How to select your B-School: Part II

In this three-part series, Vivek Sankaran of TopMyTest will share how to select the right B-school to study MBA. Here is the second article of this series.

By Vivek Sankaran

After discussing the importance of investing time in applying to the institution, here is what you need to do next when selecting a B-school. In this part, we look at the factors that are important in your B-School selection process – both in terms of the number of colleges that you apply for as well as the grades of colleges that one must target while selecting the B-schools.

Professional Lifecycle

Till about 2010-11, the incoming batch in one of the top Indian MBA colleges had an average age of about 24 years. Over the last decade, especially in the top colleges, as a consequence of a more qualitative approach followed by colleges (aka profile based evaluation), the average age has slowly increased. However, the students who are in the final year of their graduation (freshers) still constitute around one-fourth to one-third of the class. In theory, these students are in the best position, especially if they have campus placement on offer. They can choose to be selective as they have age on their side and can have a couple of more shots at the MBA admission process.

Next up are those who graduated, but have never worked (aka – those dropping a year). In my opinion, they are at the greatest risk. These students put an enormous amount of pressure on themselves and this can lead to impatience and some rash decisions. These students need to be mindful of this when they are filling up college applications. While there is a gap in their CV, it is not a scarlet letter against them. However, they also need to either find a job or decide if they will choose whichever college they will get in this attempt. If you belong to the latter group, you need to increase the number of colleges you apply for.

The next category of students and these are again in a very good situation are those who are working but have less than 24 months of experience. More so if you like your job and the job itself has growth prospects even without an MBA. Again just like students who are in the final year of graduation, these aspirants have the option of waiting and taking another shot at MBA entrances. They might also want to consider pursuing company-sponsored MBA courses or certifications if they are available.

The last category of students, who constitute about 15 per cent of a batch in a top MBA college, are those with around 30 months or more of work experience. These students, if they manage to get an MBA degree at this stage are perhaps the best suited to boost their career progression exponentially. However, they are also hitting a stage where they might be getting a little impatient with entrance exam preparation especially if they have already prepared for these exams earlier.

Eligibility Criteria

A lot of colleges, especially the top ones slowly moved towards a more holistic evaluation. Profiles are equally if not more important than the entrance exam scores. Unfortunately, given the size of the MBA applicant pool in India, a lot of colleges have to assign numerical weights to academics, amount of work experience, etc rather than evaluate each application qualitatively as is the case in colleges abroad. In this context, students who have a good academic profile (roughly 80 to 85 per cent throughout their schooling and undergrad courses) and (or) work experience of around 36 months, especially in an area that is related to their undergraduate stream of study and a non-engineering background have it the best. Again these candidates can be a little picky while choosing their colleges.

For those who do not have this pedigree, they should not lose heart. There are a lot of colleges even in the top 10 to 15 colleges in the country that do not give weights to your profile (at least at the time of issuing interview calls). One needs to be pragmatic regarding one’s chances and should

• put one’s head down and give the entrance exams their best shot. You will be able to proceed with the task at hand in a very efficient manner and,
• not obsess or outrage over the injustice or the minimum percentile needed to get college XYZ. Nothing good will come out of it.

Mock Scores

There are a lot of variables that can’t be controlled in the application process. The one thing that can be controlled is preparation. Irrespective of where you are in terms of your career life-cycle or your profile, a good score will definitely improve your chances and a poor score will reduce it. Besides getting you into a groove for preparing for the actual examination, mock test scores can help you make an actionable shortlist of colleges to apply for, thereby cutting down on your application costs. There are a couple of things to note while looking at your mock scores.

• The current performance: Obviously the higher the current score, the better.
• Trend/Variation: If you have a very fluctuating score, then you will have lesser confidence in your projected score. Similarly, if your scores in a particular section are consistently low, you might have to look at colleges with lower or no sectional cut-offs.

I have tried to put in all the important factors that you need to consider while applying for a B-School. In the concluding part of this series, I will walk you through the application of these factors, and help you decide how many B-Schools to apply to, and which ones to target. We will also have a look at which exams to write so as to apply to these B-Schools.

Also Read: How to select your B-School: Part I

About the Author:

Vivek is the co-founder of TOPMYTEST – an online test prep website specialising in training students for CAT and other MBA entrance exams. Vivek was also the founding director of T.I.M.E Goa Center from 2009 to 2016. He cracked IIM Ahmedabad - Indian Institute of Management (IIMA) (PGP) when he appeared for CAT 2010 but declined to join. Prior to working in the test prep industry, he worked in GE Capital (now GENPACT) and HSBC Bank Middle East in various roles – Product Management, Financial Planning and Analysis, Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing.