Chicago Booth 2011 Taking Questions

faridahchen

了解了，谢谢你jason。

topmba2009

Just in case anyone applying for Booth R2 is struggling to get their recommendation done by Jan 6. Here is good news:

"Chicago Booth will accept recommendations up to one full week after the January 6 deadline (up to January 13).  With the holidays so close to our deadline, we wanted to remove some of the pressure you may feel in having your recommenders submit on time.  So as long as you click "submit" by the deadline (January 6 at 5:00 p.m. Central Time), we will accept your application as part of Round 2 even if your recommenders are a few days late.  The one caveat, however, is that we cannot start reviewing your application until we receive both letters."  ~~ Rose Report.

http://blogs.chicagobooth.edu/RoseReport/

deliahou

Dear all,
I am currently admitted to Chicago Booth and Yale. And I feel the styles of the 2 schools are quite different. For Yale, there have already been many alumni (Chineses) contact me to answer questions. And I already got some information about financing. However, there is not much communication with Chicago Alumni, a little bit dissapointing. I have not got much information about financing yet. Maybe for Chicago, they expect you to find out problems and work out answers with initiative. May I know when I can get some more detailed information?
Chicago is well known with the culture of "Challenge". Sometimes it may not be that easy to customize the curriculum to just meet the needs. I would probably have some mentor to discuss my curriculum as well. I aim for investment banking, with a bachelor degree in accounting and I am supposed to pass the CFA  this summer. I work in commerical bank currently. Do you have any suggestions on the course to take or some professors as well? I also think networking and job hunting should be the crucial part of MBA life. How to try to balance the study life and social life if the courses themselves are already very demanding?

Thanks for the kind answer in advance.
Best regards,

酒楼

Do I need to mail the offical transcripts when I apply? or I can send them when the admin asks so?

Booth2011

Hi Deliahou,
Most of the admitted students have been called by current students. I personally made 2 calls in late Dec. It might be the case that your buddy student met some problems to access to your contact info. We have hosted info sessions in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taipei around Xmas, and many similar events in other cities. If you happened to miss all those events, you can definitely email us here or directly to the admission office. There are more than dozens of current students waiting to answer your questions.


Financing
The school has not announced the loan plan for this year. Last year, the rate is 3mo Libor+7.67% for non-cosigner loan, maximum$70k for one year. You may wait till March - April to see the new plan. As the credit market gets more stable, you may expect same or better offer this year.


Course Selection
There are tons of excellent courses here at Booth. Most ppl targeting IB take Finance or Finance + Accounting as concentration(s), maybe Economics as well. You can tailor your study here following that. All course info you can read from the website. There will be enough time for you to communicate with 2nd years after you land at Chicago. If you have any particular interested topics/areas, feel free to leave a contact. I can probably call you up later.


Networking/Socials
Yep, it is hard to balance everything at same time. That's why ppl who recruits for IB are now hectic to interview with each bank. The key solution actually is the community spirit of Booth. You'll find that everyone here is nice and supportive. Also the school provides millions of career and social opportunities to connect you with alumni or others. Don't worry on that. The alumni network of Booth is definitely one of the strongest and closest. You'll feel that if you dig into the subtle difference of the schools you've mentioned.


Late congrats than never. J. Cheers.

Dear all,
I am currently admitted to Chicago Booth and Yale. And I feel the styles of the 2 schools are quite different. For Yale, there have already been many alumni (Chineses) contact me to answer questions. And I already got some information about financing. However, there is not much communication with Chicago Alumni, a little bit dissapointing. I have not got much information about financing yet. Maybe for Chicago, they expect you to find out problems and work out answers with initiative. May I know when I can get some more detailed information?
Chicago is well known with the culture of "Challenge". Sometimes it may not be that easy to customize the curriculum to just meet the needs. I would probably have some mentor to discuss my curriculum as well. I aim for investment banking, with a bachelor degree in accounting and I am supposed to pass the CFA  this summer. I work in commerical bank currently. Do you have any suggestions on the course to take or some professors as well? I also think networking and job hunting should be the crucial part of MBA life. How to try to balance the study life and social life if the courses themselves are already very demanding?

