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To keep up with the rapidly growing demand for skilled managers across corporate India and opportunities abroad, colleges are sprouting everywhere to cater to specialised education. Doing an MBA is one such hot option with 1,50,000 graduates opting for it annually.

MBA programmes aim to create leaders for all levels of an organisation. A good MBA programme is designed to inculcate the importance of management and analytical decision making in students. The curriculum provides students with opportunities to use their analytical skills, draw reasonable conclusions and make decisions based on those conclusions so that pre-planned goals are achieved. A good MBA programme will provide you with tools to guide yourself when you are left alone to take a dive in the deep waters of the corporate world. The years spent during your MBA can be the best years of your life; both in terms of the learning you will receive, as well as the exposure you will get. It plays a key role in developing a holistic approach to decision making. It is therefore important to keep a few parameters in mind when opting for an MBA. Some of these are:

Reputation

MBA is in many ways a brand building exercise. It is important to do your MBA from an accomplished institute as it increases your chances of securing a good placement.
Moreover, a college’s reputation is built over a period and is a result of the hard work that it has put in consistently to bring out stellar candidates for corporates. The name of your college stays with you for the rest of your life and it will be discussed during key promotions and appraisals. Therefore, it is better to work hard and do your MBA from a college with a good reputation.
 
Faculty

Faculty plays a crucial role in the type of leader you become. Good faculty have a certain way of sowing ideas into young minds and then watch them germinate while all the time pruning them up to sharpen understanding. Faculty with good work experience is always a boon as they will bring with them the best understanding of the ways of the corporate world. Therefore, look for colleges which have experienced and knowledgeable faculty.

Placements

Placements is one of the most important parameters to look for when selecting a B-school. Placements, like report cards, speak volumes about the quality of students that a B-school produces. Therefore, one must enquire about highest, lowest and median salaries. Also, one must find out the percentage of students that got placed from a college. Another reason placements are important is because they describe the kind of companies that visit a particular campus.

If you know the type of companies that visit a particular campus in terms of sectors and size, you can get a better idea of whether you should select that college based on your employment preferences. Also, an institute will prefer to accept students from particular educational backgrounds, based on the requirements of companies that regularly visit the campus for placements. Therefore, knowledge of placements will provide a better view of what to expect when you join a particular institute.

Specialisation

There are various specialised fields in which you can pursue an MBA today. Research upon the various options available, match them with your interests and previous education and if there is a fit, go for a specialised MBA. Selecting a specialisation is a major step in deciding a career and should be taken after much deliberation and introspection. Today there are colleges that offer MBAs across several niche areas like clean energy, petroleum and telecom. Specialised MBA education equips you better for a particular sector and such candidates are often preferred when it comes to jobs in that sector.

Facilities

A good B-school ensures an all-round experience in making you a competent professional. The course not only consists of gruelling classroom sessions and presentations but also of evening fun and cultural programmes.

It is therefore important to take a note of all the facilities available for studying as well as leisure. You need to look for some basic details before joining a college. Find out if the library is well stocked, the college has a provision for physical activities, classes have audio visual aids and whether there are separate discussion rooms. Also ensure that the campus has Wi-Fi connectivity and while at it you could also check for the quality of food served in the mess.

Affiliation

Now that you have a list of colleges that you could apply to, you should gain knowledge about the universities these programmes are affiliated with. Sometimes, the colleges are not recognised by the industry or affiliated to any university and students end up with degrees that are not recognised by the industry. To escape that fate, check if the particular programme you intend to join is industry recognised, validated by a university recognised by AICTE.

Seats allowed

It has been found in many cases that some colleges have approval for a limited number of admissions to a course, but violate this law and add more students. However, when the course is completed and the matter comes to light, the university declines to offer any degree to those extra students, thereby causing trouble. Hence, it is essential to ascertain the number of seats that the college is permitted to provide prior to taking admission.

Fee structure

B-school education has become expensive. Finalise your budget and then search for colleges which offer the best in your range. In fact, by following the above steps, you can arrive at a college which offers more value than many colleges that charge exorbitant fees.

Although there could be many other parameters on which you could decide a B-school for admission, the above is a checklist that all aspirants must go through before doing an MBA. Some other factors that can also be kept in mind are industry exposure in terms of summer internships, socially relevant projects, residential vs. non residential campuses and success graphs of alumni. The key idea is to select the best possible option that suits one’s professional objectives.   

(The writer is CEO and co-founder, PurpleLeap)