Academics at the ISB is a hard fought battle. Although the school does not mandate that students display their CGPA on their resume, yet my ISB experience taught me that grades do matter. During my job search, I initially did not publish my CGPA on my resume as per global standards, but during interviews, I was explicitly asked about the same. May be this is a direct result of the number centric Indian culture. That added to the fact that the ISB is a young college with a growing annual intake creates significant pressure to differentiate oneself from the vast pool of MBA students graduating from top schools throughout the country and vying for the same top jobs. Having said that, this does not mean that without a stellar CGPA there is no hope of a great placement. Except a handful of companies, grades did not play as much of a role in ensuring shortlists. If I have to realistically quote a value, I would advise students to strive to keep a CGPA above 2.8 and beyond that, the more the better. Anything above 3.5 would be just awesome.
Now that I have harped on the importance of decent grades at the ISB, let me share an approach to ensure the same. The first four terms (core terms) are quant, economics, and finance centric and hence relatively tougher. Although the latter terms do contain subjects that are equally academically challenging, yet they mostly build upon the basics taught in the core terms, and hence are relatively easier to navigate. Another point worth keeping in mind is that the bulk of placements happen when the CGPA distribution for terms 4, 5, and 6 have been declared. This in term in heavily impacted by the grades in the first four terms. Any slack during the initial terms takes a herculean effort to overcome later. Therefore to be on top of your game, I advise students to start preparing even before they start college. The following are a few useful tips.
- Statistics is the backbone of business education. To encapsulate returns and the associated risks of any business decision, business literature heavily relies on mean returns of a representative frequency distribution and the associated standard deviation. Without a thorough understanding of the basic concepts of statistics, efforts to score well in many subject will be jeopardised.
Subscribe to the Pre-Term HBS online course that ISB offers. The "Quantitative Methods" course is a great starting point.
In parallel check out Sal's Khan Academy Videos on the same topics for a deeper understanding. In particular go through :
Independent & Dependent Events : Basic Probability, and Introduction to Random Variables
Statistical Studies : Correlation and Causality, Simple Hypothesis Testing
Descriptive Statistics : Mean, median, and mode, sample mean versus population mean, reading box and whisker plots, population standard deviation.
Random variables and probability distributions : Almost all topics important. One should aim to understand the meaning of probability distribution, binomial distribution, and basics of Poisson distribution.
Regression : The holy grail of MBA. Almost all topics important especially understanding the the meaning of R square.
Inferential statistics : The most important section after Regression. Almost all concepts important. Strive to understand the meaning of Z statistics, T statistics, confidence interval, Chi-Square Test. ANOVA may be skipped till one takes the Forecasting of Business Analytics subjects during electives. - For those like me who are not so at home with quants, some exposure to Financial Accounting would go a long way in maintaining a healthy CGPA.
Subscribe to the Pre-Term online course that ISB offers. The "Financial Accounting Online Course" is a great starting point. The term one paper will hundred percent quant so practise practise practise!
Do not hesitate in taking help from the numerous CAs' and financial analysts that would be your peers at the ISB. - Apart from Statistics and Financial Accounting the one other subject that would constantly accompany a students through their MBA journey is Micro-economics. The concepts learnt in this subject would lay the bedrock to solving future business strategy problems. With Micro-economics, what starts as a simple exposure to supply and demand quickly get complicated with numerous concept heavy topics covered on steroids. For a happy MBA journey, I recommend some exposure to the following topics. Again for this some wonderful videos are available on Khan-Academy's Micro-economics section. In particular, pay special attention to:
Market Demand and Supply Curve
Industry and Firm Demand Function
Price Elasticity of Demand
Cost Function
Competition and Equilibrium Conditions
Price Discrimination
Bundling
Game Theory - Nash Equilibrium
Rest assured that the exam and assignments would be quant heavy. It is crucial to practise numericals based on the above concepts.
- Although Macro-economics would not bother those with an economics background, those with no exposure to economics must be weary. Spend some time on understanding topics that are frequently tested on the exam.
GDP and its measurement
Consumer Price Index and Inflation
Calculation of unemployment rate
Federal Interest Rate for Government Bonds and its effect on Money Supply
Fiscal Deficit Currency Devaluation and Hyperinflation
On the test write as much as possible and illustrate the concepts tested with as many graphs as possible. Being verbose on this test makes an impact. - Beyond the core academic subjects, one additional skill that I recommend an MBA candidate should gain some exposure to before starting college is basic Microsoft Excel Modelling skills.
Use basic mathematical formulae
Basic cell formatting
Creating charts from tables
Using the excel solver and goal seek
Pivot Tables (Good to have)
Exam Tips
During your exams, you will see two kinds of question papers. The first wherein the type of questions closely resemble the subject matter discussed in class and the second in which the difficulty level and nuances are way beyond what was taught. This is sometimes clubbed with a paucity of time to create a pressure cooker situation. While I deeply appreciated the first kind of question papers, I could never fathom why someone would set question papers of the second kind. Perhaps to identify the real geniuses of the class. Whatever may be the case, the type is question paper has enough potential to ruin your hard work. Your best bet is to use some foresight and also reach out to alums to get a sense of what would be on the question paper.
Some professors allow a cheat sheet. Use this freedom to the best extent possible. Since numericals generally follow a predefined rule, it makes sense to micro copy complete sample questions instead of just formulae. It is much easier on the brain during crunch time to just substitute values and blurt out the solution rather than actually solve a problem. For descriptive questions I already recommended a verbose approach, but for lengthy quantitative questions, be as concise as possible in the interest of answering as many questions as possible. You might observe later during the paper viewing sessions that even the answer keys provided by the professors are concise. Teaching associates generally follow the answer key by the book, and therefore to the point answers to maximum possible questions will give you maximum returns on your efforts. Remember that during electives you might have sometime to prepare during the day before the test. But in case of core terms two back to back days with two exams per day will leave little time to prepare a day before the test.
Bidding Tips
Use your bid points judiciously. Try to avoid bid wars. Look for other options to lower your bid point requirements such as opting for the early morning/lunch hour class or taking up the same course during term exchange or a similar course in international exchange.
Remember bidders sometimes go for the most sought after subjects 15-30 seconds before bids close. If you are in such a race, make your best bid only 10-15 seconds before bids close so that competition does not have time to react.
