A lot of these final numbers are heavily manicured by the placement cells anyway. Most B-schools force struggling students to "opt out" of the official placement process under the guise of entrepreneurship or higher studies just to protect their 100% placement track record on paper.

The real crisis here is hitting the Baby IIMs and upper Tier 2 colleges. When IIM Amritsar or IIM Bodh Gaya face nearly 40 to 50+ unplaced students, it completely breaks the marketing myth that "any IIM tag guarantees a high-paying corporate career." Aspirants need to evaluate real ROI instead of blindly chasing the brand.

What is going on with the negative numbers on this chart like IIM Indore (-3) and MDI Gurgaon (-3)? Does that imply those colleges managed to place more students than their official registered batch size through dual offers or unrecorded lateral entries?

Seeing absolute zeros for IIM Ahmedabad, Calcutta, and SPJIMR proves that true Tier 1 legacy brands remain bulletproof even in the worst macroeconomic downcycles. Recruiters will slice their intake from lower-tier campuses entirely before they stop visiting the top three or four institutes in the country.