The Businessworld B school rankings are out. Again, when several prominent institutes choose to stay away there is a big problem. What to do about the missing institutes?
BW tries to get around this problem by not ranking the top 10 at all and just presenting the list in alphabetical order (like Outlook, secondary data has been used to include IIM A, B and C).
This is obviously a letdown as the 'rankings' start only from # 11 onwards. But the only other alternative would have been to rank MDI as # 1 and we know what a stir that would have caused - besides not reflecting the reality at all.
On a lighter note, Fore School must be glad for choosing to name itself by a letter of the alphabet before 'I' - in the alphabetical listing it comes out right on top!
My contribution
As you may have noticed, I have contributed a few stories to the BW B school issue - the main one is on the 'Faculty Dilemma' (my huge serious looking picture is next to the article :).
I've also done a small profile of Allwin (pagalguy.com) 'cause I think his forum has made a huge impact on the information flow in the b school admission process.
I've also written a small piece on the whole idea of B schools with multiple branches (I have mixed feelings about that - but I guess the demand for MBA is so high that it seems to make sense for established mid tier schools to 'scale up' - just like a coaching class would).
Lastly is a small note on placements - the fact that a student from IIM B has already got a pre placement offer of 105,000 pounds (Rs 84 lakhs) which is of course CTC and all that but I am fully expecting "IIM students gets Rs 1 crore salary" to be a headline next March. It's just a question of someone offering 15,000 pounds more.
Net: net I wish B schools could set aside the past and all come together for a comprehensive ranking exercise. Their concerns and problems should be addressed, of course. But staying away year after year is not really the answer.
I personally think rankings should be done every 2 or even 3 years. Because then there would be scope for real improvement or change in the status at a B school on the various parameters.
As they say in MBA classrooms it's time to think 'out of the box'.
