Queens MBAst graduate taking queries

[puhrince]

contrary to what a lot of people say and spread news about it, its not that bad in Canada..it depends on what field you are in and what u want to do there. Toronto is the 3rd biggest financial hub in North America - for anyone moving onto management or financial jobs, its a great place to be especially with a great lifestyle and public transportation Toronto offers. For people who are not doing an MBA but have good work exp in US, you can do very well there (assuming you have a Canadian 'green card')..most of the companies in US have their branches in Toronto.
Its usually people immigrating directly from India who have problems landing jobs.

Originally Posted by bdsam

3. Lots of talks about Canada going, for it to be falling short of High Level jobs. If not dead, it is sure shrinking. Do you agree to this?

[akalyanc]

Sorry for replying to your queries late as I was caught up with assignments .

Murali :
About TOFEL - If you have a international work experience >2 years then you can get a TOFEL waiver. Also you can write to the Adcom with your case of why you think that TOFEL is not required to you and the Adcom will go through it and inform you the decision. In my case I got a TOFEL waiver as I wrote to adcom informing them about my work ex in US.

Azeem

I have written an email to adcom about your eligiblity and may be within a day or two I would post what they say.
I am really happy that you are interested in joining Queens and I promise you that I will extend you my support in doing so.

bdsam,
First of all I started this thread to answer the questions best of my knowledge because when I was joining Queens there was a very little help from this forum (although it had loads of stuff on other schools). I just depended on my friends who did MBA from Queens. Now to your queries :
1. In canada the top 3 are Queens, Rotman and IVEY ( and you can never say that any school is the best).With the kind of associations that Queens is coming (association with ISB in India, 3 univ from china, and some in Europe) it is a pretty good bet - Recently in an article where all the canadian biz exec have been polled Queens,IVEY were the top 2 schools in Canada but Rotman is not too far behind.These are all subjective so I dont mean that any school is best but I can defly say Queens has a very good reputation in Canada.As per my personal rankings 1. Queens 2. Ivey 3. Rotman
2. The location of Queens has a slight disadvantage becoz it is not located in a big city but if you look into other perspective it is centrally located between Toronto (2.5 hrs drive) and Ottawa (2 hours drive) which makes it accessible to both places.
3. I think the way Oil & Gas is booming in canada and the CAD is gaining (~.95 USD) the fear of high level jobs fading should never come close to you. You can just check the national post or cbc canada to get an idea of how the econmoy of canada is doing. So you can get some facts rather than me telling that it is good.
4. Me Moving from US to canada was primarly based on one fact
I wanted to do my MBA from Queens as I have few of my friends who graduated from Queens and the feedback that I got was excellent and I was not worried about placements either in US or in Canada or India in that matter because it all depends on how you market yourself after you get a degree. So all that matters is what you learn. I know that most of hte people decide the schools on the placement statistics which I am not a supporter ( people are allowed to have a view of their own and I am not saying that those kind of people are wrong).
5. Break-even of the loan let us c some basic stats
Say 35 Lakhs for your fees, another 5 lakhs for your living expenses and let us say 8 lakhs per annum is your salary (assuming you are in india) so total it comes upto 50 Lakhs and I think it will take you 5-6 years to recover the stuff because of your change in salary (it might take you less or more but what I am saying is the average).
6. For loans SBI offers an education loan of 20 Lakhs you can try that. I have taken it from Bank of Baroda and I have put in a mortgage and my father as my cosigner.
Hope I answered your questions and if you need any further details please post I will try to answer them.

Regards,
KC

[arvindblt]

Hi akalyanc,
You helping the prospective students this way is really awesome (now you know my questions are following soon ).

But before i get to my questions for you, i just wanted to tell u that i have been doing a good amount of research on Queens over the last 5-6 months and am very impressed by what the program has on offer. And i couldn't agree more to your point on one subject: The MBA should be looked at more in terms of how it is changing you and your perspectives, than to see whether or not they kind of guarantee a job placement for you. If they were to do that, they would become a job placement agency, not a b-school.
I have already interacted over email with the program management office and they have been extremely responsive, providing me all the details i needed. if this is an indication of how the school will support you over time, then i have no doubts in this area.

I'm trying to reach out to you only for those aspects which the program managers can't experience themselves, i.e here are my questions (finally!!)
1. Since i'm from India, i have that ever-present question, how tough is the whole work-permit/immigration deal in reality? Is it something that should make an admitted candidate think twice about accepting an offer from Queens?
2. With such a small class size (and i'm sure plenty of applications from India), what do you think has been the criteria based on which Queen's has selected the class (above all the criteria that Queens has put up on thw website?)
3. In terms of a real market for MBA hiring, how good/not so good is the job scenario within Canada now for the MBAs?
4. Any tips on pitfalls as an applicant from India?
5. Anything that you had imagined would be the case, but turned out to be just the opposite after joining?
Thats it...i'm done.
And, last question....how do u manage t find the time to answer these questions in the hectic routine of a one year program?

Thanks & Regards,
Arvind

[navdeepsingla]

Originally Posted by akalyanc

Hi All,

I am a student of MBAst 07 batch in Queens and I am willing to help anyone who has any questions/queries regarding the application procedure for the program or the program as a whole.

Regards,
KC

Hi Akalyanc...

could you plz throw some light on what would one be spending roughly during the one year at queens... also what is the possibility of getting a tuition waiver... and that whether international students are eligible for loans from canadian banks (with or without a cosigner)...

