Oooh lala, isn't it crazy how all of us prospective applicants salivate when new rankings are on the horizon? The fervor is real and crazy. Some people on the BusinessWeek threads even leaked the MBA rankings 2 days before the official release date of march 29th. I think the new US News ranking thread generated over 200 posts in one day. Anyway, not much actually changed. Yale and UCLA got huge bumps but that was about it.
Most important to me was that Columbia stayed at #9. While I'd obviously like for it to rise in the rankings (and battle this reputation of being the laggard of the M7 that so many purport), I'd rather it rise after I get admitted hehe. Selfish I know. I think I read somewhere that application volumes do increase after schools get a bump in the rankings and lord knows I don't need more competition. Especially since Columbia is the 3rd most selective school already with about 6,000 applications for 911 acceptances last year. Also, the down economy will see apps rise next year (as the opportunity cost of forgoing employment is less) in addition to the typical small increases we see each year. Just like in NY real estate, the time to buy (or apply rather) was yesterday.
I' m glad Columbia stayed at 9. NYU Stern followed at #10 which surprises me considering the facilities didn't impress at all during my visit. I don't care to get into the methodology employed though and I realie that NYU has always hovered around #10 historically. Yale rose all the way to #13 (just barely edging out a three-way tie at #14). Wharton was #3 and Berkeley tied for #8. These are the only schools I care about :P The full rankings are available on the US News website though I couldn't access it (server probably crashing due to hit volume, something my blog never has a problem with hehe). I actually put more weight in the BusinessWeek rankings (it seems like this is the majority educated opinion as well, though by only a small margin) and I think those come out in October, which is strange considering Richard Montauk says that the US News and BW rankings are released alternating every year. Oh whatever.
Another interesting development is that my co-worker who was going to apply to NYU Stern full-time for Fall 2009 is forgoing that route. Instead, she is going to apply part-time to Maryland (Smith) starting Fall 2008. I don't know if I agree with that decision but to each their own. It would've been fun to have both been in NYC though.
Like the free-riding dork that I am, I solicited free feedback from 4 admissions consultants on their respective BusinessWeek threads 2 days ago. Surprisingly, only 2 have gotten back to me (Maxx Associates and Accepted.com) thus far. They both said I should be competitive (which I knew but still so good to hear) and advised that I get involved in more real estate related activities, perhaps club memberships or try to do something related at work. I think these are great ideas. I'm going to check out all the real estate student resumes at Columbia to see what memberships they have, then see if I can join those professional societie hehe :) I understand that it's only 5 months until my application is submitted but every little bit helps. Work will be a lot harder to manipulate not only because of practicability but also politics. I am going to fight tooth and nail to get involved with some of the financial aspect of project planning though (such as budget forecasting) which I may be able relevant to real estate development. After all, everything can be conceptualized as a project with a budget. I know our project team was looking for additional office space in the area (which we have to procure ourselves) so hopefully I can get involved with that search as well. I'll be lucky if even one of these two work tasks comes to fruition as my manager already shot down the financial tasking request 2 weeks ago with no explanation.
Good news is that my co-worker who is applying to Maryland has already asked our project manager about writing a rec. He said he would love to but due to time constraints, he wants her to write it and he'll just sign it. He seemed very gung-ho about getting her into a good program though so this is good to know. This bodes well for me but the difference is that I'm going full-time so they may think I'm abandoning them (after only 6 months too). Oh well, we'll see how this plays out.
BTW, does anyone know what the Consortium is? I've seen it mentioned on the BusinessWeek forums and it seems like a medium for applying to multiple schools. Not sure yet. Must research.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
The Consortium is an organization that promotes diveristy in business schools. It has about a dozen b-school members (I remember NYU, UT Austing and Carnegie Mellon). I learned about it during a visit and info session at Stern. It is focused towards african-americans, women, hispanic-americans and other groups that are usually underrepresented in the business world. The thing is that if you apply through the Consortium application you only have to submit 1 application for all the member schools (and one application fee!). It also has scholarship programs. check out http://www.cgsm.org/default.asp
Hope this helps!
Ah, yes, I looked up the Consortium shortly thereafter. I guess as an over-represented Asian American male, this will be useless to me :( This makes me sad- having to only prepare one applicatoin sounds like a godsend. I guess no scholarships or convenience for me. Little do they know that metrosexual basketball playing, country music loving Asian Americans are indeed a minority.
Post a Comment