Calling all ISB Applicants - (2017 Intake) Class of 2018

Hello,

Requesting an evaluation of my profile. I am an aspirant of the PGP in Management at ISB, Class of 2018. I shall be applying in Round 2 of the admissions this term.

Xth: 90.5 (ICSE)
XIIth: 93.75 (ISC)
B.E.: Civil Engineering (with Honours) with a percentage score of 84.10 (CGPA: 9.16, Rank 5/92), College: Bengal Engineering and Science University, Shibpur (current official name: IIEST Shibpur)

GMAT: 680 (Q50, V30, IR-7, AWA-5.5)

Work Experience: Total-37 months, as on 31 August 2016

1. 9 months as a Structural Engineer with a renowned consulting engineering firm, handling structural design work on heavy industrial steel structures
2. 28 months as a Technical Officer/Scientist with Bureau of Indian Standards, the National Standards body of India. Exposed to various facets of work handled by the organization including product certification, standardisation and hallmarking, among others. For the past 12 months, involved in the major project of revision of National Building Code of India, being one of the five people involved.

Extra-curriculars:
1. Quizzing: Participated and had podium finishes, including wins, at numerous inter-school/inter-college quizzing events. Served as General Secretary of the quizzing society in college for a year and as Student Convener of quizzing events in college's annual technical fest.
2. Sports: a) State-level table tennis player at junior and sub-junior levels, b) State-level cricketer at U-13 level.

Well, I guess my profile suffers from a huge Achilles' Heel that is my GMAT Verbal score. Despite satisfactory preparation, the score came out to be ridiculously low. However I have decided not to retake the GMAT before applying at least once with this score given ISB's gradual higher acceptance rate of profiles with lower scores. My Verbal score keeps worrying me, though.

Is there any chance of my getting a call for the interviews if I apply in R2? What should I generally try to highlight in my essays? Appreciate any help I can get. Thank you.

Hi Arnab
- You would have a chance in R1 itself. Why would you want to push this to R2? Your GMAT is sorted already. R1 is ~5 weeks away and so doable.
- Your acads, experience, and ECA are quite good (the sporting achievements are quite noteworthy in particular) and that definitely adds to your profile
- Work is differentiated as well. Civil/structural work (minor) with later Standards experience (major). What will be important for you is to create a link to an MBA from here, as your current role and an MBA are not the most natural of fits.
- Overall, with a strong app, you would have a decent chance. Focus on that, and if possible, look at R1.

Hope this helps. Feel free to come back with more queries as needed.

Hi mshrek

- R1 interview calls start to go out in the first week of November (judging from last year), and continue till almost the end of November.
- After you submit your application (by Oct 15), there is a wait of ~2-3 weeks. Post that, the interview calls go out.
- Once the interview is done, you will need to wait for the final decision date. This year, that has been announced as Dec 5.
- In case you have travel plans, ISB is flexible in terms of adjusting by offering an interview in another location or a Skype/telephonic interview, if you inform them sufficiently in advance. The period of your travel though seems safe as no interviews are expected to happen in that duration. Still, check your emails regularly, and inform ISB in advance in case any clash at all does happen in terms of dates.
- Some acronyms are ok, but would suggest you expand in case you are not sure. ELP and PAEV at least are well understood.

Hi,

I have 16 year of experience ( 3 years of Non-IT, 3 years of entrepreneurship, 10 years of core IT experience). I have 2 questions regarding the PGP program of ISB.

1. What are the chances of getting into PGP, consider I score well in GMAT.
2. After the completion of the course, what are the chances of getting placed.

~Bhaskar

Hi

1. Chances are low, but not zero. ISB's experience range is 2-20 years, so some people with as much and even more experience of yours do get through. However, the numbers are very limited. At 16 years of experience, ISB may consider you a better fit for the PGPMAX.
2. Placements will also present a challenge. Your profile will not fit 99% of roles coming to ISB, and CAS would struggle to get a company to visit campus for a lateral hire this senior. You would need to instead work with CAS to find senior management opportunities in the market instead/reach out to alums. Ultimately, if you are up for the challenge, and are somewhat flexible in terms of location/designation/seniority, you could very well find such a position.

Thanks.

Is it same for someone who has 10 years of experience ? One of my friend who is trying for ISB has 10 years of experience.

Not as much. 10 years experience is still closer to the 7-8 years bracket, which has many people in it. Therefore finding a suitable role is much easier. In addition, ISB would be much more open to considering you a as a PGP candidate with ~10 yrs experience.

