KJ Somaiya Vs FORE School Of Management - A Comparative Guide

Therefore, in this report, I will be comparing KJSIMSR and FORE on various parameters* and will attempt to highlight important facts and figures that may aid you in making a calculated and informed decision.

*The information is for the Class of 2017, and the report is based only on secondary research. 

Rankings

My firm belief is that while rankings are a good place to start your research on a business school, they cannot be the sole deciding factor and must be backed by other relevant and substantial data.

However, to begin with, let us look at the rankings:

	InsideIIM	MHRD-NIRF (Graduation Outcomes)	Business-Today
KJSIMSR	41st	NA	26th
FORE School of Management Studies	NA	27th	NA

Nothing significant can be deduced from these rankings, except that generally, these business schools feature in the top-30 of the country. InsideIIM rankings are based purely on perception, and the top-50 schools are the most desirable according to MBA aspirants. I have considered only the graduation outcomes parameter of the MHRD NIRF Rankings as it is the only parameter which brings out a true picture of the management institutes. KJ Somaiya features in the 50-100 bracket of these rankings.

Batch Strength

Batch strength essentially defines your competition for the next two years. As mentioned in previous reports, a higher batch strength provides greater opportunity for networking, albeit at the cost of having the same people as your competition during placement season.

KJSIMSR	489 (Across various programmes)
FORE School of Management Studies	240

Note - KJ Somaiya offers the following courses:
a) PGDM ; b) PGDM International Business ; c) PGDM Retail Management ; d) PGDM Financial Services ; e) PGDM Marketing Communications

FORE School of Management offer the following courses:
a) PGDM ; b) PGDM International Business ; c) PGDM Financial Management.

Placements & Fees

I have placed the package and fees figures together so that the ROI of the institute is clearly depicted.

	Fees (2-years)	Average Placement	Highest Package
KJSIMSR	Rs.12.035 LPA	Rs. 9.19 LPA	Rs. 24 LPA
FORE School of Management Studies	Rs. 14.9 LPA	Rs. 9.4 LPA	Rs. 18 LPA

Highlights:

KJ Somaiya:

• The above-mentioned figures are for 2017. For the class of 2018, KJSIMSR recorded the highest package as Rs. 30 Lakhs, while the average package rose t0 Rs. 9.87 Lakhs.
• For the class of 2017, 23% of the batch was placed in the Banking and Insurance sector, while 22% of the batch was placed in the IT sector. KJSIMSR saw 100% of the batch getting placed.
• For the Class of 2018, again, the Banking and Insurance recruiters recruited 24% of the batch, followed (again) by the IT sector with 23% of the batch being recruited. 99% of the batch was placed.
• Recruiters for Class of 2017/2018 included Deloitte, Aditya Birla Group, Barclays, YES Bank, Nestle, ITC, Amazon etc.

FORE School of Management:

• For the Class of 2017, 29% of the batch was placed in the IT sector, 11% in Retail, 7% in Consulting roles.
• Recruiters for the Class of 2017 included:
  Consulting - KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young.
  IT - Cognizant, Capgemini, Dell (Cognizant hired 19 students, and was the biggest recruiter for the Class of 2017)
  Automobiles -  Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki, Hero Moto Corp, Mahindra Truck & Bus Division and Mahindra & Mahindra.
  FMCG - HUL, ITC, Reckitt Benckiser etc.
  (The interim placement report - 2018 for FORE School of Management is available here)

Note - In terms of ROI, the two institutes are moderate when the fees are compared with the average placements, with KJSIMSR getting an edge over FORE in all aspects. If you manage to be a top performer in any of the two institutes, chances are that you will be looking at one of the highest packages and therefore better ROI. 

Batch Profile

KJ Somaiya:

The profile for KJSIMSR's flagship 2-year PGDM course was not available. Therefore I have taken into account an aggregation of the 5 PGDM courses that KJ Somaiya has to offer.

• 71% of the batch was from an Engineering background, while 15% of the batch was from management background.
• 31% of the batch consisted of freshers, while 39% of the batch consisted of those with up to 2 years of work experience.
• The ratio of male to female students was at 3:2, i.e., approximately 200 female students.

FORE School of Management:

• 70% of the batch was from an Engineering background, while 10% of the batch consisted of those from a Commerce background.
• A whopping 72% of the batch consisted of freshers, while 14% of the batch had 1-2 years of work experience.
• The ratio of male to female students was at 13:7, which is approximately 85 female students.

Note - Clearly, for freshers, FORE School of Management is the place to be, as almost 3/4th of the intake consisted of freshers. In both the institutes, there is an apparent lack of diversity, although that seems to be the trend even in tier-1 institutes.

Infrastructure

KJ Somaiya:

The institute is spread across 55 acres, with a football ground, gym, 2 hostels (1 each for men and women), basketball ground etc. The campus has two academic buildings, two auditoriums, an amphitheatre, running track, and a library. All the classrooms are air-conditioned and well built. The entire campus is wi-fi enabled.

