Last week's conversation with Hima Bindu, the assistant director of admissions and financial aid at the ISB, and current ISB students Atma Shivalanka and Chandrasekhar Ghoda, was yet another Q&A success. If you missed the ISB event or if you wish to review it, you can read the whole transcript, listen to the full audio clip online, or subscribe to our podcast in iTunes and catch as many of the MBA Admissions Q&As as you want.
Here are a few questions and answers about the ISB to get you started:
Linda Abraham: Arun asks, how is an application evaluated? Hima, this is for you. Could you please elaborate on the steps and stages an application goes to after submission? What are the key attributes that ISB focuses on or wants to see in an application?
Hima Bindu: An application primarily is evaluated on five parameters: one is the student's academics, second is the GMAT to check on how his quantitative and verbal abilities -- how will he able to take the rigor of the program. The other three aspects; the third one is the number of years of work experience and the quality of this work experience. The fourth one is extracurricular activities as to what a student has done outside his work, what are his passions and interests, and how far and to what extent does he pursue them? The fifth one is leadership potential based on the student's initiatives he's taken, the challenges he faced in life, and what did he learn from them. These are gleaned from various parts of the application like the essays, the recommendations that the students submit, as well as, of course, his academic achievements and extracurriculars and awards that he lists down in the application. Basically these are the five factors in which we evaluate an application and once shortlisted, of course, there's an interview that goes on where we are testing our students' communication skills and depth of his work experience.
Linda Abraham: Great, thank you very much. This is from Abhishek. He asks, I have a question regarding the one-year program at ISB. Do you think the program at ISB is robust enough for a career change? How do recruiting companies at ISB look at career change? Can you suggest some data? And there's a very similar question from somebody else here also asking about how well does ISB support career change as opposed to career enhancement, especially since it doesn't have an internship opportunity?
Hima Bindu: Yeah. Around 60% of students at ISB manage to make a career shift. There are two types of career shifts you're talking about; one is an industry shift and one is a function shift. Eighty percent of students at ISB manage to make either a function shift or an industry shift. It's only 20% who manage to make an industry, as well as a function, shift. That's how it works at ISB. And that being said, it is difficult to make a career shift, but the onus of the shift lies a lot on the student. For example, in the case of technology, if a person wants to make a shift into finance or banking, it is going to be all the more difficult. But we've seen shifts like this being made in the school where the student has worked hard on it, has aced all the finance papers, become the finance club president, networked extensively through the club with finance professionals, and managed to make a shift. And we can quote quite a few examples like this where a dentist became a venture capitalist, where a public servant has become a Novartis strategist -- that way. They are difficult to make, but they have been done, and the school brings the recruiter onto campus, gives you the opportunity, the learning, and the window to do so. It is up to the student to swing it.
View the full Q&A transcript or listen to the mp3 recording of the event now or subscribe to the Apple iTunes MBA Admissions Podcast. If you like the podcast, please leave a 5-star review.
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