The Indian School of Business (ISB) has started its inaugural cohort of 130 students in the 20-month Post Graduate Programme in Management for Young Leaders (PGP YL). ISB has awarded tuition waivers to 36 per cent of the founding class, including 37 full tuition waivers and nine partial waivers.
The inaugural cohort, with an average age of 23 years, consists of students from diverse academic backgrounds, all of whom emerged from a selective and rigorous process. In this batch, 32 per cent of students are fresh graduates; the rest have less than 24 months of work experience and come from diverse sectors. Additionally, 50 per cent of the batch is women, and the class has representation from all major regions of India.
The press release highlights the inaugural cohort’s strong academic credentials, noting impressive undergraduate performance and high standardized test scores, with average scores of 99.1 percentile in CAT, 731 in GMAT Classic, 677 in GMAT Focus, and 327 in GRE.
Speaking about the first batch of the PGP YL, Professor Madan Pillutla, Dean, ISB, said: “We are excited to welcome the first-ever PGP YL cohort. This programme is designed for graduates and early-career professionals with strong foundations in business, technology, and leadership. Over the next 20 months, this group will immerse itself in a leadership accelerator, guided by faculty and industry pioneers.”
Meanwhile, the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad is the best management college in India and 27th globally in the Financial Times (FT) rankings of MBA 2025. Of the total 100 B schools, 8 of them are from India. Last year, only 6 Indian business schools secured a spot in the FT rankings of MBA.
The rank of the ISB has improved this year, as against 31 in 2024 and 39 in 2023. The three-year average rank of the Institute is 32. It stood at 4 for the alumni network.
Other institutes that secured spots are IIM-Ahmedabad at 31, IIM-Bangalore at 57, IIM-Calcutta at 61, and IIM Lucknow, which ranked 71.
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Additionally, this year, two new IIMs joined the list: the IIM-Indore at 69, Kozhikode campus, which ranked 86 in MBA.
Interestingly, IIM Kozhikode’s programme in Post Graduate Programme in Business Leadership has debuted in the Financial Times (FT) Global MBA Rankings 2025.
