Hi all,
next Sunday I'll have a meeting with some not so known schools that invited me . Actually I m not so interested (I went only to meet Cranfield,Vlerick,RSM, Manchester Global) but I found a good idea to reserve the others 30 minutes slots as well (just to have a general pictures)
Those schools are:

St,Gallen (incredible costs...I think they are short of students since they contacted me directly :-) )
Melbourne
Monaco (the one in France...)
ESMT


If any of you have some questions about those schools just let me know and I ll give you back the schools' answers! (sometimes via email they are very criptic ...especially about placement)

I don't think St. Gallen will be short of applicants, but they are very keen to have the sort of students who bring diversity to their class and who are the sort of people their recruiters would like to hire. I would take them more seriously than any of the other schools you're seeing: they are highly selective so, if they are interested in you, then prepare well.

Melbourne is interesting. I'd love to know how they see the Chinese market. They have closed down their Beijing MSc programmes, and I think they might be retreating into the domestic market.

Monaco is south of France, not in France, of course. I never took them very seriously and saw them a little like EBS or the European University. Let me know if they seem to be getting good results.

Duncan,
about Monaco I know that it's not in France but I missed the correct english word for "Principauté de Monaco" :-).
I saw that they appear in Economist ranking.. they are not so expensive (pretty less than Edhec).
By the way: Monaco, Edhec, Aix en Province,Lyon ... and for sure I'm missing something. Is there a so high demand of mbas in the Southern France?

If I were rich or if I knew german (they have mandatory german classes during mba) I would choose St.Gallen .... but in the best case (max schoolarships, reduction, ecc) I would pay 31000e .. just 7000e less than Cranfield (full price)! Of course If I could find a job in Switzerland I would be happy .. but I need to talk with them to understand my chance (they don't guarantee for the final project ...you'll do it only if you are good enough to find one by yourself!!)

Melbourne makes me quite curious ...

By the way one of the Dutch mbas has told me that my profile has great chances to get the 30000e schoolarship ........ in this case I don't know if I could answer.. No, thank you :-))

Thank you for your inputs... I added your points to the questions list ...

Well, the Economist ranking is mainly about increases, so it favours schools where the students are pretty junior. There's a high supply of courses in the south, as there is in Barcelona, because students want to study there. I don't think their graduates mostly find work locally.

St Gallen has great outcomes for students and a very personal MBA. If they want you then they know you will be easy to place. I think that's very interesting.

Is the scholarship at Tias? They seem to have as many scholarships as students! But the school's strategy is hard to spot. Compare the current and former dean, for example: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/03149f30-7e35-11dc-8fac-0000779fd2ac.html#axzz1ZvtSdPhe and http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dbf75a34-3b64-11de-ba91-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1ZvtSdPhe

Tomorrow I have a phone meeting with Edhec.. they enrolled 50ppl in the last September intake ( gmat avg620): they say that they offer plenty of opportunities after graduation........ and they want to explain me which are :-)

I talked with a couple of former TiasNimbas students (italians) and they are generally satisfied of their choice .. but of course schools only give nice reference

EDHEC has a great location there in Nice: right on the sea-front. It would be interesting to find out employment percentages and average salaries for foreigners at theses schools.

EDHEC has a great location there in Nice: right on the sea-front. It would be interesting to find out employment percentages and average salaries for foreigners at theses schools.

You can't take that ranking seriously: HEC is well above Lyon, and CNAM is a joke. The FT ranks EDHEC in the top 25 business schools in Europe.

Business week has salary data, which look good: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/full_time_mba_profiles/edhec.html

tomorrow i ll ask.. the admission manager is very kind.
By the way.. where would you place Essec among the other french BS?

Well, if we assume that INSEAD doesn't really count as French then I think the FT has more or less them in the right order (http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/european-business-school-rankings-2010): the top tier is HEC, ESCP, Lyon, ESSEC, EDHEC and Grenoble. Euromed, Toulouse, Audencia, Riems, Rouen, Skema, Ben, Aix, ICN... then the other ESCs. The other grand ecole MBAs (CNAM, ENCP and IEP) are rather special since they are not from business schools. Placement will be very volatile there.

so Essec comes later than Aix? their global mba costs 45000e.....

I just added ESSEC in: I think that where the FT ranks them in the European ranking is broadly correct.

In the next posts I ll write down some feed - backs from my 121 connect experience!
Hope someone can find this helpful!

University of Monaco: Absent!
Really thank you ... I dropped Dessault to have 30 minutes with them :-)


Melbourne: When the admission manager tells you: "you have a visa, if you are lucky you can find a job otherwise you'll came back home" what can you think?
By the way she repeated me for three times that they can't guarantee a job (Even if I just asked about the program)
She spent half of the session to speak about the exchange program with lots of universities (usa, uk, asia) ... now should I take an mba in Australia to spend 3 months in USA? What's the reason? Bho.......


