Monday, March 10, 2014

Apeejay Stya University - Pros and Cons During This Admission Season

Sushma Berlia, Chancellor, Apeejay Stya University
College admissions are just round the corner, and each university and college is trying to attract students for their varied courses. Of course, government universities and aided colleges don't have to do anything to attract students, but private universities have to battle it out among themselves, claiming their own advantages. Seasonal Magazine looks at one such private university - Apeejay Stya University, located near Sohna:

With 43 Central Universities, 16 IITs, 13 IIMs, 27 NITs, 130 Deemed Universities, and 311 State Universities as well as their thousands of affiliated colleges, already being in full-fledged operation for years, many newfound private universities found the initial going tough.

It was difficult to attract students away from the obvious advantages provided by established universities, institutes, and reputed colleges, like the high academic standards, industry acceptability, and of course state-subsidised education.

Adding to the competition was the fact that private universities were multiplying faster than rabbits. Within the two decades since the first private university was approved, around 173 private universities have cropped up across the nation.

Apeejay Stya University based at Sohna is also one such private university.

Most of the private universities were self-financing colleges magically getting transformed to private universities. With no scope for affiliating colleges, what was the logic behind allowing the transformational strategy no one knows, except that private universities enjoy more leeway in charging as they please.

Today, it is accepted that private universities are competing more among themselves and with self-financing colleges that are still unfortunate to remain so, rather than with IITs, IIMs, Central Universities, or State Universities.

As in any business, some among them like Amity, Lovely Professional, SRM etc have pulled far ahead of the rest of the pack due to better entrepreneurship, better marketing, better strategy, better money/muscle power, better political patronage, or better quality.

The rest of them have to work harder and more authentically to differentiate themselves and answer that difficult question from students - why we should choose your university?

Apeejay Stya University (ASU) has tried to answer that question very differently and innovatively than from all others. ASU wants you to choose it because it is ‘India’s 1st Liberal Arts & Meta University focused on Research & Technology’.

Sounds confusing? Well, it should be, as on a first read even the UGC Chairman would find it confusing.

To make things simpler, let us remove that ’focused on Research & Technology’ part. No student is going to believe that a newfound private university is already making great strides in research or technology.

But the rest of the USP is quite interesting, though neither ‘Liberal Arts’ nor ‘Meta University’ are understandable to the majority of students or parents, except perhaps those with an American exposure.

The ‘Liberal Arts’ approach signifies that even when one studies a professional degree, he or she is free to add some broad humanities or arts subjects as they wish, into the degree. It is a welcome move, something that broadens horizons, and makes candidates more appealing to some companies, especially in the West.

The ’Meta University’ concept is also attractive. In a nutshell it means that a student’s degree course can span more than one university, through a system of credit transfers.

But are these two projected USPs real game changers in the Indian context? Not likely at all.

So, why should one really choose ASU?

There are many reasons including the Apeejay Group’s strong standing in education, reasonably good infrastructure, excellent management, reasonable academic leadership etc.

And of course, all the stock reasons for choosing a private university equally applies for ASU too, like getting to study an in-demand branch in engineering despite poor ranks in a national entrance, and location advantages.

To explain, if you are residing in Sohna or Sohna-Palwal Road in NCR, and it is a private university you are looking for due to the above reasons, ASU is a preferred choice.

This is certainly not a private university with poor infrastructure or by a fly-by-night operator.

1 comment:

  1. sir! I am looking for taking admission in APJ stya university for MBA-Finance.. As my budget is around 4 lakh & it is coming within my budget. But i am confused related to the Placement & about the overall image of the univesity.
    I scored 81%tile in MAT & graduated from MJP rohilkhand university in the stream of commerce.. Plz suggest me wheather APJ is good for MBA & what is the placement record till now?

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