Established in 1979, Loyola Institute of Business Administration is a premier management institute known for its academic excellence and value-based education. Under the able guidance of Dr. P. Christie S.J., M.Sc., M.B.A. (St. Louis, USA) and Ph.D. (St. Louis, USA), LIBA had become a significant name in management education.

1) What has been the guiding principle at LIBA, which distinguishes it from other B-schools of the country?
A: The two most important guiding principles of LIBA are “managers and business need to be ethical and socially responsible” and “excellence is a moving target”. Our vision is to groom tomorrow’s leaders with passion, confidence, self-discipline and a drive for excellence and ethics. We are the only institute in India that places such high importance to ethics in business we are perhaps the only institute to have compulsory courses in business ethics, corporate governance and corporate social responsibility; we also have instituted an award for Best Corporate Citizen in the name of Mother Teresa that is vied for by several firms. Considering several corporate and public scandals, we think the emphasis is not only relevant but also of utmost importance. There are researches available that ethics is not a choice of an organization but an imperative – only businesses that are ethical survive time and make profits. We cannot have ethics in business if managers themselves do not have high moral cognition; so we place high importance to personal value systems. It also means we strive for holistic development of the individual that can manage pressures of work life, find balance in personal life, place importance to health, sports and fitness, care for the fellow human beings etc.We blend values and excellence quite adroitly.

2) What does LIBA look for in a candidate?
A: The primary characteristic is a reasonable sense of morality and value systems. We also see if there is a keen sense on how to learn. Rest, we believe, are all trainable. Communication skills, innovation, creativity, decision making, analytical skills, inter-cultural acceptance, global mindset, etc. are really aspects that we focus on in our programs after admission. That is one reason we take several fresh-out-of-college or with under two years of experience. 

 3) What is the range of XAT scores you accept?
A: For general candidates the minimum cut-off in the past three or four years has ranged from 85 to 93 percentile. There is some relaxation, since it is minority institution, for Catholic candidates.

 4) What are the important factors which are taken into consideration during the admission?
A: We are quite unique in the fact that we accept applications to our program only after XAT scores are published. This ensures that students, who only fancy a reasonable chance, considering the past levels of minimum cut-off in XAT scores, apply. That is, we get very high quality set of potential students. Even then all students need not get an invitation to the GD/PI; we take a deep look into the sectional cut-offs before an invitation is sent out. A GD and PI follow. There are several factors that go into the decision on admission. XAT scores, including sectional cut-offs, previous academic record, performance in GD and PI, work experience, etc.

 5) How much important a factor is work experience?
A: Not much really. While we do not consciously seek college fresh students, we also do not place very high importance to years of work experience. Actually, we try and see if work experience, if any, is relevant. A two year experience in the bench of an IT firm may not score high on relevance. However, some experience from a good organization may provide a perspective to learning that may add good value to the class room experience.

 6) Do you prefer candidates having engineering background over others? What was the student profile during last two years?
A: There is no such preference. But most entrance tests see engineering graduates fare better than other streams. So, natural fallout is that most schools have high proportion of students from engineering streams. Actually, we are working with test-makers to see if this can be balanced. About 65% of the students are from engineering background and we have good pool of candidates from arts, commerce and science streams as well. A candidate though requires a minimum of 60% marks in the aggregate.

7) Is the course recognized by AICTE or AIU?
A: Yes. LIBA's full time PGDM program is approved by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and recognized by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) as equivalent to MBA degree of Indian universities.

 8) Do you even offer scholarships to extraordinarily meritorious students?
A: Yes. There are full-tuition fee waivers available. Several win awards and scholarships instituted by leading members of corporate.

 9) Reservation at LIBA.
A: There are no reservations for SC/ST, Domicile and NRI's. However being a minority institution, 50% of the seats are reserved for catholic candidates.

10) Is there any provision of providing financial aid to students who does not come from well-off families?
A: Yes. We believe, money is and never a barrier to the deserving and the needy. Several economically deserving students benefit from even full scholarships. Actually, as a part of LIBA’s corporate social responsibility, we admit several students from some of the economically lowest rungs of the society. Of course, there are loan facilities to students from banks.

11) What is the importance of transparency in the placement reporting standards of b-schools?
A: Placement data are what is per offers made by the firms. In many cases, the firms send the offer letter directly to the candidates. We cross-check CTC data and secure key information directly from several firms as to what the overall pay to the candidates is. It has to be noted that some firms do not like their pay-structures to be public and neither do some students. It is a fine balance to tread between public scrutiny and information security. Several ranking systems and others have found our data highly accurate. Some resort to audits by way of sampling after keeping confidential some sensitive information such as the name of the candidate and the firm.