Times of India
Mumbai, Jun 16: A group of Indian students at the Toronto-based Rotman School of Business is lobbying hard to get live satellite feeds of international cricket Test matches featuring the Indian team.
"Although live means that it's on at 4 am in Toronto," exclaims an official of the business school that's No 21 on the Financial Times' annual ranking of B-schools.
If the number of Indian applicants keeps growing at the current pace, B-schools will soon have to go the Rotman way to keep them happy.
B-schools in Europe and the US have reported huge increases in the number of Indian applicants.
Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business (No 1 on the Wall Street Journal's B-school rankings) has seen a 100% increase in Indian applications over last year.
Rosemaria Martinelli, associate dean (student recruitment and admissions), University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, said, "Indian applications are up by more than 50% this year."
It's the same story at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business (up 57%, compared to a 6% drop last year), the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler School of Business (a rise of 23%), University of Berkeley's Haas School of Business (up 35%, compared to a 29% drop last year) and SMU Cox School of Business (up 47% as against a 4% rise last year).
Some schools like Harvard and Stanford declined to give a country-wise break-up of applicant numbers.
Other heavyweights like the London Business School (LBS) and INSEAD, while declining to share specific numbers, have also witnessed a marked increase in applications.
While this may not entirely reflect the final application numbers, there was a 10.4% rise this year in the number of Indians who took the GMAT, the entrance test for global B-schools...
Compared to 2000, the number is up a whopping 121%. The other big source countries, China and Korea, have also seen a growth in GMAT numbers, although in smaller proportion, whereas Japan has seen a reverse growth.
"Asian citizens are equipping themselves to take advantage of the economic growth and business opportunities in the region.
Japan, on the other hand, has experienced about ten to 15 years of economic stagnation," says Daphne Atkinson, VP (industry relations), Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the agency that administers the GMAT exam.
The biggest reason for the rise in Indian application numbers seems to be the growth in the Indian economy. "Because of India's rapid economic growth, there is a huge need for talented leaders who have the knowledge, skills and attributes for global management," says David Simpson, senior admissions manager (MBA programme), LBS.
Adds Janet Shaner, director, MBA marketing, IMD, Switzerland, "As India participates more extensively in the global marketplace, Indians are recognizing the value of gaining experience in Europe in particular and internationally in general."
The profile of Indian applicants is also seen as robust. "In general, Indians possess outstanding academic qualifications and strong work experience—many in the IT sector," says Doris Sohmen-Pao, director of the INSEAD MBA programme.
It has also been seen that many mid-career executives in the IT sector tend to look at re-skilling, hence the need to return to school. That apart, issues that had cropped up post 9/11 seem to have been resolved to a great extent.
Says Chicago-GSB's Martinelli, "Issuing of US visas after 2001 has been greatly improved with better online application and tracking processes through the US government.
While the time to get a visa is still lengthy, the odds of being successful in the application process are high."
The probability of a foreign national getting a job—again, something that had become tough after 9/11—has improved significantly.
Says Sherry Wallace, director (MBA admissions), UNC-Kenan-Flagler, "The employment of Indian grads has been quite positive. We believe this has motivated more applicants from India."
Interestingly, several schools have relaxed entry barriers. Chicago-GSB, for instance, has started accepting three-year bachelor degrees as fulfilling the minimum education requirement to apply to the MBA programme as opposed to the four-year degree which was a rigid requirement earlier.
Several B-schools now offer special scholarships to candidates from India and other emerging economies. INSEAD, for instance, has scholarships targeted specifically for India and China.
"Indians obtain about 30% of the total funds available (two million per year)," says Sohmen-Pao. At UNC-Kenan Flagler, in the past two years, 21% of the Indian applicants admitted were offered a fellowship.
IMD has an Asia-specific scholarship, LBS has one for India and Chicago-GSB launched an emerging economy scholarship last year.
Stanford has a couple of loan-forgiveness programmes for students who intend to work in developing countries. All these efforts seem to be starting to pay off now.