Pagalguy B School rankings are referred to from quite some time now. In fact, its the most referred-to rankings – considered as one of the most genuine one. However, I was wondering how accurate it is and moreover, shall students base their choose-or-drop decisions on this ranking? After going through the methodology mentioned on their website, I wonder how genuine is Pagalguy B School rankings!
The underlying belief – “Perception captures everything”
Pagalguy team is working hard to get this done however they mention this on their website, “The underlying belief – “Perception captures everything” which essentially means the ranking is based on what a respondent thinks and not on facts.
Perception best vs Actual Best
Consider this – Lets say there is a task to rank all bollywood actors. ‘Acting’ is very subjective and hence ‘voting’ for such activity is one good way to come up with unbiased results. A good actor may also be defined by his fan following; more votes justifies his job well done. On the other hand, Salman Khan may not be a good actor (acting wise), but it can’t ever be quantified! And since voting is based on perception, its cool to have it that way.
Can we base our B School rankings on such methodology & on such premise; where facts hold more importance than perceptions. Here, a B School’s quality and performance can be very much quantified on a (any) scale.
Pagalguy B School Rankings
Considering an example, here is a comparison question between MDI and IIFT. (Exactly the way Pagalguy.com does it)
- If the respondent is from MDI (student or alumni) – the answer will be biased, naturally.
- If the respondent is from IIFT – the answer will be biased.
- If respondent is from none - he anyways doesn’t have idea about either of these. He hasn’t studied in either IIFT or MDI; really makes no point in considering this response as valid.
So if someone is believing the survey results, he/she should be aware that its what people ‘perceive’ about a B School; in-actual a college can be better or worse. This holds true for top 10 colleges too; may be there is little deviation in top 10 – IIM B, FMS may have better quality education than IIM A. Also true, that IIM A would be somewhere around there among the top.
However, if you are considering comparison between colleges ranked 22, 27 and 30 (just an example) - have a rational thought around it.
Who are the respondents?
It gets even worse, when it is quite obvious and well known ‘who are the respondents of such surveys’. When students and alumni of B Schools are the one who vote, what are the chances that they will choose some other college over their’s?
I understand that duplicate/multiple entries and bogus votes can be easily identified considering the technology involved; in spite of that, the validity and reliability of survey is under serious question.
Just as the Best Actor example, Salman Khan may get the best actor award through maximum votes; while actual best can be someone else. Its pretty clear here, the best B School through ‘Popular Demand’ may not be the best; which puts each ranked position in question.
Is the ranking more about what people ‘think’ or should it be ranked based on predefined parameters? Imagine, school teacher (teachers) deciding your class ranks based on their ‘perception’!!! Make your case in the comment section.
Since students consider Pagalguy.com’s ranking as one of the most genuine; one may arrive at a decision on peoples’ perception, which isn’t the right way of making one. If this article reaches Pagalguy team, I would request them to consider giving it another thought. There may not be a perfect way to do this task, however there can a better process than this one!
true… somebody get this to pagalguy’s notice..
absolute stupidity in rankings
I dont believe this.. I always refer pagalguy but i never knew the way they used to do this.
I never voted, so i didnt know about it.
I am a current B-School student and I have participated in this year ranking survey of Pagalguy with my facebook account. In the initial questions asked before B-School comparison questions I was asked to select if I am a student of particular school and after selecting my school none of the B-School comparison questions involved my school but only other schools.
But I agree with other points of yours that rankings cannot be followed blindly
This article looks like a desperate attempt to write a post rather than to do some real analysis…
Firstly because this is not any secret.. Quoting directly from pagalguy, “Consequently, these are the rankings of India’s Most Preferred B-schools, and NOT India’s Best B-schools.” I dont think the post has said anything better than the quoted line..
Secondly, pagalguy rankings are unique in the sense that they capture the perceptions formed by the REAL stakeholders, the students…The objective of the pg ratings is that these reflect how the management students and aspirants regard/perceive different institutions after getting exposed to several news articles,different ratings by different magazines, feedback by friends etc.,.Its not right to compare this ranking with other rankings..
However, the article might caution those who base their decisions on these rankings..