Thanks for the kind answer in advance.
Best regards,

-- by 会员 deliahou (2010/1/6 6:48:57)

Booth2011

you forgot the spread dropped from 7.95% to 7.67%. lol

Dear all,
I am currently admitted to Chicago Booth and Yale. And I feel the styles of the 2 schools are quite different. For Yale, there have already been many alumni (Chineses) contact me to answer questions. And I already got some information about financing. However, there is not much communication with Chicago Alumni, a little bit dissapointing. I have not got much information about financing yet. Maybe for Chicago, they expect you to find out problems and work out answers with initiative. May I know when I can get some more detailed information?
Chicago is well known with the culture of "Challenge". Sometimes it may not be that easy to customize the curriculum to just meet the needs. I would probably have some mentor to discuss my curriculum as well. I aim for investment banking, with a bachelor degree in accounting and I am supposed to pass the CFA  this summer. I work in commerical bank currently. Do you have any suggestions on the course to take or some professors as well? I also think networking and job hunting should be the crucial part of MBA life. How to try to balance the study life and social life if the courses themselves are already very demanding?

Thanks for the kind answer in advance.
Best regards,

-- by 会员 deliahou (2010/1/6 6:48:57)

Sorry to hear that you didnt get the arranged call by the school to answer your questions. In my case last year, there are actually a second year student and some alumni reaching out to me. Maybe due to winter break, the adcom has not get the chance to arrange it yet.  Actually financing information normally comes out very late. I got info about financing in May. But you should not worry about it. You certainly would be able to get the school loan, if you worry about the rate, this year, as first year, we pay 7.95%+LIBOR.

If you want to do banking, Chicago is definitely the better place to go. With your commercial bank background, I think it's much easier for you to kick off the ground.  Regarding which course to choose, you can find resource on the school site, there are guides on which course range you should choose from to fit your concentration (IB). You can also check the resource in Investment Banking Group (a student group). Anyway, I think it's too early for you to worry about this, because once school starts, they will teach you step by step regarding course selection. But a piece of advice: I suggest you go find a i-banking pre-MBA internship with the famous firms now, even if it's non paid, as this will be very very helpful. I didn't think about this untill I found some people did it which makes them very competitive in internship hunting. With these experience, you can be more relaxed to spend time on social once you got here without recruiting worries.

Welcome to Chicago!

-- by 会员 bitte (2010/1/9 12:00:51)

lvp

Dear all,
I am currently admitted to Chicago Booth and Yale. And I feel the styles of the 2 schools are quite different. For Yale, there have already been many alumni (Chineses) contact me to answer questions. And I already got some information about financing. However, there is not much communication with Chicago Alumni, a little bit dissapointing. I have not got much information about financing yet. Maybe for Chicago, they expect you to find out problems and work out answers with initiative. May I know when I can get some more detailed information?
Chicago is well known with the culture of "Challenge". Sometimes it may not be that easy to customize the curriculum to just meet the needs. I would probably have some mentor to discuss my curriculum as well. I aim for investment banking, with a bachelor degree in accounting and I am supposed to pass the CFA  this summer. I work in commerical bank currently. Do you have any suggestions on the course to take or some professors as well? I also think networking and job hunting should be the crucial part of MBA life. How to try to balance the study life and social life if the courses themselves are already very demanding?

Thanks for the kind answer in advance.
Best regards,

-- by 会员 deliahou (2010/1/6 6:48:57)

Big Congs and welcome to Chicago!

Don't worry, they will be so many people contact with you, It will not be a problem at all. For the course, Chicago's flexible curriculum is more than customized, it's the spirit of freedom and market efficient, you will soon feel it.

If you wanna be a banker, Chicago is one of the best school for you to switch career no matter in US or Greater China. We are challenging in academic but colloabrative in daily life. For your question about career change, I think it's better for you to take CFA, it will add points when you are doing job hunting. For network, just take it easy, meet people and make friends with them, no matter buy side or sell side, it will help you much more than only application, it helps you whole life.

Enjoy your beautiful days before coming to school!

cannedpineapple

Sorry to hear that you didnt get the arranged call by the school to answer your questions. In my case last year, there are actually a second year student and some alumni reaching out to me. Maybe due to winter break, the adcom has not get the chance to arrange it yet.  Actually financing information normally comes out very late. I got info about financing in May. But you should not worry about it. You certainly would be able to get the school loan, if you worry about the rate, this year, as first year, we pay 7.95%+LIBOR.

