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The recent Business School rankings remind me of Salman Rushdie and MF Hussein. I can only label it provocative posturing for selling more copies. Symbiosis is ranked higher than three Indian Institutes of Management. I am sure that campus and their alumni are delighted.
They would be definitely buying more of the concerned magazine.

That's right, Symbiosis is now the certified No. 4 Business School in India. A couple of years ago, it was MDI Gurgaon which was the No. 4 Business School in India. What can we say, it must be tough to be the No. 4 business school in India. A bit like being the opener of the Indian cricket team. The position is inherent to dynamics and regional politics, with unpredictability and performance varying as per pulls, pressures, whims and fancies.

The Logical Absurdity

Hold on - If you are an MBA or a PGDM (present, or future) - doesn't this confuse you? I mean, in a country of 400,000 annual MBA aspirants, surely some people must be taking these surveys seriously. Imagine if say 0.01% believe this survey, it would lead to some 40 people to choose Symbiosis over IIM Lucknow, IIM Indore and IIM Kozikode. I bet those forty people will remember this survey forever and thank God that they took the correct decision. But what about the 40 people who chose MDI Gurgaon over IIM-L, IIM-K and IIM-I three years ago. One of them out of these at least is going to feel slightly bad. But that should be compensated with the extra sales of the business daily in the campus that got elevated. After all, MBA surveys change yearly but the tag sticks on forever.

The Truth

Students enter music school because they love music. They enter art school because they love art. Nobody enters a business school because they love business. They enter it, because it represents the great middle class Indian dream - a ticket to riches and fame. This is serious business, and people make millions selling this great Indian dream to business school aspirants. The ultimate test for what makes a business school rank higher are the skills that these students and alumni gain that enable them to perform long term, and the quantity and quality of recruitment interviews that give the students the initial break.

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* Contributed by -
Ajay Ohri is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow and has worked with some of the largest BPOs in India (including two very big BPOs listed on NYSE). Read about him at http://iwannacrib.com, India's first site for equalizing the playing field for students and office workers. These views are his personal views.