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Conclusion

Knowing the enormous difficulties that most Chinese applicants face when applying to business school, I have a great deal of respect for those applicants that attempt and succeed in this long and difficult process. I hope this information is helpful to you as you apply to business school. Remember, no matter what the outcome, applying to business school is a character-building experience and chances are you will know yourself a lot better at the end of the process than you did at the beginning. Good luck!

Kayvon Pirestani

MBA 2005 Chicago GSB

M.S Carnegie Mellon University

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INSEAD ( Fontainebleau )

I visited INSEAD’s Fontainebleau campus in January of 2003. Fontainebleau is situated about 60km south of Paris and is not really within commuting distance of the city. Fontainebleau is a beautiful but sleepy town – most of the students I talked to found it a bit too quiet.

The school’s facilities are average. The buildings, though relatively new, already seem to be showing their age. Because INSEAD isn’t part of a larger university, the school seems rather small and doesn’t have the pleasant “campus” feel to it that many American schools have.

My visit to INSEAD started off badly. I was late to the information session, and when I finally took my seat, my mobile phone rang, much to my embarrassment. The adcomm lady running the session gave me an unpleasant look.

After the information session I sat in on a marketing class. The format was quite interactive, but I sensed some open hostility among the students, which I found very unprofessional. Later that night I went out in Fontainebleau with one of my friends, a new first-year student, and some of his classmates. The INSEAD students really know how to unwind and I stayed out drinking with them late into the night.

Some of the students I talked to seemed to find the pace of the program a bit fast. One student remarked, “One year seems too short for all they’re trying to teach us ... sometimes I feel we go over material too quickly.” On the other hand, virtually all the students were united in praising what is perhaps INSEAD’s greatest asset, the school’s international character.

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Interviews

University of Pennsylvania Wharton School

The interview with Wharton was my very first, and I took care to prepare carefully. I combed the BusinessWeek forums for questions asked in previous years and took another look over my entire application dossier.

My interview was held in London at the offices of Deloitte & Touche. Though I was well-prepared, I felt nervous. My interviewer, Alex Brown, Senior Associate Director of Admissions immediately put me at ease with his easy-going style. None of his questions were out of the ordinary and I gained confidence as the interview progressed. At the end, we chatted about WiFi networking and a book which was sitting on his desk, Liar’s Poker, which I happened to have read just a few months prior. I walked away from the interview feeling very good.

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University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

My Chicago interview was a much more relaxed affair. With the confidence gained from my Wharton interview, I felt more at ease. My interviewer was an easy-going alumnus working in corporate finance in the City of London. We met at a small café in South Kensington for lunch.

The conversation was very informal and went smoothly, but the entire time I was preoccupied with the thought that I might have a piece of spinach stuck in my teeth. I made a mental note to myself to avoid lunching during B-school interviews in the future. We spent a good deal of time discussing my motivation for business school as well as why I chose the University of Chicago. Surprisingly, he didn’t try and “sell” the school to me – he acknowledged the GSB’s strengths and weaknesses and encouraged me to do careful research before deciding on the business school best for me. I appreciated his candid approach.

I left the interview thinking I could have done better. The conversation was at times a bit strained and I think I could have done a better job explaining the “why Chicago” argument. I saw these as points to improve for my next interview.

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Columbia Business School

My Columbia interview probably could not have been worse. In early January, Columbia emailed me an interview invitation with a list of three alumni in London from which I could choose, and I was excited to see that one of them worked in sales and trading, the area I want to pursue after my MBA. I gave her a call and setup an interview at a café in London’s Soho after work the following day.

That evening was particularly cold so on my way to the interview I stopped and bought a blue knit hat from a street vendor. This turned out to be a mistake, as I will explain later. I removed my hat before meeting my interviewer in the café at the appointed time. Things went smoothly until she started asking me about my current job, which involved designing a software product to aid salespeople and traders estimate the market impact of trades. I got bogged down in explaining the intricacies of the product and she promptly changed the subject, a sign that she was becoming impatient with my explanation.

