Shall I quit IVEY? - ChaseDream - Powered by Discuz!

I caught up the last train to get into Ivey this year. Now after more than 2 weeks in Ivey, the school suddenly announced that from next year, it will change its 2 yr program to 1 yr. At the same time, the school promised that this change will restore its reputation in the long term.

Yes, Ivey is in deep trouble in recent years, from 2001 to this year, its ranking is sliding down from top 20 to 34, which is the last spot of 2nd tier. Applicants reduced to just over 500 for 2005, and students reduced from 320 to 170 this year. The accepted rate is 60%, which means in every 3 applicants, the school gives 2 admission. Too easy for a top school, do you think? Then among the students who received offer, only 50% will actually go to the school. So obviously the school desperately needs some changes.

For Chinese students, the situation is more pessimistic. Among 70 or more 2nd Chinese students, only 6 got summer intern in North America. And that is a good year --- for years before last year, I heard that only 1 or 2 Chinese students could get summer intern jobs. Of course, there are students getting summer intern and final jobs(300k RMB) in China. But only if you are going to Ivey for immigration purpose, I donot see any return from these data.

Furthermore, Ivey seems donot emphasis on teaching hardcore skills, such as professional knowledge. In return, it emphases more on soft skills, such as presentation, team work and communication. For example, in your grade, 30% is class presentation, which means you have to raise your hand all the time, so that you can get chances to answer questions or ask questions. While I highly believe class participation is key for MBA study, I sincerely doubt the results of this grading system which will easily lead to the situation when you raise your hands for marks, not for interesting thoughts or ideas, thus, class participation simply looses all meanings. It becomes an acting instead of thinking.

So personally speaking, I think the recent failure of Ivey is rooting from less employers, thus the school cannot attract top quality students, and this leads to even less employers.

In addition, I donot think simply changing 2yrs to 1yr, will fix the problems. Because it is not the request from the employers. In addition, very few business schools succeed the 1yr program. Actually, in North America, only heard of 1yr school is Queen, and it is not a historically top ranking school.

If I were the dean, I would first try to regroup ourselves by hiring top professors. Then I will push the career management team to extensively visit existing employers and possible employers. Career management team is the school's sales team, and they shall not allowed to sit in their offices. Except a few members who would be responsible for student couching, all other career management team shall vigorously visit employers in Canada and in USA, in person. If you have working experience in sales, you can understand that you can rarely get customers by only sending emails or phone calls without personal visits. You have to go there, ask them to give opportunities to our students, and listen to their requirements and concern. Then you go back to school and adjust our educational process to meet their requirements.

Ivey's reform, to me, is not a sparkling renovation. Instead, it is more like a person who is in the gambling game, and his chips are almost gone. So he just makes his last bet and prays for good luck.

As to my MBA, short term speaking, when I graduate, there will be 60 more people competing with me for the already not many jobs. In the long term, if the reform fails, then I will lose almost all investment for going to Ivey MBA. Your long term return for MBA is simply your school's reputation.

So in short, I am seriously thinking of quitting and reapplying for top schools, could you help me by giving me some suggestions and recommendations? Thanks in advance for your time and advice.

One of my friends failed to get offer from US, but from Ivey. She finally decided to reapply this year, but not go to Ivey. I know little about Ivey, but if you have plan to work in Canada, I think it should not be a big risk that Ivey initiative some changes.

事业如定位回国发展,去美国学校。如考虑在加拿大悠然过平静小康日子，就随缘了，毕竟整个application package下来，花了很多心血。

btw,请问LZ，Ivey的两年学费是分几期给的？入学前需付多少？如果你现在quit,学费会退吗？

I am a new MBA student in BC (Boston College), actually I am doing MBA and master of finance at the same time here.

I should not say I am dissatified with BC's MBA, at least not so far...and I dont know whether I should be defined as "ambitious", but...well, BC's finance is OK, top 25 finance phd program, but i am doing MBA/MSF here, and in new England, there are so many top schools here...

I want to go into the investment banking industry, or financial mgmt/counculting, but the career office told me yesterday, even for US students, it is not so easy for an MBA to get into IB if u have no previous IB w/e. She said thos IB will recruit many undergrad students, then after some years they will select those who have great potential to send them to top MBA programs and pay the tuition for them.

