you shall not come to ivey

why? let us use some logic here

who are u? why u want a MBA? --  if you apply for ivey, chances are you are not the sharks (smart, good marks, good tofel, good gmat, couple years experience in consulting or finance..), but you still want to give it a try, hope that your mba could provide some opportunities down the road.

ok, so why ivey?

a canadian school who just changes to 1 year program (all north american b-schools who tried 1yr program failed);

a canadian school whose ranking is constantly sliding? (pretty soon, I guess will be out of 50)

if you choose to stay in canada, then you have to worry about your job after graduation. because reality is, ivey graduates' employment rate is not that great, around 70% or less in canada, do not forget, there are about 1/3 local english speakers, 1/3 indian students(who will have no problem at all in english), and 1/3 chinese students (this includes CBC, immigrants, new comers....) so 70% means very few chinese students will get jobs in canada after graduation.

oh, the other thing is ivey's grading system: final exam: 50-60%, class participation35-50%), and 48hr reports(25-35%).

final exam is case exam, 4 hours, tough work, some minor courses donot have one, but individual work;

class participation is all about you have to raise your hands and talk about the case or ask questions or answer questions, this is mainly prof' impression mark, do you think you could do better than local students?

48hr report is team work, again, do you think you are good enough to argue with local students so that they will write the report according to your opinions? or if you think your english is better, then maybe you could write the reports?

so in final exam, you might do ok, but in 48hr reports, you have to pray for your luck (if you were in a good team with local students working hard and having insights or ideas), and very probably, you will be screwed up in class participation.

so you say: well i will do better in final exams. well, think again, look at the courses: leadership, communication, career management, social responsibility, strategy....tons of soft course, is it possible that you score 20-30 points higher than others? no! the marks are pretty close, the highest to lowest might be 20? so even if you did excellent here (and chances are you will not), it is still not enough to make up the lost in class participation.

well the point here is: when you apply for jobs, you will find that your marks are in the low end, and coincidentally, many good firms do require your marks. (well the school says, if you really want, you can do anything. but I really want billiions of dollars, could you show me how?) as a foreign student with lower mark and not great english, do you stand a chance in job hunting?

then you say you could go back to china. of course! welcome! but the pay is about 300k-400k. well, good enough! really? calculate your return on investment. you spend 2 years, 100k-120k (canadian $, including tuition and living costs for 2 years), plus you have to leave your family parents ......added up all these indirect, direct costs, 300k is not good enough. what if you go to a b-school in china? good ones like ceibs? which one is more widely recognized or known in china? ivey or ceibs? if you go to ceibs, you will get the same salary, with less investment, and more guarantee. (ceibs has almost 100% replacement rate)

So do yourself a favour, do not apply for ivey. if you are good, then try the top ones in usa, if you are kind of in the middle, simply take a good b-school in china. you will get the same or better results with less investment, less hussle and less trouble.

俺没啥发言权，占个座看看先。

I don't know how to sense what LZ talked about, it sounds reasonable as it is, as the payback period to joining Ivey is much more uncertain than joinging Ceibs. All in one, choice of school must take in account of personal expectation, financial load, school reputation and your pespective career. Put in a big picture, you will be capable to discern your roadmap in juggles. No uniform answer for such an issue raised by LZ, because it depends personal circumstance at different stage.

Life is a box of chocolate, you never know what you gonna to get.

My pleasure to share this Gump's saying.

To LZ Pal,

赞一个!

but, I have some questions...

The 1st question is that Did you quit Ivey thus far ? If you quitted already, what is ur plan?

The 2nd question is that Can u apply for other top b-schools in states  ,saying that you just left Ivey for its poor education ? what's the chance for u to get admitted?

The 3rd question is that Does Ivey's China-returning students can get 30k-40K salary's job?  I doubted it really.The story what I heard is that much less than ur figure was. Ivey's graduates are not sell good in China's market.

btw, I also want to put Ivey as my back-up school.Sigh... want to know ur advice.

well, i am too not sure about the data on the website. I am in ivey now, and my data is from my year's. On the website, it is for 2005 graduations, so probably that is why the difference there.

it is true that you should consider your situation, but why immigrate to canada if you could go to the top canadian school but still not so sure about a decent job? i did not see any meaningful return there.

Hi, Sean,

let say Ivey "pk" rotman ,who will win for the job market in China?

Also, how about Ivey pk Queen's ?

all considering the job in China or Hong Kong ..