What are India's top IIMs doing to prepare students for the digital age?

Started in 2013, the ranking, in its 10th edition, has witnessed significant improvement in the number of data points, while the fundamentals remain the same - providing the most credible and exhaustive rankings of India's best business schools based on the most recent data

B-schools that offer full-time classroom management programmes (PGDM/MBA), established at least five years ago and with at least three batches graduated till academic year ended 2022 are considered. Based on five parameters (Learning Experience, Living Experience, Selection Process, Placement Performance and Future Orientation), the list has been prepared taking into account all aspects of management education. The weightages (out of 1,000) of the parameters are unchanged from last year to maintain consistency and comparability.

Based on the current year's data, an objective questionnaire of 127 attributes was drafted to obtain the latest and most relevant information on each parameter and sub-parameter. More than 2,500 B-schools meeting the eligibility criteria were contacted through various channels. As many as 283 of them responded within the deadline. Two entries were not considered as they failed to meet the eligibility criteria.

After receiving their responses, doing logical checks and validating them, back-checks first stage, every aspect of the details provided by the B-schools was examined through past data, mandatory disclosures and website visits, among other things. In the second stage, verification and audits were conducted by MDRA researchers to ensure the accuracy of the data submitted and audits were conducted on the data. In the first stage, every aspect of the details provided by the B-schools was examined through past data, mandatory disclosures and website visits, among other things. In the second stage, verification and audits were conducted by MDRA researchers to ensure the accuracy of the data submitted.

Nearly 15 per cent of the participating B-schools were physically visited by the research team to verify the authenticity of the data. During the past 10 years, MDRA researchers have visited close to 600 campuses to verify various information provided by participating institutes. After cross-checking the data with the original documents/infrastructure, some irregularities were corrected. The scores of the five parameters were then summed up to get each institute's total objective score. The final rank was assigned to B-schools based on objective data after various levels of cross-validation through multiple sources and physical audits. A large team comprising researchers, statisticians, econometricians and analysts worked on this project from April to September 2022.

The MDRA core team, led by Executive Director Abhishek Agrawal, comprised Abnish Jha (Project Director), Vaibhav Gupta (Assistant Research Manager), Aditya Srivastava (Assistant Research Executive), Roshni Satwani (Assistant Research Executive) and Manveer Singh (Executive EDP).