Why is IIM Lucknow reputed to have the most rigorous MBA programme in India?

Post Graduate Programme (PGP) of IIM Lucknow is considered to be one of the most rigorous MBA programmes in India because of the intense workload of the course. A lot of factors contribute to this workload like there is no concept of a weekend in the institute, it is supposed to be a 6-day working week with the classes all week long. However, most of the Sundays are also occupied by the guest lectures.

The minimum compulsory attendance at IIM Lucknow is 80% and students are allowed to miss 4 out of the 20 classes per term for every subject. If anyone misses more than 4 classes than the institute takes disciplinary measures.

Each term is of 2.5-3 months with 6-7 courses per term and 4-5 quizzes per course to go along with the end term and midterm exams each term. There are two books for each course per term, however, you end up reading 12-14 books and giving 44 quizzes and exams at the end of each term (3 months). The corporate presentations, workshops and sessions also take up a lot of your time and thereby adding to the workload.

Also, being in a B-school just doesn’t mean only curriculum-based academics there are internships, skill-based courses, certifications that also end up becoming a part of your schedule along with the college activities like sports, competitions, fests, societies that are responsible for your overall development.

To add to this there is a policy of absolute passing marks of 35 % for a course, even in the case of tough courses where the average marks of the entire class are 40 %, the students who get below 35% will fail the course. If any student ends up failing in two courses or fails in one course and gets a D in 2 more, they will be repeating the year, which approx. 10% of the people do on average every year. However, students get used to this way of life in 6 months and start enjoying it.