‘Ask’ HKUST B-school, Hong Kong: Admissions-related thread hosted by current students

[hkust2007]

Originally Posted by hurricane

Hi,

I want to know how many applications does HKUST receive every year.

I was initially going to put in my application at HKUST but the high average work experience makes the school a difficult bet for me.

The average work ex at the school is 5 years and currently i have 2.5 years of work ex.

Pleas also mention the average GMAT

Regards.

I do not have information on the overall number of applicants that HKUST gets. But I believe they get a lot of applications from PRC (Mainland China). I talked to Admissions director a few days back and it sounds like Indians have a much better chance of getting in - Ratio seems like 1:5 for Indians (and possibly other countries too) whereas it is around 1:10 for PRC/Hong Kong.

Even though the avg is 5 years, it is highly skewed by the few people with 10+ years of work-ex. Among us Indians, there is one girl with around 3 years work-ex ( you should be around that by the time you join in and all the others in the 4-6 years work-ex range.

This school places a lot of emphasis on diversity. Focus on that in the application and you should have a good chance if you can build a good story in the app. But if you haven't started on the app - meeting the R1 deadline might be a little tough. Even though I got in in R2 last year, I recommend most people to go in for R1 just to improve your chances of getting in and give you more time to prep yourself for the gruelling year ahead.

GMAT is not a big deal at all - I think the GMAT range is 550-760 in our class. Its the overall package. 550 for an Indian might be a little low unless you have an exceptional app.

Regards,

Randhir

[hkust2007]

Originally Posted by sick_mind

Hi,

Originally Posted by sick_mind

Some queries from my side -
...
...

Looking forward to you response.

Dear sick_mind,

PFB the answers to your questions. Will edit this post with more info once I get a chance to take a look at the IT courses on offer.

I'm actually in India on a one week vacation (for my brother's marriage). Will try to answer a few questions. I'll provide further updates once I get back to HK.

HKUST does have a finance focus - that is mostly driven by the industry domination in HK. But the school does provide an IT specialization and there are some good names among the faculty. HKUST provides some of the top facilities to Faculty and this enables them to get the best faculty from schools around the world. As regards the courses offered, I know there are a few good ones and if they are providing a specialization, it generally means they are offering some amount of variety in terms of courses.

My brief experience with HKUST has made me believe that the choice I made was the best one. There are still a few question marks around internships and jobs until you actually land a job - but then unless something dramatic happens, you should end up with a good job before or just after you graduate - looking at past trend over the last few years.

The school is obviously CHina focussed. Quite a few of the cases are China or HK focussed. But China and India are where most of the greatest things are happening. And the global outlook to a large extent comes from the perspectives you get from your classmates from around the world. Diversity is surely among the highlights here. My class has students from 23 different countries - from countries like US, Canada, UK, France, Latvia, Middle-East, South East Asian countries, Australia and NZ.

If you are guessing that the school is overly focussed on CHina from the courses offered, don't worry. Most of these are electives which you probably will not pick anyway. These are for the westerners trying to get a perspective on China.

Have I answered all your questions?

Regards,
Randhir

[muthuraman]

Hi,

Thanks for taking time to answer our queries. I am currently preparing my MBA applications and was looking at HKUST and had a few questions about IT management specialization.

Post my MBA I would love to join corporate strategy planning team of an org. I am currently in IT industry and so post my MBA I prefer joining IT industry in this particular area. I am looking at an MBA to help me for this shift. My questions were mainly related to this.
1). How many pple generally pursue IT management specialization every yr. at HKUST? This is because if there are too less people is there any disadvantage or advantage to it?
2). Is such a career shift from delivery side to corporate strategy side possible with HKUST MBA?
3). Will I get these kind of opportunities at Hong Kong? Because I see that Hong Kong is a major financial hub not sure about IT majors (I could be wrong).

Thanks,
Muthuraman.

[hkust2007]

Originally Posted by muthuraman

Hi,

Thanks for taking time to answer our queries. I am currently preparing my MBA applications and was looking at HKUST and had a few questions about IT management specialization.

Post my MBA I would love to join corporate strategy planning team of an org. I am currently in IT industry and so post my MBA I prefer joining IT industry in this particular area. I am looking at an MBA to help me for this shift. My questions were mainly related to this.
1). How many pple generally pursue IT management specialization every yr. at HKUST? This is because if there are too less people is there any disadvantage or advantage to it?
2). Is such a career shift from delivery side to corporate strategy side possible with HKUST MBA?
3). Will I get these kind of opportunities at Hong Kong? Because I see that Hong Kong is a major financial hub not sure about IT majors (I could be wrong).

Thanks,
Muthuraman.

There are a few ppl in our batch looking at Corporate Strategy as one of the options. There are also a few alumni who have been able to make a switch succesfully from IT into Corp Strategy. There are a handful of people in our batch looking at that area. There are plusses and minuses to having fewer people looking at a specific area you are interested in. The plus is that you have less competition. THe minus is probably that you have fewer people to work together with in getting into the specific positions.

Hong Kong besides being a financial hub is also a regional center for a few other industries like Logistics as well. And most of these will have IT arms. So you should have options of getting into these industries when you pass out.

Hope my answers help.

[muthuraman]

Thanks for the reply.
I had gone through the HKUST MBA website and found some generic information about HKUST MBA program as such. Info. what I found was mostly about courses.

