As a part of the selection criteria, a number of management institutes also include a minimum percentage of marks to be scored by the students in their graduation for the students to be eligible to apply to such institutes.

Click here to view the graduation percentage requirements of select B-Schools.

CATEGORISATION OF THE TOP 90 B-SCHOOLS IN INDIA

Top 90 B-Schools in the country have been divided into seven broad categories. A numerical ranking often does not have a sound scientific basis. The parameters and, more importantly, the weightage given to these, tend to be extremely subjective. The resultant rankings too, are thus subject to many fierce debates. In this case, T.I.M.E. has used its extensive student database and experience in the field to categorise the Top 90 B-Schools.

Broadly, these categories are meant to aid the students in applying to institutes. Within a category, the institutes are of approximately the same quality. Of course, the categorisation is only indicative and students should make independent inquiries before taking a final decision about which institutes to apply to.

The Top Ten are the so-called 'Ivy-League' institutes like the IIMs and XLRI that every student dreams of securing an admission into. Many of these institutes are comparable with the best in the world. Indeed, some of them regularly feature in the lists released by international business magazines. These institutes invariably have a 100% placement record. Even the not-so-good students at these institutes manage to get very good jobs on account of the 'rub-off' effect of the institute.

The "AAA (Triple A)" & "AA (Double A)" categories of institutes are those that fall into the Top 30. They offer a high quality of education, faculty, and infrastructure facilities. These institutes have a 100% placement record and are considered to be just a notch lower than the 'Ivy-League' schools. A significant number of the top students at these institutes are able to secure placements that are comparable to those offered at the Top 10 institutes. Most students should be more than happy to join these institutes if they are able to get admission.

The "A" and "BBB (Triple B)" category of institutes offers a consistent quality of education in terms of faculty quality and infrastructure facilities even though these may not be comparable to those of the top 30 institutes. These institutes are successful in providing high quality placements to their top students, especially those with good communication skills, but do not have a 100% placement record. A student at one of these institutes would have to work extra-hard to secure a good rank and high marks so as to enhance his/her placement chances.

The "BB (Double B)" and B category institutes are those that are well regarded at the local level. These institutes may not provide too many national-level placement opportunities but are generally successful in providing placements to many of their students with prominent local companies.

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO

The first question that needs to be addressed is "How many B-Schools should I apply to?" While this is not an easy question to answer, it is not a difficult one either. The number of B-Schools that you should apply to depends on a few factors. Let us look at these factors and discuss how you should deal with this question depending on where you stand with regard to each of these factors.

The first factor is your budget. With the application (form) fee for each institute being in the range of Rs.500 to Rs.1600, you may not want to look at more than 10-12 institutes. If you think you can spare more money for applications, this number can go up. But, whatever be the number of institutes you want to apply to, it is always a good practice to select institutes across categories.

The second factor is what you are doing currently. If we look at three different categories of students, this would become clear: (a) in the first category is a student who is pursuing final year of graduation; (b) in the second category is a student who has completed graduation in last academic session, is not pursuing any higher studies, and is not working, and (c) the third category is a student who has completed graduation and is currently working.

In the first case, the student may be very keen on getting into a management institute but he/she can afford to try again next year if he/she does not get into an institute of one's choice. So, he/she may apply rather selectively.

The second category student has to make sure that he/she gets into some institute (a reasonably good one), come what may. So, the number of institutes that he/she has to apply, will be more than in the case of the first category student.

The third category student can really be very, very selective unless he has been working for more than 4-5 years (in which case, he may not want to lose further time in getting into a management institute).

The third factor in deciding the number of institutes to which you should apply to is your expected performance in the entrance exams. Depending on what the expected performance is, you may want to hedge your bets by applying to more institutes – particularly, to institutes across categories that we discussed above.

Now that you have decided on the number of institutes you will apply to, let us see how you will go about deciding the institutes to which you will apply. The cardinal principle is that to safeguard your interests and reduce your risk, you should apply to institutes in at least three different categories. The categories will themselves depend on your position in the Mock CATs that you take.

Apply to B-schools in three ‘Category’:

Around 25% of budget : Better than expected percentile category B-schools

Around 60% of budget : Expected percentile category B-schools

Around 15% of budget (Safety Net) : Lower than expected percentile category B-schools

It is also important to note that the performance in the actual exam is always expected to be better than the performance in Mock CATs. This is because of the fact that generally the serious aspirants take Mock CATs as compared to the large number of students taking the actual exam.

Finally, talk to the faculty members who will guide you in selecting institutes. On the basis of your Mock CAT scores, the faculty member would suggest appropriate institutes for you to apply. In most cases, this personalised approach is the best way to resolve any doubts.

In addition to the Top 90 B-Schools in the country, we have also listed other good B-Schools across the country . These are colleges which have a fairly standard curriculum with average infrastructure and faculty. However, many of these colleges are plagued by their inability to place their entire batch and often end up with a below par performance on the placement front. More often than not, these institutes are hampered by their location and also their relative inexperience as a management school. However, some of the colleges enjoy strong local industry support and are patronised by small and medium companies in the region. We have, for the sake of simplicity, grouped these colleges by region, and colleges in a particular group (region-wise) are approximately of the same level.

T.I.M.E.'s B-school Ranking

• Made keeping the interest and needs of students
• For complete guidance of students
• Is not biased/influenced
• Is done on the basis of actual facts & figures
• Is done taking the actual picture on-ground & discussing with current students/alumni
• Is not done looking at false claims & statistics made available by some B-schools as a marketing tool
• Multiple round of checking done at every level to ensure correctness & authenticity of data used for rankings

• Inputs from the B-school's Admissions Committee, Placements Committee & Director of the B-school
• Inputs from current students/alumni of the B-school
• Inputs from T.I.M.E. students across the country
• Discussion among all T.I.M.E. centres
• Comprehensive review every year