LUMS -- Lahore University of mis-Management Sciences

#37 by rsaxena

IIT? Right... temme about it? I can give ya names of dozens of your IIT brats who got nuffin better to do than smoke weed n shag gals 24/7 here in london. If you can not rate... do not hate either. And didn`t any one teah ya at your IIT that

Pride Hath A Fall ?

Learn n Live a lil now.
peace!

Rsaxena #37,

I do believe that the IIT comment was unnecessary. Good institutions should be secure
enough in their standings - the IITs have consolidated their position as good undergraduate institutions and do not need to be defended in all fora.

HisExcellency #various,

Sorry, but you are using completely erroneous criteria to judge the standing of an
academic institution, and HassanShah is essentially right on the money here. I know nothing about LUMS, but institution building is a time-consuming business and premature comparisons with more well established universities will seldom be taken seriously.

#39 by HisExcellency

Which posts ? A bunch of the earlier ones regarding some competition where LUMS managed to edge past CMU and a couple of the IIT schools, another one on the MBA student to faculty ratio being great and the one you mentioned about the student to PC ratio being better than the Ivy-plus schools.

Bottom line: all of these factors don`t count for anything. Using them as crutches to support the claim that LUMS is an institution of international repute (even alluding to the fact that it stacks up well against some of the top schools in the US and UK) is merely a manifestation of an inability to accept the current mediocrity the school is mired in. I`ve already made my point regarding student to faculty ratios and the less said about the even more ludicrous student to computer ratio, the better (some high schools in the US have ratios of 1:1 -- that doesn`t automatically qualify them as quality centres for research and learning). Using machines to fill the void created by all else is an approach that is bound to be doomed.

You get a LUMS education for half what it costs at places like Grinnell, Oberlin, Ohio-Wesleyan ? Ahem. Not true. Most of those places are quick to offer grant-based financial aid. LUMS, on the other hand, seems to believe most stringently in being penny-wise (ironic isn`t it that it`s easier for people to acquire education abroad than it is at a university in Pakistan). I`m not even sure that the education at LUMS is better than some of the places you mentioned.

Faculty at LUMS ? True. There is a small set of faculty members who`ve got their degrees at places like Harvard, Berkeley and Stanford. In fact, I mentioned as much in my post. What I was more concerned about, however, was that the rest of the faculty hails from places I`ve never even heard of (American University of Beirut being one of them). Not convinced ? Well, if you go through the latest cached versions of the faculty profiles on google, rest assured you`ll see the following pop up more often than once:

University of Florida
Simon Fraser University
Kansas State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Acadia University
University of Kent
University of Texas at Arlington
...
(the list goes on)

The graduates from Stanford and Berkeley may go a long way towards painting a rosy picture of things, but there`s a whole lot more than what meets the eye. In fact, I think that about sums it up. LUMS is an excellent marketing ploy... a lemon.

It takes a Wharton MBA graduate 3-5 years to pay of his or her loan ? Keep in mind that an average Wharton grad has already been earning for a good several years before being saddled with the loan and is in fairly decent financial condition not to warrant financial aid. Even if that isn`t the case, keep in mind that an average Wharton grad has much better job prospects than an average LUMS grad. Finally, if you`re still not satisfied, let me remind you that the comparison isn`t really even valid. LUMS is no Wharton and any such pretensions are quite misplaced. Maybe once LUMS improves it`s finance program to be the best in the world I won`t grudge them the right to charge outrageous fees.

Most US universities don`t offer financial assistance ? I beg to differ. Clearly you associate too much wealth with all of us who`ve obtained degrees abroad.

LUMS is better than IBA, GIK, FAST, NED, UET ? You`ll have a hard time convincing me of that my friend. In fact, the only real edge LUMS provides is that you get to mingle with the rich elite of the country and might be able to find jobs more easily that way. I`ve grilled quite a few people who recently obtained their CS degrees from LUMS and I have no doubt that the candidates from FAST, NED and UET are far better qualified.

tahmed #35

Ahmed sahib, thank you for your generosity of praise. I`d like to point out though, that in this business there are NO wizards, ever, anywhere. Whosoever claims to be one is surely a con-man. Beware of them.

This has nothing to do with LUMS, but I hope that others will forgive this digression.

FYI, in the i-Log section I now regularly post material related to this sort of stuff... very few people have enough interest in such matters for this to be a general topic of articles, therefore the i-Logs. USER ID is FOMC-minutes.


