IIM Calcutta beats IIM Bangalore. IIM Lucknow loses out to both FMS and XLRI Jamshedpur. ISB and NMIMS see a massive drop. Second generation IIMs still have miles to go before they break into the top tier.

Presenting to you InsideIIM's Brand Perception Rankings among CAT takers of 2018 and those who will take CAT 2019.

When it comes to setting business school aspirations, rankings of the top MBA colleges in India are the most influential in helping MBA aspirants make up their minds. While many credible rankings such Financial Times' Global MBA Rankings & MHRD's NIRF are based on weights attached to various factors, ultimately, it boils down to one crucial factor - brand equity.

Brand equity, or brand perception, is a confluence of every single factor that matters while selecting a business school - from placements to selection criteria, everything has an impact on how the brand of a business school is perceived by the most important stakeholders in this regard - MBA aspirants.

In 2018, we decided to home-on to this often neglected factor in B-school selection, and released the list of India's Most Desirable Business Schools - a list that brought with it overwhelming appreciation for simplifying the goal-setting process for MBA aspirants. And we're back in 2019 with this year's Most Desirable B-Schools.

Check: Top MBA Colleges In India 2020 (latest)

Methodology

To establish these rankings of the top MBA colleges in India, we adopted the opinion survey format of data collection. We floated a questionnaire to our aspirant user-base which simply asked them to rank MBA institutes across India on a scale of 1-10. We then computed average scores per institute to reveal the most desirable business schools.

InsideIIM has not factored in any other components such as RoI, Batch Size, Fees, Location etc. to compute the mean scores of these institutes. The scores are purely based on brand perception.

India's Most Desirable Business Schools - 2019

*Third Generation IIMs include – IIM Nagpur, IIM Jammu, IIM Sirmaur, IIM Sambalpur, IIM Amritsar, IIM Visakhapatnam, and IIM Bodh Gaya.

Note - MBA aspirants, while choosing a business school to join or set as a goal, are majorly driven by the brand value and RoI of B-schools, as data suggest from our report on  Factors Important To MBA Aspirants While Selecting A Business School. Rankings for the top MBA colleges in India are likely to be driven by these crucial factors and therefore are a true reflection of the brand perception of the institutes listed in this report.

View previous year's rankings here.

The Top MBA Colleges In India - 2019 | Rank 1 to 15

Important Highlights

• IIMs Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Bangalore are the top-3 most desirable management institutes of the country - as expected. The 'holy trinity' of IIMs are globally recognised as some of the finest management institutes. IIM Calcutta, for the second consecutive year, has been ranked higher than IIM Bangalore, albeit by a minute fraction.
• FMS Delhi has yet again ranked higher than XLRI, and along with the Jamshedpur-based institute is among the Top-5 business schools in India, in 2019. FMS has an edge over XLRI in terms of the brilliant Return on Investment that the institute has to offer - in Rs. 21,000, you can pursue a 2-year MBA course and get placed in the world's leading companies!
• The Indian School of Business, which is effectively the most highly ranked business school when put in context of management education across the globe, has slipped tremendously from 7th place in 2018 to 12th place in 2019. This can majorly be attributed to the fact that ISB hiked its fees to Rs. 34+ lakhs for its incoming PGP Class of 2020, and the value for money is severely diminished for a business school that offers only a 1-year programme as compared to its IIM counter-parts. In fact, ISB alumni themselves have questioned the ISB administration around the increasing fees, and the ballooning batch size and its implication on quality dilution and placements. For MBA aspirants, perhaps the fact that ISB only accepts scores of expensive exams like GRE and GMAT and does not accept CAT scores diminishes the desirability of the institute.
• Institutes such as TISS Mumbai and JBIMS feature high-up in this list primarily for the Return on Investment that they offer. An MMS degree from JBIMS costs almost 1/4th of the exorbitant fees charged by the likes of IIM Ahmedabad, while TISS Mumbai costs 1/10th of what IIM Ahmedabad charges for an MBA while providing placements that, more-often-than-not, exceed expectations. TISS has improved upon its rankings and features in the Top-15 most desirable business schools of the country in 2019.
• As compared to the rankings of 2018, NITIE Mumbai has slipped out of the Top-15 to the 18th position, having been replaced by TISS Mumbai. Perhaps the non-engineer janata has voted out the 'Gem for GEMs' in favour of TISS, which accepts candidates from all streams.