She then asked me why I wanted to go into sales and trading. I started listing my reasons but then put my foot in my mouth when I told her I didn’t think I’d actually be very good at sales and trading. Realizing my mistake, I tried to take backtrack, but the damage was done. At this point my confidence had reached rock bottom and for the rest of the interview I was hoping just to get it over with.

I left the interview feeling dejected. Later, when I got home I glanced in the mirror and noticed some strange blue fuzz on my head. I realized this was from the new hat I had bought before the interview, and was shocked to think I must have had blue fuzz on my head during the entire interview. I was amazed she didn’t laugh at me.

I learned some good lessons from this unpleasant experience. First, I shouldn’t have entered into a highly technical discussion with her on a topic I was unable to explain concisely. Second, I failed to project confidence during the interview. Admitting a serious weakness, as I did, was honest but it was also stupid. Third, I didn’t pay enough attention to my appearance, which resulted in the embarrassing if not comical blue fuzz situation I described above.

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Columbia Business School

A couple days after visiting Wharton, I drove up to New York in order to see Columbia and NYU. Having lived in New York City before, I knew pretty much what to expect. Columbia (in Harlem) isn’t in a great part of town, but, like Wharton, it’s probably not as bad as people say. The business school is housed in two buildings primarily, one rather old, one quite new. In terms of facilities, I would say Columbia is average or slightly below average.

The admissions office was supposed to organize a lunch that day to allow prospective students to meet current students but only one current student showed up to talk with over ten prospective students – a bit unimpressive to say the least. I sat in on three different classes: two advanced corporate finance classes (which were quite boring), and a class on modern political economy, which was very, very interesting. This class was mostly case and discussion-based and it was clear that the students were both well-read and articulate.

The information session in the afternoon was quite standard – they showed a slide-show presenting a lot of the material from the school’s brochures. Overall, as I made my way out of campus that day, I left feeling very impressed with quality of students, but less keen on the facilities and location.

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New York University Stern School of Business

Stern is a contrast to Columbia in almost every respect. NYU is in a great part of town, Greenwich Village, New York City’s culture and nightlife epicenter. Unsurprisingly rents in this area tend to be extremely high. Like many urban schools, NYU has no real campus – it is more a collection of buildings in a small area of Greenwich Village. The Stern School itself occupies one building, the Kaufmann Management Center, a modern, well-equipped facility. Virtually all of Stern’s classrooms and administrative offices are housed in this 10-story structure.

During my visit I sat in on one first-year finance class and was not terribly impressed by either the professor or the students. There was little interaction and the questions the students did ask were the garden-variety type you could answer by looking in the textbook. In general I got impression that the caliber of students was not as high as that of Columbia or Wharton.

The admissions office on the other hand was exceptionally helpful. Because of scheduling constraints, I could not attend the regular information session that day,

so one of the current 2nd-year students kindly gave me a personal information session and campus tour – a very nice touch. Overall, compared to Columbia, Stern has better facilities and is in a nicer part of town, but the quality of the faculty and students seems to be one notch below.

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University of Chicago Graduate School of Business

Having briefly visited Kellogg the previous day, I could not help but notice, as with NYU and Columbia, the contrast between the two schools. I visited the GSB on an extremely cold day in early December and nearly froze to death just walking across the campus.

In contrast to Kellogg’s suburban setting, the GSB is housed in a number of gothic-style buildings in Hyde Park, a neighborhood just south of downtown Chicago. What you might have heard about Hyde Park is probably true – it is a rather sketchy area. I arrived at night by car and whilst trying to find a hotel, I immediately got lost and found myself in quite a rough neighborhood. Although I finally managed to find a decent place to sleep, it was not an auspicious start to my visit.

The GSB’s facilities are below average – most of the building’s are old, dark, and frankly, a bit dreary. Thankfully the University of Chicago is currently building a new complex for the business school, to be opened in 2004, which looks spectacular.

