Dear All,

I need your advice. I have recently been granted permanent residence to Canada. I currently hold a CPA Canada charter thanks to an MOU signed by CPA Canada with the ACCA UK. I plan on moving to Canada in early 2020 and pursue an MBA. I currently have a South Asian nationality.

As I am not a rich man, I have two options:

1) Do the full time English MBA from HEC Montreal. As a new immigrant, if I move to Quebec within first 3 months of arriving into Canada, I will be considered a Quebec resident and will be allowed to pay subsidized fee of CAD 8,000, which is a very attractive option. However, my concern and question here is that if I move to Toronto after MBA with HEC Montreal, will it be considered any valuable or I would not be better off since the MBA is from a Quebec university? Also, do the recruiters who hire from HEC Montreal consider non-French speakers or their focus is just on French? Do non-Quebec recruiters hire from the university?

2) The other option I have is to move straight to Toronto, start working based on my CPA and then obtain admission to the part-time MBA at Ryerson University's Ted Rogers School of Management. Here, the fees would be around CAD 26,000 over 2 years and even with my income, it would still be more expensive than HEC Montreal (including opportunity costs of being income-less for a year).

Any other more expensive business schools are not an option unless I am getting a full scholarship. Thank you for your time.

HEC is very much a French-focused school and the its recruiters will reflect the Montreal business community. You'll generally want to have decent French skills in order to find MBA-level work after the program. I'd wager that most of HEC's recruiters are Quebec-based. (Concordia would likely have more well-established connections with English recruiters.) That said, HEC is *the* place if you're looking to make inroads with the francophone business community.

The Ryerson program would most likely give you more options after graduation, being in Toronto. Toronto is a bigger city with a healthier economy and a much wider range of industries.

[quote]HEC is very much a French-focused school and the its recruiters will reflect the Montreal business community. You'll generally want to have decent French skills in order to find MBA-level work after the program. I'd wager that most of HEC's recruiters are Quebec-based. (Concordia would likely have more well-established connections with English recruiters.) That said, HEC is *the* place if you're looking to make inroads with the francophone business community.

The Ryerson program would most likely give you more options after graduation, being in Toronto. Toronto is a bigger city with a healthier economy and a much wider range of industries. [/quote]

Many thanks for your detailed response and guidance!