MIT Sloan

Hello

Continuing my series of business school visits, let me tell you about the MIT Sloan information session that I visited 2 weeks ago.

The event took place at the Nomura building (there are strong ties between Sloan and the Japanese bank) @ Central London. I arrive at six on a Friday, and there are drinks to welcome us. The presentation begins with senior people from the Adcom giving a brief introduction to the school & telling us about their trek across Europe giving information sessions. The Head of Nomura HR briefly talks about the strong relationship between the two institutions, and that Nomura will be looking for Sloanies when they graduate!

After the introductions, the presentation begins. We start with information about the school and its culture. A few things to highlight here. MIT has a flexible & bespoke curriculum after the first semester core. There is also an emphasis placed on the G-Lab and other famous MIT tracks. The integrated campus is another plus point, with Sloanies able to interact with other parts of MIT.

This is followed by information on the admission's process. Nothing new to say here other than (i) The MIT Cover letter question is unique so don't copy and paste from your other essays and (ii) Don't go over the (requested) 2 professional recommendations (bummer! My peer reference is great!).

The talk is interspersed with videos from current students. Since these videos are run off a laptop, a reminder pops up for renewing the anti-virus software halfway through. This draws a couple of laughs from the audience.......

Next is the familiar Q&A session with alumni. With........at least 15 students! They stand in a row and talk about their background/experiences. A very mixed and diverse group of alumni, all doing various different things (with investment banking & consultancy prevalent again). One alumni tells a funny story about driving Krugman (the famous Economist) and his wife to a dinner. Apparently Krugman instructed the alumni to drive through a tight spot........and the car got scraped. Surreal! Drinks follow.

Overall, another useful information event which highlighted the strengths of Sloan and provided some handy tips for the app process. It also felt slightly more informal than the HBS/Stanford sessions. However I think there were too many alumni on the Q&A panel. I would have preferred a more in depth Q&A session with say 5 or 6 alumni, and then invite the others to drinks after. I guess they wanted to have everyone involved!

Finalising my Sloan application as we speak......

Stanford Business School

Hello once again. Hope you are all well.

Following the HBS information session, I went to the Stanford information session 2 weeks ago at the BP building in St James Square. I was curious to see whether (i) the Stanford alumni were noticeably different to their HBS counterparts and (ii) how the overall information session would compare to the ones I previously attended.

As I entered the BP building (very nice location near Green Park) - I notice sandwiches! Surprisingly I didn't eat one as I was too busy talking to other applicants but a nice touch from Stanford.

The crowd was slightly smaller than the number of attendees at the HBS event. Perhaps reflective of the school itself. Stanford admits around 350 students, compared to 900 at HBS. It is a small school by design. From memory, I believe Stanford has around 3500-4000 applicants for 350 places. So yes I'm afraid......extremely competitive! For the uninitiated, Stanford is a top 5 business school in California famed for its entrepreneurship and strength in technology/media/innovation (amongst many other strengths).

The session begins with an explanation of life at Stanford, the curriculum and the application process. Interestingly quite a bit of time was spent on tips for the application process - more so than HBS in my opinion. Very useful for people thinking about applying and just starting their MBA "journey". Again there were some videos showing current students, interesting & genuine but perhaps not as flash as the HBS one.

Moving onto the Q&A panel with the Stanford alumni - I hear "investment banking" & "consultancy" from five of the six individuals when asked to describe their background. Now at this juncture some members of the audience who are not from a finance background, voice their concerns about how competitive their application will be given the composition of the panel. The moderator reassures them that the panel is not representative of the diversity in the Stanford classroom. I am inclined to agree with the moderator here, especially when looking at the statistical breakdown of classes on the Stanford website; but perhaps they could have chosen a more diverse panel? Or are investment bankers naturally the most willing to help? Hehe. From my own point of view, I am heartened by the panel as I am from an IB background. However I acknowledge that my app falls within the "IB pool" and will be ridiculously competitive. I hope I have done enough in my essays to stand out!

