PRECAUTIONS IN SEEKING MBA /PGDBM ADMISSIONS
By Mahesh Sarma (Published on rediff.com on 14-1-2011)
[NOTES FROM MODERATOR: There are more than 1200 so called B schools in India , almost everyone calling themselves center of excellence and using hi fi words like innovation, premier institutes faculty and 100% placement. Fact remains that majority of these institutes are of doubtful quality and intent. These are are run very POORLY and have poor faculty quality with hardly any business and consultancy experience. The so called autonomous programs like PGDM and Deemed university are set up to charge huge fees by bypassing state affiliation fees. Students should not get mesmerized by palatial marble studded buildings and names of a few persons with IIT,IIM labels pasted at various places. Aspiring students are welcome to write to us for guidance at: rkgupta@rkgupta.in We have already taken up quality, fee and admission issues with Central government, AIMA and AICTE].Our next targets is engineering colleges.
The mushrooming of B-Schools has left many struggling to fill their seats. And the means they adopt are varied. Careers360 identifies top marketing strategies...
1. Agency sales/Discounted fees
An agent contacts you, promising admissions in a particular school. Jothsna, an MBA student from Delhi, was assured admission at a school in Meerut. When she refused the agent even ended up offering a 15% discount on fees. She later found out that the school shut shop midway since it could get only 28 students.
College seats are not consumer goods. If they are discounted there is something very fishy about the school.
2. Pre-selected for GD/PI
Some schools contact you, saying that you have been pre-selected for a GD/PI process. Some times even relatively well known schools do this when they open a branch campus.
So if the school's reputation is fine, go for the GD/PI. See how many get selected. If 8/10 GD candidates move further, then be very careful. They actually may not have enough students.
3. Ever rolling admission cycles
Some schools do not have a wait list cycle. They begin the admission process six
months before the cycle, and they go on even months after the academic session begins. Here your loss is double.
First you lose out on the classes held so far, and second you are getting to be part of a batch wherein almost everybody gets in. The quality of the peer group is invariably poor in this case.
So preferably avoid schools which have an admission process with no deadlines.
4. Multiple degree offerings
Some schools offer you a PGDM (or its variants) from its stable and say you shall get an AIU/UGC recognised degree from a State university. This is a double-edged sword.
Unless the institute says upfront it is a Distance Learning MBA that you are signing up for the college is lying
through its teeth. If they tell you the truth, then assess the colleges' offering and decide. If there is any attempt at obfuscation, run away ( Read: www.careers360.com/news/4820-Wake-up-Mr-Sibal-Your-universities-are-becomingdegree-mills ).
5. Admission through NRI/management quota
After GD/PI some schools might offer you seat on NRI or management quota. Be very careful before accepting the same. Invariably the cost of education goes up by at least 100% in this case, and for NRI quota may be 200% to 300%.
Verify if the school permits such quota students to sit for placements.
6. Visits overlapping with placements
Verify the placement partners' listing in the brochure very carefully. Some schools provide you a list of all the companies that recruited students from them irrespective of the year. Some desperate ones give out the names of
even companies, whose executives have merely visited the campus.
Prefer only colleges that give out the list of companies that came during the last academic year, even if the list is smaller.
7. Merging core and visiting faculty
For schools which lack core faculty, the easiest way to mask it is to list different types of faculty (guest, permanent, visiting) in a single list. Many of them may even teach just one lecture on campus!
Another problem is with respect to schools that have recently opened multiple campuses. The brochure invariably
is common and the faculty list too would be common. So the list might have an impressive number, but when you divide it among four or five campuses, the absolute number would be very poor.
If you are choosing a school with multiple campuses, check out faculty exclusive to that campus.
8. Agency-led placements
Some schools outsource their placement activities to a consultant. Even with an in-house placement consultant, it is quite a challenge for schools to place most students. The outside consultant invariably would be paid for the number of positions filled, irrespective of the quality of placements.