Gold & mining stocks

Yes, I`ve been advocating gold investment for now almost two years and the gold bull market has only just barely begun. Look for a price pull-back in the near future for more buying opportunities. In a few years get ready to see the fire-works. The real thing is gold the metal itself, but the headline dramma will, unfortunately, take place in the mining stocks. The gold mining stock mania will put the internet mania of 1999 to shame. There will then be more hype and fraud and rediculous over-pricing of mining stocks than anyone can think possible today. That mania will exceed the Dutch Tulip mania. That will be time to SELL, not buy, as the lemmings will be buying then. Today is the time to buy. The only stocks worth putting money in (for ``growth``) are the mining stocks. They are today where semiconductors, internets and telcoms were in 1989. Beware the coming mania in gold and silver stocks. There is no fever like gold fever.

[``...vanguard 300 index funds ... in roth ira for ... 30-40 years?...``]

To start with, 30-40 years is an unrealistic time horizon. We`ll all be dead and the world will be an unrecognizable place compared to today. Who knows the US dollar may have long been replaced by some other monetary instrument by then and vanguard may have gone the way of the do-do bird. The heyday of the mutual funds is gone. They will be remembered with the same distaste and mistrust as were the ``National Trusts`` of the 1920s after the depression. Today is time to GET OUT of bond mutual funds and equity mutual funds (of any and every kind), not the other way. Put your hard-earned money in tangibles and get out of paper assets.

I keep harping upon the issue of fiat paper money like a broken record. But I`m not alone by any means. Please look up the following link, it may perk up your interest:

http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2003/pr073103.htm

...SR

#23 by Romair

Thanks for your post, sir. I read the news item in CIO magazine a couple of months ago. The article was all praise for the LUMS team since it had outclassed relatively well-established colleges like IITs, Tel Aviv Univ. and quite a few U.S. colleges.

Who cares if a bunch of Indians don`t acknowledge it as an achievement?? Carnegie Mellon has the best Computer Science programme in the world (along with MIT and a few other schools). The entire industry including the big 5 consulting companies rely on CMU`s software classification system for their blueprints. Therefore, when CMU organizes a contest, almost all major IT vendors sponsor it. The U.S. government also keeps a tab on such developments because the Department of Defence conducts a lot of its research at CMU. Hence, a good performance at CMU is bound to be noticed and acknowledged in circles that really matter.

#34 by HassanShah

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I`m stunned by a few of the earlier posts tooting the horn that LUMS is right up there with the Ivy-plus schools in the US.
++

Which posts are you referring to?? The one I wrote was about student-PC ratios. And in that department, LUMS is definitely faring better than most Ivy schools. This is a fact.

Student-teacher ratios and average GMAT/GRE/SAT scores are quite another matter. In this realm, LUMS is not as good as the top 10 U.S. colleges or any of the Ivy schools. But it is definitely better than the rest. Given a choice between College of Wooster, Grinnell, Oberlin, Rutgers, Texas A&M, UC Santa Monica, Ohio-Weseleyan... and LUMS, I would pick LUMS any day. You get better education for less than half the price.

++
Even if it did, the point remains that the faculty at LUMS is scarcely much to rave and rant about
++

This is quite an uninformed comment. LUMS faculty members have PhDs and MBAs/MSEs from Wharton/Penn, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, UT Austin (MS program), Univ of Sussex, American Univ of Beirut, Columbia Univ, Urbana-Champaigne, etc. You name it. I am not counting Assistant Professors yet to keep the list short. I can even give you names of these people if you think I am bluffing here.

++
Sadly, LUMS is run as a business and little more.
++

Take a peek at U.S.News and you will realize that professional education is an expensive investment all over the world. Perhaps you don`t know that after graduation, it takes 3-5 years for the average Wharton MBA graduate to pay off his student loans.

Moreover, in most U.S. colleges they don`t offer grants as a policy. Students are only offered loans at reduced interest rates. International students don`t even get loans. So you basically have to view an MBA or MS as an investment. Compared to foreign universities, LUMS is still a cheaper bargain since you can pay off most student loans within 3 years of graduating.

++
Pity no one spares a thought for places like IBA, NED, UET, GIK etc. that provide quality education without the associated frills and gaping hole in the pocket
++

IBA, NED, UET and GIK are no doubt good schools. In fact, most employers prefer graduates of these schools to LUMS graduates because the latter are hard to retain. You offer a LUMS graduate 5K more, and he will switch jobs in an instant. Most LUMS graduates work for a few years and then invariably go abroad for a Phd/MBA.

