Application strategy
My application strategy was pretty simple: apply to a couple
of very top tier schools and to a couple of schools with opportunities for
scholarships. I applied to HBS, Washington University, and Smurfit. HBS replied
me with a 2 page letter saying I didn’t even get to the interview stage. However,
after going through full admission process with Smurfit and WashU, by Christmas
I had offers from both of them with full tuition scholarships.
Choices to be made
Having these offers there were choices to be made.
- Should I continue applying? Try INSEAD, LBS, Booth, Kellogg?
- Which one should I pick out of WashU and Smurfit?
Should I pay 100-150K premium for a brand name?
First I had to decide, whether to continue applying to other
top schools. Northwestern and Chicago University are big names, but I knew I
cannot expect a good scholarship there. European schools like LBS and INSEAD
usually grant even lower scholarships. In the end, had I gotten a place in one
of those programmes, I would have had to borrow quite a large sum of money for
tuition. Probably, I would have ended up with a loan of 100-150K.
The decision to take a loan or not in this situation depends
on the aims for pursuing MBA, I believe. If the aim is to land a job in a top
consulting firm or an investment bank upon graduation in London or New York, I
certainly think it is better to aim as high as possible and disregard the
costs. First it is an unfortunate fact of life that top firms for their top locations
recruit mainly, if not exclusively, from the very top schools. Second the
earning potential is high, so paying off the debt is very realistic.
My objective for pursuing MBA though is largely personal
development: becoming a better leader, taking a step back from daily work to
see a wider picture, and reassessing my career. I want to have an option to
come back to my home country, and I want to have an option to go to work for a
non-profit, if I choose so. These options are hardly manageable with a looming
loan.
First question is answered – pick one of the scholarship
offers.
Smurfit vs. WashU
This analysis of Smurfit vs. WashU probably would be
applicable to most other US programmes as well.
I have to admit that first I picked WashU and kindly rejected
the offer from Smurfit. Then I was contacted by their admissions office willing
to provide me more information (by the way, the responsiveness of administration
at Smurfit is amazing).
My main motivation for picking the US school was that the
programme is two years long and much more flexible, which allows to get
in-depth into a specific area of interest. Most US schools have core curriculum
only for the first semester, and for the following three semesters every
student gets to pick their own courses. Usually the catalogue is quite large - WashU
had about 150 courses to choose from.
The admissions office at Smurfit suggested that I could
pursue specialization at UCD in one of two ways as well: (i) by choosing Yale
MAM programme, (ii) by going for an exchange semester after the core year (partners
of Smurfit include McCombs and IE).
Yale MAM
Smurfit is a part of GNAM network, which unites
approximately 40 business schools around the World. Yale is considered to be
the lead school in GNAM, and it offers a special programme for GNAM graduates.
After completing MBA degree at their schools, students could apply for Masters
of Advanced Management at Yale, which is a one year programme, in which its
participants join Yale second year MBA students. The best part of the programme
is that besides a couple of mandatory modules on global business, students
could pick ANY subjects from ANY graduate school at Yale (not only SOM). I was
given contacts of two Smurfit-Yale alumni.
Both said the programme is great, because students enjoy the
same benefits as Yale MBAs, but expand their network through being in 2 schools
during their studies. Also they said MAM degree is considered by some employers
to be superior to a regular MBA, while other employers consider it to be the
same. MAM students get full access to Yale career services and become full members
of its alumni community. So the opportunity to get a degree, which is at least
as good as a regular MBA, from an Ivy league institution is definitely a good option
for the future. However, one of the alumni I contacted gave me useful insights
beyond MAM programme about Smurfit MBA in general. Now that I am four weeks
into my MBA, I see all of them are very much true.
Leadership Development Programme
Smurfit praises itself for putting Leadership Development
Programme (LDP) as one of the major components of its MBA. These are workshops,
trainings, even individual coaching sessions delivered thorough the year. Normally,
we would have at least one day per week devoted to these activities. The
feedback I received was that Smurfit surpasses (!) Yale in this area. Now I see
that the investment Smurfit makes into this programme is truly enormous: we
have workshops on team work, presentations, leadership. Each student is
assigned to a personal coach and gets at least 4 coaching sessions thorough the
year. These all activities are not for credit, but constitute a major part of
learning experience. Because my initial motivation for MBA was leadership
development, going into a school with such a programme was very logical.
