ISB Sets New Benchmarks With its Class Of 2007 - Press Release

ISB Sets New Benchmarks With its Class Of 2007

Increases class size, becomes one of the Largest B-Schools inthe World *

Hyderabad, May 16, 2006: The ISB has increased its student intake by 20% for the current Class of 2007. The Class of 2007 – all working professionals - has 418 students as compared to 345 students in the Class of 2006. The ISB will now be counted as one among the largest, when compared to the top B-Schools in the world.

”We have taken the ISB standards higher this year with 53% students from our new class having secured GMAT scores of over 700. The average GMAT score has increased to 706 from 694 last year. This is comparable to GMAT scores of students at the world’s top B-Schools and is a matter of pride for the ISB and Indian management education,” said Professor Rammohan Rao, Dean ISB

ISB invests in talent

To encourage meritorious and deserving students, the ISB has offered scholarships worth Rs.1.67 crores right at the time of their admission to the ISB. Scholarships have been offered to nearly 20% of the class and will also be awarded by companies like HSBC, Citigroup, Novartis, Anand Group and KC Maritime during the academic year. Scholarships exclusively for women students are also being offered. At the end of the

academic year, the top 20 students who are selected for the Dean’s list will be offered merit scholarships.

Students reject international B-School offers for the ISB

The current class has many students who have rejected offers from B-Schools in USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Singapore and have chosen to study at the ISB. Some of the renowned B-Schools from whom the students received and rejected offers include Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia Business School, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Purdue University, INSEAD, University of California - Los Angeles, National University of Singapore, and several others.

“On evaluating various options, I chose ISB because it offers the latest and best in global management practices and draws faculty from the top B-Schools in the world. Moreover the students here are drawn from a variety of backgrounds making the experience at the ISB even more interactive and unique, “said Yashovardhan Gupta, a student who has rejected an offer from Carnegie Mellon University

Women numbers go up

Another highlight of the new class at the ISB is the significant increase in the number of women students. The ISB, which has always encouraged women to take up a management career, has seen an upward trend year after year in women student intake. The number of women students which has gone up to 87 from 67 last year, represents 20% of the Class of 2007, which is comparable to some of the leading European B-schools.

Unity in Diversity

Keeping up the ISB tradition, the Class of 2007 comes from varied academic backgrounds and diverse work experience. Some are Doctors, some are from the Indian armed forces, others are entrepreneurs, architects, model/actor, urban planner, chef, etc. Students with interesting industry backgrounds like media, advertising, real estate and social services have also joined the ISB this year. The class boasts of a mix of students who have excelled and won acclaim for excellence in both scholastic and non-scholastic activities. Few remarkable examples include a student who has won the Operation Vijay Medal for the Kargil war, students who have applied for patents, a student who has won the International Femtor Award for emerging business leader in USA, etc.

ISB nurtures entrepreneurs

One of the key differentiators for the ISB is that it attracts working professionals, including several entrepreneurs, who join here to sharpen their professional skills and acumen. The current class has eight entrepreneurs who have work experience ranging from three to thirteen years in their own ventures.

The Class has an average work-experience of 5 years in a variety of industries and functions such as technology, pharma, media, etc., and in operations, finance, marketing, consulting, entrepreneurship, merchant navy etc. The average age of the students in the Class of 2007 is 27 years.

The recognition that the ISB students have received in the past years show that they are on par with the best in the world and the Class of 2007 is no exception.

About the ISB

The Indian School of Business is a research-oriented independent management institution that grooms future leaders for India and the world. Its association with the Kellogg School of Management, The Wharton School, and London Business School make it one of its kind in Asia. The School offers a one-year Post Graduate Programme; short-duration, high-powered Executive Education programmes for CEOs and senior executives; and a two-year Research Fellowship Programme. The origins and distinctive research of our faculty members ensure that our programme content is contemporary and global in its perspective, and develops our students’ understanding of modern management opportunities and challenges.

Soap Box: B-school Elections

An ideal time to post my opinion on B-school elections.

I stood for the post of Director- Student Life Council, arguably the most sought after position on the GSB ( Graduate Student Board ) on campus. So did 5 other awesome candidates. It was damn good fun, we were given 5 minutes to sell ourselves to the GSA ( Graduate Student Association, in short the entire student body ) and blood well we did. After a couple of mails extolling people to come and attend the soap box and in the process strategitically interjecting that we need their vote, we submitted our Manifestos to the Co-Curricular activities department. This was duly mailed to the entire student body.

The soap-box consists of a 5 minute speech by nominees, followed by a round of cross-questioning. Its great fun and a significant part of every b-school life. the objectives of the cross questioning varies to a large extent in most cases.

some are strategically planted by the candidates themselves, in a bid to increase their airtime. Some are merely "Arbit", uttered by a few key members of the audience, seeking their 30 seconds of fame. and the best kind are the ones which are used to unsettle the candidates are a real test of wit in most cases. These questions and many such similar gestures are what makes this event so interesting,

Hope the practice continues, since im hoping for stuff, hope that I win ................

anti-quota demonstrations !!!

Heated debates regarding Quotas are happening throughout the country, ISB being a pretty intrinsic community, we are sort of abstracted from the happenings throughout the country.

However some shocking images of the treatment meted out to Anti-Quota protestors have recently been distrubuted throughout the blogging and " Fwd: " Forwarding community. The Police Act in India, which I believe is unchanged from 1862, is to a large extent responsible for the highly controversial treatment meted out to students in the country. There has to be a law to distinquish peaceful protestors from rioters.

that said I am providing a couple of photos and a link to some more photos which you can peruse to understand the plight of students in this country,

I for one, am totally against reservations in any form or the other. My opinion sorely rests with providing need and merit based scholarships to deserving candidates irrespective of caste, creed or race, but reservations are a strict no no .....

