The ISB Early Entry Option
The ISB Early Entry Option is now here to help those who have the ISB dream in their hearts but lack the mandatory 24 months of experience that Indian School of Business (ISB) requires before you can apply to its prestigious Post Graduate Program (PGP) in Management. It is an alternative that allows students in the final year of college or working professionals with less than two years of experience to apply to the ISB PGP, ranked among top global FT MBA rankings for the last 6 years. These candidates, if successful, are given an admit to the program, but can only join once they have the mandatory 24 months of experience.
How is the ISB Early Entry Option different?
The option is different from the regular route of application to ISB not just because of the reduced work experience requirement, but also because the criteria of judgment is different.
Usually, work experience is an important factor in the ISB admissions process and is used to evaluate applicants and differentiate them from one another.
With the Early Entry Option meant for applicants with low work experience (and in some cases, none at all), this is a criterion that has been dropped for Early Entry applicants.
ISB states that it will evaluate candidates based on academic performance, leadership potential, and personality attributes. This means that Early Entry Option applicants:
– Will need to clearly demonstrate their capabilities and potential for future success by clearly stating their goals, past achievements, and need for management education.
The last one can be particularly difficult to establish with little work experience under one’s belt, so clarity of goals becomes even more important.
– Will face higher scrutiny of their academic performance. Often, less than stellar academic performance can be passed over with high test scores or good work achievements in the case of regular PGP applicants. With Early Entry applicants, that option is not there.
– Will need to ensure excellent interview performance. Personality attributes can be judged only up to an extent through essays, and will be evaluated for the most parts through the interviews.
Success Story
Shushmitha Sushushree
A business analyst, Shushmitha has always chosen to be in the thick of things. Her career was off to a great start with Amadeus India- an Indian travel conglomerate. She moved from being a business analyst to a senior position within 3 years. Among the many responsibilities, she provided reporting, risk analysis, and coordination with relevant departments. Functional collaboration and interactions were critical, as she interfaced between business and non-business entities successfully.
As an analyst, a deeper understanding of business would help her further her career. Her eyes were set on the ISB PGP program. While the ISB PGP comes with a 24-month experience (minimum) requirement, Sushmitha chose to apply through the EEO (Early Entry Option).
Sushmitha knew she can fulfil her dream of doing MBA from India’s best business school, and started working on her leadership potential, personality attributes, and academic brilliance early on. During the engineering days at Manipal Institute of Technology, a major hand in organizing Technical Fests and Recruitment Drives, Sushmitha knew she had a flair for getting the desired results. Diligent and studious, her academic results never failed to impress too.
Never one to back off from a fight, Sushmitha succeeded in getting through the ISB PGP program. What worked in her favor was the desire to succeed early on in her career, clarity of her goals, exceptional academic performance.
Early Entry Option deadlines for 2014
Originally, ISB had kept January 15, 2014 as the EEO deadline. This has now been revised to April 30, 2014.
Essay advice and essay analysis for ISB Early Entry Option applicants
The essays and application parameters for PGP applicants have been discussed earlier by GyanOne through a number of posts and points of advice. A preliminary analysis of the ISB essays is available here, and a more detailed analysis for ISB Essay is available here.
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Want to check out more on ISB?
ISB success stories | Top applicants who made it to the ISB PGP
Which one would you recommend between ISB early entry option and ISB YLP?
The ISB Early Entry Option and ISB YLP are two different processes for intake to the ISB PGP. The Early Entry Option is meant for people with less than two years of experience before joining ISB (i.e. people in the final year of their education, or those who have been working but will have less than two years of experience before joining ISB).
The ISB YLP, on the other hand, is meant for students in the penultimate year of their programs of study (so if you are an engineer, you should take the YLP route in your 3rd year or the EEO route in your 4th).
Hope that clarifies.