More mature class, more challenging lecturers
Another insight was that Smurfit class tends to be older and
more mature, which provides better environment for the development of soft skills.
Also the class is more collaborative and team work oriented, while students at
US schools were painted as younger, less mature, and more individualistic J
I have never studied in the US and I generally try to avoid stereotypes, but in
terms of future work it is better to learn to work in teams. Even the smartest
person in the World is a poor leader, if he or she is not a good team player,
and it seemed Smurfit provides better environment for learning that.
Now that I am here in the programme, I agree with all said. I
received a comment to my first post about average GMAT, and I also had first
some reservations about that. The average GMAT score at Smurfit is 630, while
at WashU it is 700. However, I see that GMAT score is not at all an indicator
of individual capabilities and capacity to contribute. It is only natural, if
in a US school, which tends to have a younger intake, the score is higher. I
took GMAT myself, and I must say the score is an indicator of time and effort
put into preparation, less so of individual abilities. I often get a banner of “from
470 to 740” GMAT prep course through Google ads. If it is possible to improve
one’s score by several hundred points, I don’t think the test is good at identifying
inherent capability of individuals.
Lastly, about lecturers. I got feedback that lecturers at
Smurfit were very engaged into class and interested in developing students. I
see that lecturers here are extremely approachable, and even though they try to
push students hard academically, they provide very high level of support. I
guess that a class size of only 32 people (compared to US programmes normally
of at least 200 people) provides better opportunities for interaction and
personal engagement.
International outlook
Last reason to choose Smurfit were international opportunities.
During this year we will have at least 3 international weeks. First all
students participate in a GNAM week in October, and personally I will go for a
week long course at Yale. Second we will visit a foreign market in Spring (it
is likely we will go to Japan and South Korea this year, but not have been
confirmed yet). Third used to be a trip to China as a part of Global Strategy,
but this year it seems the plan is to tie a trip to the Capstone project.
However, more to follow on this one. And by the way, in January we will have a
Virtual Team exercise with Yale students, working on a specific project
distantly, to learn how to collaborate across continents.
WashU MBA programme had almost no such opportunities, except
for a consulting project in Budapest. Also I found a lot of reviews about WashU
MBA being focused primarily on Midwest recruiters, and the contacts I made with
current students or alumni confirmed it. They said that if a person wants to
get a job in another part of the country, it has to be done independently, as
well as a lot of money has to be invested into plane tickets to go for
interviews. Even though living for two years in St. Louis sounds fine, I am not
sure I would want to stay in Midwest for work afterwards.
Conclusion
Overall, because of great Leadership Development Programme, academic
rigor, and international outlook the balance tipped in favour of Smurfit. This
is not to say that MBA programme at WashU is poor. I am sure it is a brilliant
programme, and I even picked it first. I got very good feedback about teaching
there, and in general US business experience is a valuable asset. It seemed
that for me, however, the right choice was Smurfit.
Several lessons for future MBA candidates: (i) define your
objectives, (ii) research the schools and programmes thoroughly, (iii) contact
alumni, (iv) geography, apart maybe from top 10 programmes in FT rankings, is
extremely important.
Finally, even though I did all of that on my own, my
decision changed after speaking with the school’s administration. Don’t be
afraid to do that as well! Talk to admissions office, raise any issues or questions
you might have. People are there to help you and are very interested in
providing maximum information for you to make an informed decision.
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Now that I am in Ireland, I have also learned that rankings
is not a perfect indicator of the quality or reputation of the school. Maybe,
if I do a bit of research on that, I will write a post about it. But for now I
have learned that Smurfit is a good brand name in the region (Ireland and the
UK). My landlord’s daughter did her first Master’s in Ireland and went for second
Master’s to LSE. Then she went on to work for Goldman and has achieved quite a
good career there. My landlord said her feedback was that Smurfit was known and
well regarded both at LSE and at Goldman. I guess this should be a reasonable indicator.
Image: personal
Image: personal
