Once you decide to pursue the post-graduate program in management, your next step will be to choose a good B-school that will groom you into a competent professional, during the two year study program. The management program is aimed to endow you with skills required to successfully manage the varied scenarios of the ever-changing business world. Therefore,it becomes extremely important for your career aspirations to make an informed choice at this juncture.

With a large number of B-schools opening in every nook and corner of the country, you may get overwhelmed in trying to make one of the most important decisions of your life. To help you through the decision making process, here are the top nine parameters that you need to consider while zeroing in on a business school:

1. Placement Records: An MBA program attracts individuals from diverse academic backgrounds such as graduates from humanities, commerce, life sciences, engineering and even medicine backgrounds, primarily because of the wide range of career options it offers. While zeroing in on an institution, we must take a look at the placement records of the B-school on a year-to-year basis.Statistics have revealed that—with the number of aspirants striving to seek admission to this coveted professional course witnessing an upsurge—colleges with a 100-percent placement track record every year, make it to the list of most-preferred management colleges of the country.
2. Industry Interface: Industry interface before venturing into the real corporate world plays a major role in the effectiveness of the management program offered by leading business schools.Taking on the challenges of the business world in a relatively short span of 2 years, trains you on all the areas of management with respect to different industry verticals such as banking and information technology.Interaction with the industry stalwarts during summer internship and other industry interface initiatives undertaken during the final year of college helps in broadening your horizons with respect to the business challenges and the possible ways to address them.
3. Learning Methodology: The learning approach followed by top-notch business schools is primarily based on case-study methodology, which is the simulation of the real world business scenario that you have to analyse and think of most innovative solutions to root out bottlenecks and problems. It helps you in developing decision-making skills and divergent or ‘’out of the box’’ thinking skills, to take on the challenges in the real world successfully. These business schools lay emphasis on ‘’learning by doing’’ to transform the students into future managers by
   • enhancing theircommunication skills
   • instilling self-confidence and
   • grooming their personalities in the desired manner
4. Course Structure: The decision to join a good business school also rests on the electives you want to pursue, during the two-year management program. The availability of electives of your choice in the B-school that you choose is an important parameter as it can be very crucial to your career goal and aspirations.
5. Faculty: What you learn and imbibe in a business school is exclusively dependent on who are your instructors or faculty.The full-time faculty employed by a credible business school should be experts in their fields with qualifications such as Ph.D or should have sound industry experience after the completion of their academic pursuits from excellent and premier institutions respected across the world.Some B-schools also engage part-time or visiting faculty from the corporate world.Experts from the industry can help you with insights on the current business trends as well as latest developments of the unpredictable and dynamic business world. Getting an opportunity to converse with the management gurus from different disciplines,results in broadening your horizons, with respect to facing real world complex business scenarios.
6. Infrastructure: Infrastructure is another important factor that you need to look into before deciding on a business school.Most of the reputed business schools offer full-time residential post-graduate programs in management. The campus equipped with state-of-the-art facilities will aid you in making the optimum utilization of resources available, with ample opportunities of undertaking research in any management discipline. To give you a good learning exposure and an adaptive environment, most of the accomplished business schools have separate academic blocks with spacious classrooms, lecture halls, conference halls or amphitheatre(s) along with a well-stacked library with online repositories, knowledge bank, leading business journals and a computer lab with high speed internet connectivity or even Wi-Fi facility.
7. Peer Feedback: The most tried and tested practice that one indulges in before choosing a business school is peer feedback.When you obtain positive reviewson a business school of your choice from your close associations, it comes asmore reliable and convincing. Interacting with the alumni of the respective business school also proves very helpful in presenting a clear picture before you with respect to your focus areas. This assists you in taking a well thought decision to opt for a good business school, which will play a key role in giving you an idea of the problems and difficulties that you might come across during your course of study.
8. Industry Perception: The decision of choosing a school to pursue a business management program should also be based on the industry perception. The various surveys and studies taken up by research firms help you in zeroing in on the top ranking business schools based on a number of parameters such as academic excellence and the feedback of the hiring companies. This feedback of the recruiting companies given to the business schools with respect to the students placed impacts their industry perception.This helps you in narrowing down on the options available with respect to the good business schools.
9. Fee Structure: A post-graduate program in management from a premier business school may appear expensive when you compare the fee structure with that of a cheap B-school but we all know that high quality comes at a price. However, you need to seriously deliberate on the fee payment structure offered.If the business school of your choice offers you the flexibility to deposit the fee in some instalments or helps you get an education loan from a banking institution, it can be an added advantage.Good management colleges even offer all the assistance you need to process the loan formalities till the education loan is sanctioned,making the fee structure manageable for you. The idea is to ensure that the deserving aren’t left out because of paucity of funds.

In a nutshell, relying on these parameters will help you make an informed decision on choosing the best business school you could join. With time, you will realize that your decision was in line with your dreams and aspirations. This will help you move a few steps closer towards accomplishment of your goals, preparing you to successfully take up the challenges of tomorrow’s volatile business world.