The Truth About IIPM's Tall Claims

Just came across the article in JAM mag’s website which  reveals the truth behind this self-made-star institute.
It claims that all the hype surrounding the IIPM (The Indian Institute of Planning and Management) is false.
Right from the placements offered , rankings mentioned, fake facilities promised, to the assosiasion with extreamly low profile UK college.

It claims that only 50% of the students actually get placed and that too in some direct marketing job and others have to hunt their dream job of their own.
The degree offered is not recognised by AICTE, UGC or other state acts. And the rankings mentioned according to Outlook are also fake.

Writer found that none of the company mentioned in the employer’s list had ever visited the campus.
Just go through the article, its very well written.
And spread the word and save our freinds from falling into the IIPM’s trap.
click here to read the complete article.

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It seems the article link is not working, here is the complete article taken from 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eie_vec/message/144


THE PLACEMENTS:
Arindam Chaudhuri, in an interview with the Times News Network, stated - " As far as placements are concerned, I admit that due to the historically established industry bias, IIMs and a few other institutes get better packages. But we are catching up fast. What is important is that all our students get placed." Let's just repeat that last sentence - "ALL OUR STUDENTS GET PLACED".

Now you'd expect the Dean of the institute to have the best data about placements in his college, right? WRONG!

Student Speak We spoke to several students who passed out from IIPM (Mumbai campus) in 2004 and 2005, and this is what we found: 1. Only around 50% (a liberal estimate) of the students got placed in companies through the college. 2. Most of the jobs that were offered to students were for marketing DSAs (Direct Selling Agents). 3. Not enough companies came to the campus to recruit, and those that came took on an average of 4-5 students. 4. A number of the students were hired by Planman Consulting, which is IIPM's consulting branch. 5. The students who did not get placed were left to fend for themselves. Swapneel, who passed out in 2004, says "Only around 30-40% of the class got placed. The remaining have to hunt for jobs on their own. " Swapneel had to hunt for a job himself as he did not get placed through IIPM's campus placements. "I posted my resume on naukri.com and other job websites, and then got a job through a placement agency." He currently works at General Electric in Collections. Statistics IIPM does not offer any organised statistics about its placements. We spoke to Anirudh Sharma, the Campus Placements Manager at IIPM Delhi, and were told that that information will not be available. He said "We can give a list of recruiters, but detailed information is not available." This means that no one can know exactly which companies came to IIPM campuses during any particular year, and how many students a company picked up. We did a random search of a few private B-schools including TAPMI, NMIMS and Welingkars. All of them had the data available on their websites. Placed Where? And speaking about websites, the "Placements" section on IIPM's website has not been updated for 2 years, and still features their old advertisements that claimed McKinsey & Co. as one of their on-campus recruiters. We had earlier checked with officials at both McKinsey & Co. and McKinsey Knowledge Center (just to make sure), and at both places we were told the same thing - neither of them have hired students from IIPM campuses. In response to a mail sent to them regarding the matter, a senior official at McKinsey said, "We have neither hired anyone from IIPM, nor picked up anyone for summer training till date." "The Year 2005 has seen more than 400 companies visiting the IIPM Campus..." Max New York Life is one of the companies mentioned in the ad as one which has 'visited the campus'. Kapil Mehta, VP Business Development Max New York Life, says "We have never visited IIPM campuses for placements." There is, though, one IIPM student working at Max New York Life's head office in Gurgaon, but this student got the job by applying himself, and not via IIPM. "Highest International Package: 36 lacs" Everyone knows the name of the student from IIM Ahmedabad who was placed with HSBC for a record $152,000(Ravi Singhvi, for the uninitiated). We called IIPM to find out about their prodigious "36 lacs" placement, and were transferred to four different people before being told that the placement was from Delhi, to a company called Primus Telecom. Still no name of the student placed though. Also, a majority of IIPM's international placements are to Planman Consulting ofiices in different countries. ING Vysya, mentioned in IIPM's ads as a campus visitor, has also never been to IIPM for campus placements. Rakesh Parangat, HR Manager for ING Vysya Business, said "IIPM had approached us for a summer placement initiative, but we didn't find it worthwhile... ING has not been to IIPM campuses to recruit students. If an ex-student, so to speak, of IIPM has been hired by ING it is because of that person's own initiative." Sri Ganesh, HR Manager for ING Vysya Life Insurance also confirmed the same. "ING Life has not been to ANY college for recruitment, let alone IIPM" he says. We also spoke to Mr. Ajay Kumar, Management Development Manager, HLL. He informed us that HLL has never visited IIPM's campuses for recruitment. We are told though that HLL Network, the direct selling arm of HLL, has hired students from IIPM. The jobs that these students are given are related to sales and direct marketing. The pay scales, perks and designations are considerably lower than those of the students hired by HLL. Kalpana Rao, Talent Director Ogilvy & Mather India, confirmed to us that O&M haven't been to IIPM for recruitment. "We haven't gone to any campus" she said. She also told us that O&M had not hired anyone from IIPM in the recent past. The Visitors Rahul Rai, an HR representative at Indiabulls (IIPM's major recruiter - 20+ recruitments from the Mumbai campus) informed us that the IIPM students hired are placed as Selling Agents, or Selling and Relationship Agents. Their job profile is "Generating new clients and servicing them by providing investment advice on day-to-day basis." The pay package offered to these students is Rs.4.5 lacs p.a of which only Rs.1.8 lacs is fixed and the remaining Rs.2.7 lacs is variable. Oracle, also mentioned in the advertisements as a campus recruiter, informed us that they didn't visit any B-school last year for placements, and instead conducted an off-campus program at Mumbai in Dec. '04. They did telephonic interviews with the B-Schools in the western region and IIPM Mumbai & Pune were among them. This year they plan to visit the B-Schools for placements and both these institutes are there in their list. They hired 4 students last year and the compensation was Rs.4 lacs cost-to-company. Students also informed us that companies like ABN Amro and American Express also visited the campus.