IVEY OR SCHULICH

sean1255

I donot agree with the location. You see, if you are a really great school, location does not matter that much. In fact, look at Tuck, the location is the worst I guess, but companies will still go there. Also, for Ivey's many years' history, location was not a problem at all. For a b school, the only thing matters is your products' (students) quality, and to ensure the quality, you have to focus on your process, which is the education. Location plays a little role, but trivial.

For the format, 1 year, 2 years, well, that is trivial again. Sure some people would prefer 1 year, but some people would prefer 2 years. More important, any school can switch to 1 year without great difficulties, so as we learned from our cases, 1 year is not a sustainable competitive advantage. In fact, in N.A, several top b schools tried 1 year and failed. In addition, if Ivey's 1year were successful,why Rotman, Schulich will not follow the trend? So the format will not save Ivey, Changing from 2 years to 1 year, it is a gambling, not a strategy.

For the courses, well, I do not know about Rotman's or Schulich's, but  I should say Ivey offers excellent courses. Here, Schulich is right about the hard skill courses, I think Ivey should put more emphasis on them too. But as far as I know, Ivey's soft skill courses are uncomparable by others in Canada, and these courses will be far more important when you climb your career lader. Donot forget, b schools are like stocks, you should not chase the current star, instead, you should invest in long term.

In short, Ivey should first put down the ego,then visit the employers and listen to them, so that Ivey can adjust the process accordingly. Because to a b school, the best quality is not defined by the school, it is defined by the employers. And at last, focus on China strategy, because whoever wins the battle in China today, will be the leader tomorrow. If Ivey would do that,personally, I think Ivey will be a top 10 school in the world.

zhnhd1215

Sean1255: just a personal feeling: you are a smart guy with great vision and remarkable opinion. No doubt, such advantages are not formed within one day. Your effort and past experience contribute a lot to them. However, have you ever thought that maybe just Ivey helps enhance them and mold present you? Even though I saw that you popped out many negative points on Ivey, from you, I believe that Ivey is still a place that is well worth the cost of investment.

schulich

Still only partially agree with sean

 

- Location is certainly the single most important factor for the business success. People always saying the first three most important factors to gain sustainable advantages are: Location!  Location! and Location! All the success business schools have good and convenient location. As for the Tuck’s case, I am sure if Tuck located in a better location, she can definitely be a much better school.

 

- The value of a b-school is its intangible assets which are mainly determined by the quality of its professors and students, and its tangible assets (buildings and teaching facilities) almost worth nothing compare with the intangible assets. Therefore, the value of a b-school can easily be impaired when professors either get retired or jumped out, when talented students cannot be attracted to her MBA program. I personally felt that Ivey’s admission officers are the best, but the applications are still sliding down. The negative effects to Ivey’s future reputation are obvious. Further, reputation is short-term rather than long term. Many big-names today, if not running well, can be disappeared and completely forgot by people in short time. Take Eaton for example, just several years ago, Eaton was the symbol of Toronto and many other big cities downtown. Should you say Eaton will disappear in 2005, people will laugh at you. But what about Eaton’s reputation today, at least the new comers have no idea about Eaton, and I am sure after 10 or 20 years, most Canadians will not remember it or will interpret it as something else.

 

- With brilliant strategy, all the major Canadian b-school has the potential to be top 10. Ivey definitely needs a great leader to turn around. But the problem here is as every b-school is longing for a grater leader, why the leader must go Ivey not other school. So far I haven’t seem any thing promising from Ivey.  

 

 

 

sean1255

well, for the question about Ivey shaping my personalities or something else, my answer is: not really, very limited.

For the comments about Ivey is worth investing, then why not you come to Ivey? and you will find out.

sean1255

First, B school is not real estate. The location might be a little bit handy, but definitely will not be the issue. I guess no matter where Harvard locates, people will jump there. Will you? In addition, if moving to Toronto would solve Ivey's problem, they would have done it long time ago. That would not be difficult for Ivey or UWO.

Second, your logic about b schools is defected. You see on the surface, yes, the students and the professors look like the most important things, but actually not. If you look at a b school as a company, then what is the most important thing? customer, which in b school's case, the employers. Professors are workers, producing students for the employers. A b school will be a good one, only if its products are welcomed by the customers (employers). Then, more candidates will come, more money will come, and more top professors can be recruited. On the other hand, if your products(students) are not welcomed by employers, then your ranking is droping, your application is shrinking, and you donot have resources to keep your best workers. Use your example, Eaton went out of business, simply because its products could not attract customers. However, Eaton got the best locations, and also got the best intangible assets. To me, a b school is like any business, if you forgot to listen to your boss (customers), you die.

'- With brilliant strategy, all the major Canadian b-school has the potential to be top 10.' that is too vague and bold. What is brilliant strategy? Personally I think it would not be that easy. To be a top 10, you have to go internationally, how many Canadian schools have the resources and the guts to do so? 'Ivey definitely needs a great leader to turn around.' Well again, vague. What kind of leader? All these are typical MBA talkings, which sounds like big and exciting, but just a house built on sand.

In short, Ivey is not that great as it says it is, and Schulich is climbing up in the rankings. But simply based on that, and think Schulich is better than Ivey, is still prematured. In addition, concluding the up and downs to the location is just not that convincing.

It is like looking at 2 stocks, stock A enjoyed healthy return for a long time till recently, then some bad news and the price is going down, but still it is a solid stock. Stock B pretty much had no return for a long time, but recently had some good news and the stock price went up a little bit. Then you sold all your stock A to load up stock B.  Does that sound ok?

sun3616

Ivey,不说也罢!

zenger

IVEY的MBA(不包括EMBA)的确在走下坡路,不过不论是学院整体声誉还是MBA项目的声誉,暂时应该不是Schulich可以相比的.

就就业情况而言,S的hard skill当然有利于毕业生就业,不过收入并不高--会计类居多,综合比较,I的就业仍然比S好(虽然就业率指标不一定比后者高).

对中国学生而言(只考虑整体,不考虑个体因素),如果考虑在NA就业,就业率恐怕比工资水平更重要(况且S的成本也低很多);如果考虑毕业后回国发展,I的价值就明显比S高多了.不过就I改为1年制MBA来说,恐怕不适合中国学生,相同条件,在中欧会更好.