRI) - Jamshedpur
7.National Institute of Industrial Engineering(NITIE) - Mumbai
8.Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) - Delhi
9.S.P.Jain Institute of Management & Research (SPJIMR) - Mumbai
10.Shailesh J.Mehta Institute of Management, IIT Mumbai

The Common Admission Test, populary known as the CAT is not without reason India's best known MBA Entrance Exam. Out of the above 10 b-schools, as many as 6 use the CAT as the written test. A good percentile in the CAT can earn you an interview call from one or more IIMs, NITIE and S.P. Jain. If you have appeared in the CAT that just went by, on 19th December 2006, you will probably need a score in excess of 110 to get a call from the IIMs. Of course, one also has to ensure that the score is distributed fairly well across the 3 sections to meet the sectional cut-off norms.

If your target is the b-school located in the Steel City of Jharkhand, your entrance examination is called the XAT(Xavier Admission Test). XLRI's entrance test has a higher level of mathematics. It also has a 20 minutes essay writing part.

The IITs hold the Joint Management Entrance Test(JMET) for entry into the various management programmes offered by the various IITs and the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. As these programmes are meant for engineers only, you can expect a definitely tougher mathematics section. The JMET also includes a separate Logical Reasoning question. The coming Sunday (10th December 2006) will see the country's brightest engineers fighting it out for these premier techno-management seats.

FMS Delhi has its own separate test, whereas ISB Hyderabad uses the GMAT scores for screening candidates. The latter is open to students with a minimum of 2 yrs of work experience only.

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You may also like to read:

Best Places to do an MBA in the US

UK Top Ranked B-Schools