I am considering, should I quit MBA and just do MSF here? Since MBA is not much helpful to get into the finance industry than an MSF degree...then after some time, decide whether to go for a top MBA program.

1.with no prior experience in IB/MC/PE, will a top 10 mba degree get you that much further?

2.how will adcom view your new application indicating that you had applied, accepted an offer from another university, then left after several weeks, where's the commitment and dedication?

3.if you apply for fall 2006, what is the opportunity cost for not doing anything for one year?

以下是引用jkmbe在2005-9-24 3:07:00的发言：

my suggestion is no,

1.with no prior experience in IB/MC/PE, will a top 10 mba degree get you that much further?

2.how will adcom view your new application indicating that you had applied, accepted an offer from another university, then left after several weeks, where's the commitment and dedication?

3.if you apply for fall 2006, what is the opportunity cost for not doing anything for one year?

yes...opportunity cost is my concern...well, if I quit MBA here and only do MSF(I can quit either one here, or, I can do both at the same time), when I apply again for top MBA programs, how can they know I once was in an MBA prgm for several weeks?

Also, if I quit MBA now, I think I wont appy for fall 2006, I will just do MSF and see whether I can find a job here. If I want to do MBA again, then maybe I will do it some years later. Well, but on the other hand, if I can get a decent job with just the MSF degree, why bother to have another career break and spend 2 years to do an MBA?

One of my friend, a Chinese guy, got offer from Ivey and INSEAD. He took offer from Ivey for he wanted to get his PR in Canada. However, after 2 months trial, he quit Ivey and go to INSEAD next year. He spent one year in Canada for French and Spanish learnning...

i am hoping you are not suggesting that ivey, rotman and york are not better than the 99th us business school, a lot of people can be offended by your statement, may i ask, which one the above three school have you attended in the past? who told you that those three schools can not attract top applicants?

Play-acted interviews and an emphasis on personal focus help MBAs find real-world jobs, says career-services director Karen Theriault

Karen Theriault is the director of the Corporate Connections Centre at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management (No. 5 in BusinessWeek's 2002 rankings of non-U.S. B-schools) at the laceType>UniversitylaceType> of laceName>TorontolaceName>. Theriault, who joined Rotman in 1998 after working with both private and nonprofit companies, says her goals as head of the center are simple: "We put every effort into ensuring that our students feel as though we're partnering with them, that we're on their side. Theriault recently spoke with Francesca DiMeglio, BusinessWeek Online's B-school project assistant. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Q: If you had it your way, what are three things new MBAs would do before arriving at school?
A: I don't think it's rocket science: Develop your focus, and figure out how you can differentiate yourself from the MBAs around the world by finding your competitive advantage in the marketplace. Give some thought to what your next steps will be to connect with those who can help you get that job.

Q: How do you help students with their job search?
A: We're encouraging students to reach out on their own for jobs. That doesn't mean we don't have on-campus recruiting, of course. But we're lucky to be in Toronto, the capital of Canada's business and financial sector. We give students opportunities to do mock networking sessions to get their confidence up so they can focus on their job activity, and ask [potential employers] for what they want.

Q: How did the school help students overcome the inevitable obstacles that came with the recent economic downturn?
A: We had every student organization, the faculty, and administration actively seeking jobs for our students, especially for summer internships. We put the students' names and pictures on a large board. As they got their jobs or internships, we put the logo of the company beside their name. It gave everyone who came into the building a good idea of where everyone was going. Faculty could say, "This fellow is still looking, and I might be able to find something for him." We hired three MBA students this year to play a sales role for six weeks, after they finished their first year. The idea was to have them create awareness about the school and to get more job posts. We ended up with 40% more job postings this year than we had last year.

Q: How did 2004 graduates fare in the job market?
A: As of July 1, unofficially, about 76% of students had jobs. We're in the proces of...tracking down every single student who graduated to determine the exact figure. Our goal is to hit about 85% this year. It's definitely an improvement from last year.

Q: Are certain MBAs more successful than others? If so, who and why?
A: If you focus strictly on the technical skills, and [you] don't have the personality traits or training that's going to allow you talk yourself into a job and get out there and sell yourself in the marketplace, you're going to be at a distinct disadvantage. Also, students who have a background in the field that they want to go into have an advantage. Those who are trying to change both their industry and their function have difficulty.