The alumni were impressive as usual. As they recounted their stories about their time at Stanford, I could see genuine joy in their faces. They clearly had a wonderful time and stressed the opportunities to try new careers, visit exotic locations, the strong ties with Silicon Valley and of course the Cali weather! I get the impression that the MBA programme is pretty much flat out, and you will be constantly busy. Sounds good to me. In comparison to the HBS alumni - I don't see much difference. Perhaps more international representation (i.e. Europeans, Americans and English) than the predominantly English panel at HBS. But in terms of personality they were all very bright, engaging and articulate. Drinks follow the event.

I have actually submitted both my HBS and Stanford applications this week for Round 1. More on this in future posts!

Harvard Business School

Hey All. I went to the HBS Information event last week in London! Although it is getting very close to the first deadline (1st of October) I thought it would be good to go down and check it out. So let me tell you about it........

I finished work and headed to the event at the Goldman Sachs building in London @ 7pm. I got there and to my surprise I see a friend from school that I haven't seen for 6 years. Small world! We are at different stages of the app process, he is just starting, but it was great to catch up.

Two people from the admissions board start with general information about HBS and the admissions procedure. Last year 10,000 people applied and 900 or so got accepted. 1800 got accepted for interview. So chances overall of getting accepted are under 10% but if you are lucky to get an interview that gets bumped up to 50%. I think to myself "wow extremely competitive". The other app information I am familiar with surrounding essays and the GMAT, since I have done a lot of research already :P

Next up is a short video which shows the experience of 2 students at HBS. I won't spoil it for those who are planning to go to an event but needless to say its very inspiring. Really makes you feel privileged to be part of the HBS community. This is followed by a Q&A session with 5 HBS alumni. I counted that there were 4 Oxbridge Alumni and one LSE Alumni amongst the panel of five. Top Tier again. I fancy giving the Oxford Alumni some stick, since I went to Cambridge (the best uni in the UK no matter what anyone tells you!) but figure its probably not appropriate! They now work at places like Google, Ocado, Morgan Stanley, Bain Consultancy, you get the picture!

Comparing this with the LBS event, the main differentiator was certainly the Q&A panel. The LBS one felt shorter and not as thorough. All the HBS Alumni were very impressive people - articulate and intelligent. I quickly get the sense of the type of people they are looking for. To use their slogans, habit of leadership and intellectual curiosity are certainly on show here. Overall, the event is less interactive than LBS, but the panel is better and of course it has that slick American presentation with the video. I miss drinks at the end of the event as I have a shocking flu, but I still got a lot out of the event despite being near the end of my application.

The event really brought home what a prestigious standing HBS has and how competitive it is. I've pretty much done the best I can with my application so fingers crossed!

London Business School

With the GMAT out of the way, its time to think about the Schools. Although the MBA application process is pretty daunting, I am (sadistically) looking forward to doing my essays. The MBA process is not for the half-hearted and I am fully committed to the process. Hopefully this positive mindset will help me!

I visited London Business School (LBS) in March of this year for an information session after work. LBS is ranked 2nd globally by the FT and 5th (non-US!) by Business Week. Some discrepancy there but I think it's widely acknowledged as a top 10 business school. Certainly in Europe you would think of LBS and INSEAD as the top two.

The information session began with a member of their faculty showing a list of companies (GM, Yahoo, RBS) against another list of companies (Honda, Google, HSBC) and asked the audience what differentiated the two lists. This developed into a discussion about the importance of management, innovation and ultimately strategy, which in part contributed to the differing fortunes of the companies in the two lists. It was a nice way of highlighting the value of an MBA, and was pretty thought provoking. Some mathematical and verbal "riddles" followed (which I won't spoil for those who are going to an information session). Very interactive so far, just as I imagine a class would be at LBS. Finally it ended with 5 LBS students, being brought to the front and talking about their experiences and answering questions. A nice mix of students, clearly very bright and very driven people! There were drinks afterwards, where people could ask further questions. All in all, a worthwhile session. LBS seems like a very international school with great diversity amongst its student population and strong networks in finance (GS).

I was also very impressed with the "after-care" service. I receive monthly MBA newsletters from LBS and was also given contact details of a current LBS student if I had any further questions. Naturally I called, and she was very helpful in answering my fairly basic questions at the time on the GMAT, references & the culture of the school (this was my first school visit after all!). In conclusion, thumbs up LBS. If you are looking for an "international" school, with good financial pedigree and want to experience life in London - LBS would be a good fit.