Thanks

[akalyanc]

Navdeep
You can get the cost from Queens website which gives you all the details but from a top level
Tution - 55K
Living 12 months @ 1000 - 12000
Other fees - 1000
Other expenses (like trips etc if you particpate) - 500
Laptop - 1000 ( it depends on you what kind of laptop but just an average figure).
Total comes around to 70 - 72K.
If you are not an immigrant (which I can make out that you are not) you will not get the RBC loan specified on the queens website although you have a cosigner. But you can get a loan from US bank if you have a co-signor who is a Green Card Holder or a resident.
SBI gives you 20Lakhs loan check out with them.

arvindblt

1. ONce you come to canada on student permit you automatically get a one year work permit after the course and immigration file it once you come to canada and mostly you can get it in 18 months so that way you are safe and once you are in a company in 1 year they will defly sponsor you a work permit. So dont worry too much about that at this point of time. Said all that some cases you might have problems but once you are here for 1 year you will learn how to tackle all that
2. The criteria that is not mentioned in the website is plain and simple "How well you market yourself to the AdCom and how clear your goals are (why MBA, what after MBA, why queens)" (this is in addition to all the criteria specified on website). So if you are confident on that you will defly get through.
3. The MBA market (especially Finance) is very good right now in canada but yeah if you are for mgmt consulting and aiming for Tier 1 then it comes down that only 5-10 from all canadian MBA's get jobs in that area (this is just my observation and no stats to prove that ). As I have said in my earlier post after MBA getting a job in canada is not difficult but getting a job you are targetting that depends on how much potential you ahve.
4. Tips : We Indians are very moderate about our acheivements like won a football club championship this might not be great to us but try to articulate it in your application. The same way for other acheivements tooo.
5. I didnt find anything that turned out opposite, I expected a premier customer service for students and I am getting more than expected. Only one thing I can say is the mgmt consulting career I thought it would be easy but it seems very tough to go into the Tier 1.
And to your last questions, well that is a great one but you need to give something to the organization that is giving you so much so I can defly spend 1/2 hour in every 2 days to Queens which is giving me some thing that is invaluable.

[murali_s]

Hi KC,
First of all who ever is looking into this post should thank you for all the information that you are providing . I have some more questions w.r.t Queens, I had actually contacted the Admission comittee but have not got a response yet.

1. The website mentions that one of the pre-requisite 4 year degree, I have a 3 year science degree and a post graduation, so I would like to know if I am eligible for applying. Infact I had a look at the profile of the students in the website and did find students with a 3 year degree and postgraduation. But would like to confirm this from you as you are there.

2. You had mentioned about projecting things like winning football championship and stuff like, that do you think things like leading a cricket team to a tournament victory in a inter-school competition should be highlighted.

3. you had mentioned that finance is quite popular there. I would like to know from you if the college is know and good for specilization in other areas like strategy, general management.

4. Are there any books/websites where we can learn about writing a persuasive essay's.

With Regards
Murali

[akalyanc]

Murali,

Thanks for the compliment.

1. If you have a PG degree than you are defly eligible. Basically what they are looking is a 12 + 4 years of education. And if you have any thing you can defly take your case with AdCom and they are very very friendly and responsive. I think they will respond to your query soon.

2. Soccer was just an example that I posted so that you can get an idea. You can put in cricket (as the point behind is not which sport you play but your attitude in participating in extra cirr. actviities and team sports reflect your team management skills). You can put in shortput, athletics etc.

3. As this is 1 yr mba the specialization doesnt matter much but what matters is your interst in your field and how well you fare in that.

4. I will try to look out for some books/websites but google is where I would go and it will give you all the things in the world

Getting late for class .. moving on now .. if you need any more details let me know.

Regards,
KC

[MadKris135]

Hi KC,


I had been searching for info abt canadian B-schools for quite some time.
your posts in this regard have been very useful

I will be applying for canadian B-schools for fall 2007.
I'm interested in going for MBA-finance.
can you pls provide some insights about the following colleges:
1)rotman
2)schulich
3)ivey
4)molson

following is my profile:

associate consultant : 2.5 yrs exp (3.5 by next yr)
s/w company: worked in finance sector related projects:-

10 std : 73%
12 std :70%
engg: 55%
Pgd: 70%

Do u think my degree marks will act as an deterent?
Pls advice me .
Thankx in anticipation.


Regards,
Kris

[akalyanc]

Hi,

I cannot comment much on the other schools other than Queens. But I think IVEY is better in the list that you have provided and its core strength is the Case based study which is a very good platform is getting into Mgmt Consulting. Other than that I think the degree marks contribute a bit in the selction process but still they are NOT THE ONLY THING .. it is the overall application and how you market yourself matters alot.

I think your profile seems good but try to get a decent GMAT score (may be around 700) which would nullify your past acads so try to concentrate on GMAT (I am assuming that you havent yet written it as you didnt post your GMAT score). I am really sorry that I couldnt give you details about the other colleges as I dont know much about them and it would be unfair commenting on them w/o having much details.


Regards,
KC

[MadKris135]

Hi Kc,

Thank you for clearing my doubts.
I will be giving my GMAT by august end and aiming for 730.
If a college uses a case study methadolgy does it always imply that it is
more oriented towards consulting ?
Is it easy to get a work permit once we complete the MBA course in canada?
And wat is the normal duration of the work permit.
Thanks in anticipation



Regards,

kris