Unlike that of most other schools, the GSB’s information session was hosted by current students rather than adcomm staff. The students were very candid when asked about the GSB’s reputation for being highly academic and socially awkward – in other words, a “nerd” school. I was very impressed by their handling of this difficult question. Yes, they said, the GSB is extremely rigorous and boasts what is possibly the finest business school faculty in the world. But, they pointed out, GSB students are just as sociable and well-rounded as those at any other business school. Judging from the other students I met during my visit, I would agree.

After the information session, a number of current students led us on a tour of the campus which was more thorough than any other campus tour I have been on. We then had a lunch mixer with current 2nd year students that was well-organized and very useful. I was impressed by the poise and candor of the 2nd year student who was answering our questions. Then, in the afternoon, I sat in on a marketing class which was very interactive and stimulating – so much so that I couldn’t help but participate in the class discussion.

Overall, my impression of the GSB was very positive. I think Chicago’s reputation for being academic and rigorous is justified – Chicago favors hard skills and sound thinking over wooly generalizations and hand-waving. And, while Chicago may not be a “party school”, the students I met there were as warm and sociable as those at any of the other schools I visited.

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Harvard Business School

I came to visit Harvard Business School with a healthy dose of skepticism. Harvard’s reputation is so immense that I reckoned it could not possibly live up to the myth that is “Haaavaad”. Amazingly, the afternoon I spent at there exceeded my expectations.

After struggling to find parking, I made my way to the business school buildings which are actually on the other side of the Charles River, away from the main campus. Thus, the school feels slightly detached from the University as a whole and is in a slightly grittier area. The buildings, however, are classic Harvard – stately yet modern. The facilities are excellent.

I started off by having a small informal lunch with a group of current students. The Harvard students I met certainly seemed to be more outgoing and engaging than students from most other schools. Certainly they were intelligent.

Later that day I sat in on an information session run by two current students which was informative but unremarkable. The students seemed to make a conscious effort to stay humble while at the same time promoting the school’s reputation. All the students I met told me they felt like they were the “admissions mistake” – not worthy to go to such a fine school. I found this amusing.

The highlight of my visit to Harvard came during the class visit. I had heard a lot of things about Harvard’s case method but was a bit skeptical. The class visit changed my mind.

I sat in on a first year business and ethics class. The first thing that surprised me was that the professor did very little talking – her role was more to direct and facilitate the discussion among the students. The discussion itself was breathtaking in its range and sophistication. I was constantly surprised by the insights and experiences of the students sitting around me. The energy in the room was tangible. I thought to myself, I could never fall asleep in a class like this.

My overall impression of Harvard was highly favourable. The students, along with those of Kellogg, were the most socially adroit and outgoing of all the business schools I have visited. Harvard’s famous case format does indeed live up to its reputation (though I still think some classes like accounting might be better taught in a lecture format). The visit strengthened my existing impression that Harvard’s strength is in general management. As one of the students put it, Harvard is not the place to go if your goal is to become a finance quant jock.

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Motivation

Applying to business school can be one of the most challenging experiences that any of us will ever undertake. All applicants must contend with the GMAT and the numerous recommendations and essays that make the process so grueling. Chinese business school applicants however, unlike their American counterparts, face an additional set of hurdles if they want to study in the U.S. Besides having to take the TOEFL, getting a visa to study in the U.S. is notoriously difficult. What’s more, Chinese students are typically unable to travel to U.S. business schools in order to visit the campuses and conduct interviews. Campus visits can provide the kind of information you would never find in a book: the school’s atmosphere (friendly or competitive?), the students (introverted or outgoing?), the quality of the facilities, the accessibility of the faculty, and dozens of other intangibles. Because the campus visit is such an important part of the MBA application process, I will write about my experiences visiting business school campuses in the hopes that it may be useful to Chinese students who are unable to go to the U.S. to see for themselves. I will also describe my interviews and point out a few things I learned along the way.