Top 10 School 到底看什么?

wang10

兄弟还在考虑到底去Chicago GSB 还是Kellogg.欢迎指教.

If you find this article interesting, please help me choosing school by voting above. Thanks.

Some of you send message asking for my help. Here is what I got. The following are from my talking with adcom members of Univ of Chicago, Kellogg and HSB:

First thing first: Probably, the most important thing is the most surprising: Not GMAT score, GPA or LOC, nor working experience. The most important is the uniqueness.

Assistant director of University of Chicago told me something like this: If you have a GMAT of 750, graduate from a Ivy League school with a GPA at 3.4, 4-5 year working experience with JP Morgan Chase and great reference from your boss, you have really slim chance compared to another applicant who is a 39 years old lawyer with just a GMAT of 690 and no working experience in financial industry. Chicago probably has hundreds of well-qualified financial bankers applying each year but only a handful of lawyers. Chicago is looking for diversity. In another word, Chicago is looking for uniqueness in each individual. The wording is different but the sample is from the director.

Ranking : Personally, I trust Business Week and Wall Street Journal more because they do not consider undergraduate GPA and GMAT scores, which have no business in your future once you get admitted to school. U.S news, on the other side, gives about 30% weight to those two, which I am not so convinced that it is a good indicator to my future. FT ranking is crap. How comes CEIBS is better than UCLA, Cornell or Oxford? By what ground does FT think CEIBS should be the best in Asia? Considering all the information in FT is provided by the school and Chinese school’s long tradition of providing “accurate” information, I believe I know the answer. Unlike other international schools, the information from CEIBS is un-audited(check FT website). For example, the “average” salary for CEIBS graduate is 97,999 dollar, which is about 784K RMB per year and 65K per month and on the par with University of Toronto graduate (98,2xx) and almost 50% more than the graduate from Hong Kong UST Business School (65,9xx). Is FT out of its mind to trust such a “statistics” considering the big income difference in term of U.S dollar between China and Canada and between China mainland and Hong Kong? Anyway, I guess I am just another CEIBS basher.

By the way I use a weighted ranking system: My weight is like this.

Business Week : 2

U.S news and Wall Street Journal 1.5

FT/Encomiasts news 1.2

Forbes/U.S new school ranking(not U.S news MBA ranking) 1

Use the weight times the ranking and add them together, you get the total. In my weighting system, Kellogg total is 52.9 and U of Chicago is 54.9.

Essay: All the essays should focus on the same point: Your unique qualification for the MBA program and what can you contribute? I seriously recommend all of you think about your strength several days before starting the first essay.

GMAT: Top 10 need at least 730(original wording like: a typical admitted full time student from China should have a GMAT around 730. Anyone less than it should compensate the deficiency by means of either strong GPA or working experience).

I have no idea about more than 1 GMAT score since I only took one and did not ask question about it. If you did not take GMAT now, please try to have it done in a single test. A low first score will more or less affect your application. Personally, I believe if you cannot finish 710 on time using Tian Shan or GWD in a week before the test, delay the test. Although my test score is higher than my estimate with brand new GWD, it is not far above my average(20 point more).

AWA: Kellogg does not care too much as long as it is above 4.5 around (50%) but HSB and U of Chicago put more weight on it. They do not mention about the average score.

LOC: Adcom know they are written by applicants in some extent given their past experiences unless they are signed by foreigners. It will call your recommender once you are about to be admitted (at least in U.S. for my case and my two friends case).

GPA: Adcom will consider school. My undergraduate school is very tough and adcom realize it from past students' score. Those director know Tsinghua and Peking University(asked directly) so are lots of admission officers(my guess). Faked transcript will be detected especially you are from top schools in China. What I heard is the schools are sharing a black list for known forgers each year. So be careful. If you have a lower GPA like me, you are better off to explain it in your essay.

Variety: They are looking for variety. You should try to stand out in the essay about what is unique in you besides the obvious fact such as you are from China and you have so-called international trading/managing/IT/financial experience. Almost everybody from China claims them. If you are one of those who can put out your case strongly without those clinches, you are in much better shape than those who do not. Personally, I did not use these kind stereotypes.

Interview: Be yourself. Do not over-prepare it. A scripted answer will be easily detected and do more harm than good. Just like you can find out a Chinese paragraph that is written and then read out rather than a plainly spoken conversation, they know. Also, focus on what you can contribute to the school.

========================================================

One last advice, if you ever go to an open house in the future, try to talk to lower level admission employee. The more experience they are, the more cunning. I found the deans of admission are almost useless to get feedback while assistant directors have great advice in that they are at least candid about their school admission policy instead of telling you craps such as "each person is different and we are judge applicant's qualification case by case”. Or “do not hesitate to apply if your GMAT score fall below the average xxx, the average by no means is a cut off line".

