ISB’s Class of 2016 Expands to 813 Students. Placement Challenges Ahead?

Indian School of Business’s MBA (One Year PGP) Class continues to expand in size. This year 813 students have joined ISB’s MBA course – which makes it the largest Full Time MBA Class in India. While the quality of the intake continues to look good on most parameters, the work experience (work-ex) of candidates joining the B-School has fallen – the Class of 2016 has an average work-ex of 4.7 years as compared to the 5 years of average work-ex the Class of 2015 had. Finding jobs for such a large class could pose to be a challenge – there have been murmurs of placement issues cropping up due to the rising class size.  

The Indian School of Business (ISB), with campuses at Mohali and Hyderabad, recently welcomed a diverse set of achievers to its flagship one-year Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) this year. The PGP Class of 2016 comprises 813 students with 560 and 253 students at Hyderabad and Mohali campuses respectively.

The students come from varied backgrounds including professionals from the fields of medicine, the government and non-governmental organisations, scientific researchers, some of whom also hold patents, sports enthusiasts and performing artists and media professionals.

This is the 15th Class to enroll for ISB’s PGP and the Class is now connected to a wide network of 7600+ alumni of the School. 

With 236 women in the Class, the PGP Class of 2016 accounts for the highest number of women in absolute terms in any class so far. This is a result of the concerted efforts by the School to bring more and more women students on board. As a result ISB has also seen the more recruiters hiring women candidates for leadership positions over the past few years.

Class of 2016 – Profile

• 18 students have either filed for or received a patent/s
• Class also includes several doctorates in bio chemistry, bio technology and bio medical science
• Includes a B-Tech graduate who was chosen as a youth ambassador for the Antarctica Expedition by 2041 organisation from among 30 world wide
• First time women students enrolled from Sri Lanka and Russia
• Avid sportspersons including national level badminton, tennis and cricket players
• Political Science students who have contributed to party manifestos 

While the quality of intake seems to be consistent with that of last year’s class on most parameters, the average work experience of the Class has dipped for the first time in recent time to 4.7 years – this is below the 5 years average work-ex standard mandated by Association of MBAs (AMBA) for accreditation of a course as an MBA. For Classes from 2010 to 2015, ISB reported a steady 5 years of average work ex.

The rising class size also has some students worried. On condition of anonymity, a student from ISB’s PGP Class of 2014 spoke about the impact of the class size on placements. She said, “While the toppers do land good jobs, many others have to fend for themselves. The class size surely has made placements more challenging, and many students had to find jobs through their own connections…its not all rosy.”

The placement data released by ISB also hints at the challenges being faced by the institute and its students.

Salaries offered during campus placement have remained stagnant over the past few years: the Class of 2013 bagged an average salary of Rs 17,41, 081 (CTC) which is much lower than the average salary reported for the Class of 2011 – Rs 17,92,715 (CTC).

CTC Data over the years

The number of offers made during placements have risen with time: from 541 offers in 2010 to 884 offers in 2014 – but the number of companies participating in placements has fallen over the same period.

346 companies participated in the 2010 placements when students participating in placements numbered 552 (1.5 students per company participating). The number of companies rose to 423 in 2013 and the number of students sitting for placements was 741 that year. But in 2014 the number of companies participating in placements was back to 2010 levels: 350 companies were available to hire 759 students (2.1 students per company participating).

While more offers are being made, the smaller set of companies participating could be impacting the range of roles available during campus placements.

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The recession over the past years has possibly contributed to the situation. Many companies have retrenched staff and reduced hiring at the mid to senior level which has hurt MBA placements globally.