That’s the whole point
How come ‘perceptions’ turn into ‘rankings’?? And exactly which is mentioned in the post – even these perceptions / ideas / opinions are BIASED.
As mentioned before, this is like your teacher ranking you 15 in class based on his perception, when you actually deserved to be rank 5. Even worse here, imagine your class mates ranking you – that’s what happening in pagalguy ranking! Every body is ranking them 1. Rest – who cares!!?
What’s the purpose of having such an activity.
Don’t know about preferences of B Schools; students definitely prefer Pagalguy rankings over any other source – who get carried away by perceptions of people, rather than the actual rankings.
I dont think the above comment has said anything better than its last line..
Classmates rating each other has been formally implemented by Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor in his Masters courses based on projects in CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center that designs video games. As opposed to ranking each other, they rate each other on parameters (not like Pagalguy did), based on which Dr. Pausch later assigned ranks to students. Read his book ‘The Last Lecture’ for more information.
Dude, perception is an initial reaction to any thing be it a person, brand or educational institute or even countries. Perception affects stock markets or world economies indicated by many agencies like S&P, Crisil, E&Y etc .
Yes we can agree that perception is not every thing on which all the parameters can be decided, but it has its own significance and mostly after a CONSIDERABLE PERIOD OF TIME people come to know whether their perception about any entity is right or wrong. So i think that people who voted in the survey definitely did it best to their abilities and I am sure the PG team did their best in deciding the rankings.
Ravi
I might perceive, the girl you are dating isn’t good enough for you.. How true would that be?
I hope you’ll understand the point I tried to make.
If you will say the girl i am dating is not good, then certainly I will not believe you. But yes if 500-600 people say that she is not good, then I may give some consideration but if the entire town is saying so then i will believe them. (fingers crossed ).
If 1 person tells you, you are a horse then send him to a shrink, if 2 people tell u that then ignore them. If 4 people tell you, you are horse then may be it is time to check your hooves and if 10 people say so then its time to purchase a saddle.
I hope you’ll understand the point I tried to make.
I do understand! But if u relate this to the context.. none of those 500 ppl or town citizens have any knowledge or experience whether ur girl is good or otherwise.
And also, the quote sounds nice – does that mean if one person says something thats true u might not believe, and if 500 try to convince you on something thats wrong, u may consider it right… and if a town says whatever, u ll follow!
And here, u have all the means to check thru facts whether what all are saying is right or not! Then y believe in perceptions or collective opinions.. ??
Argumentum ad populum (appeal to widespread belief, bandwagon argument, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people) – where a proposition is claimed to be true or good solely because many people believe it to be so.
Kalyan,
Have you voted? I have.
After taking my school, I was shown no questions about my school.
However, I was asked questions about schools I’d never even heard of. In that case, my perception doesn’t count for much, does it?
Or schools I’ve only just heard of but have no actual knowledge about; again, in such cases my “perception” is pretty fucking useless.
Also, if it’s only a collation of “perception” then maybe Pagalguy should rename this as the “B-school Perceptions Ranking”, no?
pagalguy is all about rumours and speculations rather than any true facts
with all respect, if u r saying there is a better ranking system plz share it.
because i dont think it is worse than most other corporate rankings, conducted by many business mags. where in you wont find at least this much of transparency.
to say one example… lets compare FMS-BHU and Ta Pai managemnet institute. Ta Pai is certainly more well known than BHU.
FMS-BHU has 96 students per batch. Ta Pai managemnet institute has around 400 per batch, and the way you are saying ‘if a student is from either of the two colleges, i concede that i would be biased. but i believe that number of students also play a part. how come an institute which has 400 student base (per batch) has lost 9 places and the other with hardly a 100 students gained 13 places.
so what i like to point out is, these are thus far BETTER rankings than most other. i say it again, TO A MOST EXTENT.
Sandeep
fact regarding TAPMI and FMS Bhu as u put in i will tell u I will go for TAPMI looking at its placement reports as audited by Third party and the infrastructures.
And yes if u are looking to get admision this year then you can diffrentialte a school with 400 ppl thats not at all correct as its 2011-13 passing batch Has 240 students,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, it has approval for a 425 intake. get ur facts correct or i would guess u commented for the shake of replying .