Q: Is it possible, despite this tougher market, to change careers with flexibility?
A: If students can stay in the same function or have some readily transferable skills, then it's possible. There are, of course, companies looking for the basic MBA skills of strategic-thinking, decision-making, and risk-taking. Those companies are more amenable to taking people [who lack] previous on-the-job experience. But those [companies] are few and far between.

Q: What's the average starting salary for graduates?
A: Our starting salary, in Canadian dollars, is somewhere between $88,000 [$67,609 in U.S. dollars] and $90,000.

Q: Is there room for salary negotiation?
A: Students don't have nearly as strong a position in their negotiations as they [once] did. They're recognizing that they have to be more realistic in their expectations, and they're willing to take that first step with a little less consideration about salary than they used to. They're looking at this as a long-term, rather than a short-term, investment.

Q: How do you serve the school's part-time MBA students? How is it different from what you do for the full-timers?
A: The part-timers have access to all the online resources, training sessions, and job postings. They're not able to avail themselves of the training that goes on during the daytime...so I try to fit into their hours. I go into the classroom a couple of times a year offering to assist them on an individual basis.

Q: Do you do anything special for international students?
A: Before the program starts, we try to get international students familiar with the Canadian business environment and the cultural differences. We bring them downtown to [Toronto's] financial center, give them a tour, and offer opportunities to speak with potential employers. We offer all our students multicultural and English training.

This year, I traveled to China a couple of times. It's important to know more about the environments from which our students are coming so that I can readily help them.

Q: You've had an increase of students from China, right?
A: Yes. In the past couple of years, there has been an increase. But this year, our applications from China were down substantially.

Q: Are your MBAs facing visa problems?
A: There aren't nearly as many visa problems as there are in the U.S. Many of our students with international passports come with the intention of living here, and they gain residency status before they graduate, which allows them to compete in the job market more readily. However, students who don't have North American work experience find it more difficult to get jobs.

Q: You've mentioned that you're trying to get more marketing recruiters to visit campus. Do you have a plan to accomplish this goal?
A: This year, we hired a business-development specialist, who will put together a strategy for targeting industry sectors and will actively look for companies that are hiring in the marketing functions.

Q: Do you offer recruiters any perks?
A: We're trying and succeeding at giving the ultimate customer service to our recruiters, from the first phone call to the moment they walk out the door after interviewing a student. We want them to feel that that the Rotman school will bend over backward to give them everything they require to make their recruiting easy and effective. We have relationship managers, so each on-campus recruiter deals with one person who gets to know his needs well.

Q: When pitching to recruiters, how do you distinguish your MBAs from those at other B-schools?
A: Our school builds its reputation on integrative thinking. Our students are trained to look across disciplines to make business and strategic decisions. For the last two years, our students have participated in a simulated management challenge. Each simulated company has a real board of directors to whom our students present their findings on a particular problem or situation. In this slightly intimidating environment, they make presentations...and find a comfort level for selling themselves in the marketplace. It gives them a head start when they get out in the workplace. In addition, Toronto is a very multicultural city, and we have students who speak many languages and come from many different backgrounds.

The only reason I wrote top 100 instead of top 50, which was the number i was going to write, was because there are the odd times that the three schools will have its rankings drop below 50. If you are curious, I did my undergrad at one of the above mentioned business schools. This opinion is reflective of many in the grad program, as well as the opinions from the students attending the other schools.

plus, i am not saying they cannot attract top applicants, but they have found it increasingly difficult to do so. I have met some of the brightest finance students from rotman, but there has been complaints among some that the admission office has been letting in more people who are not really qualified to attend the program.

having a degree from a prestige business school does help someone's career to some extent, however, the end of the day, the key determining factors are a person's past experience, attitude and networking skills, the fact that some people are complaining does not justify that the above three schools are bad, as far as ranking is concerned, i found it difficult to recall a time when their rankings dropped below 50.

besides, you said you are a graduate from those 3 schools, and then you should probably be mature enough to realize that who really cares about the ever changing, self contradicting rankings? the most important thing is recruiters' opinion, do you believe that canadian companies will hire hbs/wharton/stanford graduates, the answer might be yes while certainly not as many as the amount they would hire locally.

i have been in canada for many years, canadians simply do like americans, a lot of them would rather stay in their own country even though they get paid more in us, of course there are exemptions, interestingly enough, i have even heard students at wharton, the number 1 school in the world, complaining about their program and worrying about their career prospective.

my suggestion is to have some faith in the top canadian business schools, because it doesn't matter where you are, there are always people who can excel, and of course those who love complaining.

