MBA - A degree for the riches

It was Diwali vacation. I was travelling in the train to see one of my relatives. Suddenly, my phone rang.

"Hi Pranav, I want some advice regarding MBA. I mean, which forms should I fill? I am appearing for CAT this November."

I replied spontaneously, "How much you are expecting? As in, how much are you scoring in your mock CAT's?"

"Around 90%ile", he said.

Then suddenly those words brought me into my past because I saw him at the same platform where I was a year ago.

Then I thought, do I have the same advice for everyone? Obviously, the answer was ‘No'.

I remembered the most important lesson while I was filling forms last year. Before entering the B-school, I spent around Rs. 30,000 on forms just because I didn't want to leave any scope of a drop out. To avoid every possible risk, I filled all the forms ranging from 85%ile to 95%ile. This was just because I knew I was a mediocre and my Dad has a lot of money.

The lesson I learnt here was that how even a reputed B-school earns money by selling forms (even before student takes admission) to students irrespective of the low family income. The poor students have to manage it. After all, doing MBA is of utmost importance.

I basically belong to Kanpur. Not every B-school has the interview center at Kanpur. So, I had to travel throughout India to go through interview process for a much needed admission.

Then a thought brought smile on my face. The thought was about my travelling schedule which was:-

15th February- MH-CET in Delhi.

17th February- IMT in Indore.

20th February- IBS and XIME in Hyderabad (got XIME rescheduled due to clash in dates).

22nd February- MICA in Delhi.

28th February- ISBM in Delhi.

1st March - LBSIM in Delhi& XIME (rescheduled) in Bangalore (skipped XIME due to clash again, wasted 800 bucks)

2nd March - SDMIMD in Delhi.

3rd March - Kirloskar (KIMS) in Lucknow.

5th March - FORE in Delhi.

18th March - BIM in Chennai.

23rd March - IIPS in Gandhinagar.

24th March - KJ Somaiya in Delhi.

26th March- NIBM in Delhi.

18th April- UBS in Chandigarh.

18th June- Counseling of UBS in Chandigarh.

Nearly I attended all the interviews. Thanks to the train and flight connectivity system and my rich dad who paid all that money (ticket and the hotel rent as I do not have relatives at every city I visited) just to make sure I get into a B-school of my choice.

I converted a few of the B-schools I applied. Finally, I took admission in IMT for which I paid Rs. 7.96 lac. Thanks again to my rich dad.

Now after all these thoughts I wondered what kind of advice should I offer to him; I knew about his family which will not be able to afford all this expenditure.

There are many such mediocre candidates who with their hard work manage to get a decent college and hope of better future. Their dreams get shattered to hear the fee structure of the colleges. Even the likes of IIM's and MDI charge a fee of above Rs. 10 Lac. Do such hard working students have no right to study in good B-schools?

Now you yourself decide,is MBA only for the riches?

The only solution that came into my mind is to open up more government institutes which should join the league of FMS Delhi and UBS Chandigarh (to name a few). They have a fee structure which nearly every individual can afford. Also, each state should be allotted with more than three interview centers to make travel easy and affordable to lower class students.

At last I want to quote that, "Money and a little hard work can't buy Intelligence but surely an MBA degree."