Also read:

1. India's Top B-Schools In 2019 - Regional Rankings
2. B-school Selection Criteria and Cut-offs
3. How To Prepare For CAT 2019
4. Top 8 MBA Entrance Exams Every MBA Aspirant Must Consider - Must Check!

The Top MBA Colleges In India - 2019 | Rank 16 to 30

Important Highlights

• SIBM Pune has marginally missed out on the Top-15 club, and is one of the most desirable management institutes that has created a strong brand presence for itself in the minds of aspirants. SIBM offers a lavish campus, a small batch size, and a plethora of industry recruiters that hire from the Lavale-based campus. However, all of this comes at a price - Rs. 20.35 lakhs to be precise. SIBM Pune is the 6th most expensive business school in this report, and this is perhaps why it has missed out on the Top-10 and Top-15 spot. Despite this, SIBM Pune has significantly improved its rankings by rising up from the 22nd position to almost the 15th position in 2019.
• MBA aspirants, who perhaps missed out on an IIT seat in undergrad, want the prestigious IIT brand to feature on their CVs, as is clear from these rankings. The IITs, especially SJMSoM IIT Bombay, have ranked even higher than second generation IIMs. Between the IIT vs IIM brand wars, there is a clear victor.
• IIFT Kolkata, which was established over 4 decades after the Delhi institute, has become one of the most desirable management institutes of the country in 2019, ranked higher than even the IIMs, and featuring among the Top-20 business schools of India. A large part of this fame can be attributed to the clever amalgamation of the two B-schools under 1 overarching 'IIFT' brand - the Kolkata institute does not have its own website or even its own Facebook page! Even the placements process at IIFT Delhi and Kolkata is common, and so are the faculty!
• The second-generation IIMs have missed the mark when it comes to brand positioning. None of them feature in even the Top-20, and IIM Kashipur is ranked below even the third generation "baby" IIMs. These results, which have almost been duplicated for 2 consecutive years, beg the question - have these new IIMs diluted the IIM brand, or is it perhaps too early to comment on this, considering that even the so-called "old" IIMs also took decades to create a strong brand positioning?
• NMIMS Mumbai has slipped in rankings, falling from 18th position to 24th position in 2019. NMIMS is the 7th most expensive business school in this report and has the largest batch-size as well. Even though in 2018, there was a hint of NMIMS reducing its batch size, that has not materialised. This has adversely affected the rankings of the institute in 2019.

The Best MBA Colleges In India - 2019 | Rank 31 to 40

Here’s a consolidated list of the aforementioned schools with their respective fees and batch-size.

Note - The data for B-school fees is the latest that could be obtained from the institutes' respective websites.

*For DoMS IIT Roorkee, DoMS IIT Madras, SIMSREE, and Great Lakes Institute of Management, and ISB Hyderabad, the batch-size figures are for the Class of 2019. 

**Credible data for B-school fees of IIM Shillong, IIM Trichy, NITIE, MICA and VGSoM was not available.

Full Disclosure - IMT Ghaziabad, MICA Ahmedabad, and KJSIMSR are Business School Partners with InsideIIM.

Liked this post? There's more where that came from! Stay tuned for more updates on business school rankings in 2019. We have a lot more in store for you.

In the meanwhile, you may like to read:

• Top MBA Colleges in India for HR
• Best MBA Marketing Colleges in India
• InsideIIM Recruitment Survey - 2018/2019
• India's Most Academically Diverse Business Schools
• India's Most Gender Diverse Business Schools