why I say so much bad things about ivey?

sean1255

well, i have been posted negative comments about ivey for a while. some of you, especially those who see ivey as their favorite, really got irritated.

why i did that?  i really would like to warn you before you make the decision of coming to ivey. because the information you got draws a fancy picture about ivey. in addition, some current chinese students, i donot know their starting points, but they do keep on posting fancy comments about the school, while in reality, they might just be struggling in the school, both for their marks and for their jobs.

well very simply, is there any 2nd year ivey chinese students got job offers exceeding CA$100k(which is the school's posted average salary)? is there any 2nd year ivey chinese students got job offers from big ibank or consulting firms? and how many of them do get job offers?

while the school keeps on alluring chinese students, its system is designed that you will not be strong in academic studies. its extremely high portion in class participation, team work based mid term exams, kills almost all posibilities that you can surpass local students in marks. in addition, your background in china will not be counted in canada(highly possible).

combined these two factors, chances for chinese students to find decent jobs in canada after graduation are very very slim.  when you apply for jobs or interns, you will find out that most of the postings that pay the highest salary do require your marks. let me ask you a question: as chinese students, how can you differentiate yourself if 1) your marks are lower 2)you donot have north america experience 3)your english skills are much worse? If you could help me out, then I really want to thank you.

besides, the school is losing ground in the ranking battle and it fails to thoroughly review itself, analyze the current market needs, and refine/adjust its education process. the changing to 1 year does not have a strong logic behind it, and to me, it is more of a gambling than a strategy.

So personally i do not have anything against ivey. in fact, I am an ivey student myself. what can i gain if the school is going down? butas a chinese, i think it is my duty to tell other future applicants the real situation here. I simply want to let you know that going to ivey is a risky decision in terms of your return on investment, not as promising as others wrote about it, and not as fancy as others wrote about it too --- that is it, no more, no less.

oracleunix

Thanks for your telling us the truth about ivey!!!

cicilla

其实每个学校都或多或少有不尽人意或者没有达到你期望的地方。毕竟在没有去读之前，谁也不知道自己去了以后是否会感觉很好。即使是同一所学校，不同的人感受也会不一样。

不过，真的很感谢LZ如此坦诚地表达自己的想法，也给要申请的朋友们一个方面的认识。

danfulee

Points you hint are true for many other top B-Schools.

Zita

TBC.

cheeyong

楼主敢说，值得佩服，因为我很少见到说自己学校不好的，呵呵。

LunarLin

上次IVEY在上海的Information session我去了..去过我就对这个学校彻底没兴趣了...

因为

1.他们上海招生办的负责人,英文很差.让人听了心都凉了.

2.来的校友里的中国人...只有一个用英文,presentation skill基本没有.另外一个中文讲,中头到尾都看着自己的脚,站都没站像样....我的人...

ppbb

Being irritated is too far away! And it is highly appreciated, while studying at least 3 cases a day and looking for a summer intern at this moment- the busiest time in your two- year study, you would still kindly respond on CD.

There is no doubt you are telling the true, northing but the true. However, too many extremely subjective words could weaken a serious comment.

It’s always good to listen to different thoughts while making important decisions. What you have said goes everywhere. No fantasy in B-school world. Eventually we need to go with our conscience! Good luck!

[此贴子已经被作者于2006-1-9 23:21:32编辑过]

nanometer

Eventually, touched by what LZ told. It's hard to criticize what you have stake in. But, objective is just an incisive lance that you can find more contradictions with what you predict before. Anyway, I got to say, it's brutality to crush a dreamed place in the world-class business education. Nevertheless, iconclast should be awarded for his courage and honesty, cause he knows the power of love and hatred.

As I know, the traditional of exam modules makes obstacles for Chinese students to join the first tier students in school, it's not simply an obstacle, it's entry barrier. Noone would like to pay more attention to whether a Chinese students should be compensated with what his hard work should be rewarded. In this world, we are minority, anyway.

But, the game is fairly played. In fact, English is not the achilles's hell for Chinese students ONLY. I mean, even we can speak as fluency English as those native speakers. I find we are less in innovation in taking a question. Probably, we were told too many standard answers to questions since our primiry education.