But I wanted to something out of the study structure because I believe in MBA learning outside the class is also important.
It could be something through clubs, case studies and maybe adding some lectures by industry top notches. I couldn't find any info. about this in the website. So if you could throw some light on this aspect it could be helpful. Esp. it would tell me how I can grow outside the classroom by participating in different activities.

Is there also something unique about HKUST program? Like I was looking a program details other day and found that every MBA student has an mentor who is doing EMBA from that college. I found it to be very interesting. So is there something like this for HKUST? This info. would also help me customize my app.

Thanks!!!

[jshah29]

hi there,

i m looking to apply exclusively in asian b-schools and I really want to get in consulting post mBA. my GMAT is 710 and I have 2.5 yrs work ex (3.25 yrs by the time I join)

my queries

1) how are the consulting placements and where are they generally located?

2) how difficult (or easy ) is it to get Visa (or work permit) post MBA in Hong Kong? Is is very strict like US and EK or relaxed like Singapore?

3) By when does HKUST come out with its results if I apply in R1?

a last question - not relating to HKUST or MBA - is it really difficult for a pure vegetarian to survive? Considering the weird things I have heard abt Hong Kong cuisines, I am little sceptical about my living and surviving ing hong Kong

And I must admit you guys have done a great job by starting this thread... thanks a lot!!!

Jaimin

[cat_spidey]

Dear Sirs,
I have 2+yrs of work exp (it will ne 3 yrs till july 200 in my family owned textile manufacturing firm...

Now, I feel that a good insight on the asian markets especially china will help me in expanding my business in these areas and will help me while doing exports/imports with these countries... also, an mba will give me good network bulding opportunities and to get a good insight into a more professional way of doing business which i eventually plan to inculcate in my own family business...

i just wish to know that if hkust can help me in this direction
also if yes, then why hkust over ceibs, china...

[hkust2007]

Originally Posted by muthuraman

Thanks for the reply.
...

But I wanted to something out of the study structure because I believe in MBA learning outside the class is also important.

It could be something through clubs, case studies and maybe adding some lectures by industry top notches. I couldn't find any info. about this in the website. So if you could throw some light on this aspect it could be helpful. Esp. it would tell me how I can grow outside the classroom by participating in different activities.

Is there also something unique about HKUST program? Like I was looking a program details other day and found that every MBA student has an mentor who is doing EMBA from that college. I found it to be very interesting. So is there something like this for HKUST? This info. would also help me customize my app.

Thanks!!!

Teaching is by case-study method and cases are taken from the HBS and other archives generally along with China specific cases authored by our school faculty as well. I believe these cases are used in the Top US Schools too.

We do have Clubs like Marketing, Finance and Investment Management, Entrepreneurship and Private Equity, Consulting, and General Management Clubs and all of these are quite active.

Growth outside the classroom happens by introspection and to help you with data to introspect on you are challenged in every possible way - in terms of time management, handling diverse individuals from different ethnic and professional backgrounds.

I'm not sure of the mentoring program you are talking about. We do have a lot of interaction with our alumni - they conduct mock-interviews, we have monthly events where we get to meet different alumni over snacks and a few drinks and lots of other programs. But we do not have a lot of interaction with the exec-MBA as yet. Maybe this could be a potential area of improvement for the program.

[hkust2007]

Originally Posted by cat_spidey

Dear Sirs,
I have 2+yrs of work exp (it will ne 3 yrs till july 200 in my family owned textile manufacturing firm...

Now, I feel that a good insight on the asian markets especially china will help me in expanding my business in these areas and will help me while doing exports/imports with these countries... also, an mba will give me good network bulding opportunities and to get a good insight into a more professional way of doing business which i eventually plan to inculcate in my own family business...

i just wish to know that if hkust can help me in this direction
also if yes, then why hkust over ceibs, china...

There is a person with exactly your motive but from Thailand in our class. I'm sure this program will help you get introduced to the Chinese market. For all you know, you might meet a potential future partner in one of your class-mates or maybe even from the Alumni of HKUST using the Alumni Services Team.

Why HKUST over CEIBS? I don't think I can answer that one since CEIBS wasn't one of the schools I looked at. I guess one good reason might be being in Beijing might need more language skills than being in HK. This could be a disadvantage as well in that you don't feel compelled to learn Mandarin when you are here whereas in CEIBS you might be forced into it. And if you want to expand your business to China, you better start learning Mandarin.

[hkust2007]

Originally Posted by jshah29

hi there,

i m looking to apply exclusively in asian b-schools and I really want to get in consulting post mBA. my GMAT is 710 and I have 2.5 yrs work ex (3.25 yrs by the time I join)

my queries

1) how are the consulting placements and where are they generally located?

2) how difficult (or easy ) is it to get Visa (or work permit) post MBA in Hong Kong? Is is very strict like US and EK or relaxed like Singapore?

3) By when does HKUST come out with its results if I apply in R1?

a last question - not relating to HKUST or MBA - is it really difficult for a pure vegetarian to survive? Considering the weird things I have heard abt Hong Kong cuisines, I am little sceptical about my living and surviving ing hong Kong

And I must admit you guys have done a great job by starting this thread... thanks a lot!!!

Jaimin

Consulting jobs for Non-Chinese speaking people is much harder to come by than Finance jobs.

VISA/WP is pretty simple once you find an employer who wants you to work for him/her.

Like we mentioned in one of the earlier posts, there are three vegetarians in our batch (may I add pure here ) - and they are getting by. I'm not saying its easy. But you can surely survive and if you can do a bit of basic cooking for yourself, you'll actually prosper here like one of our class-mates.