IIM Shillong Versus SIBM Pune - Which Business School Is Better For You?

The two tables below capture the InsideIIM MBA rankings and the MHRD NIRF MBA rankings respectively for IIM Shillong and SIBM Pune.

IIM Shillong vs SIBM Pune - InsideIIM MBA Rankings
B-School	Rank in 2020	Rank in 2019	Rank in 2018
IIM Shillong	16	14	14
SIBM Pune	17	16	22

The InsideIIM MBA Rankings are based on brand equity, i.e., the perception that MBA aspirants have of India's top institutes. For the past two years, both IIM Shillong and SIBM Pune have featured amongst the top-20 management institutes of the country, with IIM Shillong being consistently ranked higher than SIBM Pune, though not by a very significant margin. It is possible that IIM Shillong gets this slight edge over SIBM Pune owing to the 'IIM' tag on offer.

IIM Shillong vs SIBM Pune - MHRD NIRF Rankings (Graduation Outcomes)
B-School	Rank in 2019	Rank in 2018
IIM Shillong	12	9
SIBM Pune	8	11

The MHRD NIRF have MBA rankings for multiple criteria, one of which is 'Graduation Outcomes' (GO) which is measured by the %age of students placed through campus placements, median salary offered to the batch, %age of students passing the university examinations, etc. Over the past two years, on average, IIM Shillong has been ranked 11th while SIBM Pune has been ranked 10th, and additionally, each of the two institutes has been ranked amongst the top-10 at least once in previous years.

From the ranks assigned under the NIRF, it is clear that when it comes to GO, there isn't much difference between IIM Shillong and SIBM Pune. This is further clarified by the next section which takes a look at the salaries offered during on-campus placements at the two institutes.

Also read - IIM Shillong vs JBIMS Mumbai | Business School Comparison

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IIM Shillong vs SIBM Pune - Placements, Return on Investment

When it comes to choosing a business school or choosing between two or more business schools, placements at an institute are the most influential element in the decision making process. At the end of the two year program, what matters is if the top companies you want to work with visit the b-school campus, what kind of roles they offer, and what kind of remuneration can be expected on average. However, another important element that is given lower priority is the return on investment offered by a business school.

RoI is essentially the difference between the average/median CTC offered and the cumulative costs incurred, i.e., opportunity cost and the program fee. Average CTC is not the best value to use to calculate the RoI of an institute since the figure may be skewed by outliers. Median CTC offered is a more reasonable value to consider to understand the true RoI of a business school. The table below comprises the final placements CTC figures for the Class of 2019 juxtaposed with the fees of the institutes to create a picture of the RoI offered by IIM Shillong and SIBM Pune.

Note - Opportunity cost is not accounted for in this table, since the duration of the two programs is identical.

IIM Shillong vs SIBM Pune - Return on Investment
	*Highest CTC (INR)	*Average CTC (INR)	*Median CTC (INR)	**Fees (INR)	Number of Recruiters on Campus
IIM Shillong	28.00 LPA	16.79 LPA	16.50 LPA	16.98 Lakhs	62
SIBM Pune	29.00 LPA	17.48 LPA	16.25 LPA	22.29 Lakhs	83
*Salary figures are for the MBA Class of 2019, **Fees figures are for the MBA Class of 2021

Based on information in the table above, placements at IIM Shillong and SIBM Pune in terms of packages offered has been very similar for the Class of 2019, with the only distinction being the number of recruiters on campus (higher for SIBM Pune). However, the MBA program at SIBM Pune costs 5+ lakhs more than the MBA program at IIM Shillong. So how big is a difference of 5 lakhs in fees? Here is a simple calculation of the difference in number of days it would require to pay off the fees at IIM Shillong or SIBM Pune, if you were to earn the median CTCs offered by the two institutes.

	Median CTC (INR)	Fixed Salary Component (INR, Untaxed)	Fees (INR)	Difference (Fees-Fixed Salary)	Days required to recover costs
IIM Shillong	1,650,000	13,20,000	16,98,310	3,78,310	470
SIBM Pune	1,625,000	13,00,000	22,29,000	9,29,000	626

The figures in column 6 in the table above have been arrived at by assuming the fixed salary component to be 80% of the median CTC and multiplying the ratio of fees to fixed salary by 365, i.e., the number of days in a year. No other annual expenditures, taxes, increments, loan interest rates, or any other component has been included in calculating data in the table above.

With this simple calculation, one can see that it takes approximately 1 year and 8 months to recover education costs at SIBM Pune, while it takes approximately 1 year and 3 months to recover education costs at IIM Shillong. That's a difference of just 5 months in recovering the costs of an MBA. Given this information, it can be concluded that in terms of the return on investment offered by both institutes, the difference is not significant enough to give an edge to IIM Shillong.

