Today I attended the "1st Class on the Road" put on by Ivey. They have a professor travel to different cities and meet with perspective students. The professor discusses the MBA program, but also hands out a sample case study, which they work through with those in attendance to help give an idea of what the teaching style as Ivey is like. All you have to do is sign-up, which I did a few weeks ago.
I am very seriously considering Ivey since they did so well in the latest rankings. They also have a really good reputation. I was pretty set on Queen's, but after taking a closer look I'm back on the fence. I don't know who to pick now as both Queen's and Ivey are strong schools.
It was very interesting and definitely helped me get a better feel for the case-based teaching style of Ivey. There was a member of the recent alumni present who also answered questions. The event was held in a conference room of a hotel in downtown Calgary after work hours.
I won't get into the details, but I think if you are considering an MBA it is worth going to one of these just to get a feel for the case-based teaching style offered by many schools. It definitely isn't the same as visiting a school and sitting in on a class, but sometimes travelling to every school isn't feasible. This event comes to your town and you show up.
The extensive alumni network of Ivey was continuously pointed out. I know that is good thing, but there is more to a program than the number of people that went through in the past. I'm more concerned why Queen's beat these guys in the rankings. Also, being the oldest MBA program in Canada, as well as one of the older ones in North America, means you are going to have a larger alumni network.
I'm sure alumni are going to consider other alumni for positions that become available in certain organizations and in those cases you would be wise to select your school based on where everyone else has gone. The alumni that was there was from Deloitte and Touche. After looking at the ranks of management they had posted on their website I found one person who had taken their MBA at a school other than Ivey. If you want to work for these guys you have to go to Ivey.
I was a little concerned about the emphasis the professor made concerning how grades are awarded. He was very certain we knew that grades were heavily influenced by class participation and by that he meant time each student was able to occupy during group discussions of case studies. I think this approach could hurt the quality of a program since students are more likely to just say anything to get "airtime" for their grade as opposed to say only what needs to be said.
There was something about the personality of the Ivey staff and alumni present that I didn't quite like. Can't quite put my finger on it, but I didn't like it. That "gut feeling", my concerns about "airtime", and the fact that there are schools rank ahead of them may have moved them to my second choice. Going to have to do more research.
(Update: checkout what a Queen's 2010 candidate found when visiting Ivey)
Informasi Terkini
10 years ago
2 comments:
Are your rankings opinions completely based on BusinessWeek ?? Have you looked at other reputable rankings like Financial Times, Wall Street Journal or QS ? Unfortunately Queen's does not even rank in these other publications. Your research method was interesting based on the fact that Ivey has an intake in May AND Sept, where in one of your posts you mention that you chose Queens because it has a May intake and Ivey does not.
I have looked at every possible ranking I could find from a legitimate source I could get my hands on. FT, WSJ, QS, Economist, BusinessWeek, etc. At the time of writing this entry, I was specifically referring to BusinessWeek. Not only was I speaking to the ranking at the time, but I had noticed the Ivey’s historical ranking had not been where the reputation of the school should have put it.
The biggest issue I found was bias of the rankings, which makes it difficult to trust any of them. Also, a lot of the schools were flat out refusing to participate in rankings. As a result the people assembling the rankings would take educated “guesses” at what they thought should be the results for certain schools. An example is a book published by the Economist titled “Which MBA?” I was very troubled to findout, after purchasing the book, that several schools had refused to participate in the rankings. Specifically named were Queen’s, Ivey, and Harvard. The people assembling the ranking decided to “guess” at what Harvard’s responses would be so they could include it in their ranking for completeness. They didn’t bother with Ivey or Queen’s. However, more and more schools are flatout refusing to play ball with rankings since they don’t agree with the criterion. Kind of hard to trust them if they are either incomplete or, worse, “made-up” from “guesses”.
I do know that Ivey has a September and May intake and actually used this as part of my application strategy if you have read that entry on this blog. After deciding to apply to Queen’s as my first choice I knew that I would still have ample time to apply to Ivey for September if I were unsuccessful in my application to Queen’s. However, Ivey was definitely a second choice. I would still be concerned about their HEAVY reliance on case studies. Also, they just switched to a 1 year program from a 2 year program. That is definitely going to have some bugs to workout, as any new curriculum, does and I don’t want to be a “guinea pig” when I’m investing as much time and money as this opportunity requires.
Since I was looking at rankings and evaluating programs for approximately 4 years, I was able to see how the rankings evolved, what made programs improve, what rankings were actually using, etc. Many of the factors that make a HUGE difference in the rankings definitely don’t indicate the quality of the school or the education you get.
An example is the % increase in salary from entering to exiting the program. Many schools like to boast large % salary increases. However, most programs take people earlier in their careers that are able to get better positions afterwards. There were a few programs, such as the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, that accept a lot of students who are already at higher levels and as a result don’t see a large % increase in salary upon graduation. The result is that their ranking isn’t as good as schools that don’t accept older or candidates already with a lot of experience. That being said how does that relate to the experience you would have from a school where your classmates would have a lot of experience versus one where they didn’t? Which school would you likely learn more from your classmates? Which school would appear higher on a ranking list?
Another example is the affect “Ph.D.” research has on ranking. An interesting speculation I came across recently hinted that Queen’s ranking was hit hard recently because they don’t have a lot of “Ph.D.” research associated with the business school compared with other schools. Although I see how this could have an affect on the education one would get from an MBA at these schools I can’t see how it would be a large affect. However, apparently some of the rankings put a heavy emphasis on this particular item.
All said and done the rankings really only give you a handful of names of “good” schools. It is up to students to really research the faculty and the program to make sure they are getting what they are looking for.
Hope this helps clarify what I have written here. Thank you for your comment.
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