Any school less than top 20 is no good to you in U.S. You might get lucky when economy is good but more than likely you are wasting your time and money here in the U.S. Unless you have strong networks in China and plan to go back, do not come and try next year!!!

Good luck to you all.

If you find this article interesting, please help me choosing school by voting above. Thanks.

兄弟还在考虑到底去Chicago GSB 还是Kellogg.欢迎指教.

御风行

哇！实在是对楼主钦佩不已……这篇文章起码说明3个问题：

1、楼主精神充沛，或者是被选校折磨的痛苦不堪，居然凌晨四点在发文……
2、楼主极度热心，光凭这一点community contribution就该被录取
3、楼主对于自己的未来极度重视……如果是我可能早就选定了……

赞一个！

btw，我投chicago一票。嘻嘻我今年也要申请Chicago的说。谢谢楼主极具建设性的意见！

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-7-28 8:53:07编辑过]

machinegun

Good article. But I cannot vote since you didnot introduce yourself, which is the vital factor in choosing b-school.

You did not mention a single piece of information about yourself: your career goal, your personality, your working experiences and more importantly, your own feeling (fit) with each school.

Both schools are great places for MBA education, however, they have very different characteristics that you need to tell by your own research. You did a good research of looking for some common criterion of admission, but it seems that you failed to do one thing: exploring yourself and finding the better fit.

Good luck!

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-7-28 9:48:02编辑过]

ssyych

我的一点看法。如果你准备从事投行业并且你有较大把握预期毕业时经济依然景气可选芝加哥，反之选凯洛格。因为芝加哥中国学生较多并且学生多数准备从事金融业，这行的需求对经济状况的敏感度极高。反之西北学生的就业范围相对较广，同时校友之间、学校对学生的就业更乐意提供帮助。我有个朋友在IT泡沫后从沃顿毕业，他就说芝加哥的中国学生就业不很理想（我想他就是指01、02年）。

当然任一所都是好学校。祝贺楼主。

jingge

By the way I use a weighted ranking system: My weight is like this.

Business Week : 2

U.S news and Wall Street Journal 1.5

FT/Encomiasts news 1.2

Forbes/U.S new school ranking(not U.S news MBA ranking) 1

Use the weight times the ranking and add them together, you get the total. In my weighting system, Kellogg total is 52.9 and U of Chicago is 54.9.

你这个方法得出Kellogg的值为52.9，Chicago为54.9，这样代表的值与你本来的排名是反的。排名是序数值，数值越大的话排名越后，这样的话应该是越重要的项目加权越小，才越显出其重要性。以下表格分别按照不同权重计算排名，权重2为按照你的权重BW 2、US News & WSJ 1.5、FT & EI 1.2、 Forbes 1.0；权重1为权重2的倒数，即BW 1/2、US News & WSJ 1/1.5、FT & EI 1/1.2、 Forbes 1.0

由下表可见，HBS,Wharton,Chicago, Stanford,Dartmouth,Kellogg,and Columbia的数值均小于6，其他学校数值均大于10，也许这是新的Magic Seven.

jingge

加权平均1的 排名	School	加权平均1	BW 2004	US News 2005	FT 2005	Forbes 2003	Economist	WSJ 2004	加权平均2	加权平均2的 排名	平均值	平均值 排名
1	Harvard	3.78	5	1	1	1	4	13	4.52	2	4.17	2
2	Wharton	4.22	3	2	1	6	8	4	3.79	1	4.00	1
3	Chicago	4.85	2	8	5	3	6	5	4.73	4	4.83	3
4	Stanford	4.89	4	2	4	7	2	10	4.79	5	4.83	4
5	Dartmouth	5.00	10	6	6	4	3	3	5.75	6	5.33	6
6	Kellogg	5.59	1	4	9	9	1	7	4.70	3	5.17	5
7	Columbia	5.70	8	9	3	2	7	8	6.61	7	6.17	7
8	Yale	10.55	22	15	7	5	14	6	12.58	12	11.50	10
9	Michigan	11.00	6	10	12	20	11	1	9.06	8	10.00	8
10	MIT	11.07	9	4	10	15	16	9	9.97	9	10.50	9
11	NYU	11.92	13	13	7	13	10	17	12.43	10	12.17	11
12	Virginia	12.41	12	14	15	10	12	12	12.55	11	12.50	12
13	Cornell	14.22	7	15	16	11	17	18	13.59	14	14.00	13
14	Duke	14.81	11	11	14	22	13	14	13.56	13	14.17	14
15	Berkeley	15.04	17	6	10	21	19	15	14.44	15	14.67	15

	BW 2004	US News 2005	FT 2005	Forbes 2003	Economist	WSJ 2004
权重1	1/2	1/1.5	1/1.2	1	1/1.2	1/1.5
权重1(%)	11.11%	14.81%	18.52%	22.22%	18.52%	14.81%
权重2	2	1.5	1.2	1	1.2	1.5
权重2(%)	23.81%	17.86%	14.29%	11.90%	14.29%	17.86%

独上高楼

楼主是在国外呢.....呵呵,苦干到4点, 那也太苦了吧.

