Symbiosis Institute of Business Management MBA Review By Rahul Karnani

SIBM is one of the hottest MBA colleges in the country. SIBM only accepts SNAP score and only students above 98 percentile gets admission to SIBM. Unlike many other B-Schools that have increased their seats SIBM still has limited seats as quality is given preference over quantity. Located in the outskirts of Pune, SIBM gives you one of the most pleasing environments to study. Pune being the new business hub, the opportunities provided by SIBM are at par with IIMs or XLRI’s. SIBM ranked 7th overall best B-School during my time and rightly so as some of the students grabbed the packages worth over 20 lakhs. Other than placements too, the institute has kept the flag of SIU (Symbiosis International University) fly high. SIBM is little cut-off from other prestigious colleges of the group and mostly because of the location and the assignments that we were given. Grinding would be the right thing to say as we were like wood cutters who had to cut jungle of jungles in two years time. No complaints though as all that was a part of leading successful life in future as success never comes easy.

I won’t say that course only covered the necessary subjects but many unwanted too. Increased subjects meant, increased hard work and a summer training after the second semester meant that I could go home only on Diwali’s were we had much needed 10 days break. Not to differentiate between other colleges or institutes but SIBM was expecting extremely high from students. Students had no option but to oblige as good CGPA’s left good impressions among the recruiters and the same company that offered 15 lakh job to 6 grader will give a 20 lakh job offer to 8 grader. We didn’t have a choice but to grind as hard as we can to make sure we fall under the marquee bracket.

The best of the best were hired as just like the students the criteria for the faculty was quite high. Along with teaching industrial experience also mattered. Faculty’s contacts were helpful as all of them had left an impact on the organizations they worked previously. In MBA, faculty won’t interact much and it took some doing from students end to extract something out of them. It wasn’t easy but me being me, made good connections with the faculty and that showed in the results and the final placements that we had. Making friends with faculty does help and therefore rather than being scared of them, try to get close to them.

Coming from a business background marketing specialization was more of a compulsion than choice for me. For marketing the choices become limited as RIL’s representative at the campus but didn’t invite a single bid from marketing students. Nevertheless, though banks and IT companies wanted us and even though we were underpaid or rather paid less than finance and HR students, out batch maintained a 100% placement record. Even for the students who wished to join their family business back home took up job because the figures were lip smacking. Marketing batch average placements were 12-13 LPA. From personal point of view, I got more than I desired for.

There were 3 wings of hostels and SIBM had one wing reserved. The first two floors of the hostels were girl’s hostel and boys were not allowed to use the stair case as they were only allowed to use the lifts. The girl’s hostel was just ready but not operational till my time. The Annex Block had a big library and though we could use the university library the hostel library was more than sufficient. Rooms were small in comparison to apartments as I never stayed at the hostel. From the hostel point of view though the rooms were big and more than anything else they were clean and had attached washrooms.

The college is located in Lavale where all other institutes of the group are destined to come under. The work was in progress but how much ever completed, the infrastructure was well and truly admiring. Some of the best architects were hired and everything was planned so well. Students were not allowed to use their personal vehicles inside the campus and therefore there were cycle stands at various corners. We could take from one end and park it to the other end. To make sure students have some unwinding at the end of a tough day, many stress buster games like squash and snooker rooms were in place. Outdoor sporting also was no less as the grounds were thoroughly maintained and on Sunday’s we had no business in staying at the room relaxing but we would turn up for a quick game of cricket or Volleyball. The Lentz dining hall was appropriate for a nice dinner as we could get home cooked style food even at the hostels.

For people who say they have enjoyed their campus life is lying but anything. From my perspective apart from Sunday’s, we were doing assignments till 11 pm. Sometimes it would go beyond that as well. The annual fest too didn’t had much of participation from SIBM students because we were so tired that investing time in practicing was out of our reach. Making friends and knowing their stories and journey was the best part of campus life because we had graduates from all disciplines at SIBM.