IIPM who?

"They must to keep their certainty accuse
All that are different of a base intent;
Pull down established honour; hawk for news
Whatever their loose phantasy invent
And murmur it with bated breath, as though
The abounding gutter had been Helicon
Or calumny a song."

- William Butler Yeats

Just saw this post about the whole IIPM brouhaha. The whole thing is so criminally ridiculous that it would be hilarious if it weren't, sadly, true. It's bad enough that lax educational standards and a lack of proper policing means that bottom-feeding scam operations like IIPM are allowed to exist, but you would think they would at least have the decency to remain discreetly hidden in the slime where they belong, rather than throwing mud on all and sundry.

The whole thing reminds me of the sort of quackery that passed for medicine in the 19th century. You know, how con artists in top hats would sell vials of what was purportedly 'snake oil' promising that it would grow back your hair, cure your arthiritis and bring back your virility. The IIPMs of the world are the true descendants of these charlatans

What surprises me about the whole thing is how strongly IIPM seems to have reacted to the questions raised about its claims. I mean, surely no one actually believes these ads. My own impression was that these institutes catered entirely to losers who couldn't get in anywhere else - I find it hard to believe that anyone in his / her right mind would go join IIPM over say, S P Jain (I won't even bring the IIMs into it), because some random ad claimed it was in the top 10 and had a swimming pool (though, of course, you could argue that anyone who was actually swayed by the ad probably deserved to go there). The speed and force of IIPM's reaction, however, would suggest that the advertising campaign is actually working. This is scary. It's yet more evidence of the virtual inexhaustibility of suckers in the general population.

I should say, of course, (in the interests of not getting sued), that I know absolutely nothing about IIPM, and so, in the true spirit of this blog, nothing I say here is at all fact based - it's all just my opinion. Were there actually any IIPM graduates working in top firms in the US, or even in leading Indian business firms, I might have come across them in my years as a strategy consultant, and may therefore have had more facts to work with. Were there anyone with even the slightest hint of an academic reputation teaching at one of these sweatshops (I can't bring myself to dignify it by calling it an institute), then (as a researcher myself) I might be in a better position to judge. As it is, I'm left with an insatiable curiousity to meet anyone remotely connected with IIPM who has ever had anything resembling a successful corporate or academic career. Or even someone who picked IIPM over any other even marginally reputable school. It would be such fun. We could talk about old english architecture.

In the absence of any such data points to work with, I can only concur with the questions Rashmi and Gaurav are asking, and add a few of my own (purely out of curiosity, of course - whenever I finally get to meet these mythical IIPM graduates working in I-banks in the US it'll be useful to have some facts to break the ice with):

Extending Gaurav's question about this Chaudhuri person, who exactly are the faculty in these places? How many of them are even PhDs (and if so, from where)? How many of them have ever worked in industry?

What exactly is the placement record at these wonder-schools. What percentage of students get placed? What's the median salary?

What exactly is the legal status of the diplomas (I'm assuming they are not degrees) that these places offer? Is there any process that verifies the quality / authenticity of this program? Shouldn't there be?

Bottomline: It's my opinion that anyone who goes to IIPM probably deserves to be there. Which, if I think about it, is kind of the way I feel about Hell. Abandon hope ye who enter there, etc.

P.S. On a separate note, just why is having sex with someone in a loo at IIMA (see comments to Rashmi's post) such a bad thing? Personally, I'd be envious if it were true. I spent two years in the place and never came close to having my pants down in the woman's loo. Sigh.