You might actually end up being a sales executive. There is absolutely nothing wrong being in sales. But for that even a Distance Learning MBA would do.
9. Specialised MBA
Some schools might offer a named MBA. So in addition to regular MBA students specialised in marketing, the school might also have an additional batch doing an MBA only in marketing. Many others offer specialisation in retail, services, hospitality, health etc.
Be very conscious of why you join a specialised MBA. A vertical specialisation would work only if you have a long-term interest in the same.
In many schools which offer both MBA and MBA (HR) or MBA (IB), invariably the specilised MBA students get lesser pay and lesser opportunities. In fact Faculty of Management studies (FMS) Delhi has recently merged its speicalised programme to avoid such hassles.
So go for a general MBA. It is a safer bet.
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ARTICLE : April 2018
Technical education in India , unemployability, rankings and problems
(without malice to one and all -This is deliberately a bit exaggerated write up )
The tragedy with India is that nothing is original here.90% of films and even shots in such films are stolen or copied form some foreign movie. Even Salman khan himself several times has quoted this in his movie discussions. That is known truth. We ape everything, want easy money .copy, cheat and earn. Indian politics is also like that . Invest arouse provoke get into chair by jumlas (sentence throwing). Let society go to hell. Lies , politics and nautanki is art , Indians are good in including our professors. Now coming back to technical education. 80% professors generate crap or what I call recycled garbage in name of research articles papers and PhD thesis. It is just crap, stolen changed, copied, restyled or even lifted as it is. That includes professors of so called IITs IIMs who are more interested in visiting lectures and assignments. . Twisting tongue trying to copy accent of American profs is favorite pass time of them.There is fraud in name of academics. most of Indian author books are copied pirated plagiarized versions of foreign author books/journals.Indians in last 20 years could not make a single software like java or word. only copy and paste .But expect 3 lac a month salary these jerks are called software developers who are actually data coolies. with pony tails and twisted tongues. You find droves of them on airports dragging luggage trolley with dreams in eyes. In class room a large number of idiots teach technology . Just read book and vomit prepare PPTs. Now more easy to fool students who are not interested anyway to attend class. Those who never fixed a screw of electric motor teach synchronous motors and eddy currents/I bet 50% teachers cant tell which motor it is or it rotates clockwise or anti clockwise.
Those who never sold a needle teach marketing strategies. Those who never visited Srilanka or Nepal teach international business Just hang a institute plate whole life around neck and move around like a bull. They will always start introduction like form so and so IIT or IIM or JIT or MIT. And introduction ends there .nothing else to tell.
These idiots stuffed in state universities have total control on private colleges due to another fraud organizations like AICTE and UGC staffed with these cheats useless and corrupt guys doing politics. Why they are needed i could never figure out. They never allow people form field with hands on experience to enter universities and even private colleges as they fear loosing control and getting exposed.
Moreover private institutes are used as resting places of retired state university professors. basking in ac offices and with cars and 2 lac package doing almost nothing than babugiri and foot massaging of babu the lala who only has eye on ROI on palatial buildings and furniture invested. Fraud is going on in name of technical education in India and modis skill development .Mostly wastage. Unless staffing pattern, requirements to work in industry business or field of that technology are made compulsory for certain years say 10 years nothing is going to change. Stress on paper publications is degenerating our brain to trash bin level. garbage and garbage more garbage. I can invariably trace any thesis or paper to some authors crap published earlier in almost 75% cases . merely software filtering is not enough .These high class institute profs have got smarter. They bring material, form obscure old journals in libraries and rotten old books which have never been digitalised and put on internet. That is where India scores. We are grand copy masters not grand masters Is HRD Minister listening, All these NIRF ranking etc is mere wastage of time. babus and ferji academicians are having nice life at cost of poor people paying their lifetime earnings in hope of good education to their wards even in private colleges which are backyards of rotten state universities only..in PPP model of fraud with youth, it is national shame. Note: no comments include entire set of people. Meritorious are always there everywhere , who run the show
Dr R K Gupta