Indian School of Business (ISB) has convincingly established itself as is one of the premium and prestigious B-Schools in India in a relatively short period of 13 years. Since its first session that kicked off in 2001 at Hyderabad, ISB has been relentlessly churning out highly trained business management graduates, who now hold influential positions in most of the Fortune 500 companies and are making noticeable impact to the businesses. To cater to corporate’s ever growing demand for educated business managers, ISB launched its Mohali campus in 2012. Unsurprisingly, ISB has implemented novel policies to equalize the academic reputation and outcome of both the campuses. Choosing one campus over the other could be a critical decision that can influence your career in long term. To help applicants make an informed decision, following is a comparative view of both the schools on pertinent metrics.
| Metric | ISB Hyderabad | ISB Mohali | |
| Started | 2001 | 2012 | |
| Seats | 550 | 210 | |
| Selection procedure | Same for both Mohali and Hyderabad. Applicants exercise campus preference after completion of the selection procedure. | ||
| Financial aid/Scholarships | Same for both Mohali and Hyderabad. Campus preference is exercised after financial aid allocation. | ||
| Faculty | Faculty is selected from pooled resources for both campuses. | ||
| Inter campus exchanges | During Term 3 and Term 4 (out of 8 terms) | ||
| Electives | Entrepreneurship Finance IT and Tech ManagementOperations Management MarketingStrategy and Leadership | Entrepreneurship Finance IT and Tech ManagementOperations Management Marketing Strategy and LeadershipHealthcare ManagementManufacturing Management | |
| Job Placements | For placement, students from both campuses travel and are presented to recruiters without revealing their campus of origin. The procedure intends to eliminate recruiter’s bias for specific campus background. | ||
On job placements, even the recruiter’s claims that it is difficult to identify the students based on the campuses, as the students are not allowed to reveal whether they are from Hyderabad or Mohali. This shows that the student quality is similar at both the campuses and the placements are also similar. Often the students are flown to and fro between the campuses during the placement season. Although ISB Mohali campus offers two additional electives it will be balanced in the campus exchange. The number of seats might be on the lower side at ISB Mohali but it helps to create a strong bonding among the peers, but end of the day all that matters is the brand ISB.
The verdict boils down to the brand perception of applicant about the two campuses. There is no evidence to prove the brand perception of campuses but in our opinion, based on reputation of proven establishment with larger peer network, there is a higher possibility to prefer ISB Hyderabad. ISB has put in place all infrastructures and procedures in place to normalize the brand perception of campus and it may take a few years to manifest to the rest of the world including applicants and recruiters.
To know more about the ISB application process you can email us @ info@genedmba.com