FORE School of Management:

FORE School of Management has a well-equipped library, and wifi enabled classrooms, although some have pointed out that the classrooms are archaic and worn out. There is no hostel facility for students of FORE but the institute has a tie-up with a nearby privately run hostel (The fee for which is Rs. 1, 60, 000 per person on a twin sharing basis and provides all 3 meals). Unfortunately, it seems that the private hostel (Rajhans, Katwaria Sarai) does not have too many good reviews. However, there are PG services available near the institute, which can be convenient for students.

Note - While campus facilities may be adequate for both, FORE School of Management clearly misses out in terms of hostel provision for students, which can cause major inconvenience to outstation students. 

Foreign Exchange Programme

KJ Somaiya:

KJ Somayia's partner institutes are University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Steyr, Austria, University of Applied Science, Krems, Austria,  DHBW University, Stuttgart, Germany, and THI Business School, Ingolstadt, Germany.

To be a part of a foreign exchange, a student is selected based on their first-year marks and merit. They must apply to the respective Universities separately and must clear the selection criteria of those Universities.

Apart from this, KJSIMSR also has an International Immersion Programme, wherein participating students are taken to a foreign country for a duration of 1-2 weeks, where they visit companies and meet industry leaders. IIP provides unparalleled international exposure to an MBA student. The IIP costs have to be borne by the participating student.

FORE School of Management:

FORE School of Management has partnerships with 12 foreign institutes, some of which are:

• Northampton University, United Kingdom.
• ESC Rennes School of Business, France.
• ESCE International Business School, Paris, France.
• The University of California, Riverside (IEP), USA.
• Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
• School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, Sweden.
• European Institute for Asian Studies, Luxemburg.

Students can opt to study for one trimester at any of the partner institutes.

Like KJSIMSR, FORE also has an International Immersion Programme, where students are taken for a one-week course to Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Students have called it an experience of a lifetime and highly recommend the IIP of FORE School of Management.

Campus Life

KJ Somaiya:

KJ Somaiya has various clubs and committees, some of which are the Aspire Club (Brainstorming hub for B-school competitions), Photography Club, Consulting Club, Sports Committee, Mauj (official band of KJSIMSR), Humanist (HR Club) etc.

'Melange' is KJSIMSR's annual management and cultural fest. The 2018 Melange saw performances by comedians Kunal Kamra & Zakir Khan, with TISS Mumbai winning the coveted Melange Cup.

You can have a look at the various cultural events of KJSIMSR at the Students Activity Forum (SAF).

You can also check out the institute's PR team's White Canvas video series here:

 

FORE School of Management:

FORE School of Management has various student committees, such as Antar (the Social committee), FORE Sports & Cultural Division, FOREword (Newsletter Committee) etc.

Genesis is the annual management and cultural fest of FORE IMS. The fest has events such as a Business Plan Competition, Case Study Competition, Street Plays etc.

Have a look at the Genesis 2016 aftermovie:

 

Note - While the above-mentioned data on fests and committees is important, one cannot ascertain the quality of campus life merely through this data. There is a lot more that goes on in a B-School campus which one can only experience when one goes there. 

Alumni Network

KJ Somaiya:

KJ Somaiya boasts of a very strong alumni base of 10000 ex-students across the globe. The institute's dedicated Alumni Connect Cell releases the monthly newsletter, 'Imprints', which takes into account the various alumni-related events that took place in the previous month. Apart from this, SIMSR also has a dedicated Alumni Connect Facebook page, where accounts of alumni achievements are shared.

Besides this, there are alumni interviews and lectures which also help students gain insight into the experiences of those who have been there and done that. Besides this, KJ Somaiya's ALCOM also organizes 'Nostalgia', the annual Alumni meet where alumni can meet their batchmates and catch up.

FORE School of Management:

FORE School of Management Studies boasts of an alumni base of 7000 ex-students. The Alumni Committee of FORE recently organized 'Panchtatva 2017', an event which invited alumni of the institute to share their journey from campus to corporate. Apart from this, the Alumni Committee also organizes 'Jubilee', the annual Alumni meet for the 24 batches that have passed out to date.

The ALCOM also has a dedicated Facebook page for important alumni-related announcements.

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To conclude, it appears that in terms of infrastructure, KJSIMSR does better than FORE, while the latter appears to be a better option for freshers.

In terms of placements, the average placement is quite similar for the two, but KJ Somaiya is the best bet in terms of ROI.

Looking at the highest package, your chances of getting a higher package increase significantly at KJSIMSR. On the flipside, FORE offers a smaller batch strength, which means lesser competition for that highest package. 

The decision is now yours to make.

For Further Reading:

• KJ Somaiya FAQs
• KJ Somaiya Quora Reviews
• KJ Somaiya Get My Uni Reviews

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• FORE Mandatory Disclosure Report
• FORE School of Management Get My Uni Reviews
• FORE School of Management Quora Reviews
• FORE School of Management Newsletter 2018 - FOREPrints

If you have any suggestions, corrections, queries or opinions, please let me know in the comments below.

For any corrections, please mention the source of information as well so that I can verify it before updating the report.