The guy in Orange is a college mate - Ashutosh Ojha

A link to some more ghastly pictures:

http://rhapsoder.blogspot.com/2006/05/mandal-ized.html

interesting articel ;-)

Its all relative !!!!!

Our first Examination looms ahead, a mid-term actually. Before i applied to this place, i had found out that there are 8 terms. 8 terms = 8 sets of examinations, not so bad i guess .....

WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE MID-TERMS........

the % allocation of these tests are quite large. yet ISB holds classes for different subjects and different topics the day before the test, quite a dichotomy.

with huge syllabuses and pages of cheat sheets to write, the copius amount of workload has created such a huge incremental effort, that starting any kind of academic preparation seems an ominous task.

However, we shall survive .......

The only saving grace is that " Its all relative ", a die-hard optimist that I am, i see the grading system this way, if you fail and most of the people around you fail, then technically you dont fail.

Don't know far this philosophy will go in preventing a D.

B-school Elections !!!!

One core subject which is included in almost every b-school in the world is Political Science. Well almost....

The last week had consisted of a frenzy of activity with regard to the GSB (Graduate Student Board) Elections. Nominations have been filed, withdrawn, discussed, debunked and almost every adjective you can think of can be added here. We have witnessed first-hand the merger and acquisition of political parties, A few hostile takeovers and some merely driven out by force.

The result as Prof Bubna aptly put it has been the result of Market Dynamics. We have been left with only 3 candidates for the GSB President. This number is merely a shadow of what it had promised to be and not at all reflective of the diversity present in the batch.

The soap box, which took place today, was as boilerplated as the "why school x" question. Extremely uninteresting and dashed a lot of hopes, specifically for guys like me who were looking at enjoying a couple of laughs at the expense of others or a few heated arguments reminiscent of the Indian Parliament.

As campaigning is not permitted within ISB, I shall refrain from mentioning any specifities about the candidates but am brimming with ideas, how such a situation might be prevented next year. I am not saying that we may not end up with the best candidate for the role, but having choice is essential for making a decision and any sort of monopoly is undesirable. The economy thrives on competition.

Oh Well ......

Heres to an enjoyable round of elections and a succesful stint for the winner of the proceedings... hic hic hic

CNBC Interview

CNBC TV18, came on campus today to speak to a few students.

Since we have not formed a formal commitee yet, to look over these things. The information that CNBC was looking for a couple of entreprenuers and/or guys who have "dinged" US b-schools for ISB, was sort of circulating on campus.

Vaguely qualifying both the requirements, I recieved 5-6 calls at extremlely awkward moments, extolling me to go and speak to them in a picture perfect location in the LRC.

Panting and Sweating, I just managed to make it in time for the media guy to tell me that you look quite dishevelled so ... sort of just put your hair in place, to that effect somebody added that "they wanted to have a casual conversation with students in the midst of their class schedules", so we could carry on, Reality TV - i guess.

It was fun actually, he asked me a couple of questions which were quite straightforward, a relief from the kind of stuff we are asked at various group meetings and definitely better that the kinds of questions students would have to answer at the "Soap Box" today, but that at another time.

The questions were, which schools did you get into and why did you choose to come to ISB, hmmmmmmmm.... with a heavy heart i answered the usual yada yada, which i knew by rote after all the essay writing and interview prep these b-school applications make you go through.

Armed with the Media Dude's card and with imminent information regarding the time I would come on TV, I strode into "Khemka" for a session with CAS.......Considering that I am still in Khemka, I need not elaborate on the CAS session ;-)

btw: the real gossip about b-school life would be acquired today after the "Soap Box" presentations, so until i put up that......

PARTYYYYY!!!!

Signs of impending doom

The last 3 weeks at ISB have been awesome. Full of parties and minimal academic pressure

Week 1: The first week was filled with memorising names and faces, partying like crazy and having the time of your lives. Sleep was at a premium, not that anybody cared. We had club presentations, team building events, leadership development programs, some lectures extolling us to pull up our socks or to hit the ground running.

And parties every night, sort of set the tone for my entire stay at Gachibowli.

Week 2: Pre-term!!!!, after a lot of begging and grovelling I was given the honour of being part of the pre-term classes. Had earlier missed the deadline of applying for the pre-terms, because of procrastination and then later due to non-existant internet in spanish villages.

On hindsight, I was better of without the pre-terms, Quant prof was aweome. Prof Shankar from IIMB. Rather than go through the motions, he made it his responsibility to create some interest in the subject with interesting anecdotes and trivia and made a dull subject such as mathematics quite interesting.

The same obviously cant be said about the other 2. Although I have been hearing reports that Introductory accounting was awesome in the other sections.

Pre-terms, werent taken quite seriously and most chose to extend the revellry into the 2nd week of ISB as well. The parties continued, the mispronounciation of names and the practice of calling people Dude, when one doesn't know the respective name continued.

This was an awesome week at ISB. No academic pressure, freedom to sleep over 10 hours, Its almost like a vacation ... awesome stuff.

Week 3:

ahem ahem ahem ..... the profs are awesome, they are giving an insane amount of workload, but somehow people havent really started buring the midnight oil. Maybe the assignments or the mid-term tests will sort of open our eyes to the task which faces us.

Meanwhile the parties continue, People continue to party till the wee hours of the morning convincing themselves that instead of partying they are actually networking.... well I am one of them. Studies or reading, as is commonly called here is still nowhere to be found. I have till date in my entire stay at ISB done about 4 hours of study.....

Is this b-school life, if it is. I am in love with an MBA. However, I believe that this is just the calm before the storm....

Or in other words, signs of impending Doom.....

Hope to survive to right my epitaph.