Today we’re going to deep dive into how you must choose your MBA college. As it’s not just the huge money you’ll be spending there, but probably the best two years of your life. So, it gets very important that you select the right MBA college for yourself.
Like you I too have searched this subject on the internet as to how one must choose their MBA College. Well, most of the blogs that I read did some justice to the topic but believe me they didn’t even touch some the crucial factors that you must consider.
I believe colleges and education companies picks the areas which suits them and ignoring the factors in which they do poorly. For example, I’ve observed that if a college has a poor ranking, then it won’t mention the rankings as an important factor in choosing the right MBA college. Getting me here?
So, you see, you’ve to play smart and learn how to separate the signal among all the noise that is present online. Does this make sense to you? Even bigger than online is our offline world. Beware of the unprofessional consultants and coaching center owners who will give you names of the colleges left right and center. Chances are they are making money through that college they are suggesting you. I’ve worked for 8 years in the education industry, and I can say this with a lot of confidence.
Now the average advice that you might be getting are – See the rankings, Roi, infrastructure etc. before you choose an MBA college. While you must also look into these factors – but it will make more sense to first make a list of things that you don’t need in a college. This will save you a lot of time. Now let me give you some pointers and how to go and implement it.
No 1 – Don’t go for a college where most of the faculty members are pure academicians.
Why do I say this? I strongly believe the right to teach must be given to the select few who knows how to do it. Think for a moment – Who will teach you better, a pure academician aged 55 or a 40-year-old who along with teaching has worked in various MNCs before joining as a college professor and runs his own company. Quite a straightforward answer, isn’t it?
Now you must be thinking yes this makes a lot of sense but how do I find if a college has pure academicians or real-world doers as their faculties? There are ways to find it.
Major colleges have short profiles of their faculty members in its prospectus. Look there. Don’t just see the PhDs. This can be mirage. Rather see how many patents they have been granted or which company have they worked for.
Now search them on LinkedIn. Network with them mentioning that you’re an MBA aspirant and you like the work they are doing. You see you can kill two birds with one stone.
Doing this will not only give you an idea of the level of faculty members a college has but it will also improve your networking skills. You’ll be amazed at how many will response favorably.
Now let’s talk about the factor no 2.
Don’t go to a college which is less than 10 Years Old.
Let’s do a little thought experiment – Consider Harward Business School establishing its Off campus in India in 2024. Do you think you must be the part of HBS in its 1st batch?
From my side it’ll be a big no. Now why do I say this?
You see it takes time to build something good. Time is the ultimate tester. It will weed out the frauds without any effort. Yes, Harvard is the no 1 B school of the globe, but it has 0 experience in India. It will take a lot of years for HBS to do the groundwork. I mean for HBS to make solid relationships with Indian companies. Yes, they have a name, but building trust and making relationships takes time. Isn’t it?
Think on these lines. If they don’t have good relationships with corporate India, they will struggle big time in placing their students in India.
All you will get from HBS India off campus is a piece of paper nothing more – No matter how big the name is. This is the reason why I chose the name of HBS. To make it easy for you.
This is great heuristic or an idea which will assist you and make your job so very easy. Right?
You will be surprised to know that I’ve yet to come across a blog or anyone vouching for this factor. And I consider this to be very important. It is Peer to Peer Learning. Now you tell me of any person or institution which promotes its b-school saying they have the best ecosystem for peer-to-peer learning. Hardly anyone, right?
Peer to peer learning is nothing but learning from each other. A B-School has to put in a lot of efforts to build this ecosystem.
There must be a good balance of interdependence and individual accountability when peer groups are formed. A good ecosystem of peer learning promotes social interaction thereby promoting empathy, and emotional intelligence. It demands cooperation. Gives multiple dimensions to learning as each one brings with them their own set of knowledge, skills and aptitude.
Try to find out how strong is this ecosystem in the bschool that you’re targeting. How will you do it?
To foster a good peer learning ecosystem the bschool must have good and diverse crowd.
Bschools have their own Facebook groups, join them to find out about the culture of peer learning.
Interview some students of the bschool you’re targeting.
I suppose you got the point.
Moving ahead I believe I really do not need to discuss about the Roi and Rankings. But I’d like to give you some quick pointers which will assist you a lot in your journey.
Roi is the ratio of Fee paid vs Placement Acquired, as the normal wisdom goes.
But Roi has to be seen from a different lens here. You see Roi must involve a lot of factors too. Like The skills you eventually acquire in two years of your MBA, have you expanded your network? They say your Network is your Net worth. And it’s so true. The quality of peer learning that you get.
We generally oversee these factors when we discuss about Roi. Think for a moment.
If you acquired good skills, expanded your networks, had excellent peer leaning, then by default these soft skills will reflect in when you sit in your campus placement interviews. And it will have a positive impact on the CTC that you can get for yourself. Does this make any sense to you?
An extra bonus for the MBA aspirants & the who are already studying and for all the working professionals listening here. When you sit with the HR Manager for negotiating your CTC, don’t be money shy.
Be bold, just and fair to ask what you believe is correct. Always remember they are there to hire the best talent and the HR Manager is not going to pay you from his own pocket. It’s the money of the company. And the company wants the best talent no matter what the CTC is. Right?
You see we live in a capitalistic society. You have to understand this. Being money sky is literally costing job seekers years in their careers. You can’t buy time, but you can always earn money!! Right. So, remember – The HR manager is not paying from his own pocket. The funds belong to the organization.
Now talking of rankings, I think you must not devote much of your time seeing these rankings. Many of these rankings are sponsored. Damn, you see damnity is the no 1 private University of India as per the best magazine of India.
You can trust the NIRF rankings a bit.
Apart from the rankings you must see what kind of accreditations does the bschool has. Some of the prestigious accreditations are AACSB, AMBA, SAQS. These accreditations are nothing but a guarantee that you will find a certain quality of teaching, pedagogy, and placements. Accreditations says a lot more than rankings.
You must keep one thing in mind. One thing is being a member of the accreditation organization. Which a lot of colleges can acquire by fulfilling certain basic must haves and paying a fee.
What you must look is – If the Bschool is Accredited or not. So again, see that they are accredited, not just a member. I hope it helps. Thankyou.