Bidding Process for Electives at ISB

With the best of minds across the nation gathered at one place, life isn’t going to be as easy as you thought. The real competition starts once you have cleared the admissions process. With so many things to do on campus, you often have to fight it out – and this ‘fighting out’ may also require you to loosen your purse – the virtual purse of 4500 bidding points allotted to each MBA participant.

Students are supposed to complete their MBA at ISB using these 4500 points. The bidding points are used while choosing electives, applying for an ELP or opting for an international exchange.

The ELP is equivalent to a 2-credit course but costs 800 bidding points. In case of an international exchange too, 800 bidding points are deducted from the student’s purse.

The major challenge is to distribute these bidding points across 18 electives. One must bid for each elective they want to take up. The bidding may open at 100 points but some of the popular electives may have stakes raised to as much as 1000 points. Since there is a limit to the number of seats available for each elective, bidding is the only way to fight it out and ensure that one gets the elective they so much desire. This obviously also results in students learning to ‘let go’ at times. Saving enough bidding points for the rest of the year becomes important, given that one may not be able to complete their MBA without signing up for at least 18 electives.

The online bidding platform allows students to keep track of all the bids and consider whether they would like to pull out. Prior research and interaction with alumni often helps in such scenario. Students must plan ahead – which courses are absolutely critical to them, what their interests are, what their final course of action will be, and take a call well within time. There is of course a sampling of classes which makes it easier for students to decide if they would be really keen to bid for that course. 

There are two rounds of bidding to allow students to withdraw if they change their mind or if they realize that they bid too high in the initial round. There are often extra seats added to an in-demand course, for which one can bid in the second round.

Bidding, therefore, is an essential and interesting part of the ISB academic setup and is probably one of the most crucial practical lessons on campus, in economics as well as resource-management.

* All the Student Diaries have been written by ISB Alumni. ISBmantra holds no responsibility on the completeness and accuracy of this information. However, we endeavour to obtain all the content from reliable sources and keep the information up-to-date.