ISB Or IIM-A which one is better

Hi Deepika,

ISB is better than IIM-A but the problem is that for ISB you need a minimum of 5-year pre-MBA experience and the program is for 1 year however for IIM-A there are no such criteria. IIM-A has both regular 2-year program and also 1-year executive program. If you have options then for regular 2-year MBA go for IIM-A and for 1-year executive MBA it's ISB any day.

Good Luck!

IIM A is a government college & ISB is a private college. As per the analyzing report of Careers360 IIM A has AAAAA rating which means Exceptional & has All India Rank 1 & ISB has AAAAA rating which means also Exceptional. You can check the placement of the colleges with the given below links.

https://www.isb.edu/pgp/careers/placement-trends

https://www.iima.ac.in/web/pgp/placements/student-profile/final-placements

You can also check the genuine reviews of the colleges with the given below links.

https://bschool.careers360.com/colleges/indian-institute-of-management-ahmedabad

https://bschool.careers360.com/colleges/indian-school-of-business-hyderabad

Good Luck!

See ISB only has one year MBA program just like most of the foreign B-Schools. This program is tailor-made for individuals with higher work experience (>4 years). IIMs also have a one year executive program but it is by no means the flagship course. The 2 year PGP program is their real strength. This 2 year program is the same as the Masters in Management Program in foreign B-Schools.

For an experienced person, ISB is the better option obviously due to the seniority of the provided roles in the placements. However for people like me, in their early stages of career, IIMs are any-day a better option. The course at IIMs is far more rigorous (number of subjects taught in ISB in the whole one year is equal to the number of subjects in just two terms here at IIM) and better suited to freshers and low work-ex crowd.

Comparing salaries from the institutes doesn't make sense because for most people at ISB the packages should be significant compared to their previous salaries (since they have had 3–4 years of work-ex and have left high paying jobs). For IIMs though this is not case.

I am personally biased towards the IIM experience (especially the nerve-wrecking first year) and I think it is something which is often understated. I still cannot believe how much I have learnt in such a short span of time.

tl;dr: IIMs ftw!!

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It is like comparing Cauliflower to Broccoli if one is comparing ISB’s one year MBA with IIM’s two years flagship course.

IIM’s one year executive MBA programme is comparable to ISB’s flagship course and ISB beats all IIMs handsdown here. The reason being ISB is more experienced campaigner than IIMs in providing executive MBA. The IIMs only began providing executive MBAs close to a decade back whereas ISB began much earlier, leading to a richer alumni base.

Also, IIMs have a large batch size in their flagship programme which is of two years and thus much of their attention is diverted towards them while ISB does not provide two year MBA programmes so their primary motive lies in improving the executive MBA batch.

However, top few IIMs are catching up soon with ISB in this segment as well.

However, if you are trying to compare IIM’s two year flagship programme with ISB’s one year programme, then I must say go for IIMs.