那些学校排名意义不是特别大,特别是有些排名太离谱了..当然dartmouth是M7的quality, 但是 MIT肯定也不会被赶出去的呀.

wang10

加权平均使用乘法没有问题.除法是错误的

Suppose A and B two school rank 1 and 2 in X and Y magzine but the ranking in reverse.

X(A) = 1 X(B) = 2

Y(A) = 2 Y(B) = 1.

If we think X has a weight of 2 and Y has a weight of 1, then total
weight for school A T(A) = 2 * X(A) + Y(A) = 2*1 + 2 = 4 and total
weight for school B T(B) = 2*X(B) + Y(B) = 2* 2 + 1 = 5. Therefore we
draw a conlcusion that A school is better than B school.


However, if you were to using division, you would draw a wrong conclusion

T(A) = X(A)/2 + Y(A) = 1/2 + 2 = 2.5

T(B) = X(B)/2 + Y(B) = 2/2 + 1 = 2

You have a wrong conclusion that B school is better than A.


所以我支持第2种方法.

jingge的方法也例证了乘法的正确.

加权1中的BW2004只占了11%的最终值.成为最不重要的.所以错.

加权2中BW2004的比例最高.正确.


=============================================================
One important thing is the school ranking. Let us thinking the following case:


Do you want to study Civil Engieering土木工程 in Tsinghua University清华 or
Tianjing University天津大学? (When I was applying for school, Tianjing
University had a Cival Engineering department ranking of 1 while
Tsinghua has a ranking of 3). I will bet at least 1/2 of student want
to go to Tsinghua University.


I have to double check my ranking in each school . jingge has a different ranking than me.



学校本身的排名也应该考虑.

请jingge加入后给出最后排名.大家可以考虑自身情况加减权重.得出自己的排名.

[此贴子已经被作者于2005-7-29 0:37:33编辑过]

jingge

权重的概念是乘法概念，S=∑X_i*δ_i，且∑δ_i＝1。你可以给每一个项目赋一个权重，这个权重可以是一个任意值，但是都可以转化成百分比，就是说各项目的权重之和是1。对于一般的情况，因为各项目的值都是基数值，基数值就是我们通常说的数，所以重要的项目赋较大的权重；对于排名这一类序数值，重要的项目赋较小的权重，因为序数值数值越小，排名越靠前。

我计算的权重1只是按你赋的权重取倒数（取倒数之后其数值就小，就是说重要性越大），然后换算成百分比再相乘，还是乘法。

你计算出来的Kellogg 52.9和Chicago 54.9实际上是一个序数值，就是说Kellogg排名在Chicago之前。

因为我没有学校排名，因此没法计算。你如能提供给我，我可以再算一次。

wang10

us news school ranking

1.     Harvard University (MA)  

2.    Princeton University (NJ)

3.     Yale University (CT)     

4.     University of Pennsylvania

5.     Duke University (NC)

      Massachusetts Inst. of Technology

      Stanford University (CA)

8.     California Institute of Technology

9.     Columbia University (NY)

      Dartmouth College (NH)

11.     Northwestern University (IL)

      Washington University in St. Louis

13.     Brown University (RI)

14.     Cornell University (NY)

      Johns Hopkins University (MD)

      University of Chicago

17.     Rice University (TX)

18.     University of Notre Dame (IN)

      Vanderbilt University (TN)

20.     Emory University (GA)

21.     University of California – Berkeley *

22.     Carnegie Mellon University (PA)

      University of Michigan – Ann Arbor *

      University of Virginia *

25.     Georgetown University (DC)

      Univ. of California – Los Angeles *

27.     Wake Forest University (NC)

28.     Tufts University (MA)

29.     U. of North Carolina – Chapel Hill *

30.     Univ. of Southern California

31.     College of William and Mary (VA)*

32.     Brandeis University (MA)

      New York University

      Univ. of Wisconsin – Madison *

35.     Case Western Reserve Univ. (OH)

      Univ. of California – San Diego *

37.     Boston College

      Lehigh University (PA)

      U. of Illinois – Urbana - Champaign *

      University of Rochester (NY)

41.     Georgia Institute of Technology *

42.     University of California – Davis *

43.     Tulane University (LA)

      University of California – Irvine *

45.     Univ. of California – Santa Barbara *

46.     Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)

      University of Texas – Austin *

      University of Washington *

      Yeshiva University (NY)

50.     ennsylvania State U. – University Park *