Thanks a lot for sharing your views.
Does the same applies to IIMs ( A,B,C) with regard to years of experience and corresponding getting placed after the 1 year executive programme

When is the final decision date for ISB for round 1?
Is it 15th december?

The website mentions two rounds of decision dates. The dates in application are totally different.

Any idea which one of them is correct?

For those keen to connect to current class students at ISB, the School has a new "Brand Ambassadors" page at https://www.isb.edu/pgp/student-connect
You can filter for your specific function and experience range and connect with one of the Ambassadors, who would be more than happy to guide you.
Please note that they may not be in a position, however, to assist with prep, resume/ essay review etc, due to the hectic schedule they grapple with at ISB!
Just a heads up to all those looking to crack ISB!
Good luck!

FROM ISB Admissions Blog: All about Recommendations

One of the most crucial part of your application to ISB is your recommendation letter. This year the PGP application process requires one independent evaluation. All PGP applicants have to choose one evaluator who can give the admissions team a snapshot of the candidate’s abilities. This evaluation helps in determining whether the candidate is a good fit for the programme. The candidate has to nominate an evaluator by providing the evaluator’s name, designation and official email id. The evaluator will be sent an evaluation form by email and instructions on how to fill it. The evaluator provides inputs on  the applicant’s strengths, areas of improvement, achievements, leadership potential, etc and will require at least 45 to 60 mins to fill the form. Who should write your recommendation? The selection of the evaluator/ recommender is very crucial for the application. Here are some pointers to keep in mind for selecting your evaluator. Ideally, you should nominate someone who had a chance to observe your work closely in the recent past. Your evaluator should be familiar with your abilities, areas of improvement etc. In case you are not comfortable nominating your current boss, you can nominate others who have had a chance to observe your working style and personality – previous manager, mentor, client, etc. If you are in family business or have your own start-up, your evaluator can be a vendor, supplier, client, customer, auditor, banker etc. Avoid approaching co-founders or blood relatives. It is impactful to choose an evaluator whose performance has been impacted by the work you put in. His/her inputs will provide deeper insights. How can the evaluation be submitted? The evaluation submission can be done in two ways: online and offline. We prefer an online evaluation, it’s convenient and is preferred by most evaluators as well. Here the evaluator will be sent a link to the form, He/ She will have to answer few questions online. For offline evaluation, an evaluation form and an upload link will be sent to the evaluator. The form can be downloaded, a printed copy should be filled, signed and scanned into PDF format.  This should then be  uploaded via the shared link. Evaluator details must be submitted on or before the application deadline (Oct 15, 2016, for Round 1; Jan 15, 2017, for Round 2).  It is however, advisable to do so well ahead of deadline to provide adequate time to the evaluator.

The ISB round 1 has two offer decision dates.
Offer decision 1 - 10th November
Offer decision 2 - 5th December

The offer should be accepted in 10 days from notification. So if you get selected in decision 1... You have till 20th November for accepting the offer. However, most of the other schools are declaring the results between 10th-20th December.

This means, if selected in decision 1 you will not be able to wait for other results.

Makes me a bit uncomfortable, any thoughts?

Quite a short bracket indeed!

But many colleges I see send out their offers before November..
And one reason could be(looking from the college's perspective) that they have to carry out tedious selection procedures repetitively when applicants start to withdraw.

Even if its , lets say 20 days or 30 days, it shouldn't make much of a difference. if you have choices between ISB and another school(which gives you 30 days to decide) then that should be sufficient.
Fewer applications, lesser confusion!

Hi Abhishek,
Most of the US B-schools have round 1 in oct 10-20, and the results are declared in December.
At least the one's I am checking out: UCLA, McCombs, UNC Kenan

Both of them are correct. They will roll out the decisions in two cycles. (and maybe conduct interviews in two cycles as well... pre-10th November and post-10th November)

Regards,
Abhirup Bhabani,
ISB Co2018

This is a tough one nickdevil! we have often seen applicants lose money because they land up paying the fee of atleast one b-school.
If it helps, apply to ISB in R2 instead.

Heys people,

Nauman here from ISB Co2017.
With just a fortnight remaining for the Round1 deadline, me and my batchmates are being flooded with queries regarding the application process, essays, career opportunities and general ISB gyaan. As you might already be knowing, we have already launched the Student-Connect program to help you out. Taking it a step further, we have created an official Facebook group for the Co2018 aspirants where you can connect with the current batch and get your queries resolved. I request you to join the group and be updated. You can find us at

https://www.facebook.com/groups/972981556180393/

PS : Its a closed group so you need to send us a joining request.