Why is there such an obsession with IIMs when other top private business schools have comparable placements and quality?

The debate around India's MBA college hierarchy is one we encounter constantly, and it's worth unpacking carefully. The core question — why do IIMs receive disproportionate attention when institutions like XLRI, MDI, SP Jain, and SIBM Pune demonstrate strong placement outcomes and quality cohorts — is legitimate, and the picture that emerges from experienced professionals and alumni perspectives is genuinely nuanced.

There's a meaningful strand of agreement with this critique. We've seen this perspective from experienced professionals who point out that newer or baby IIMs often place candidates in roles significantly below what established private institutions like XLRI, MDI, and SP Jain offer. In practical terms, that gap can cost a graduate roughly 3 additional years of work experience before reaching an equivalent career level — despite paying similar fees. That's not a trivial trade-off. A separate but related view we've tracked is that over a 30+ year career, MBA fees become effectively negligible, which shifts the real question away from ROI calculations based on first-year salary and toward which institution delivers the highest median placement. Both are defensible frameworks, and which one applies depends heavily on your financial position and career horizon.

On specific institutions, SIBM Pune tends to be underrated in these conversations. From what we've seen across alumni perspectives, including from professionals at institutions like Masters Union, brand value dominates the outcome of your first job — but individual growth matters significantly more over the long run. Within that framing, SIBM Pune holds a clear position: it outperforms second-generation IIMs, offers residential campus benefits that NMIMS does not, and consistently beats NMIMS in placement outcomes despite broadly similar costs. Among non-IIM institutions, only FMS, XLRI, SPJIMR, MDI, and IIFT are generally ranked ahead of it — a short list that most applicants underestimate.

NMIMS draws consistent criticism that we think deserves honest acknowledgment rather than dismissal. At a total cost of 34 to 50 lakhs including living expenses, the absence of hostel facilities is a structural disadvantage. The batch size is large enough that it meaningfully complicates placement outcomes, and that combination — high cost, no campus residency, placement pressure from batch volume — makes it difficult to justify over stronger alternatives at comparable price points. The characterisation we've seen from experienced voices is blunt: it functions as a last resort when stronger options aren't available. It's also worth noting that part of the NMIMS perception problem stems from multiple campus dilution, where the same brand name operates across locations with inconsistent outcomes, which erodes confidence in the flagship itself.

The counterargument to all of this, and it's one we think deserves equal weight, is that brand perception in India's job market is not irrational. It heavily influences first-job prospects in ways that are real and documented, even if long-term career growth ultimately depends on individual performance. This is why the older, established IIMs — the ABC tier — retain justified prestige. Their brand is consistent, their recruiter relationships are deep, and the network effect is compounding over decades. The obsession with IIMs broadly, however, often extends to institutions where that brand strength doesn't hold at the same level, and that's where aspirants can make expensive miscalculations.

In our experience, the clearest way to think about this is: established IIMs earn their reputation, baby IIMs largely do not justify the halo they inherit, and a strong set of private institutions — XLRI, MDI, SP Jain, SIBM Pune — are structurally underrated relative to where they actually place graduates. Knowing that distinction, and making your decision accordingly, is worth more than following the conventional hierarchy uncritically.