MagicalQuokka

How good/bad is ISB?

I've heard lots of conflicting good and bad viewpoints on ISB on Grapevine and otherwise. I want to explore these things more and build a balanced perspective.

Good things I've heard:-

Average comp is decently high as most of the batch has a decent amount of experience.
Professors, their way of teaching and the actual course content is one of the best in India.
The network is really strong, easily accessible via many channels and helps alumni land jobs frequently.

Bad things I've heard:-

Placement comp numbers are heavily inflated.
Resume shortlisting in placements is hard because everyone exaggerates a lot and there's no resume vetting.
Many people go unplaced.

How much of this (good or bad) is true? Any other good or bad points?

15mo ago

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GroovyBoba

X (formerly Twitter)15mo

2 Simple things to navigate through any MBA are -

You should have a decent resume to get shortlisted for interviews.
Be good at English aka know how to bullshit your way through an interview

These 2 will end up letting you land a job atleast.

Bonus points if you are a IIT/BITS/Faang/mbb/top startup alumni, have a big marketable skill, are a girl, have an exotic accent. In that order

MagicalQuokka

Stealth15mo

That's great advice, thanks. Are you from ISB?

PerkyRaccoon

Stealth15mo

This is as real as it gets. Bravo!

ZippyNoodle

Goldman Sachs15mo

Good or bad is relative and different from person to person. If you are looking to be at a certain place in your career, you should ask yourself if an ISB PGP will help, what you want out of it and how your likelihood to achieve your goal will change post the PGP - the input variables will matter like your grad scores, college, concentration etc. and other things like the fees, scholarships, opportunity cost etc.

I don't think you will hear that ISB is a 'bad' school often. The concern some people have with the college is that it is projected to be a lot more than it actually is. Getting objective opinions from alumni is rare (in general), even more so in the case of ISB.

MagicalQuokka

Stealth15mo

That's a based take. I wish more ISB alumni would speak up and share balanced info with aspirants. Like you said, it has been hard to get inputs from them.

PerkyRaccoon

Stealth15mo

That is a good articulation of the issue. The egregious bias by alumni is the problem, it is tough to differentiate sometimes whether it is the marketing team or the alumni being talked to.

SleepyHamster

Stealth15mo

Having worked closed with ISB graduates and not making into it last year, here is my take from my research

get an admit first (it’s getting tougher with every passing year, in 2016-17 a GMAT of 710 would give you a good bet now even 750 folks are dinged because they don’t know why behind their MBA)
On cons you have mentioned - what I have heard
placement at ISB are more organised vs IIMs, as they are not organised by student groups (hence limited scope of bias, favouritism)
consulting make up 300-350 offers (that is like the entire batch of FMS) top firms MBB, Kearney, Roland, LEK, EYP etc. make 120-150 offers offers
Prod man has huge scope people with valid experience can even get Prod man 2 as well at FAANG, Indian tech firms
On resumes, yes the vetting is limited. But, eventually recruiters are not dumb. Big lies get caught and impact candidature. Overall, the profiles are so diverse at ISB that is tough to validate every resume ( Indian Army, doctors, ISRO, WWF fund, news broadcaster, core engineers, IT engineers)
on non-placement yes there are 5-8% of batch (40-70 people) that is not placed by graduation - 20-25 people out of these voluntarily drop off due to entrepreneurships, 5-10 go back to their old firms and drop off. 25-30 most have one offer but don’t take it as they want to apply off campus as competition is lower vs competing inside ISB. But there are 10-15 people who have no offers till graduation
Hope this helps

MagicalQuokka

Stealth15mo

Yes, it's pretty helpful. Thanks for sharing!

Do you know about the FMCG and other consumer goods / retail placements scene at ISB?

SleepyHamster

Stealth15mo

Yea there are, P&G, HUL, Colgate etc. recruit in sales, brand management, finance, Management trainees profiles. But these are not the top priority jobs for folks on campus is what I have heard. Mostly consulting, some finance IB, product management are top preferences

FluffyCupcake

Amazon15mo

This is the fundamental problem of aspirants : They start evaluating the school before they evaluate themselves.

By evaluating themselves, I meant -

wat they want from the program
if their profile is good enough for isb
how MBA helped other people with similar backgrounds

They simply look for “an easy formula to accelerate the salary”. It’s evident from this post as pro/con has top points related to salary only.

If 800+ people are joining a program year-after-year, do you think they lack in IQ somewhere?

Try looking for answers of all the above questions, maybe you will be able to figure out yourself. There are many views on ISB and it’s too confusing here.

P.S. - I’ve no relation to ISB, I researched about it and went to other school basis my preferences.

MagicalQuokka

Stealth15mo

How do you know I'm an aspirant? Your assumption is wrong - I'm not an aspirant.

What's wrong with just being curious and wanting to know things? I read good and bad things and wanted to deepen my perspective.

Your answer isn't helpful.

FluffyCupcake

Amazon15mo

Curiosity for …. ??

FloatingMarshmallow

Student14mo

Current student at ISB.

There is a positive in your bad things list and its that all these concerns will become irrelevant an year after graduation. BS resumes will go away and people will get better paying jobs.

Although, I wouldn’t say professors are “best”. I obviously haven’t studied at any other college but any Prof can be a hit or a miss in class affecting your overall experience.

ZippyCoconut

Student14mo

Hey, are you still active?

FloatingMarshmallow

Student14mo

Yes!

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11K

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