FMS Delhi - The Red Building of Dreams

FMS Delhi is one of the best B-schools in India, with its USP being the very low fees and the huge ROI. In fact, Its ROI is 10 times when compared to the old IIMs. We have this saying here at college "Why pay student loans when you can pay home loans instead". The only caveat here is that it doesn't have a dedicated campus and is part of the DU campus and thus it is quite small and we don't have any fully-fledged college hostels as well. Every year, the admission form generally closes around the CAT exam. The first shortlist will solely be based on the CAT score with a bit more weightage given to VARC (40%), while the other DILR & QA sections are given equal weightage (30% each). The final admission criteria give a lot of weightage to CAT (50-60%) with others like PI, GD/SOP, 10th, 12th scores also being taken into consideration with varying weightage. Female candidates are given an extra 3% weightage too. I used sites like Shiksha, CollegeDunia & TIME for the purpose of selection.

The 2 year MBA course at FMS Delhi is one of the best MBA programs in the country. This course costs less than one-tenth of similar courses at top IIMs and so gives a huge ROI. Indeed, the quality of teaching is of very high standards and simply put one of the best in the country with well-known and experienced professors taking teaching us a very up-to-date course curriculum. The faculty-student ratio is not something to boast of and stands at 1:20, but you can be very assured that the experience and helpfulness of the faculties won't let you focus too much on the raw ratio. Every faculty is a PhD holder with decades of teaching experience with them, follows a very practical teaching curriculum that aims to apply the knowledge we gain to real-life situations. The examination is semester wise with a mid-term exam in each. The internal: external grading ratio is 30:70 and it is a bit difficult to score but easy to pass where the majority of the students end up in the 60-70% range.

For summers, we had offers from big names such as Accenture Strategy, Adobe, Amazon, Asian Paints, Bank of America, BCG, Capgemini, Coca-Cola, DE Shaw, Gartner, Google, HSBC, HUL, ITC, J&J, JSW, Kearney, Mastercard, RPG, Spark Capital, Standard Chartered, Tata Administrative Services among others. There was a 100% summer placement record for our batch with an average stipend of INR 2,41,400 & a median of INR 2,20,000 for 2 months. 183 candidates or 64% of the batch received a stipend of INR 2 Lakhs and above.

We have a summer internship placements process during the 1st semester and final placements during the 4th semester. For finals, we had offers from ABG, Accenture Strategy, Airtel, Amazon, American Express, Bain & Company, Capgemini, Cloudtail, Delhivery EY, Flipkart, Freshworks, Go-MMT, Kearney, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, RBS Shell, TAS, Xiaomi, among others in various domains such as Consulting, Finance, General Management, IT, Operations, Sales & Marketing. The institute continues its 100% placement legacy with an average package of INR 25.6 LPA, with the highest at INR 58.6 LPA.

We have a semester fee of INR 47,780 making the whole 2-year fee coming down to INR 1,91,120, making it one of the most affordable MBA programs in the whole world. There was a fee hike recently from INR 7000 per semester. But it tends to remain constant over a long period. Other costs include the cost of living in Delhi which would come to around INR 10-15K per month, apart from this, there is an annual 35-40K MSA fees used for all the student-run activities at the campus. The college helps students avail education loans with ease. The top-performing students, as well as students from lower incomes/reserved categories, can apply for scholarships namely ABG, OP Jindal, NTPC, Kundan Lal, FMS Dean's scholarships as well as other external ones. Live projects, summer internships, & corporate competitions are good sources to earn money and could easily cover the whole fees of FMS Delhi, and if you're really good then you can actually break even and earn more than your total expenditure.

The annual fest of FMS Delhi is called 'Fiesta'. It is one of the most exciting and awaited fests across Delhi. They are usually conducted every year in the month of February. FMS Delhi being part of DU, has access to the huge library of DU giving them access to a wide range of books and international journals. The classroom is equipped with Wi-Fi and all the other necessary requirements. We have access to the DU stadium used for major international events and FMS students, in general, have great sports teams and regularly come out winners at fests in other colleges as well. The IIML fest is one of our most awaited external college fest, where a big family of superstars is sent to come back with titles. FMS Delhi is a fully student-run campus, from accounting for consumables in classrooms, maintenance of pipes to the managing of feasts and parties. It has an MSA body that is comprised of 15 clubs, each with 3-5 students from each of the batches.

I am a student of the Cohort of 2022 and since there was a nationwide lockdown in place, did not have any GD/PI and we were granted admission based on our CAT score (out of 60) with 10th & 12th marks being scored out of 5 each. The students were then granted admission on their total score out of 100. But since we were not sure, I prepared for my PI and GD by reading the newspaper daily and delving deeper into hot topics as well as taking mock interviews based on everything that I wrote on my form. Do remember, anything you mention on the form can and will be used against you and you will be cross-questioned on it, so be sure to check up on that and take multiple mock PIs until you are comfortable enough with your answers and shy away from bluffing on the form and in your answers as the experienced professors can easily catch lies. Just stay updated, be confident and honest and everything will be alright.