Monday, September 11, 2006

Review of the World MBA Tour in LA

Since this tour had only US based B-schools, I was second guessing myself spending it in LA LA land instead of surfing or w/ my son. Afterwards, I was satisfied w/ my decision. Considering my life experiences, work experiences and my persona, international business schools are a perfect match for me. So I'm still focus on schools in Europe.

I'll bullet points the high lights and low lights;
High Lights
  • Panel discussion w/ four Admission Directors on strategies for submitting a succesful B-school application
    • Be honest when showcasing yourself and leadership skills
    • Don't write essays over weekend, they read thousands upon thousands of essays, so they can smell it.
    • Answer the questions in your essay
    • Better chance of acceptance in R1 and R2
    • Show a clear goal
    • Come prepared for interviews
  • 24 Top US B-schools in one location
  • Two hour to meet and greet all the B-schools in open area w/ their tables, brochures
  • Almost all had their Admission Directors presenting and fielding your questions and for you to suck up to...I mean impress
  • Alot of the schools Alumni were present also
  • After 10 minute conversation w/ a Admission Director, he wanted to see my application on his desk. Nice feeling to have THE Admission Director of a major B-school requesting me to apply. Yes, I know he's making a "sale", but don't burst my bubble. hehe...
  • Free event
Low Lights
  • Event went from (8:30am registration) 9am - 5 pm w/ only ten minute breaks inbetween presentations.
  • No coffee, snacks, food provided. Bring your own. Aside from my morning coffee during the drive (7:30 am) , my first meal was at 5pm after it finished.
  • B-school presentations only lasted 35 minutes. Thats not enought time for complete presentation, only quick showcasing and hight lights of their program and fielding the typical admission questions. This was my second MBA forum, but the questions were generally all the same and the answers were all the same. Been there, done that.
  • The two hour provided to meet and greet w/ the schools were a mad house. Lines forming after the popular (higher ranked) schools.

2 comments:

rungee582 said...

Hmm... I am trying to figure out if it's worth it for me to attend one of these World Tours that's going on over here on the East Coast... sounds like it's a big schmooze-fest, but there might be some useful nuggets (and I would love to have someone say they want my application, even if I didn't want to go there... it just feels good to be wanted!) Thanks for posting your review!

-tvu said...

Rungee- Schmooze-fest, sot of yes. But you do get valuable information and knowledge is key. Forgot to mention that you can schedule to w/ the admin staff for interviews also. Formal interviews or informal information chit-chat. Which is also muy importante.