Comming back to ur point. a school in this time of recession can place its students 100% with avg pack 8+ , is some good achievement that needs no acknowledgement.
PS:- i am a prospective MBA aspirant and Currently a Asst. Manager in a Core MNC
Sandeep, I can understand what you want to convey.
I completely agree, other rankings aren’t transparent; however, how transparent is pagalguy ranking is another question. Considering users responses is making it more involving for all of us, but does it make it transparent? (it certainly makes it look transparent)
In fact, your point bolsters this blog post – where number of students passing out of a school is another way rankings would differ – which shouldn’t happen ideally. An institute is as good as its education, not the number of students!
And you also mentioned – “so what i like to point out is, these are thus far BETTER rankings than most other. i say it again, TO A MOST EXTENT.”
This is a disappointing statement, as a ranking is either fair/honest or it isn’t. A ranking list cannot be “better” than the other.
First off, I’d say that Satyam has made quite a few valid points……
The point is, exactly what information is being conveyed by the ranking system, and how can it lead to tangible improvement of Business education for all, without folks trying to game the rankings…..
There are basically three things this ranking can accomplish…..
1. Shows all stakeholders whether their efforts to improve the school and its image/marketability are bearing sufficient fruit, vis a vis the competition…..
2. This is very similar to election voting trends before the elections…… It creates a “halo” effect for the top schools, because regardless of what methodology you use, or the number of voters in the system(biased or not), the top schools offer the best deal as far as market perceptions go (from the quality perspective of the incoming students)….
3. If respondents are biased, the bias will reflect that reality, if the bias is preexisting in the market….. Which then is an actual reflection that perception of value trumps over actual value in the buying decision of the students…..
I think what Pagal guy needs to do is…. take the study edgier….. How ?
Can we look at creating a best school for the money spent ? a sort of P/E ratio for the B schools ?
Output generated/input costs and expenses will give you a gearing of how effectively a bschool leverages the input talent……
So given a Cat score of X.XX what was the kind of profile the student got and at what firm and at what price….. This can be done for all schools
So a student can identify for his/her Cat/Gmat score, what school delivers the best possible future and the cost/benefit analysis over and above that to select between closely grouped institutes at the relevant scores….
For guys who want to rip this idea off…… please note that I claim the intellectual rights for this and any other spinoff from this idea….. Please do use the idea…. just remember to factor in my IP costs….. Just to keep it simple…. to use this idea… you need to part with 40% of the company stock to me….. I am pretty serious…..
So guys and gals….. Enjoy !
Alright guys, so for all those who have been asking for a better way of ranking!!! BRK RamaKrishnan has made a great start…
His idea seems a good way to letting people know which college would suit a candidate w.r.t one’s CAT/GMAT score, budget and ROI expected – rather than a clear list of college ranks…and believe me, this is even better. Consider this a set of rankings for range of CAT scores than only one list of rankings..
So while you have your score (or estimated score) you know which range of colleges would suit best according to you / your intelligence and score for the right returns on education investment you are looking for.
Great! Readers are more than welcome to add on to this idea..
and yes, lets give the copy rights to BRK Ramakrishnan and all those who add value to this..
Pagalguy, I hope you are following this comments section… people might just come up with a better version.. user collaboration, u know!
Cheers
Thanks Satyam…..
Having done my MBA, you do need to improve things for all….. If there is an improvement, then all do need to compensate the creator of the improvement….
All too often, creators end up with virtually nothing…. witness Steve Wozniak vs Steve Jobs, Wiklevoss brothers vs Mark Zukerberg……
The reason India does not progress, is the fact that inventors, discoverers and problem solvers are given only medals and certificates, not a secure livelihood, that allow them to dream up ways to better things even more…..
Since this is a place where future managers come, I just wanted to make the point that innovations and innovators need to be nurtured, sustained and maintained in a manner that is systematic and fair…..
Very well said BRK..
I stil doubt, whether illustrative rankings fetch us good managers!
none the less, i respect your point of view..
Why dont we collaborate over your idea and implement this..
More ideas on this are welcome from fellow readers..