In my opinion, becoming a placement coordinator is the best way to make the most of the 2 years at IIM Lucknow. It lets you avail the best jobs and also you become a kind of head of the students who are just flattering you to land a decent job.
The curriculum is lacking and so are the placement scenarios. IIM Lucknow is the only IIM that never reveals the actual figures. The entire procedure is rigged and controlled by the placement coordinator. So becoming one will make your life easy as you will be scaling maximum benefits through minimal efforts.
My sister had a fairly poor interview experience and yet managed to get into IIM Lucknow. She was asked about the current issue of the world to which she mentioned the Syrian wars. He contradicted her saying it wasn’t a burning issue as it had been happening for more than 2 years. Flustered, she mentioned the US on the government's side. Further, the interviewer inquired her about her own opinion regarding the civil war. She confidently said that she couldn’t support any side due to the extremist quality of either of them. But the interviewer wasn’t satisfied and urged her to take a side and give a rather clear answer.
The discussion continued for a few minutes after which he asked her about the Kashmir issue.
After many diplomatic talks, he finally asked about her current role in the company and asked if she had any experience in E and P.
The interview was rather prolonged with a lot of contradictions and awkward situations. The interviewer kept cutting her off in the middle of answers. Toward the end, she was asked to solve a statistics problem which she managed to solve in 5 seconds. She was then asked to leave. She had little or no hopes of getting a call but as luck would have it she managed to get into IIM Lucknow.
There are mainly 3 MBA programs in India:
Before we dwell on the best one-year full-time executive MBA courses in India, let’s understand what exactly a one year program is.
The 1-year-program gained fame in India after the success of ISB in the early 2000s. IIMs and other institutes initiated the same and have been offering the 1-year program since late 2000s. This program mainly offers high-quality education for experienced professionals. Some best programs offered in India are
The admissions happen on the basis of GMAT, Essays, and Interviews. It is primarily meant for people with several years of experience but who want to upgrade their managerial skills.
The best part is that the 1-year-program is equivalent to an MBA internationally. Infact, major international rankings such as Financial Times consider the 1-year program. So the 1-year program at the top B-Schools in India will give you a similar experience academically.
As far as the IPMX course is concerned, it is not an Executive MBA.
Every college has its own list of features that makes it stand out among others. But what matters is which of those aspects aligns with your interests and conveniences. So to facilitate a better decision, I have listed the pros of both colleges.
SPJIMR Mumbai
Location: Located in the center of Mumbai, it enjoys a location advantage over IIM Lucknow. This makes it easier for students to avail opportunities and recruiters to visit the campus regularly.
Low batch size: It has a lower batch size in comparison to IIM Lucknow which means every student is well attended to and the competition is also not that tough.
Marketing: It’s the marketing capital of India with the most reputed marketing firms visiting the campus.
Exposure: It offers a rural stint and international exposure for every student which exposes them to the diversity of the course.
IIM Lucknow
Weighing the pros of both the colleges make your decision based on which pros you are keen to avail the most.
The student fraternity of ISB is very different from that of FMS and IIM Lucknow. ISB requires a minimum of 2 years and an average of 4 years of work experience for admission. Whereas IIM Lucknow and FMS focus more on academics and almost 40% of the batch comprises freshers. Others have 2 or fewer years of experience.
My answer is divided into 3 parts
If you have work experience of 2 or fewer years:
In this case, you should give up on ISB and totally focus on FMS or IIM Lucknow. Personally, I would suggest you go for IIM Lucknow because of its brand image. Despite the fact that FMS offers high ROI, you can never underestimate the value of an IIM tag.
If you have work experience of 2-3 years:
This is the toughest decision as you can nearly go for ISB but will be risking a lot including its extravagant fees. But you won’t regret choosing ISB because of its peers, faculty, research orientation, and campus life. It is also the place where all the big consulting firms come for placements. So if you value reputed firms a lot then go for ISB.
If you have above 3 years of experience:
Close your eyes and without thinking choose ISB.
The FPM or the Fellow Program in Management is a full-time, residential, fully financially supported doctoral program of the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
One of my friends joined IIM Kozhikode for research under financial accounting and control. According to her, the first year is full of rigor and a rigid curriculum. The FPM students share the curriculum with MBA students in the first year along with 3 FPM courses. The shared curriculum enables them to get in insight into various aspects of Management.
Like the first year, the second to has 3 semesters of 3 months each. This year comprises core FOm courses that give a depth understanding of methodologies and various econometric tools.
One major drawback my friend faced was the improper ratio between the number of courses and their period of study. The second year has 7 courses in each term which imply 12 days per subject which is insufficient. If we consider the 30 hours of classes per course, it means we attend classes for 210 hrs ( appr 8 days).
So IIM Kozhikode no doubt offers top-notch facilities and resources but you will have to prepare yourself to physically and mentally tire yourself to avail of them. FPM is an excellent course for research aspirants and not for casual learners.
Despite everything, IIM Calcutta is a much better business school overall than IIM Lucknow, regardless of the field. However, if you do not receive an offer from Calcutta, you may consider Lucknow. Some companies may not shortlist you because there will be candidates with far superior academic credentials. However, this is not a sufficient reason to avoid attending an IIM. You will have numerous opportunities to enhance your CV within the b-school through academic performance, winning b-school competitions (which often leads to a direct PPI), participating in PORs and other extracurricular activities, live projects, and so on.
Regardless of your prior academic performance, you will almost certainly be better off with an MBA from IIM Calcutta or Lucknow than without one, assuming you don't waste the two years in b-school doing nothing.
To begin with, when comparing two IIMs, the question is which is better, not which is the best.
The answer to this question is, of course, subjective.
IIM Calcutta is a more established institution than IIM Lucknow, and it consistently receives higher rankings. As a result, according to any layman or literate man, it will be better than IIM Lucknow.
IIM C is superior in terms of finance specialization and placements. IIM L is superior in terms of marketing specialization and placements.
IIM C is calm, whereas IIM L is frenetic.
IIM C fees are significantly higher than IIM L fees.
IIM C has a high percentage of engineers who go there, whereas IIM L has a wide range of academic disciplines.
IIM C Has more alums than IIM L. This is also a significant feature of how old the college is.
IIM Calcutta distributes its components and assigns weights to them in order to generate category-wise shortlists for the PI and WAT stages.
COMPONENTS | WEIGHTAGE |
CAT Overall Score | 28 |
Class Xth Marks | 10 |
Class XIIth Marks | 10 |
Gender Diversity Factor | 2 |
Total | 50 |
(A/B)*28 is the formula for calculating cat percentile weight.
To be on the safe side, you should score higher than the 99.7 percentile.
The following are the IIM Lucknow criteria for GD-PI shortlisting:
COMPONENTS | WEIGHTAGE |
CAT Scaled Score | 60 |
Class XIIth Marks | 10 |
Graduation Marks | 10 |
Work - Experience | 10 |
Academic Diversity | 5 |
Gender Diversity | 5 |
Total | 100 |
Given your academic credentials, 98.7+ can get you the call. (85th percentile for sectional cutoff)
If we compare PGDCM and PGDM at IIM Calcutta, we see that both the courses have the same networking, placements and even infrastructure.
Now if you compare both the IIMs, IIMC and IIML, there is hardly any difference in the curriculum or even placements. So deciding which IIM to go for depends on your own preferences.
But if you are planning to quit IT then I suggest going for the full-fledged MBA course from IIM Lucknow rather than a system at IIM Calcutta.
IIM Lucknow will offer excellent exposure and placements and you will end up getting an above average salary package for consulting.