The time has come again for B-school aspirants across the country to look choose between the b-schools that have shortlisted them. It can be a very draining activity and aspirants are worried about making the wrong choices. A very important source of information is the rankings published by various sources. The most easily available ones are those published by media houses, sometimes in collaboration with a research outfit. These rankings are usually taken with a pinch of salt and over time the credibility of many of these has been eroded. The one ranking that most turn to is the NIRF MBA Rankings, and in the past few years, it has established itself as a credible ranking. I believe there is a fundamental problem with the NIRF Rankings. Unfortunately, it has not been designed with the aspiring student applicant in mind. It is a general ranking with factors in a variety of factors useful to a variety of stakeholders. It might be a good ranking to use to form the basis for giving out some annual national awards, but it can be very misleading for students.
Let me explain what I mean. In a b-school, the following factors are important for students: job prospects, learning and quality of campus life. Whereas the factors measured in coming up with an NIRF rank are far broader than that. Some of the factors may be relevant to students while some others may be irrelevant, and in the case of some factors, it might be debatable.
Some examples:
- Outreach and inclusivity (weightage - 10%) - This include factors like seats for economically disadvantaged, students from out of state, etc. While it is great for furthering social aims, it has a little direct bearing on the outcomes a general student is interested in.
- Faculty with PhD (weightage – 6%) – for a practice-oriented course like MBA, it is equally important to look at the work experience of the faculty, not just at the presence of absence of a PhD. Even the Ministry of Education is de-emphasizing the importance of a PhD in teaching. Quality of teaching, in my opinion, has little to do with the presence or absence of a PhD.
- Research output – (weightage – 24%) – Research output may be helpful in furthering the cause of management thought but it has a little link to improved student outcomes. This is such an overweighted factor in the ranking that is not unfair to say that NIFR is largely a ranking of an institute’s research output.
- Median Salary (weightage – 8%) – This is probably the most important factor for students but this gets very little importance in the NIFR methodology.
So, 40% of the weightage is for factors that
have little or no bearing on student outcomes. On the other hand, the single most important factor for student aspirants gets a
weightage of 8% only. It is not just in the weightage but also in the scoring. While the range of scores for research output in the top 20 varies from 69.6 to 11.06, the score for Median salary varies from 40 to 28.51. So factors with a high range of scores get importance far beyond their weightage.
As a result of all this, there is a significant difference when it comes to the institutions’ rank in NIRF and their student outcomes measured by mean (or median) placement.
| B-School |
NIRF Rank |
Rank According To Av. CTC* |
| IIM Ahmedabad |
1 |
1 |
| IIM Bangalore |
2 |
2 |
| IIM Calcutta |
3 |
3 |
| IIM Kozhikode |
4 |
8 |
| IIT Delhi |
5 |
18 |
| IIM Indore |
6 |
15 |
| IIM Lucknow |
7 |
4 |
| XLRI Jamshedpur |
8 |
7 |
| IIT Kharagpur |
9 |
19 |
| IIT Bombay |
10 |
12 |
| B-Schools Outside The Top 10 NIRF MBA Rankings With A Top 10 Av. CTC |
| FMS |
Unranked |
5 |
| SPJIMR Mumbai |
19 |
6 |
| Jamanlal Bajaj IMS |
Unranked |
9 |
| XLRI Delhi-NCR |
Unranked |
10 |
While placement is not the only thing, and the average salary is not the only way to rate placement, it should be a very important part of the ranking. SPJIMR Mumbai is ranked 19
th in NIRF while some institutes ranked in the top 10 in NIRF MBA Rankings have an average salary of approximately 60% of that at SPJIMR Mumbai. I fail to see what could be so wrong at SPJIMR Mumbai.
Jamanlal Bajaj is not even part of this list, but they would get an unfavourable rank given their focus on practitioner faculty, and their lack of research output, but their student outcomes are far ahead of much high ranked institutions. Similarly, FMS is known for a very low fee structure, hence great ROI for students, but equally impressive are the top-of-the-line placement opportunities that they give their students, resulting in a top 5 average CTC.
The problem with NIRF is not that it is not measuring rightly, but that it is not measuring the right things. Hence it is important for the NIRF MBA rankings to come with a cigarette pack-like caution: that it is not focused on the priorities of aspiring students, and it is meant for other (more important) purposes. So what does the aspirant use instead? The aptest rankings are probably the ones brought out by MBA training institutes/platforms because they have to cater diligently to their primary stakeholder, the b-school aspirant.
List Of B-schools Ranked According To The Average CTC Offered Of The Graduating Batch
| B-School |
|
| IIM Ahmedabad* |
|
| IIM Bangalore* |
|
| IIM Calcutta |
34 |
| IIM Lucknow |
32.5 |
| FMS |
32.4 |
| SP Jain |
32.05 |
| XLRI Jamshedpur^ |
30.73 |
| IIM Kozhikode |
29.5 |
| JBIMS |
27.63 |
| XLRI Delhi-NCR |
27.58 |
| MDI Gurgaon |
26.07 |
| IIT B |
25.9 |
| NITIE Mumbai |
25.41 |
| IIFT^ |
25.16 |
| IIM Indore |
25.01 |
| NMIMS, Mumbai |
23.07 |
| SIBM Pune |
23.06 |
| IIM Shillong |
23.1 |
| DMS IIT Delhi* |
|
| VGSOM IIT Kharagpur* |
|
*The figures for these institutions have not yet been declared at the time of writing the article. Their position is based on their relative position in the previous year.
In 2020-21, DMS IIT D (18.5) was well below SIMB Pune (19.56) and IIM Shillong (19.17) but marginally ahead of NMIMS Mumbai (18.45). In 2020-21, VGSOM IIM Kgp had figures below all others in this list who had placements last year.
^Figures are a composite across campuses. Figures for a specific campus may be more or less than the given figure.
About The Author
Dr Rajeev Roy is an entrepreneurship educator, startup mentor, entrepreneur and investor. Currently he is Professor of entrepreneurship at XLRI Xavier School of Management, and the CEO of XCEED, the campus incubator. After completing his PGDM from IIM, Ahmedabad, he had a short corporate stint and then, he started his own ventures. His entrepreneurial ventures include food processing, KPO, dairy products and microfinance.
He has been involved in entrepreneurship development in 14 countries across five continents. He has been a full-time faculty in business schools in India and USA. He has set up 6 incubators and accelerators in 4 different countries.
He has been directly involved in mentoring and advising over 100 startups in their growth phase. He has advised, consulted with and trained several large corporates and MNCs on topics related to product development, leadership and innovation.
You may connect with him here.