Rumit Maru's Review On S.P Mandali's Prin L.N Welingkar Institute Of Management Development & Research (WeSchool), Mumbai

I applied for three colleges in total 1. K.J. Somaiya (SIMSR) for PGDM core profile 2. Welingkar Mumbai for PGDM Core & PGDM Business Design (BD) 3. N.L. Damia for finance. I applied to all these colleges based on my CMAT score (97 %ile). Couldn't surpass Somaiya's min criteria of 98%ile. But converted PGDM BD of Welingkar Mumbai (min. 80%ile) and N.L.Dalmia (min. 80%ile) for PGDM finance. Since I wasn't sure if could live with finance for rest of my life, I dropped the option of Dalmia and went ahead with BD (A general management course). One more reason for choosing BD was the curriculum offered (it's there on their website). It makes you taste all the management subjects and then you may choose which subject/vertical suits you the best. My Welingkar GDPI was conducted in person (pre-covid). However, Dalmia's GDPI was virtual.

I found Business Design (BD) as a complete package that would give me a taste of all domains - finance, marketing, designing, operations, business planning, etc since I wasn't sure of any vertical. I got selected for BD course from Welingkar (did not crack core PGDM) but also had offers from N.L Dalmia for finance. Since I wasn't sure if I could continue with the finance vertical for rest of my life, I chose to play safe by choosing a general management course (BD). Its been a year now I'm pursuing my BD course, I can say with 100% that I do not regret my decision. BD is blessed to have two gems namely Shrinivas (popularly known as Dr. G) - a genius in operations holds a PhD in Kaizen (only degree in the world) and Kaustubh Dhargalkar (Jamnalal alumni)- a business genius. My batch (BD) has a male to female ratio of (1:2) while wrt experience my batch composition is 30% - work-ex 3yrs & above; 30% below 3yrs; 40% freshers). Exams were conducted timely and without much glitches.

College induction started from 23rd August for 20-22 batch. Students are eligible for internship placement from day 1 provided he/she checks the bare minimum criteria of the visiting company. Very first company to visit Welingkar was Morgan Stanley and visited campus by Sept end for accounting profile. Followed by GEP, Infosys, etc. To name few well-known companies viz. JLL, Rustomjee, TCS, TCS Disq, BajajFinser, Adobe, DCB bank, Outlook, Motherson, Applied Cloud Computing, Aminu Wellness, GMV elevators, Believe Digital, Kelvin Clan, etc. Job roles offered varied largely based on visiting companies. But many opportunities for pure sales and digital marketing were opened to us. The entire batch got placed for internship by March-end, 2021.

College induction started on 23rd August for me. Students are eligible for internship placements from day 1 (provided you surpass the min criteria kept by visiting companies). Very first company to visit campus for an internship was Morgan Stanley with 50k stipend (took 6 from campus with 2 students from BD batch for accounting profile) follwed by GEP, Infosys (30k stipend). And 1 month later companies started visiting very frequently. The entire batch got placed for intern by April end (90% placements assisted by placement council). With avg stipend of 10k and the highest stipend 50k. I wish to pursue my career either in market research or project management profile.

Fees for PGDM in Welingkar is 11 lacs in total to be given in 4 installments. 279000 (4000 refundable) and 275000 each for the remaining 3 installments). So, only another cost to study is traveling charges (saved due to covid). The trimester pattern wouldn't give you enough time to study from books, so I do not remember anyone buying one. Make notes during less and I guess that would be more than enough to crack exams. Since I'm in my first year, I'm interning with TCS currently as a corporate market research intern with no stipend offered but really great learning opportunity. Welingkar's placement council assisted in securing this internship. Almost 90% of my batchmates got interns with campus assistance with more than 70% of them landed with paid internships.

As I belong to a special batch of pandemics, I'm not aware of campus life. For virtual mode, all the lecs are conducted on Webex. Access to an e-library is provided which has tonnes of articles, reports, etc. that would be more than enough to assist you in your college projects. Connecting with your batchmates is a bit difficult in virtual mode. However, I kept changing my groups for group projects to get in touch with the entire batch and I still do it. I do not prefer choosing the group of my choice since incorporate you won't be allowed to make such a choice. So work with anyone and on any topic. This might impact your grades a little but will definitely leave you with a great learning experience.

My GDPI was conducted before the first lockdown in person (7th March 2020). the admission process of Welingkar starts with filling up a very detailed online form regarding in & out of yourself. Make sure you know whatever you mention since Welingkar dont ask for CV they refer this form during PI. I got an abstract topic in GD . I had 7 other candidates with me in GD and it lasted for around 12-15 mins. In PI was asked about the latest telecom news (since a telecom engineer), my favorite subjects during my school, questions related to my work-ex like how would you resolve to fight in your organization, qualities that make you a better employee to have. All the questions asked were from the form that I filled while applying. Since all my answers in form were 100% honest,