Vinoo Urs Speaks
Check the interview of Vinoo Urs, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid about the admission process.

In short,
* Average GMAT score is 692 this year. Was 690 last year. It almost remains the same.
* Average work ex is 3 to 4.4 years, similar to the 4.6 to 4.7 years average last year.
* Average age : 27 years.
* No of intake :290. A big leap from last years 220
*Students representatives fom USA, Canada, Germany, South Africa, the UAE and Pakistan. Last read was that the Paki lady did not get visa and couldn't join ISB.
* Seven to eight students of non-Indian origin
* This year the scholarships were offered at the time of admission.
*Lastly, next years admission strategy is to get people from the smaller cities like say Pune, Baroda, and Jaipur etc

With the new Class of 2005 all set to begin their year at the ISB, we talk to Vinoo Urs, Director of Admissions and Financial Aid.

Having handled the admissions for the last three years, do you find any significant differences this year? Has there been any change in the profile of the applicant?
A very significant change is that we have very few people applying with less than two years experience compared to previous years. In terms of people with low GMAT scores, we had very few of such people.
It is pretty apparent from the applications that only a person with a certain kind of profile tends to apply to the ISB. They generally tend to have sound work experience, good academics and a GMAT score of anywhere over 600. In that sense, a lot of our groundwork has paid off, and the ISB is now perceived as a School where you have to be strong in many areas to apply and be successful.
The ISB is very committed to diversity - educational, cultural, professional, as well as in terms of gender.

How diverse is the class of 2005?
The number of women in terms of percentage remains largely the same as last year - somewhere between 17 to 18 per cent. In terms of diversity, we have more countries represented - we have people from the USA, Canada, Germany, South Africa, the UAE and Pakistan. We wish the number of foreign students were more… we have seven to eight students of non-Indian origin... but I think it is a matter of time before that happens.
In terms of professional diversity, it is an established fact at any B-school globally, that in a given year, people tend to join from those industries which are doing well. If you go by that yardstick, at the ISB this year we have a large number of people from theTechnology Services and Manufacturing sectors. To that extent, diversity is defined by how well the economy is doing, and in which areas.
We value diversity at the ISB - but we also have to meet our basic academic and work experience standards. Given the fulfilment of these criteria, diversity is encouraged, but not at the cost of our minimum standards.

Do we have any unusual backgrounds? Say another deep-sea diving professional like last year?
We do have people from the Navy, the Army, and lots of people with very interesting work experience and backgrounds. Unfortunately, no deep diving professionals this year (laughs). Most people this year come from very strong work experience, including world-renowned companies.
We also have people with family business background, which is interesting because one of ISB's thrust is entrepreneurship. Some of these family businesses are huge, like for example, we have the son of the family promoting Zodiac businesses, while another person joining us hails from a family which runs this huge bread business in Kerala. They join us because they believe an ISB education will help them better face the challenges of tomorrow.

To get an overview, how different is this class from previous classes?The Class is not dramatically different from the previous three years. It has a GMAT average of 692, which is similar to the above 690 average we always maintain. In terms of work experience, the class average is somewhere between 4.3 to 4.4 years, similar to the 4.6 to 4.7 years average last year. The average age hovers around 27 years.

What are the anticipated numbers of students in this class?
This year, the number will be anywhere between 290 and 295. It is a huge, though anticipated, leap.

What kind of financial aid does the ISB offer its students?
This year, one of the things we did was to offer scholarships at the time of admission. Some scholarships are based on merit, while substantial numbers are based on need. We have given around 110 scholarships, with an average of Rs 1.5 lakh per scholarship.

Are there any company scholarships?
We have had several multinational corporations which have sponsored scholarships and financial aid now and in the past. We have had Citibank, HSBC, Norvatis, among others who have been part of our programme. Interestingly, their support to students goes beyond aid - for example, last year all students selected for aid by Citibank were also offered jobs.

How many company-sponsored candidates do we have?
Usually, we don't get very many sponsored candidates largely because most people tend to do a management education to switch their sector, or function, and in some ways, a sponsorship of this kind may hinder the switch, more so at the ISB where over 80 per cent of the students tend to receive lateral offers.
A reason why sponsorship is not particularly popular with our students, even though several companies are very glad to sponsor them.

What are your plans for next year?
One of the things we see is a substantial number of students tend to come from the Indian Metros, and cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore. We would like to change our strategy slightly so we can get people from the smaller cities like say Pune, Baroda, and Jaipur etc. We will change focus to target these groups better even while we try to get more women and international students