In the just concluded placement session on the campus for the fourth batch, the maximum number of students were picked up by Enterprise-Nexus, followed by Ogilvy & Mather (O&G), Mudra and RKSwamy/ BBDO. However, the best pay packages were to come from Chaitra Leo Burnett, MARG, IMRB, Hindustan Thomson Associates (HTA) and MBL-RCG.

Another noticeable feature of the placement scenario has been a growing demand for MICA students from the print and electronic media, notably The Hindu, The Indian Express, Just Another Magazine (JAM), The Times of India, Sony and Zee TV, and lately, Kamerad News (Bangalore), News Television India Ltd, Dainik Jagran and Business Standard. The only corporate house to recruit a MICA studentwas Essar Oil.

According to MICA director Anil B Kulkarni, the bulk of the offers came from advertising and PR agencies, media and marketing companies and market research organisations. There is distinct pattern of the placements too with 40 per cent of the pass-outs being absorbed in media planning and marketing and 20 per cent in account management.

He admits that although the gross salary offered to MICA graduates may not be as lucrative as commanded by their counterparts from the IIMs and IITs, it is the best for freshers in the communication industry.

Kulkarni told The Financial Express that MICA, the premier institute of its kind in this part of Asia, admits graduates in different disciplines for its two-year post-graduate diploma programme in communications (PGDPC). They have to fill in a MICA application form, along with the form for common admission test (CAT) conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).

``By any standards, it is tough to get into MICA,'' he said and added,``we have to test the applicants' aesthetic sense and sensitivity to people and environment, besides command over the language, logic and analytical skill.''

The process of admission usually begins in September. The applicants have to first clear CAT, which tests their knowledge of English, verbal reasoning, mathematical comprehension, data interpretation and analytical ability. Out of some 3,000 writing the test, about 450 to 500 are short-listed for MICA Entrance Test (MET) in March-April, including group discussion and interview. Finally, 55 are selected for the residential course.

MICA was founded as a non-profit making autonomous institution on a corpus of Rs one crore in 1991 by Mudra Communication, Ahmedabad-based advertising agency. MICA is recognised as an academic institution by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and as a research organisation by the Department of Science and Technology (DoST).

It also conducts short-term courses for sponsored candidates, selected on thebasis of their academic record, aptitude and potential. At one stage, he said, more academics wanted to join MICA as faculty than it could afford.

Talking about the future plans, Kulkarni said he has been toying with the idea of starting a short-term professional course for print and electronic journalism, besides providing consultancy service, counselling on corporate image synthesising advertising, sales promotion, direct response, event marketing and public relations for the corporate house and even governments.

He said MICA had just completed a comprehensive survey on village market to gauge the rural purchasing power. A similar survey to ascertain urban purchasing power may be undertaken shortly. MICA had worked with Government of Karnataka on a World Bank-aided public health and sanitation project.