以下是引用jkmbe在2005-9-24 8:59:00的发言：
agree, finish off your msf and try to get a good grade might help you in 2 ways, first it might land you a decent job, second with the master degree you might be able to apply for the best business schools, that being said, i still have one more question for you, how are you going to support yourself through an expensive mba on top of a master?

So u think that I should quit this MBA and just do the MSF? Well, but on the other hand, just 2 years and get 2 master degrees seems quite attractive...esp. compared with I quit MBA now and do MSF then maybe apply for MBA again some years later...another career break...( u cant always get what u want...ai)

But just second thought, well my undergrad major is business, u know, the courses in MBA are not quite difficult for me ( just as LOU ZHU said, soft skills may be more focused on here than technical skills), is it worth another career break to have an MBA, if I quit MBA now? esp. I have got an MSF degree, I mean, by that time, I should have solid finance knowlege.

U mean how I finance myself now? Well, BC gives me some scholarship, and u know, MSF and MBA have some overlapping courses, so the tuition for MBA/MSF is not much more than just doing an MBA here. And doing an MSF needs 3 semesters here while doing a dual prgm or doing just an MBA needs 4 semesters, so in terms of time and money, the dual prgm is quite attracitve...

Just heard that our new dean is quite ranking-oriented and will try his best to upgrade BC's ranking..

I agree, at the end of the day, work experience is what counts. The point I would like to mention though, rankings can provide hints as to the class room envrionment, and the educational experience. In most cases, it is hard to deny that the private schools in the US have usually have smaller classes, and that one can establish better connections (there is a reason why there are many people who want to attend Harvard instead of Michigan). Plus, some people will not cease to complain until they are attending the so called "#1" institution. For such people, perhaps they will be happier attending another institution.

As for the whole ranking mess, I don't want to go there. There has been this emphasis on rankings by some deans that have triggered negative consequences.

By the way, I was quite satisfied with the education I got. But with all these people promoting the strength of business schools in Canada (perhaps not in this discussion thread, but certainly true among other discussions), I wanted to balance things out.

neo1001我正准备申请BC的MBA第一轮,有空聊一聊吧.我已经PM你了.

至于你对IB的考虑,我与一些在IB工作的上层人士聊过,名校年轻成绩好的毕业生是IB欢迎的,因为有潜力,精力充沛,可以一种80小时工作;过了卅的话,象我这样的就不要考虑了.

至于MSF与IB,中国人读书有一股风.以前CS流行,大家读CS;接着CFA流行,大家又转CFA;然后精算师,现在是MSF.IB/MSF其实对于语言交流要求非常高,也就是SOFTSKILL吧,不是数学好就可以读的.如果你不喜欢MSF,就不要勉强了.我考虑读双学位是因为我想在FINANCE/IB中做IT(也许是个梦而已).如果你的不准备留在美国,BC的双学位还是挺有吸引力的.你退出任何一个PROGRAM而在明年申请,实在是浪费你的大好青春,而且重申请其它学校还要解释你这一段精力.

现在回答楼主的问题.我觉得你很可悲.我接触了不少正就读或者已经毕业的加拿大MBA的中国同胞,他们读书的出发点就已经错了.虽然有人说我绝对,情况就是这样.新移民到加拿大找不到专业对口的工作,就梦想读个书可以改变困境,而没有思考为什么找不到工作.我没有读书也找到了专业工作,我想除了运气之外,重要一点是SOFTSKILL.你在贴子里提出你最不满意的恰恰是将来能够帮到你的,而你最希望学到的恰恰是将来最不值钱的.你的语言交际能力不提高的话,哈佛毕业也没用.

当然加拿大MBA毕业找不到工作另外一个原因是市场真的是太小.记得我太太2002年刚从加拿大的MBA毕业,只身到多伦多.她的MENTOR自己就是银行的VP,原来可以给她一个职位,结果那个职位上的人最后决定不离开了;后来介绍她CIBC的VP,VP帮她找了HR的.HR告诉她,你看,整个多伦多COMMERCIAL BANKING只招一个人,有上百人申请,许多还是银行内部的.

FYI. The 47th reply on the attached link provides some communication channels with Ivey. Hope it help those CDers who are interested in Ivey.