But in terms of quality especially in Business management and Computer Science, LUMS is way way ahead of the rest. Better facilities and better faculty are part of the reason. But the most critical success factor is that LUMS employs the ``Case Method`` in its MBA program. LUMS is the only Pakistani business school that publishes its own cases. (I don`t know if IBA is also teaching with the ``Case Method`` now. I checked about 4 years back, and then they didn`t).

s2 #37: I agree.

I know a lot of Pakistanis from NED in Silicon Valley. In fact, it seems like NED sends the most engineers from Pakistan, to Silicon Valley, by far. Though I don`t have exact statistics. All the NED guys seem to be doing well. Most have MS degrees, and are well-adjusted into the industry. Doing as well as anyone from any university from South Asia, that I have met.

Interestingly, they all do have complains, similar to Urstruly`s (though not to that extreme), about NED. And they make fun of it, a lot. Interestingly, their combined income in the USA must be tens of millions/year, if not higher. They could build another NED, if they wanted.

SR #30 Arent you the one who said ``Buy Gold`` an year ago on chowk? And lo and behold, we now find that gold has risen as if it was on extra-strength viagra. You, sir, are a financial wizard. What is your advice on this: buying plain vanilla vanguard 300 index funds and putting them in roth ira for someone to sit on for 30-40 years. make sense?

freemysoul #31 I believe that LUMs was the baby of a Pakistani World Bank staff who took leave from the Bank (this was at least 10-15 years ago) to start LUMs. I dont think any Bank funds were lent for this purpose though. Are you sure you are right?

re: romair

...stop making an a$$ of yourself citing some anecdotal info about ``LUMS`` having beaten US schools and IIT....hardly anyone at goldman sachs or McKinsey or any elite firm has any idea what the fcuk LUMS is, but i guarantee you IIT is on everyone`s radar, which is where McKinsey`s last CEO was from....

I`m stunned by a few of the earlier posts tooting the horn that LUMS is right up there with the Ivy-plus schools in the US. At the expense of belabouring the blatantly obvious, it`s not.

Assuming for the briefest of instants that there was some modicum of truth in this nonsensical belief, one wonders why all and sundry related to the LUMS Board of Governors are lining up for admission to educational institutions abroad. Clearly, there is a wide gulf between LUMS and the better institutes around the world. The teacher to student ratio might be lower than that at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale and MIT, but does that really count for anything ? A statistic is a numerical datum and nothing more. It does not translate to greater ease of access of faculty and increased personal attention. Even if it did, the point remains that the faculty at LUMS is scarcely much to rave and rant about. A smattering of post-graduates from respected research universitites in the US and UK, and a whole bunch of people from places one never knew existed till the day one stumbled across the faculty profiles up on the web (as an aside, that link no longer works now).

Then there seems to be the myth about LUMS graduates being admitted by the dozen to research programs at some of the best schools around. Again, there`s no shred of truth in this. Graduates from UET and NED greatly outnumber those from LUMS at most places. Although some really smart individuals from LUMS do occasionally manage to end up at places like CMU, one swallow does not a summer make.

Coming now to the long rants about financial aid, lets face it... LUMS offers a few loans and one or two merit-based scholarships, but nothing along the lines of grants. Surprisingly, one would have thought they could manage that with the exorbitant fees they charge. Almost every other place in the world that fleeces its students for so much does.

Sadly, LUMS is run as a business and little more. It achieves a huge profit for those who run it, a few scraps of paper for those who attend it and some unwarranted praise by the people in the Higher Education Committee who see it as the panacea to all of Pakistan`s ails. Of course, the first and the third group just mentioned are actually the same.

Pity no one spares a thought for places like IBA, NED, UET, GIK etc. that provide quality education without the associated frills and gaping hole in the pocket. Maybe some day we`ll realise that what makes an quality educational institute is not a fabulous campus, but quality academics and a concerted effort not to raise the financial bar so high that income tax returns have more to do with admissions than SAT I math scores.

I am an NEDian - BE(EE) and then obtained a couple of other degrees in the US. NED is no Caltech or MIT but it is no pushover. Given the environment and the resources, NED (even UET) has produced remarkable professionals. For Rs 100/- per semester I would rank NED one of the finest schools on this planet. There are over 20 engineers from my class (out of 122) in the US - they include a tenured Professor and Chowk writer (guess who?), senior managers in Motorola, Juniper, Cisco, Cypress, HP/Compaq, Synopsys, ... and many more. These individuals are as good as anyone out there. The same can be said for UET - a number of fantastic engineers have come out of UET.

