ISB Hyderabad Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

ISB Hyderabad and IIM Ahmedabad are among the most reputed B-Schools in India. Contrary to the popular belief that IIMs are the best option, ISB is better than most new IIMs. Here is a brief comparison of the institutes.

IIM Ahmedabad- 

• Flagship program for IIMA is Post Graduate Program in Management. The course fee is INR 23 lakhs.
• The faculties of the institute are alumni of reputed universities across the globe. You will get help from the faculty regarding any doubts even outside the classroom. 
• The college campus is well equipped with modern instruments to provide quality education. The classrooms are fully air-conditioned. The library stays open 24*7 for students and faculty. 
• During the 2021 placement, the average CTC offered was 26.13 LPA. While the highest CTC offered was INR 1.32 Cr PA.

ISB Hyderabad- 

• The flagship program for ISB Hydrabad is Post Graduate Program in Management (12 months). The total course fee is INR 36.3 lakhs. 
• ISB Hyderabad has a great pool of well-experienced faculty. 
• In the 2022 placement drive, the average CTC offered was INR 25 LPA while the highest was INR 42 LPA. 

In terms of ROI, IIM A shows better results compared to ISB Hyderabad. The required fee is also less for IIMA. Unlike ISB, you won’t need mandatory work experience to join IIMA. 

It’s highly illogical to compare a well-recognized brand like ISB with a no-name institute like IBS. It seems you are a bit confused between the 2 schools because comparing them is a literal joke. 

ISB is ranked 1st in India and 4th in Asia and 32nd in the World at Best B Schools. It’s a B School that competes with top B schools like IIM ABC and here you are comparing it with a C grade B school in the country. 

Almost anyone can get into IBS owing to the low qualifying scores needed and high number of seats available. Whereas getting into ISB is difficult even with a GMAT score as high as 99 percentile. ISB has the best corporate relations team in India and they work hard to get the roles that you want in the corporate sector.

The two colleges may share the same alphabet in their acronyms but there are nowhere similar when it comes to the brand name and worth.

Instead of institutes, you should compare programs. Assuming that you are comparing the ISB full-time program (PGP) with the IIM one-year full-time program, IIMA PGPX, here are some of the things that you should consider. 

• PGP is the flagship program for ISB. While PGPX isn’t the flagship program of IIMA. 
• Scope of peer learning at IIMs is limited. Since the average work experience for students are around 8-9 years and there are few students from new-age start-ups. ISB student crowd have participants with 2-years to 20-years of work experience. So, you will have better exposure and industry contacts. 
• The learn batch size of ISB (800+) helps get more recruiters for placements. ISB Hyderabad placement drive has more recruiting companies (200+). 
• The kind of international tie-ups IBS has and therefore the quality of international faculty ISB gets is unparalleled in the country.
• As ISB PGP is older it has a better alumni base. 

IIMA PGPX has its own advantages, but ISB PGP stands out due to the above reasons.

It’s hard to draw a differentiating line between the two campuses. 

Peer Group: 

The admission committee selects the incoming class and distributes it across the two campuses. So, you will get a similar peer group at both campuses. 

Placements: 

ISB Hyderabad and ISB Mohali conduct placements as a single school. Fore placements, students of one campus fly down to another. Students also don’t mention their campus on their CV. ISB Mohali placements 2022 had an average CTC of INR 34.07 LPA. 

Education: 

The quality of education and pedagogy are the same for both campuses. The faculties shuffle between the campuses and there are guest faculties from reputed B-Schools like MIT, Kellogg, LBS, etc. 

At ISB Mohali, you will get almost the same academic experience as ISB Hyderabad. 

You cannot logically compare US B Schools with ISB Hyderabad considering the difference in the quality of peer ground and overall education.

To give a better understanding, compare the ROI of both the B Schools. ISB Hyderabad MBA fees are around 24-28 Lakhs per year and considering the placement scenario, you cannot get a package of more than 15-18 Lakhs. On the other hand, the average fee of a US B School is around 120-200k Dollars and the salary one can expect from a B School is 120k. The ROI in the latter case is much better.

However, these ROI calculations have overlooked one part. As an International student, you'll need a job with a firm that sponsors h1b visas. This reduces 70% of coveted jobs. Now the hunt for a suitable job is tougher and you have to also hope that you win the h1b lottery. If you are unable to do so you might end up in India with a heavy loan of 80-90k Lakhs with an average salary of 15-20 LPA.

So we can say that US B Schools are always the better option than ISB Hyderabad but the risks involved are tenfold.