If you want to do banking, Chicago is definitely the better place to go. With your commercial bank background, I think it's much easier for you to kick off the ground.  Regarding which course to choose, you can find resource on the school site, there are guides on which course range you should choose from to fit your concentration (IB). You can also check the resource in Investment Banking Group (a student group). Anyway, I think it's too early for you to worry about this, because once school starts, they will teach you step by step regarding course selection. But a piece of advice: I suggest you go find a i-banking pre-MBA internship with the famous firms now, even if it's non paid, as this will be very very helpful. I didn't think about this untill I found some people did it which makes them very competitive in internship hunting. With these experience, you can be more relaxed to spend time on social once you got here without recruiting worries.

Welcome to Chicago!

-- by 会员 bitte (2010/1/9 12:00:51)

How does a pre-MBA internship help? In my experience, those who are successful are successful because of who they are- outstanding individuals. Some also have the requisite work skills- but an internship is unlikely to provide enough of that for a boss to say, 'let's hire this guy now, because he's done a pre-MBA internship and can step right in.'

Rather, business school is SO stressful and SO much work, that if I were a prospective student now, I'd rest, make sure I have my priorities right, and think very clearly about all my options. These things take time- just think about how long it took you to apply and get into business school. You don't want to rush into things like that, and you don't want to be caught in business school, potentially haven't gotten your internship, and having to make a 3-day decision about your future.

There will be plenty of time to worry about recruiting later. In fact, that's all you'll be doing before long. But it might be good to stop to think about what you want out of the experience. For instance, Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, and also potentially the smartest man I ever met, is at UChicago. He doesn't teach at Booth. In fact, he's not currently teaching (although when I was there he taught the most amazing Economics of Crime course ever, but even then only in the college.) If you want to get the chance to interact with and learn from one of the smartest economists in the world, you'll have to reach out to him, send him an email, see if you can work with him doing research, and so on.

Then there is the law school where Obama once taught, which also has an amazing faculty. Did you also know that UChicago has the top Sociology, Literature, and other humanities departments in the world? And that, when you take classes at the Gleacher Center downtown with the part-time MBAs, the whole atmosphere of the class is different? Once you go in, you'll realise that you don't have time to seek out or think about such things. And then you would have gone through two years in what I believe is one of the best schools in the world, and never even knew that you had so many resources at your disposal. Oh, and if anyone seriously wants to improve their writing, I recommend you take the Little Red Schoolhouse writing class. I use principles of writing and persuasion that I learnt in that class everyday. Again, this is not a Booth class. It's a UChicago class. You take it with all the students who are looking to write their PhDs- ie, people who formulate and write persuasive academic arguments for a living. If you think it's tough writing a business school essay, just wait till you try to make a dry academic paper readable to the general public. This was the only class I had to pass-fail in my entire time at UChicago. But oh what a class it was!

Apart from these, there are of course the regular Booth resources you can pursue- clubs, social events, and so on. Apart from Finance, Booth also has excellent Entrepreneurship and Marketing departments. I met many winners of the Booth Entrepreneurship competition.. the school really gives you a lot of support. Perhaps you'd like to start a business in 10 years? Do you have the necessary skillset and confidence to do it then? Maybe you can train it here. Many people dip their toes into entrepreneurship here with classes like "Commercialising Innovation". But they don't realise how easy it is to actually just start the business, with the incubator resources that the school offers.

Anyway, you already know these. Remember, you have two years here, and you'll never be back again. You won't have time to do everything. Before you make the decision to spend all that time doing a single thing, perhaps you should explore your options, and think about what you will truly treasure from the UChicago experience, 10 or 20 years from now.

You're about to embark on an amazing journey. I'm envious!

Jason

lvp

Do I need to mail the offical transcripts when I apply? or I can send them when the admin asks so?

-- by 会员 酒楼 (2010/1/10 15:03:04)

i rememeber last year I did. If you can, I think it's better use official. If you cannot, you can contact with school to explain the reason and seek for a postpone.

dogshead

thanks for so much info from Booth admits. I would like to know whether it is possible for China mainland applicant to get enrolled in R3  whose dealine is Mar,10 2010.