IVEY OR SCHULICH

ralphrao

刚拿到2个学校的OFFER,心里还没有定到底哪间. 请各位发表一下高见!!

yorkzhong

IVEY obviously have a better repution in China so if you want to come back, definately IVEY. But if you wantto stay in NA I guess no big difference since the placement for Chinese are not promising in both school I guess.

schulich

Its all depand on your planing after MBA. If you are going back home immediately, choose Ivey because of its past reputation in China. If you are going to find a job in NA, choose Schulich as its hard skill education is much better than Ivey even when Ivey offered 2 years MBA program. Besides, the ranking of Ivey is sliding down rapidly in North America, and with the rising of Rotman and Schulich, poorly located Ivey has no chance to recover its past reputation.

ralphrao

thanks a lot. Schulich, are you a student of schulich?

schulich

Yes, I am a current Schulich student. I was on the same boat as you, received offers from both Ivey and Schulich, and I gave up the Ivey offer. Hard skills are very important if you wish to find a job in NA. For Ivey, they are focused on build up soft skills which actually need a long time process, and even 2 years program cannot improve your soft skills much, not to mention the current one year program. For Schulich, its a balance of soft and hard skills education, and in the second year, you can have lots of choice of concentration of hard skills courses which can benefit you a lot when you are interviewed by a NA company. The fact that the ranking and placement of Schulich have been improving rapidly while the other school sliding down rapidly in these years clearly explained the situation. If you asked the question 5 or 6 years before, people should say you are crazy, but nowadays, Ivey is not the Ivey 6 years before and Schulich is not the Schulich 6 years befor,e and it becomes a hard choice for the prospective students. I believe I have made the right choice. Anyway, if you are going back China immediate after yor graduation, its another story.

shron

hi,schulich, i am admitted by schulich MBA this year. but, i am wondering how the campus life will be. could you presenst a rough idea about it? say housing,meal plan,placement especially in finace area and the class activities. thanks

sean1255

I am not trying to de-respect Schulich, but in Canada, you ask anybody, Ivey is No.1, although it is true that the ranking is sliding like hell, but still Ivey is much better. Why? reputation and alumni. For Schulich, yes it is improving quickly, but to become a first class b-school, probably still a long way to go. A top b-school, like wines, needs many, many years of success. Ranking might not tell the whole story. In fact, the down of Ivey and up of others are not because of others are getting better, only because Ivey is getting worse. The reason? poor strategy. For example, changing to 1 year is a proven losing strategy in N.A, besides, changing the format, not the contents, simply will not do anything. One more example, Ivey was very commited to China, then seems it canceled that because of the poor data. Well, a winning strategy could be painful at the beginning, but unfornately, Ivey does not have the long term view. All in all, Ivey is falling, and that gives others some chances, however, a dying camel is still bigger than a horse. And that pretty much answers the questions about Ivey and others.

ralphrao

thank you all guys for giving me the thorough insight of both ivey and schulich. however, I am still struggling with it. as far as i am concerned, the pros and cons of both school  are hard to evaluate just by  ranking, alumni or something else. it all depends on the individual situation. Anyway, thank you guys again

schulich

I only partially agree with Sean.

 

Ivey’s problem is not stem from its strategy, but suffered from its poor location. People at Business school whatever they are professors or students need convenient location and business environment. The poor location is definitely a fatal disadvantage to Ivey, but it was masked by Ivey’s early success as the first mover in business school in Canada. For the Canadian job market, one or two top business school is actually more than enough. When better located Rotman and Schulich begin to thrive and offer courses fit to the needs of local job market, Ivey lost her attraction to local student. I heard from Ivey admission officers that the application for Ivey dropped from peak 1400 just several years before to around 400 and her class size shrunk from 350 to 130. Rotman becomes the first choice for local students. With the loss of local applicants, Ivey has to admit more and more Chinese and India student to maintain the school running. As a sharp contrast to Ivey’s downturn, Rotman got more than enough local applicants, she must find every excuse to limit Chinese student under 10% to control her class size to 260 each year, also Schulich increased her class size and candidates quality steadily. So Ivey’s current problems is mainly caused by Rotman and Schulich rapid improvement in their teaching quality,

 

As a Canadian b-school, Ivey has to value the resource of local student much more than Chinese or India student, the one year program is the only strategy for Ivey to pull some of the local students (those who only need an MBA title and care about opportunity cost) back to Ivey. This is a niche marketing strategy Ivey adopted to survive when Rotman and Schulich attract most of the local student resource, and the niche strategy itself means Ivey is a loser. Ivey Chinese students will deeply suffer from the one year program: they won’t have enough time to build up their soft skills, not to mention the hard skill necessary for job hunting in NA; and they still pay as much as the 2 year program tuition but only get 75% discounted education.

 

As for the alumni networking which is Ivey’s only advantage over other schools, the reality is the personal quality student still plays the most important role when seeking for a job in Canada. You can just compare the job placement for Chinese student found job in Canada, its easy for you to get the answer (for Ivey it’s the 2-years program graduates, you can expect worse result under one year program). With the build up of the other school’s alumni networking, Ivey’s only advantage will also disappear in the near future. Schulich clearly is a better choice for Chinese students who want to find job in NA. 

 

However, if you determined to back China immediately after graduation, I would encourage you go Ivey.

pistachio

Good comments, Schulich