FAQ-Canadian MBA or US MBA?

Nicholas Hoy of Canadian business online presents an answer to the most sought after FAQ: How do Canadian Business Schools stand against US Business Schools?

The following are some excerpts from the article.

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Schools with the best reputations don't necessarily offer the best educations, but the brand recognition of any graduate program — and particularly in the high stakes competition among business schools — is a major determinant of a student's future employment prospects. Go to Wharton or Harvard or Stanford, the logic goes, and doors will be opened. Attend Rotman or Ivey or Schulich, and you'll have to push the doors open yourself. Even Canadian business schools admit that getting noticed by recruiters can be more difficult north of the border. "We are able to place our students in all the top companies — but our students may have to work a little harder to generate and close the opportunity," acknowledges Jim Fisher, Associate Dean, MBA Programs at Toronto's Joseph L. Rotman School of Management. Wiser points specifically to the strong alumni networks and recruitment possibilities at Stanford — and indeed stories of intense battles among recruiters for talented students are legion at elite American business schools

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One key benefit is that recruiters often perceive elite American schools more favorably than elite Canadian schools; Stanford GSB grads like Wiser and Stark can expect enhanced future earnings by virtue of the institution they chose to attend. "I think the decision on where to do an MBA is too important a life decision to base on financial reasons," says Stark. "If you can gain admission to a top U.S. school, you can make it work financially."

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Prospective MBAs elect to enroll in a specific program in part because they plan on finding employment wherever that program is located. And MBA students who weren't planning on working where they were schooled often find that the most comprehensive recruiting and alumni links are just around the corner. Prospective MBAs, therefore, had better approach the decision of which school to attend as a broader decision — and a bellwether moment — that could define their future career paths........An MBA from Rotman or Ivey will have strong brand recognition in Toronto, but it will have far less global cachet than an MBA from Harvard. Canadians who are lost to elite American MBA programs are often lost forever.

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But although location is — and should be — a compelling factor on which prospective MBAs base their decisions, students and administrators alike suggest that the qualities of the program are more important than the school's location.

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The best advice: "talk to as many students and alumni as possible at the schools you're considering," suggests Killingsworth.

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The most accomplished prospective MBAs face a tough decision whether to attend school in the U.S. or to stay in Canada. It is the responsibility of top Canadian business schools to make this decision even tougher.

 

Read the entire article here

QSB Dean answers

Erin Pooley of Canadian Business magazine interviewed Queen's School of Business dean, David Saunders and the same featured in the October 22,2007 issue of the magazine. The following are some questions and key points out of the interview.

The Canadian economy is on a roll. Jobs are aplenty. Is an MBA still worth it?

An MBA is like an annuity. It's an investment, and the return on that investment is 12% to 20%, on average. Think about going to the bank and making an investment. Why on earth wouldn't you if you knew you could increase your salary that much?....

What about the flow of MBA students in and out of Canada?

More Canadians are going to business schools in the United States on scholarship as a result of changes in U.S. visa requirements, which have stopped students from other countries going. On the flip side, Canadian schools do not have the same visa restrictions, and we're now getting more applications from certain countries....

What's one of the biggest challenges for MBA schools moving forward?

How to teach the next generation of students. Whoever figures this one out first is going to have a leg up. They grew up with Facebook, the iPod and the BlackBerry. The challenge isn't really the tools, it's how to use those to further education....

Other Questions:

What are some of the biggest changes you've seen in business education in Canada over the past five to 10 years?

What's the next big trend in business education?

 

Catch the entire interview here

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Top 10 Business Schools With the Best Career Prospects

The business world is about the bottom line and the bottom dollar, and students who pursue an M.B.A. enjoy a major return on their investment. To determine the schools on this list, we looked at institutional data concerning job placement and average starting salary of students after graduation. In addition, we asked students to tell us about the efforts of their career placement office, the quality of recruiting companies, their level of preparation and more. According to The Princeton Review's survey of 18,000 business school students at the nation's Best 290 Business Schools, these 10 schools offer their students the best career prospects.

1. Stanford University
2. University of Chicago
3. Harvard University

Read more at link

How Western stays on top

When Nadine Ramrattan went looking for a university, she quickly narrowed down her choices to a handful of Canadian schools with top business programs. Then she picked the University of Western Ontario for one reason: student life.

"That was the difference, the community," says Ms. Ramrattan, 21, a native of Trinidad who did most of her scouting for a university online. She liked what she read about the school's mentorship programs and its residence life.

Three years later she is co-president of the university's day traders club and works as a residence adviser and as a team leader for the peer mentoring initiative for first-year students.

"I don't regret it," she says, even if it took her some time to adjust to the climate. "I have had a different experience than my sisters [at university] in the States and Britain."

That student experience — the chance to be involved in activities on and off campus — is a major selling card for the London, Ont., university and one that it puts front and centre in its recruiting material and website.

"The best student experience among the research-intensive universities in Canada" — it's a phase president Paul Davenport has made his mantra and that staff and student leaders have heard more than a few times.

So does it work? Students say yes.

For the sixth year, The Globe and Mail asked university students across the country to rate their schools on everything from the food in the dining hall to the quality of teaching, class sizes and the ability to get face time with their professors. The survey, conducted in partnership with The Strategic Counsel and the Educational Policy Institute, included more than 43,000 students at 53 schools — the largest sample group yet.

Read more at link

Western discovery: it pays to study at IIMs

Call it reverse brain drain but not just Indian students foreigners too are queuing up to get into the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management. NRIs are also heading home to pursue higher studies, choosing IIMs over Wharton and Harvard

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A management course in India costs about $22,000 as against the $75,000 that the Harvard charges. Little surprise then that even the NRIs who could get education abroad are now returning back for their management degree...

Read the complete article here(CNN-IBN India

After CAP 4, its mod 4

The module 4 started today with the Business Design Models session today. The module, biggest and the heaviest of all the modules covered so far, is also considered to be the one with most activity and workload, with the Information sessions organized in the mid-September for the On Campus Recruitment.

Good luck everyone!