The methodology has been changed from the one used last year (Outlook, September 10, 2001), to give weightage to the perception of different stakeholders-recruiters, faculty and students of the various business schools. There were two reasons for this.,p>One, we felt that mere numbers like median salary or the number of computers do not tell the full picture, there are qualitative aspects of the education provided in business schools which figures do not necessarily reflect.
Two, there are always apprehensions that a few business schools may be fudging figures and submitting inflated numbers to jack up their ranks. Wherever we felt any doubt about the veracity of the figures given by any business school, we conducted validation exercises and even made field visits to the schools. We must mention here that over 70 B-schools had to be dropped, some of them otherwise big names, for fudging data. But given the number of responses and finite time span, it is humanly impossible to validate every piece of data submitted by all the B-schools. But if we bring in the perceptual scores, they effectively neutralise any misrepresentation of data by a school.
So the B-schools were ranked based on objective data and the satisfaction scores of stakeholders. Invitations and questionnaires were sent to 530 B-schools to participate, 238 of whom responded. The survey was also open to all B-schools in India at www.indiabschools.com. This was followed by the validation exercise.
The objective scores were obtained by evaluating B-schools on four broad parameters.
These were then divided into sub-parameters(see table). Marks were allotted in a category by normalising against the topper in that category. Like, if marks for maximum salary are 55 and the highest in this category is Rs 15 lakh, marks allotted to an institute where maximum salary offered was Rs 3 lakh were 3/15X55 = 11. B-schools with curricula oriented to specialised subjects were listed under sectoral B-schools and evaluated against the same parameters.
A questionnaire was administered to over 1,500 executives to gauge their satisfaction level with various B-schools; 679 got back. The recruiters were asked to rate graduates of the B-schools they were familiar with against four parameters: knowledge of subject, analytical skills, communication and presentation skills, and ability to work in a team. The satisfaction survey for students and faculty was open to students and faculty of all B-schools at www.indiabschools. com from September 3, 2001. The aggregate score of the year-long exercise was taken to assess an institute. The satisfaction survey is a continuous exercise and the average score will be used for next year’s survey.
A poll was conducted among corporate executives to rank the top 10 post-1990 private B-schools, the period when proliferation of private B-schools took place. The detailed methodology and other findings are available at www.indiabschools.com and www.outlookindia.com.
The project team consisted of Premchand Palety, B.Bhattacharya, Anita Chandar, Naveen Bhatt, Tanmay Kumar Pradhan, Ajay Kumar and Udayaditya.
