Admissions Director

I have been asked by many prospective applicants as to which round is the best to apply – R1 or R2. My advice is very simple. You should apply when you are ready. If your GMAT is in place and so are the essays and other details, apply right away. If you think, there is an important assignment at work which is nearing completion or you are due for a promotion,, which will change your role and responsibilities, you may want to apply in the Round 2. The bottom line is that one should apply with the best application in place.

Ultimately, R1 or R2 for us makes no difference as we have historically received more or less equal number of applications and the seats are also distributed accordingly. So, you are neither at an advantage nor at an disadvantage.

Our experience tells us that it is important that you divide the entire application process in manageable segments. Given the fact that you would be busy in your professional commitments, here is a break-down of the application process. There are 12 sections that needs to be filled in to complete 100% of your application. Each section will typically help you advance by 10%. You can easily complete more than 50% of the application if you get your educational/work experience and other personal details on the site. It would also be a good idea to send in the email IDs of your recommenders on a priority as the evaluators are also busy professionals and would need some time to send a good evaluation. The GMAT and the essays both need time and effort and once the routine details are out of the way you can devote your energies to these two. The aim ultimately should be to send in a good strong application.  Breakdown of the application process:

1. Application Details
2. Personal Details
3. Contact Details
4. Test Scores
5. Year 12
6. UG
7. Essay 1
8. Essay 2
9. Essay 3
10. Declarations
11. Statement of Integrity
12. Submission

You are free to fill in the application in any order you are comfortable with and you can revisit each aspect of the application as many times as you want to. Just keep saving each time you make a change. You can continue to make changes till you are ready to submit and once you submit the application you cannot make any more changes to the application.

If you have queries regarding any part of the application process, please do not hesitate to reach out to us through any of the following ways – Call us  +91 40 23187474
or email us at :pgpadmissions@isb.edu

We are primarily looking at the following attributes in prospective applicants:

1.       Consistent academic record

2.       Clarity of thought in terms of career aspirations and goals

3.       People who have demonstrated attributes of leadership.

Consistent academic record is a good indicator of the applicants ability to take up the rigor of the programme. And to this effect, we look at the school 12th  scores, graduation grades and the GMAT scores. For those who are worried about a not so good academic record, I have only one piece of advice – do well in your GMAT. The school and undergraduate performances are in the past and cannot be changed however what can be changed is the GMAT score. Each applicant should make an assessment of his/her academic performance in relation to that of other applicants ( an applicant may not know who else is applying but certainly knows what his/her position in their respective graduating class was). If one is in the top half of the class an average to above average GMAT score would be good to have but for a person in the bottom half of the class a well above average GMAT score would be desirable.

Career aspirations and goals:  The essential question here is why does the applicant want to do a programme in management. We do look at clarity of thought and purpose in the applicant. We are looking at answers to questions like – where do you see yourself in say 3 years time, why is management education important to achieve the goals you have set yourself, can your current career path lead you to your goals even without management education etc. We certainly are not expecting answers like “I see myself at XXX position in YYY company in the next 5 years time” Such assertion are difficult to make and we do not expect such statements.

Leadership attributes: Our applicant pool can be broadly divided into two categories
1. Who have had sufficient work experience to have had the opportunity to lead people
2. Those who have not yet had the formal role of leading people. How then do we evaluate leadership in these two categories. The first is relatively simple – the role a person does has ample scope to demonstrate the impact of the leadership skills and that should be presented appropriately in the application. It is a lot more difficult for the second category. However all good leaders do have certain traits in common and these can be presented in the application. Leaders take initiative/ look for improved ways of doing things/are creative/encourage team work/are decisive etc. I have listed out only a few of the traits that can be demonstrated without actually having to lead a set of subordinates. Applicants who have no formal leadership role can highlight some of the traits I have mentioned with concrete examples in order to present their case well.

I will be writing more about the application process in subsequent blogs till then all the best.

GMAT scores are valid for up to 5 years and the ISB accepts scores which are in this limit and if a person has taken the test more than once we take the highest score. One of the golden rules for deciding when to take the GMAT is very simple – When you are ready. A lot of time, students do not take into account the time required to prepare for the test. Whether you are a working professional or a student you need to set aside preparation time for the test. You should take enough time to study for it, because there’s no point of taking the test without being prepared.

If you’re fresh out of your college or in your final year of graduation, it may be a good idea for you to start preparing and take the exam right away. The score stays valid for 5 years and you can plan your MBA accordingly.

If you are a working professional, you should carefully plan the preparation time involved. There is no ideal time that you need to set out but our experience tell us that depending on the educational background, you would need anywhere between 6-8 weeks of preparation time. One advantage of taking the test early would also give you an option to retake the test, if you’re not satisfied with your score. The round 1 application deadlines is September 15 and round two deadline is November 30. So plan accordingly. What should not get missed is the time that you would require on the essays and other application requirements.

All the best.

The application process for the next class starting April 2012 is now on and I thought it would be a good idea to start this year’s blog with a note on how to get started with the applications.

In my experience over years of having seen various approaches followed by students while applying to the ISB, the most common mistake, I have seen committed, is equating GMAT exam to the entire ISB application. Most of the students wait until they have finished taking the GMAT (in a large number of cases it is in the last week of the deadline) and then start on the application. It’s a sure shot way of failing overall, even if you get a great GMAT score. Simply because, GMAT is just one ‘part’ of our overall application evaluation process. There are a lot of other things which are equally if not more important than GMAT. So, here is my two cents on how to go about it.

• Get all your academic and work experience papers in place and have them scanned and uploaded at one go. This would ensure that you don’t miss out on any document. Any additional qualifications and certifications can also be uploaded.
• Writing essays would require significant time and effort. To write a good essay requires that you spend a considerable time thinking about what you want to cover in each essay. As a first step put down all the points you would like covered, then order the points in a logical sequence then elaborate each point into a well structured essay. It is always a good idea to first write the essay ignoring the word limit and then edit down to the required word limit. This ensures that you have covered all that you have intended to cover in the essay. Have the essays reviewed by friends and colleagues who know you well.
• While selecting evaluators, please ensure you share their official email IDs. If for some reason you cannot give the official mail id you have the option to get an offline evaluation. You will have to give us the reason for making this choice. We will then send across the evaluation blank to the appraiser who can then fill them and courier it to us. Please send in the details early so that the evaluators have sufficient time to furnish the evaluations so that they reach us by the application deadline.

 The first cycle application deadline is 15th Sept 2011.