India Students applying for an MBA at York University’s Schulich school of business now have two campuses to choose from: One in Toronto — and one in Mumbai, India.

“We are very excited,” says Dezsö Horváth, Schulich’s dean. “This is the first MBA program to be offered in India from a leading international business school.”

Students who earn a Schulich MBA in India will receive their first-year classes at Mumbai’s SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, then transfer to Canada in their second year and graduate from Schulich’s Toronto campus.

“I believe that quite a few students will want to go to India because they will be exposed to a fast-growing economy with a lot of opportunity,” says Horváth. However, the Indian campus will not be able to provide all of the Canadian school’s specialization options.

“We have about 18 to date, which by then will be up to 20. India will only have four or five,” Horváth says. “It will be very attractive to come to Toronto in second year.”

Horváth hopes to build a permanent facility in India within the next three years. “There will be two Schulich campuses, one in Toronto and one in India,” he says, “with the same faculty quality and same student quality, recruiting and placing students all over the world.”

Due to its current lack of facilities, the program’s first semester — which begins on Jan. 4, 2010 — is limited to 35 students.  Though Horváth says it will eventually admit 180.

Canadian students can apply, but “obviously have to compete” with international students, Horváth says. “We don’t compromise on quality,” he says. “So it’s about age 28 to 29, five or six years of experience, a GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) cutoff of 600 — the average is around 670 — and so on.”

Students will not be earning an “India MBA,” Horváth says, but rather a Schulich MBA by studying in India.

“India has a perfect demographic,” he says. “Fifty per cent of the population is below the age of 25, and there are not very many high quality MBA programs. They are catering only to Indian students, to the Indian marketplace.” The new Schulich MBA program, he says, is more global.

“It’s a very exciting time,” Horváth says. “Business is growing very fast in India at the moment, and they’re going to need lot of high quality MBA programs.”