The following is a summary of the placements processes at IIM Shillong and SIBM Pune, for the Class of 2019:

IIM Shillong Final Placements - Class of 2019

IIM Shillong Final Placements 2019 - Highest CTC, Average CTC, Median CTC Figures
Highest CTC	Rs. 28.00 lakhs p.a.
Median CTC	Rs. 16.50 lakhs p.a.
Average CTC	Rs. 16.79 lakhs p.a.
Average CTC (Top 20%)	Rs. 22.67 lakhs p.a.
Average CTC (Top 50%)	Rs. 19.75 lakhs p.a.

• A total of 62 recruiters participated in the Final Placements process at IIM Shillong.
• Top brands on campus included Accenture, Amazon, EY, JP Morgan Chase, Mahindra Group, TATA Group, Deloitte, and Aditya Birla Group among others.
• Consulting & Strategy was the most sought after domain, with 26.5% of the PGP Batch of 2017-2019 opting for Consulting roles, and 25.3% of the batch opted for Sales & Marketing roles, followed by 16.3% of the batch opting for Finance roles.
• Most of the offers for the Class of 2019 came from the BFSI sector (31.3%), followed by Manufacturing & Retail (18.1%), and Consulting (13.9%).

SIBM Pune Final Placements - Class of 2019

SIBM Pune Final Placements - Highest CTC, Average CTC, Median CTC Figures - Class of 2019
Highest CTC	Rs. 29.00 lakhs p.a.
Average CTC	Rs. 17.48 lakhs p.a.
Median CTC	Rs. 16.25 lakhs p.a.
Average CTC (Top 50)	Rs. 23.76 lakhs p.a.
Average CTC (Top 100)	Rs. 20.53 lakhs p.a.
Average CTC (Top 150)	Rs. 18.81 lakhs p.a.

• A total of 83 companies participated in the Final Placements process at SIBM Pune, giving out 192 offers to the 180-strong Class of 2019.
• 28 new recruiters participated in the recruitment process, including top brands like Google, Barclays, Reckitt Benckiser, Walmart and MindTree among others.
• 62 students of the Class of 2019 received Pre-Placement Offers.

Also read - SPJIMR Mumbai vs MDI Gurgaon | Business School Comparison

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IIM Shillong vs SIBM Pune - Batch Size, Batch Profile

What role does the size of a batch play in deciding which business school to join/target? The batch size of an institute defines the competition you are likely to face during campus placements. A more pollyannaish outlook that b-school admissions committees portray is the "networking opportunity" that a large batch size facilitates, which may be true but doesn't take away from the fact that at a business school, your peers are your competition for your dream job and therefore logically, the larger the talent pool at an institute, the higher the competition.

IIM Shillong vs SIBM Pune - Academic & Gender Diversity (Class of 2020)
B-School	Batch Size	Non-Engineers	Engineers	Freshers	Experienced Professionals	Female Candidates	Male Candidates
IIM Shillong	175	43%	57%	45%	55%	42%	58%
SIBM Pune	180	31%	69%	29%	71%	31%	69%

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IIM Shillong vs SIBM Pune - Student Exchange Opportunities

IIM Shillong offers a student exchange program to its PGP students. "To further enrich the experience of the participants, the curriculum is supplemented by visits to foreign universities with a view to enabling understanding of business management from different cultural perspectives. This enables the participants to refine their outlook from diverse angles and also provide them with an opportunity to interact with students from different nationalities. Visits to industries in those countries are also a part of the Programme. This is an optional module, and is normally organized during the month of January so that they do not clash with the regular sessions of the Institute."

Read this IIM Shillong graduate's student exchange experience in Europe! Read more about IIM Shillong's international collaboration here.

"To help students to cope with the global academic environment SIBM Pune offers to its students Semester exchange program in collaboration with International Universities like University of Dauphine - the first French university to obtain the EQUIS( European Quality Improvement System) accreditation from the European Foundation for Management Development in recognition of their academic excellence and committed global perspective, The Berlin School of Economics and Law (BSEL) - one of the largest Universities of Applied Sciences in Germany offering courses in private and public sector business administration and economics, Arizona State University - ASU ranks as the top university in Arizona for innovation, affordability, quality of students and degree programs.

These programs help students in developing as a national and global citizen and as productive members of the workforce. Such programs provide many avenues for students to increase their global reach."

Read everything about the student exchange program at SIBM Pune here.

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IIM Shillong vs SIBM Pune - Conclusion

IIM Shillong has emerged as the institute with a better return on investment, though the difference in RoI is only marginal when compared to SIBM Pune. The Lavale institute charges a significantly higher fees, but also has more number of recruiters on campus. In terms of batch size, diversity, and placements offered, both institutes are level with each other.

In the end, choosing between these two institutes can come down to two additional yet important factors - how important the 'IIM' tag is to you, as well as the difference in the level of difficulty of CAT and SNAP and their corresponding cut-offs for IIM Shillong and SIBM Pune, respectively.

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Was this b-school comparison helpful? What other components would you want included in a comparative report like this one? Please let me know in the comments below.

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