I’m seriously considering applying to Rotman, I’m really enjoying reading you stuff.

Thank

Sorry for the late reply. I’ve taken the summer off which also means this blog is lightly maintained.

Jacky:

Yes, the tuition’s are the same if you’re an International student (now that the CAD$ is on par with the US$). I think you’ve got a good solid train of thought there. There are a few things… First, I would caution you about is looking at average sallary etc. Remember, on Average, nothing is Average. Second, remember who’s producing the statistics, each school measures things in a way that is to their favour. Finally, I wouldn’t sweat it too much in the end. The school choice won’t make or break you–you’re already choosing between two very good schools and you’ll probably be happy at either.

The way I would look at it is first ask, what’s important to you. I can think of a few possible categories that may or may not apply to you: Quality of the Education, Reputation, Peers, Location, Availability of Industry Professionals, Quality of Life, Recruiting Opportunities, Weather, Cost of Living, Ability to Immigrate yourself and family…

Make a list that includes anything you think is important in the short-term or long-term. Once you’ve done that, give a relative weighting to how important each of these factors are to you (some factors can have the same weight). Force yourself to justify the relative weighting and write down reasons why each is important or unimportant. Then, give a relative ranking to each school on the relative factors. Again, justify the ranking to the best of your ability. Once you’re done you’ll hopefully see some interesting trends that might make your decision easier (you can also just multiply out the number and get one number that signifies how you feel about a school on the whole but I find this somewhat more counter-productive since a lot of the time it’s the smaller differences that more largely influence my decision). I find this approach helpful and it provides me a lot more confidence in my decisions (which is almost more important than the decision itself in some cases).

Good luck and let me know if you need any more help.

Zeeshaan:

Yes, I have found a job. I mentioned it off hand in this post: http://www.tunerds.com/rotman/2007/11/22/im-more-efficient-now-and-random-updates/. I’ll be working at RIM in a Product Management Role. My experience with them last summer lead me to believe that I’d enjoy the job. I haven’t started yet, I’m on a break until the end of August. Once I have started maybe I’ll post an update about how much I like/dislike it.

In the end I’m still slightly a fence sitter on if the MBA was worth it but after talking to a few people I’ve come to the conclusion that the true worth of this degree wont be revealed right away. You have to practice with it use the tools as you progress in your career. The MBA certainly has changed the way I think about problems, the approach I take, and the things I feel are important. It also changed the way people approach me/how the work with me. It is certainly a respected degree. On the whole I’m leaning towards it being worth it.

Cheers mate,
Z

Generally, I am having two choices, 1:Rotman 2:US Business schools
Because I am an international student, US schools are without saying much luring. But I also know that Rotman is quite famous for its finance concentration. And I think Rotman is easier to be enrolled comparing to Top20 US schools, so.. And it’s quite close to Bay street, wherears it is hard to get into Stern or Columbia(which are close to Wall Street).

Although I have a lot of interests in Rotman, there are still some drawbacks:

1.The tuition of Rotman is crazy?!! Almost as expensive as HBS!
2.The base salary of Rotman graduats is less than 10k, even some US 30 or 40 could beat it?!

Above are my thinking about Rotman, I wish to hear of your comment and suggestion to me? I appreciate it!!

1. The curriculum is perhaps “getting old” but there are a lot of refreshers in there (IT for example). It’s also very useful stuff–I certainly used a lot of what I learned at RIM. In addition, it’s not even funny how many times I’ve seen people try to use something like 5-forces analysis (after reading a HBR paper etc.) and getting no where because they haven’t gone through the rigors applying this tool to many industries to really learn how to use it. (Almost) Nothing in the MBA program is a plug-and-chug equation. They are all heuristics or tools that you can use but only if you spend the time to learn/experience how.
2. There aren’t a lot of people sitting in Banking jobs already looking to make the leap up the ladder at Rotman. In actuality I found there were a lot of people with a very non-business background trying to mash their past with the MBA. It gives you a lot of people to learn from from varying backgrounds.
3. I don’t like the statement “the best people aren’t prepared to leave their life behind for two years” mainly because it’s a personal attack against people like me (IMO). Allow me to provide a counter point: People are different and Seth’s dfn of the “best” is different that others may provide. I think he seems to tie “best” to entrepreneurial or risk loving (from the article it seems fair to say that). You can take the route of “go-go-go” and just work hard until you (hopefully) make the breakthrough and move up the ladder, however, the probability of this can be quite low. Then there are others who are perhaps more risk adverse who, with the mba, are largely guaranteed to double their salary in 2 years and have no future limits on how high they can climb (some organizations require an MBA for director level or higher). In addition, taking the MBA provides a lot of freedom to move jobs and companies. Two different types of people with different risk-reward tolerances and assessments. Just because you think the cost of the MBA is worth mitigating the risk to gain the reward, doesn’t make you any less of “the best.”
4. I found the entire experience has changed the way I look at problems. My mindset has changed. What I consider important has changed. How I interact with others with differing opinions is changed. Changes like these can’t be accomplished in a short time or in sporadic burst but must come through breathing in experiences every day that will eventually shape natural behavior. I think it was impossible to get these experiences while coding 8-hours a day in a cube in the back corner. I’d have to be “risk loving” to do a whole lot more with my background so the MBA presented a great opportunity to jump ahead and learn.

I think Rotman realized these criticisms a while ago and have worked on adding new and useful classes to the program. I still see these criticisms as being a bit extreme though. From my (insider and perhaps drinking the kool-aid) view, there is still a lot of value in the MBA but not all graduates are equal. I can say the same for my Engineering degree–and probably any degree out there.