Minglebox.com, an education portal that provides comprehensive course and career guidance to students across India, has launched Online App 2010 — an online platform that enables students to apply to more than 100 MBA colleges across the country with the click of the mouse. Kavita Iyer, CEO of minglebox.com, shares her plans for the portal.
India has a growing student population, eager for information on courses, colleges and careers. Is this why you started this venture?
We started in 2006 as a campus networking site to help college communities interact and share content about academics, college festivals and other extra curricular activities. We gradually evolved into an education portal with a vision of creating a one-stop destination for education seekers in India. Students have plenty of choices in education, but they need direction. This is where we step in by furnishing information about colleges, new courses and institutions, without the student having to pay a single rupee for the information.
How well informed are students when it comes to making choices?
Youngsters continue to need guidance regarding colleges that deliver quality education in fields such as management studies, engineering, etc. For instance, after scoring a certain percentile in either CAT or MAT, they don’t know what to do next — where to apply and how to apply. We receive plenty of questions every day from students. They want to know how to prepare for GMAT/ CAT; how to apply to colleges in the UK, the US or Australia. There is a need to offer guidance. There is a huge demand for admission news, notifications, alerts and exam results. Over the next few months, we hope to rope in experts who will answer questions online or through a helpline. Eventually, our goal is to help students take informed decisions.
Tell us something your latest venture — Online Applications 2010.
CAT is the first step that most students take to get a seat in a management college of their choice. Then comes the question: what next? The tedious part is the application process, where students have to fill out admission forms of different colleges, approach banks for demand drafts and send them out to the respective institutes. The application process can be a very time-consuming. So, we have come up with Online App 2010, a platform that assists students in filling out error-free admission forms to more than 100 MBA colleges across the country with just a click of the mouse. A student needs to enter basic information like name and education details. Once this information is stored in our database, it is automatically entered into admission forms of all the institutes that the student wishes to apply to. Only when all the details are entered, is the PDF generated. If not, an error message flashes on the screen. An additional vital feature is the presence of a reminder list that informs students about the due dates of different application forms.
But students will still have to get demand drafts and send them out to the colleges of their choice. Any plans to aid students with the payment procedure?
We do plan to create an integrated online solution. Not only can students fill forms; they can also pay online and send the form directly to the college of their choice. The idea is still under development, but we hope to introduce this feature by next year. This will also depend on the readiness of colleges to accept online payment.
How different is your education portal from other online platforms like PagalGuy.com or Admissionhelp.com?
It’s purely the scale and scope of our activities that differentiates us from others in the same space. We currently provide details of more than 30,000 courses across 8,000-9,000 institutes. Often students are faced with having to choose between an MBA from an college in India or a course abroad, a postgraduate MBA or a postgraduate diploma in business studies. We help them make an informed choice.
Going by the feedback your portal receives, what kind of courses are currently in demand?
Vocational courses, for sure. Animation, aviation, fashion design are attracting hordes of students. As for traditional courses, MBA and engineering are still the hot favourites.
Where do you see minglebox.com a few years down the line?
Minglebox will be a single-point online destination for Indian students to meet their education and career needs. For educational institutes, it will be an effective medium to reach out to students. It will empower both students and educationists.
