In India, IIM Lucknow is worth far more than ISB, particularly in MNCs and finance/marketing jobs.
The talk of a consulting and network-building pedigree revolves more around their flagship PGPX program and their tentacles in Microsoft and Cisco, both of which recognize the limited role of an MBA in their industry and provide well-defined jumps to ISB graduates back on campus. In the last 2-3 years, IIM Lucknow has done fairly well in global placements, and the sky is the limit for the right student.
It is clear that your decision should be motivated by your prospects of performance at either campus and should be carefully considered.
It is true that those who can balance pressures and perform consistently have an advantage when it comes to placements on campus. Also, mobility in the industry should matter without the help of your b-school label and should be about your performance on the job in making friends. Students from each campus meet everyone on an equal footing in the industry.
Only if you accepted a different field in your campus placement or were assigned a backroom job will you face unequal pressure, as neither pedigree allows you much mobility.
First and foremost,start your preparation early on.
Begin with coaching material from TIME or Career Launcher. The books from these two coaching institutes are good. Apart from the study material from coaching centers, here’s a list of books which will prepare you well for CAT-
Try to solve each question from these books, and do not waste your time on any more books/notes than the ones prescribed above. Buy the latest edition books. If you live in Delhi NCR, you can buy coaching study material in NAI-SARAK (chawri bazar metro station) for less than Rs. 1000.
Prepare well for CAT, and you are sure to get into the top IIMs, even IIM Ahmedabad.
As the daily scale of competition is constantly on the verge of increasing, it is getting important to obtain as many marks as possible while in graduation because it is the first deciding point when you will apply.
Alongside, it also daily is based on factors like the CAT percentile, your marks in XI/XII, and category. However, it is always better to work harder on the facts that concern your personal responsibilities, such as being on the elevated side either in CAT, or the graduation marks, if you are yet to graduate. And if someone gets past the gates of IIM with poor grades by absolutely any mistake then the kit for survival within the campus will count as the toughest.
IIM provides 10% weightage to your graduation score, so you should keep it at check. In fact, if you are anyhow successful in securing yourself a percentage above 80, then it will give you a full 10,and unfortunately standing somewhere above 70 will give you 8 points in this arena.
Both your standardised 12th grade marks, might not entirely, but definitely donates at least one part of being involved in your shortlisting procedure. Unlike many other colleges and universities, your CAT score is very important and holds severe value, so cracking into the 99 percentile of CAT will speed your admission chances.
Commerce Stream |
|
Percent Score in 12th standard exam |
Rating Score B |
<= 50 |
1 |
> 50 and <= 55 |
2 |
> 55 and <= 65 |
3 |
> 65 and <= 75 |
5 |
> 75 and <= 90 |
8 |
> 90 |
10 |
Anything below 70 sounds typically hard to face, yet if you somehow have a score like that, you are most probably out of chances to be admissible in IIM, Ahmedabad.
To know where you stand let’s discuss the cutoff of IIM Ahmedabad.
Particulars |
Cutoff |
Verbal and Reading Comprehension Percentile Rank (PVRC) |
70 |
Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning Percentile Rank (PDILR) |
70 |
Quantitative Aptitude Percentile Rank (PQA) |
70 |
Overall Percentile and Rank (PT) |
80 |
Considering your profile you have an average past academic record. To compensate for it you need to gain work experience and work hard for CAT.
Here are my ratings for the IIMs
The above rankings have been done on the basis of age, placements, and research. I don’t think these factors are enough to rank IIMs.
Another major parameter of comparison is the duration of the establishment.
Most of the FT rankings and online rankings are based on this parameter. In reality, every IIM has top-notch faculty, infrastructure and placements m. Yet the new IIMs will take some time to reach the top.
In general, it is a good idea to gain work experience before doing an MBA due to the maturity that gives you. At IIM Ahmedabad, a lot of placement opportunities ask for at least 18 months of work experience depending on which field you are opting for. If you are a fresher, you are going to miss out on those opportunities.
So, having work experience is definitely an added advantage. It does not sound like a good decision if you are going for a Masters in Business Administration and have not been to any workspace personally. Peer learning is an integral part of management education. You will be able to contribute more to that only if you have valid word experience. So, it definitely makes sense to defer for a fresher or student with less than a year of work experience.
If you want better placement opportunities after completing your degree then choosing IIM A over ISI Kolkata will be better. IIM A is well known for its high ROI. The average CTC offered during 2021 placements was INR 25 LPA. Course fee at IIM A is comparably higher than ISI Kolkata. IIM A fees for this academic year are INR 22 lakhs.
If you aren’t interested in the analytics field or pursuing a Ph.D. then choosing IIM A will be better.
For some reason, many MBAs, as well as at least half of recruiters, believe that is the primary trade to pursue as an MBA.
Most recruiters are aware that IIM Calcutta is not particularly strong in finance (despite popular belief). The IIM C aura, on the other hand, has been carrying it, and the quant-heavy students from IITs prefer to load up on Bong Kolkata when they give up CAT in the pre-final year and choose the easy option. IIMC placements are notoriously shoddy, and due to the chilled campus name, they frequently load up on bottom feeders in the bottom half of the placement, as a result of which they produce more techs and outsourcing managers left behind in India offices than any other IIM campus.
IIM Ahmedabad graduates end up in jobs where they like to manage uncertainty in entrepreneurial roles, and they have had a significant chunk of bottom feeders in every other batch because their entrepreneurs are almost never confused with well-funded start-up entrepreneurs until they are. However, given this history and IIM Bangalore's management of many global placements, IIMB has, in my opinion, become the undisputed leader in Finance and Consulting placements, leaving the competition far behind. Most rankings make it painfully clear, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating. IIMA remains the number one Indian MBA school for CEOs and those aspiring to be CEOs.
A behavioral model will require awareness of how you will cope with things like peer pressure, and less academic pressure, which is a uniform thing, in order to choose between Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Calcutta. This entails determining whether you will be able to be a confident leader in 6 months on that Campus. If you are capable of doing so, choose that Campus over others. Choose Bangalore if you know you need an I banking job. Stay in Calcutta if you know you've always been nerdier than others. Choose A if you know you can make it without reading through a lot of paper. If you are certain that you will be able to fly high, locational preferences abound for both mundane and interesting reasons.
Few of the many factors that make IIM Ahmedabad different from other IIMs is the rigorous academics, international reputation, well-developed alumni base, and unparalleled placements. IIM Ahmedabad strives to train managers who can handle all management-related problems, not just specialists. The difficult academic structure of IIM Ahmedabad builds industry leaders.
An IIM Ahmedabad is said to have the following characteristics
All these characteristics make IIM Ahmedabad graduates a jewel of a student.