How to choose schools? - 工管

I agree with most of his points except for a few:

1. TW male vs TW female applicants:
In general, whether you are Taiwanese, females just have an advantage in the
MBA admissions process, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, or any pool
differentiator. Taiwanese women might have a leg up against Taiwanese men
in terms of English, but it has nothing to do with "open-mindedness" and more
with a. military service and b. college major (female:liberal arts/business,
male: science/engineering)

2. More TOEFL?
TOEFL is just an indicator or whether the candidate's English is "good enough".
As long as you're over 100, you'll be fine. It'd be silly if a school picks
one candidate over the other just because A scored 103, while B scored 110,
unless all other factor are 100% equal, which is never the case. If anything,
interviews are the best way to determine whether the international candidate speaks
fluent enough. Think about it, all international candidates with U.S. work and
education experiences have their TOEFL waived, how are they benchmarked
against another international candidate with a high TOEFL when it comes to
English? They're not, all that a high TOEFL does is that it prevents you from
being eliminated in the initial cutoff. Perhaps when Mark posted this, it was
many years ago when the MBA application process was not as competitive as it
is today. Nowadays, the process is so competitive, especially in top schools,
that a 100+ TOEFL will not make you stand out, but make you "qualified"
instead.

※ 引述《shoop (我要專心)》之銘言：
: 各位，在去年申請前收到一封朋友給我的轉寄信，我覺得很得很好。
: 為尊重原作，我會註明出處與作者。
: 作者為願景代辦Envision的Mark Hsu，但是事先聲明三點:
: 1.我曾找願景接觸過，但是後來我的申請不是給願景辦的，而是自己弄得。
: 同時我也沒有認識的人是給願景辦而辦上的。
: 2.這篇文章應該是很久之前的，因為他裡面寫到的托福，滿分不是120分
: 3.轉貼純粹是認為文章的內容對申請者很有幫助，所以轉貼，並非為願景背書。
: 內容請各位板友自行審閱判斷。
: ----------------------------------------------------------------------
: Q. How to choose schools?
: A. Despite the availability of information on the Internet,
: I still find Taiwanese students are still at a loss when choosing
: an MBA program.
: There are various publications ranking business school,
: but I would suggest sticking with Business Week and the Financial Times.
: Also, I'd say the rankings (as perceived by recruiters) do not change with time.
: Basically, I'd divide the US schools into three groups:
: I. HBS/Stanford/Wharton/Kellogg/Columbia/MIT/Chicago
: II. Berkeley, Duke, Cornell, Yale, UCLA, Tuck, Michigan, NYU, Virginia
: III CMU/UNC/Emory/USC/Austin
: On the bubble: Georgetown/Indiana/Olin
: Finance Schools (If you want to work in Asia):
: 1. Wharton 2. Chicago 3.Columbia 4. NYU 5. MIT
: There is no doubt in my mind that Wharton is the #1 school if you
: want to do Finance in Asia. It seems to me that half of the people
: in investment banking in HK are from Wharton.
: Based on my observations, finance in Asia is very prestige driven
: so if your interest is in finance, your best option is to go to the
: "core" finance schools.
: Consulting:
: To get into consulting, shoot for groups I & II. I don't think consulting
: is as picky as investment banks. It seems to me that consulting firms value
: "raw intelligence" more than past experience. I am not saying that to work
: in IB you don't need to be smart, but not having prior experience in IB/finance
: is a definite liability.
: Corporate (staying in the US):
: I'd say that if your intention is to stay in the US, then almost any of
: the aforementioned schools would fit your needs.
: To stay in the US, you'd (most likely) need to accept a middle/back office role.
: If the three career paths don't sound appealing to you, you gotta seriously
: reconsider why you want to spend so much money on an MBA.
: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
: Q. Why male admissions are only less than 1/3 of female admissions?
: A.
: In all top business schools there is a huge imbalance of men vs. women.
: So, a qualified woman spplicant has an advantage in the sense that she
: adds diversity to a class. Taiwanese women have an additional advantage
: being international students so in a way she scores two "points," one for
: being a woman and another for being international.
: I'd say to the Taiwanese men out there, this is just the reality of the
: situation so don't be upset at something you can't change.
: Are Tw women more qualified than Tw men? Obviously, this is difficult to
: answer. Let me frame my answer this way, in the context of MBA applications
: I'd answer "yes." Let me identify a few reasons why I think this way.
: 1. Military. Most Tw men must fulfill their compulsory military service.
: This impacts the men in many ways. One example is that many men do a graduate
: degree to avoid immediate military service. The additional 2-3 years of
: graduate school hurt their career progress immensely because it pushes back
: when a Tw man can get meaningful full-time employment and because (in my
: opinion) a graduate degree obtained in Tw does not add to an applicant's
: credentials and CAN in fact hurt an applicant. (Blame this
: on the stupid Taiwanese universities that call every degree that the
: business school grants an "MBA." ) Add to this fact that many in Tw perceive
: "30" to be a ticking time bomb so rather than work a bit longer, many men feel
: that they have to leave the country before they turn 3-0 and rush into the MBA.
: 2. English. I have met many Tw women who can speak English at near-native
: fluency. I have not met many men who can do this. Based on my own data, I think
: the % of female applicants who get interviews and the % of male applicants who
: get interviews are actually similar. However, when we look at male applicants
: the number of admissions as a percentage of applicants who interviewed is
: significantlly lower than the percentage found in the female pool.
: This leads me to believe that the difference in English abilities is also a
: differentiating factor. I believe the degree of spoken English has a strong
: correlation with other attributes that are associated with admission success,
: such as the number of women vs. men who work at a multinational (MNC) and
: also degree of open-mindedness.
: 3. Degree of Westernization: This is often an overlooked part of the
: application especially among applicants to top schools. For a program
: outside of the top 15-20, an applicant can usually hide behind a phone
: interview, but for a top program where an alumni interview or worse yet,
: an adcom interview is required, there is no hiding. Not only is your
: English closely scrutinized, but your whole presence, including the way
: you dress, your hair style and how you carry yourself, is under a microscope.
: Now for the last part of the question: what can Tw men do to better their
: chances?
: I actually think it's not so bad to be a Tw man and let me explain why.
: Don't think it's the boys vs the girls. It's not. After knowing some of
: the Tw girls that were admitted to top 15 programs, I would hate to be in
: the women's pool. In the women's pool, getting a 280 on the TOEFL would
: only be considered fair. Instead, focus on being the best male applicant
: in Taiwan.
: Develop your own BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY.
: Do less GMAT, more TOEFL
: Instead of spending 12 months cramming for the GMAT and trying to push
: your score to 760, I'd instead focus on English.
: Just think to yourself how many times you have seen someone asking
: "Is my TOEFL 243 enough?" on this board. You don't think the adcom knows
: that something fishy is happening in China and Taiwan? My point is how b
: elievable is a GMAT 700+ if the applicant can't get a good TOEFL score?
: Imagine, if you are a male applicant and have a 280 on the TOEFL, you can
: essentially "cross your legs and twirl your mustache" (this has to be in
: Taiwanese for it to be funny) because you would stand out instantly from
: your peers.
: So in a word, I'd say "English."

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