Anyway.

LUMS is a good place BUT IBA accomplished similar results with way less expense. I would be inclined to argue that Pakistan or any poor country stands to benefit way more by replicating NED, UET or IBA. Since it costs less, more students benefit. LUMS is not a mainstream education resource - it is a boutique model and it should be treated as such.

#27 by Urstruly

I am quite amazed by your story. Did this happen recently?

16: Azure
Your claims are unfounded. It may appear that the elite classes are the only ones welcome, but you might need to take a deeeeeper look into the whole `hard to get` image.
It might have been that at the time LUMS only had an MBA programme, they selected very few people and charged exorbitant tuition & attained the `hard to get` image...and then they suddenly became `elite` when they moved to a bigger and better campus with the help of funding from the World Bank.
However, the BSc. programme no doubt caters to give an OPTION (at the least) to students after their A levels or FSc. to choose between going to a public institute or one abroad if they have the resources or the talent. The fact is that the BSc. programme at LUMS offers more scholarships and funding options than any other private university charging almost the same amount of fee for their BSc. Programme. These universities have made high and false claims of affiliations and have an academic curriculum outline replicated to that of LUMS. The point I am making here is not to defame other institutes but to falsify your claims of the ‘hard to get’ image.
I personally know of several exceptionally intelligent people who having deserved the scholarship (and didn’t have the resources to afford studying at LUMS otherwise) study their whole four years without paying anything. However, I also know of the exceptionally intelligent who won the scholarship, didn’t need it because they had enough resources to afford the fee, that being an ethical decision left by LUMS to the person to either forgo it for the next best student or keep it (I do have my reservations on this opportunity to choose). Despite the full scholarships, I have stood in line to pay my bill with people from the remotest areas and have seen with my own eyes their bills being slashed to one-fourth.

So your idea of LUMS being `hard to get` with `keeping their noses high` needs to be appraised, because it’s always easier to criticize something further when it’s already been put on the spot.
Azure, if its of any consolation…”We remain committed to ensure that no one admitted to our academic programmes is prevented from joining LUMS due to financial constraints. We offer generous financial assistance to those who need it.”

FYI: http://www.lums.edu.pk/lums_outreach.htm

LUMS invites students with exceptional Matric and FA/FSc results (75% & above) to apply through its National Outreach Programme for a four year BSc (Hons) degree.
Objectives:
To facilitate this process, we have started the National Outreach Programme, which has the following objectives:
Identify bright and motivated students all over Pakistan at the Matric level who are keen to pursue higher education at LUMS.
Work with schools and colleges all over Pakistan to encourage their principals and teachers to help their students aspire for admission into the BSc (Hons) programme at LUMS.
Provide assistance to potential applicants to prepare for the entrance exams at LUMS.
Provide full financial assistance in the form of scholarships to all those candidates who qualify for admission through the National Outreach Programme.

rozaiba #17

Karachi stock exchange is no place for decent people to hang around. I won`t ever touch anything of KSE with a thousand foot pole. The happenings in KSE make that den of thieves called NYSE look like a church choir. As I`ve mentioned before, that what goes on in the stock market is basically organized theft which has the sanction of law. But that applies to NASDAQ and NYSE etc. KSE does not even get the qualifier ``organized`` before the ``theft.`` Actually ``theft`` is too kind a word. KSE conducts `rape & robbery.` Don`t know if you`ve noticed or not, but the Shaukat Aziz financial administration of that country is following all the dirty tricks of Rubin & Greenspan and have thus managed to create an unsustainable stock bubble which creates an absurdly overvalued equity market that cannot be justified by any valuation metric and will result in yet another round of mass rip-off of the investing public of Pakistan.

You`re welcome to any of the books, as long as I eventually get them back.

...SR

Urstruly #27: Your long story was quite interesting. I am sure NED is not ranked anywhere in Asia. Though NED students seem to be in the highest nos. amongst the Pakistani IT professionals in Silicon Valley. And they all make fun of NED. Yet I have found nearly all of them to be quite bright. And most of them have MS degrees in technical fields. So they must have learnt something.

By the way could you expand on the following, a bit more. It`s an interesting twist in the story:

``when one day I found lab incharge eyeing me``