http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?xml=0&catkey=-2128 "The thirteenth edition of the Which MBA survey, published by The Economist, ranks IIM-A as the most difficult school to get into. While the Ahmedabad college scores 4.9 on a 5-point scale measuring the difficulty of getting admission, US schools like the Harvard Business School (4.6) and Columbia University (4.5), as well as Spain's Instituto de Empressa (4.4) and France's Insead (4.2), are comparatively easy to get into. "
Sorry, the link dosen't work .. MUMBAI: It's that time of year when tuxedos are coming out of the closet, hopes are spiralling and comperes are practising their intonations: 'and the winner of this year's...' But far away from the bright lights, what could well be dubbed the Oscars of management education have just been announced, and the dark horse that has overtaken its American and European rivals is the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. The thirteenth edition of the Which MBA survey, published by The Economist, ranks IIM-A as the most difficult school to get into. While the Ahmedabad college scores 4.9 on a 5-point scale measuring the difficulty of getting admission, US schools like the Harvard Business School (4.6) and Columbia University (4.5), as well as Spain's Instituto de Empressa (4.4) and France's Insead (4.2), are comparatively easy to get into. The Economist survey points out that IIM's rating is not surprising considering that there are 250 applicants for each seat at the institute. In terms of course content, the first IIM to be set up in the country again appears in the top five, and gets a rating of 90 per cent, superseded only by Yale, Harvard, IE and the Paris-based Haute Etudes Commerciales (HEC). Although US schools take the top two places, the number of US schools in the top ranks has dropped from 12 to six in the last year. Similarly, in terms of quality of faculty, IIM-A is ranked sixth on the list, ahead of European schools like Cambridge's Judge School of Business and the London Business School. Not surprisingly, the only category where IIM-A finishes near the bottom of the MBA pile is in terms of starting salaries. While students of Columbia, Harvard, Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley start earning over $100,000 on an average as soon as they graduate, IIM-A graduates' average starting salaries are a measly $43,000 per annum. The only universities in the survey that pay lower starting salaries are the Chinese University and the National University of Singapore. However, the survey points out that some of the discrepancies in salaries could also be due to the type of students a school attracts. For instance, The Ashridge Management College in the UK tends to attract older students who are already high-flyers, which ends up boosting the school's average salary to $136,000. At IIM-A, for instance, students tend to embark on MBAs directly after finishing their bachelor degrees, which tends to pull down starting salaries. But if IIM-A graduates feel impoverished compared to their Western peers, when it comes to bagging a job, the systems at the college are comparable with the best. While Spain's IE is rated an impressive 93 by its students and graduates for their career and placement services, Yale and IIM-A occupy the next two slots with scores of 89 and 88 respectively, ahead of Harvard (84), Columbia (83) and Purdue (85). The Economist survey was conducted across the top 40 business schools in the world and is based on extensive research, including on-campus visits and interviews with 4,500 students from these institutions.
