Monday, November 13, 2006

The bidding Saga...

True to the spirit of free markets the course allocation for the elective terms takes place through competitive bidding, each student is allotted a total of 4000 points which is the currency for bidding. While term 5 bidding went over peacefully with most of the people getting the course they wanted and also getting them cheap, term 6 bidding proved to be a sharp contrast. The hottest course is “Corporate Controls, Mergers & Acquisitions”, almost the entire campus bid for the 165 available seats for the course, and true to expectations the cut off bid crossed 1000 points. Courses like “investing in private equity” and “pricing” also came close with the cutoff’s crossing 500. Some are worried they have spent all points they had, while some are disappointed they didn’t spend enough… call it the play of demand and supply or just exorbitant exuberance… its still by far the most efficient way of allocating scarce course seats….. that’s free markets in action.