Tomorrow the more interesting part

Manchester: very good meeting. Their program is very practical and the 4 projects intrigues a lot!
The 18 months duration might be an issue if you are over 30 even if there are people over 40 in the class.
Students have to find the internship on their own (all the other projects are provided and guaranteed by the school).
People employed 3 months after graduation:80%
There are some schoolarships but no loan offered through the school.


Rotterdam:
1) admission still opened for EU (class is already at 148)
2) 600 GMAT is enough to get in but if you plan to work in consulting this is too short
3) First she told me that english is enough to work in Holland,, later, after some questions, she admitted that at least some dutch can help
4) This course starts on Jan and the end is in March... Placement stats say that by June 96% of people have a job
5) Rotterdam pretty cheaper than Amsterdam (a 2 people apartment costs 600E/month). No reason to have a car.
6) she told me that with my income (between 38000-42000e) I ll have an ing loan covering the full tuition costs

Vlerick: I talked with one of the 3 admission manager (and even one of the 3 schoolarship manager)

1) The final project is a real-life project supplied by the companies
2) French / Dutch is required only by smaller companies
3) Great diversity and actually schoolarships are used to add missing nationalities
4) Waiting for the placement report
5) Avg gmat for the 2012 class: 640

Some doubts on point 1 and 2

Well, the in-company project is not too hard for a school like Vlerick, which has such close links to business. What's not clear to me from http://www.vlerick.com/en/programmes/mba/ftmba/g1/g3/in-company-mba-projects.html is whether it's a group or individual project. I am also doubtful about French/Dutch. My friend who just graduated said that most of the people who spoke neither ended up leaving the country.

I'm waiting their updated placement report ..


Cranfield: Probably the best visit I did. The school has a really strong program
1) 150 people divided in 3 groups;
2) minimun GMAT 600 (AVG 680) but you can skip it (Cranfield test)
3) schoolarships on rolling basis
4) accomodations offered for single / couple / family (and activities offered to family too) .. no need for a car
5) costs confirmed for 2012 intake 33000pounds


ST.Gallen: When I sit at their desk I found an Ipad showing the avg income of a postgraduate that find a job in Switzerland... :-)
Around 60% can find a job there, 15% goes to Germany (actually the german guys). German is important but (its words) if you
start to study it at home and after the 2 compulsory german modules you'll be fluent enough. By the way large Switzerland companies
only ask for english.
Placement at 3 months from graduation is 80%... I tried to understand how the missing 20% can repay the loan... but he skipped the answer.
1) minimun GMAT 650 but avg it 673
2) loan (for not resident) is only 50% of tuition costs
3) very good choice of electives: you have 4 proposed paths but you can mix the courses

ESMT: I've taken this for last intentionally. I've spoken with the career center manager who told me frankly:
1) Without a fluent (very fluent) german you won't find any job
2) During the mba you won't learn german because you won't have the time
3) we offer german classes during the mba but are they are easy classes just to learn how to ask for a coffees
4) They offer 2 months at Goethe institute (but you have to move to Berlin in advance).. but again, it won't be enough
5) If you know german.... and if you find a job, since you are an Italian, you'll be paid less than a german because you have to prove your value first
6) We are having lots of problems with asian people because the come here and they can find a job.. at the end they have to come back with their loan

---- so what's the reason to enroll people from India/Europe/America? Just to offer a world environment for the german students??????

7) Tuition costs (38000) are just marketing propaganda... there are plenty of schoolarships, ecc (and nobody pay thr 38000)

Wow - that's very interesting. I think you see a lot about the schools' cultures from the way they recruit. I'm also a big fan of Cranfield. I visited there when I was shopping about for MPhil and MRes courses, and was really impressed. It reminds me, in some ways, of the Tuck school at Dartmouth: a real focus on teaching and strong corporate links.

St Gallen sounds really strong. I just saw this: "Non-native German speakers are required to take two German courses, which will count as two of the minimum 8 electives." So there's a big emphasis on learning German. I also like the double MBA with Nanyang.

It is, of course, excellent that ESMT is so honest. When you look at their *average* placement stats it's clear that students have good outcomes, so that means getting the students to accept whether or not they should be looking for roles in Germany or not. And, of course, some might get hired by German firms to work abroad.

At the Goethe it will take around a year to move from total novice to university level, so in two months a group of highly-motivated business school students who arrive at A1+ (assuming they do some homework in the year before arriving) can get to B1 by the start of the course and maybe C1 at the end. And that's good enough for an English-speaking international role at somewhere like Siemens. St Gallen shows that it is possible to improve that much if the programme is committed to it.

Wow - that's very interesting. I think you see a lot about the schools' cultures from the way they recruit.