B-School Refund Crisis

[arjwad]

Hi,

I look after the MBA program at Career Launcher on an All-India basis.

A number of students have approached us over the last few weeks about a major concern in the B-school admission process. Quite a few good B-schools are forcing students to submit their admission fees well before the IIMs have even declared their results. As a result, many of you stand to lose an amount anywhere between Rs. 5,000/- to Rs. 1,00,000 of your / your parents' hard earned money. Some students who cannot afford the above have also been forced not to take admission into an institute, which is a huge risk for their career.

We intend to make an effort to try and ensure that institutes are fair to the student community and not take advantage of you when you are vulnerable. It is hard for an individual to do anything about this injustice, but we would like to attempt to provide a platform for your collective voice.

To make this possible, we need information and assistance from your side. If you or any of your friends have been affected by this scenario, please logon to www.careerlauncher.com/pegasus/mypetition.html and submit the data we require to take this to the next level. Even though we will need your test registration no. at this stage, we will make an effort to ensure that your personal details will be kept confidential when dealing with the institutes.

I would request the moderator at Pagalguy to help us out in this endeavour.

Arjun Wadhwa

[DesiGuru]

A very reasonable objective to pursue this. But one must remember that the respective institutes may not have broken any laws. But its an ethical issue and the serious violators are only those who inflate their admit lists and then ask for non-refundable or partially refundable deposits. This is tantamount to fraud and can be an interesting legal issue.

K

[Manpreet]

Originally Posted by arjwad

Hi,

I look after the MBA program at Career Launcher on an All-India basis.

A number of students have approached us over the last few weeks about a major concern in the B-school admission process. Quite a few good B-schools are forcing students to submit their admission fees well before the IIMs have even declared their results. As a result, many of you stand to lose an amount anywhere between Rs. 5,000/- to Rs. 1,00,000 of your / your parents' hard earned money. Some students who cannot afford the above have also been forced not to take admission into an institute, which is a huge risk for their career.

We intend to make an effort to try and ensure that institutes are fair to the student community and not take advantage of you when you are vulnerable. It is hard for an individual to do anything about this injustice, but we would like to attempt to provide a platform for your collective voice.

To make this possible, we need information and assistance from your side. If you or any of your friends have been affected by this scenario, please logon to www.careerlauncher.com/pegasus/mypetition.html and submit the data we require to take this to the next level. Even though we will need your test registration no. at this stage, we will make an effort to ensure that your personal details will be kept confidential when dealing with the institutes.

I would request the moderator at Pagalguy to help us out in this endeavour.

Arjun Wadhwa

A very welcome step indeed. With so many institutes declaring their results before the IIMs, students are forced to shell out their & their parent's hard-earned money. Currently, most of the colleges return only a small portion of the money if the student cance his/her seat... it would be better if somehow this can be worked out.. and students don't lose large amounts of money...

A better way will be to streamline the whole admission process... just have couple of exams and all institutes should come under them.. just like what US universities have (GMAT etc).. Deadlines for submitting forms/fees should be the same... But, i guess this would be difficult to implement...

Just wondering, why CL is plunging into this thing....!! Is it because it really cares for the student community or wants to cash on this to gain some publicity?

[hanoz]

As far as legal opinion is concerned, it is the prerogative of the institute to charge their fees whenver they deem reasonable, and there is not much choice for the people concerned, rather, there are just two options, to pay and possibly lose money, or not to pay and risk a lot. Ethical issues aside, I believe, there isn't a sufficiently strong case to pursue here. If you'd have to pay more, well, tough luck... but nevertheless the institutes are well within their rights to charge their fees as long as they are acredited institutes.

P.S. I'd personally like it if all results came out together and the above comments merely reflect the outcome of a rational analysis of the situation.

Regards,
Hanoz.

[DesiGuru]

Unless you get the big bad media involved, the law can hardly touch the defaulting institutes. Even big american busines schools i think have deadlines and deposits to be paid, but they dont inflate their admit lists to siphon money of their students.

Its better not taking names here but i believe a few institutes have gone out of their way in almost tripling their admit limits and then asking for a deposit. Only such particular cases need to be discussed in the open so that other institutes dont go the wrong way.

K

[piyushisnice]

Originally Posted by DesiGuru

Unless you get the big bad media involved, the law can hardly touch the defaulting institutes. Even big american busines schools i think have deadlines and deposits to be paid, but they dont inflate their admit lists to siphon money of their students.

Its better not taking names here but i believe a few institutes have gone out of their way in almost tripling their admit limits and then asking for a deposit. Only such particular cases need to be discussed in the open so that other institutes dont go the wrong way.

K

Twice you have complained about the inflated lists, but don't you think that this is a very smart policy for those instt.
See, if you know that you are not the best and students would be select some other institutes over yours, then you have got following options-
1. Final list <= No. of seats in the college and then a few waiting lists and then crossing your fingers that not many seats remain vacant. This is the worst scenarios for an aspirant b'coz large no. of seats are remaining vacant. Also, the instt looses some good students.
2. Final list <= No. of seats in the college and then multilple and long waitlists so that your college seats are definitely filled. Although aspirants are happy, but multiple waitlists are not good for the reputation of an instt as it moves back the admission process and students start looking down on it.
3. Final list >= No. of seats in the college and then one or no waitlist at all. (Even IIM C follows this). Here, the college selects all the candidates those it thinks are suitable for them and then just wait till some of them leaves. Now, b'coz they are not the best, people do leave. Also, some really good students who unfortunately couldn't convert the better options can finally find refuge in these instt. So this results in a win-win situation for both students, who gets to do MBA, and the instt, which wins in bagging all the students it require including some of the best ones who couldn't go to IIMs.

Now, the 3rd option is not good for instt which keeps the deadlines of paying fees just after they announce the results, and a lot before the major calls are out. Also the biggest problem arises when they charge a large sum of money. But thankfully IIM C as well as MDI doesn't do anything of that sort.

So, I feel that this is the best policy.
What does others have to say about it?

PS: sorry for entering an unrelevant post on this thread. But I just replied to some othe post.

[pankajrai2000]

hello PGites,

can we do anything concrete on this unethical practice.

we might bring this issue in notice to our respected HRD Minister Arjun Singh.

or any other forum.

this unethical practice must be curbed for future aspirants of management degree.


pls respond.

bye

[DesiGuru]

Originally Posted by piyushisnice

don't you think that this is a very smart policy for those instt.

I didnt get your point really. But let me clarify what an inflated admit list means.

If you have 100 seats available and u give an admit list of 150 students + WL that is fine. Then you can go ahead and take a deposit of 50000, noone can stop you.
But if you chart out a 300 member admit list + WL on top of that. Here the insti might have calculated that 150+ guys are going to join the IIMs anyways so lets siphon of some dough of them while we still can.

This is what should be discouraged and stopped. These are just my views, I havent been directly affected as yet but i believe it has troubled quite a handful this year.

K

[pagalguy]

I dont see a case here, but then who knows how the ministry would act knowing how much they love rationalizing stuff . So may be they will rationalize decision dates too . But that said - there is no case because no one is forcing you to pick a specific school. Students are as much to blame here. They'd jump right over to any other school even one step higher in the rankings without as much as a hoot of loyalty , then why is the school wrong to ask a deposit amount as a token of acceptance of a seat and asking the student to make a decision. No real case here..but would love to see the outcome and its interesting to see CL make a move. While I haven't seen anyone one fight for the cause of students - a coaching class doing so - definitely noteworthy