Rankings of various B-schools by a slew of entities abound and now the Ministry of Human Resource Development has added its own ranking to the list. The obvious leaders are the older IIMs, which feature at the top of almost every ranking list. However, when one goes down the list, the variance between each of these lists is remarkable and quite puzzling. There are not only significant differences in the ranks of various institutes, some top institutes in one list may not figure in another at all!
With such divergence, how can anyone decide on the choice of an institute, especially if one’s CAT or other relevant score is not enough to get one into one of the top few institutes? Which ranking is one to follow? How can one decide, especially if the primary expectation from the institute is good placements.
The reality is not ideal and the majority do join management programmes for the placement instead of the education they will actually receive. In that context, the B-school is more like fresher’s recruitment agency!
Another approach
Quite frankly, there is another method to this madness and that is to evaluate the worth of the alumni network. As I have mentioned in one of my earlier articles, networking is one of the most important aspects of corporate life, and that holds good for B-school placements too.
Alumni from an institute would help or at least try to influence the schools where an organisation is planning to go for placements. Therefore a strong alumni network is one of the factors which would help a management institute with regard to getting companies to come for placements.
As a student evaluating any B-school that might not be among the few top-rated ones, evaluating the alumni network might give some idea with regard to the placement potential from that institute. Anyone can do an advanced search on LinkedIn for the institute name, with keywords such as “HR”, “Talent Acquisition”, “VP”, etc. The search might throw up a list of people who are from that institute and in decision-making positions.
Network strength
Although this is not an ideal way to evaluate and select any management institute, this would at least give one some idea with regard to the strength of the alumni network in terms of industry, kind of companies, roles and levels the alumni are in at present.
A very big assumption in this approach is that the alumni are happy with the institute and would be glad to help if approached. But it could also very well be the complete opposite. So, keep in mind this perspective in case you decide to use this approach to evaluate any management institute.