Come back to Ivey, I don't want to say more. While, I make sure LZ is really an Amercianized cawboy. I like this way to telling it like it is.

Envyiiiiiiiiing.

braveMBA

I am a second yr Ivey student and think I am eligible to say something about Ivey. However, I am representing myself rather than a group or a school since everyone is unique in my mind. Also, I am not defending Ivey, but telling you my comments on this question raised by Sean1225 for many many times since last year.

I had 7 yrs experience in air and travel industry. All my experience was in China and SOE(state owned enterprise). Taking MBA study is part of my plan of immigration to Canada 3 yrs ago. After GMAT and TOEFL torture (lucky to have CD when I was doing that), I got 5 offers (Ivey, Queens, York, Carlson, Tippie). I also applied Rotman, Kelley, Rice, Mcgill, but was rejected. You may find my targets were Canadian schools (Do I need to say why?) and second tier US schools because Canadian schools are my first choices and my background is not strong enough to try TOP10. Making decision among 5 no-big-difference offers was not easy, but finally I chose Ivey because Ivey gave me $10k scholarship, is the best Canadian BS and uses case method which is a two-edge-sword. To be honest with everybody, I never regret my decision among these 5 schools.

Study at Ivey is really tough, tougher than some of top US schools as I know. I can not imagine students in the one year program (Ivey's new program) will be like what. However, everybody is alive. In recent years, I never heard a case that MBA students, especially Chinese students failed because of study (maybe there are few, but don't think they are representative). Schools want to make money. If fail you, they will lose your future tuition. Simple, right? What I want to say here is study at Ivey is really tough. The performance of Chinese group is not that bad, we have 4 on dean list, maybe the best year for Chinese students in Ivey's MBA history. Obviously, still tough to majority of us. However, if you want to play this MBA study game at Ivey better, you still can make it. If you do not, who cares? It is all about you. Sales and marketing guys often are more open and easier to communicate with than technical people. This is not about language. This is about personality. Do you want to be a consultant or a IBer, even at entry level? Please to be smart, TALKATIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE even with your awkward English. If you are not showing those talents in study, I doubt you can make it in your work. And I believe this rule is applicable not only to Chinese and English spokers, but also to all BS in north america. If you can not make it, its nothing to do with the school. It's all about you. Will you even reconsider it everyday in BS, am I suitable to going after business?

Regarding career, Canadian job market is less than 10% of US market. Besides few banks and oil industry, can you give me some big Canadian company names? I doubt you can. You have to accept this fact because you are in Canada, not in US. Career management at Ivey is not as good as it should be. That's a big one. That's partly because of poor Canadian job market. Without big companies, MBA demand, where are the postings? However, it's not an excuse for career management. They should do better than now. There are some decent job postings from Ivey, but the question is, can you make it? Almost all top MC's canadian branches and Canadian IBs are hiring MBAs from Ivey every year, but non-native-speakers who are recruited are very very few. I guess in US, things are pretty similiar, maybe better but limited. I am not smart enough, not young enough, not english-spoken-well enough and my background also is not strong enough to let me make the top MCs and IBs jobs. If you are, try it. Again, this is not about a specific school, like Ivey, this is the situation in north america, I guess. Think about it first, are you eligible for decent big jobs?

I did my summer in a US industry consulting firm and got a not bad offer now, above Ivey's average. Second year Chinese MBAs at Ivey have got 8 offers now which are all from very decent companies. Sean1225, maybe you don't communicate with second yr students very often, so you don't know. Yes, I agree, we still have a long way to go regarding job huntings for Chinese as a group. However, I believe job hunting are mostly about yourself and job market, not the school even though I don't think career management at Ivey does a good job.

Positioning yourself in a reasonable way is the key. I am not able to go to top US business schools. So I chose Ivey. I don't wanna complain even I see some dark and negative things. I wanna play with it in a best way rather than waste my money on compaints like a grey cat. Actually, my point is simple, if you don't like it, don't go for it. If you choose it, show respect to your choice and get the best result from it or quit as early as possible.

Just curious, Sean1225, I remember you also applied Tuck last year and you were showing your big concerns about Ivey regarding to its quality, why did you still choose Ivey? Rather than Tuck? No meaning to offend you, just curious. Anyway, good discussion on this topic. I am open to further.