ISB becomes India's biggest B-school

With 276 students taking part in this year's post-graduate programme in management (Class of 2005), the Indian School of Business (ISB) here has become the biggest business school in India.

ISB is followed by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta, with a student intake of 245, while Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and IIM Lucknow have a student intake of 240 each.

PLN Welingkar Institute of Management has an intake of 238. The other IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kozhikode have a student strength of 172, 215 and 125, respectively.

ISB has been steadily ramping up its student numbers in keeping with its plans for expansion. The school's Founding Class of 2002 comprised 126 students.

The Class of 2003 had an intake of 168 and the Class of 2004 had a strength of 219. ISB plans to eventually take its class strength to 560 over the next few years.

ISB's focus on increasing the number of women students in its post-graduate programme saw the number of women students go up to 52 this year, up from last year's number of 40.

The Class of 2005 is a mix of engineers, CAs, finance professionals, marketing strategists and entrepreneurs. Adding an extra edge to this blend are students with unique profiles: India's youngest CA, two mountaineers, two students who hold patents for technological innovations, a student from the World Bank and another who worked with an NGO in Bangladesh.

ISB has made focused efforts this year to target students from non-A class cities too, resulting in 152 students from cities such as Jaipur, Kozhikode, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Indore etc.

According to the press release, ISB students compare with the best global B"�schools. The average age of the class is 27 years, the average GMAT score is 690, and the students have an average of five years of prior work experience.

Many of the students in the Class of 2005 also come with international work experience. The international students "� from Germany, USA, Canada, UK, and UAE "� comprise two per cent of the total strength. The Class of 2005 also has 49 NRIs from various countries such as Switzerland, Indonesia, South Korea, the US, Australia, the UK, Germany and Canada.