What they dont teach you at ISB?

It's one of the youngest B-schools in the country, and will turn 10 next year. In this short span, the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, has established itself as a premier B-school - not only in the country but also the world.

In its January 2010 B-school survey, British business daily FT placed ISB at 12 among the top 100 B-schools in the world. This is the third successive year that the ISB has featured among the top 20 B-schools in the FT list. It was ranked 15th in 2009 and 20th in 2008.

Interestingly, ISB's flagship PG programme in management is not approved by the All India Council for Technical Education, the nodal agency that accords approval for all MBA courses in the country.

Also, the fees for the one-year course - R18.5 lakh - are quite high by Indian B-school standards. But this has not affected ISB's appeal among working executives. Only one out of every 120 applicants gets selected.

So, what's the differentiator?

"What makes the big difference is the in-class learning from your classmates whose experience may vary from five to 20 years," Nitin Pulayani, an alumnus, currently working with telecom tower company Indus Towers, said.

Another attraction of ISB is its tie-ups with top global B-schools Kellogg, Wharton and the London Business School. This gives ISB students access to globally-relevant curricula, case studies, real-life projects and international faculty.