When a spade is never a spade...

Well, if you had even been remotely watching the university and grad school scenario for some time, you probably know what I’m going to write. This is one of those one-off ‘inquisitive’ kind of posts, the likes of which I generally tend to avoid. But of all the things I don’t understand in the Indian college education culture, one is this: never say the truth, come what may.

Every street corner guy knows that the salaries top Engineering institutes and top B-schools quote are oft inflated. I myself don’t know what the relative truth is, but perception does percolate, even to me. Why can’t information be quoted as is across all grad schools, or, for that matter, across all universities and colleges across India? What really is the problem if everyone calls a spade a spade? As far as my brain-search goes, such a culture is deep enmeshed in the life and blood of all grad schoolers. You start speaking about something that’s remotely wrong with respect to the institute; you’d find nothing less than one thousand souls barging on you. But then, it’s perfectly understandable, because that seem to be the culture everywhere. Be a Roman in Rome. All this happens just because no one wants to be the root cause for his/her ‘alma mater’ getting a stained image. What’s the net effect? Information asymmetry, as it is called in business terms. People in an institute know far more than what outsiders thought possible, and nothing comes out, like information being sealed in a watertight container with zilch exit points. Heavy duty censorship makes sure that ‘bad’ things are siphoned off somewhere, and what really goes out is a bleached version of truth.

Who really is the loser? Prospective students, for one. Umpteen universities dupe students in the name of ‘excellent placements’, and ‘foreign exchange programs’. Mind you: excellent is relative, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan count as ‘foreign’ too. You don’t get into an IIM? Now dare to think beyond IIMs. Why? You don’t really have a choice. Last when I heard, they didn't have a worthwhile campus to mention about. Another B-school in Coimbatore promised a 100% placement - only that the salaries are like 10 K a month, which never reaches the news. Or take the engineering college scene in TN. There are 40000+ seats, the highest in the country, and the number of eligible candidates is 30000. But still, most of the colleges brag about God level professors, state of art infrastructure etc. Is all this even remotely possible? My own experience in my Engineering college was 'revealing' - to be euphemistic. Ours was informally rated number 4 in TN, ignoring IIT Chennai. It was quite an achievement to get into the college - I had to get 95% in standard XII since I had no reservation backing me up, no rural quota backing me up, and no good higher secondary school backup. I was excited at the prospect. But the kind of professors we had didn't impress from the very beginning. End of the day, although a managed to get a campus offer in Oracle, I couldn't exactly figure out what I did that can't be done studying in lower rung colleges.

As far as B-schools are concerned, IIMA is simply numero uno, which is evident from the impressions even our professors have on IIMA. Thank God IIMA is good, coz IIMI, which is a direct offshoot off IIMA, tries to depict its mentor all the time. We have exactly the same cases, exactly the same load. But then, its a known fact that faculty in IIMA is a class apart, at a level every B-school aspires to.

As far as the main subject of this post – information asymmetry – is concerned, I would love to see a completely transparent system in Engineering universities and B-schools. I’d long for the day when they call a spade a spade, when everyone quotes a bad experience a bad experience, and when everyone sees transparency as an ideal that’s sanctimonious. But, somehow - at the risk of being called a cynic - I suspect I would be 120 years old then.

P.S: The haziness of this post is completely intentional. Edited once to add more haziness. :)