Hello Donho199,

Many thanks for your insights! You are absolutely correct in your reasoning of these colleges. During my MBA, I want to focus in Operations (Major) and Finance (Minor), this combination, I believe provides me with the flexibility to apply to Project Managements, Service Management, Advisory, and Business Analyst roles.

I started learning French since December, and have my DELF A1 next month.

W&M's curriculum offers enough insight to gain a foothold in Operations, its also provides various experiential learning opportunities. But it is the costliest of the 4.

HEC Montreal is quick, and relatively cheap

JMSB has it's own merits, but I believe that MBA from HEC Montreal carries little more prestige than from JMSB.

ESSEC is again a good brand in France, with lots of international experience.

All these schools are good in their respective geographic region and not overwhelmingly strong outside their region. Any idea which one can be a good fit for roles like Deloitte Strategy & Operations, Project Manager, Operations Manager, Advisory in KPMG / PwC / E&Y etc?

Holistically, which is the best universal brand name?

You will have to look carefully at the curriculum and their approach. Also the career report is a good thing. MBA feeds people to certain employers and industry so if you go to that school the majority will look into a specific direction.

Like yourself, I am in IT and Delloitte is one of my clients. From the people I talk to in Big4 IT consultancy they seem to move up the IT ladder. Probably you can share about your career direction with myself as a fellow IT

Out of the schools, W&M is certainly the best school after that ESSEC, HEC Montreal and John Molson is largely solid school with good education and regional prestige and have similar standing.

May I suggest you look at some other American schools
1/ Some university in Texas is good for tech such as university of Dallas
2/ Wisconsin Madison and other Big 10 schools
3/ University of Massachusetts system which has some nice IT programs and MBA as well. Fees is pretty cheap and the IT track is really world class. We all have text books from guys teaching here don't we?

Hello Dunho199,

thanks again for your prompt reply! I am not from IT. I wonder why people keep mixing IT and Telecommunications? :)
I know that several US / UK schools view IT & Telecommunications together as ITES or High-Tech.

Anyways, I know nothing of IT. My roles is purely into mobile network deployment and providing technical consultation to mobile operators across the globe and help me design and optimize their mobile network.

Because my GMAT is 630, and passport says INDIA, Wisconsin Madison and other Big10 are out of question. I have a similar view about W&M, it's only that the total package tuition & cost of living is going out of my budget.

I am losing my interest in ESSEC, because living near Paris will cost me Euro 1000, and living near Williamsburg will cost me $ 1000 / month, thats INR 20,000 difference right there !

I believe at some point of time, I will need to take a stand on working in USA v/s Canada v/s France.

BR
Ayon

Ralph / Duncan,

Please feel free to add

If you were studying at ESSEC, why live in Paris? Live in Cergy instead... much cheaper, and you can walk to school.

Hello Duncan,

Good to have you back here on this thread.

For ESSEC I said, near Paris. I meant Cergy only. The estimate I got from current Indians and alumni is Euro 1000 per month as compared to USD 1000 for W&M and CAD 1000 per month for Montreal based schools.

Money aside, how will you contrast these 4 programs, College of William & Mary, ESSEC Global MBA, HEC Montreal and John Molson School of Business.....

To quickly refresh I want to focus in Operations & Finance, my GMAT is 630 with 6+ years of work experience in Telecommunications (from India).
Learning french and will give DELF A1 this March.

Not very familiar with French language certification.
So to know nothing of French and need to progress to Intermediate level: level that Engineer need means to say quite complex thing but not quite poetic how long does it takes and how many levels A1 A2 you have to pass through?

A1 is the first level, There are six. At my full-time language school in Lyon, each level took eight weeks.

Hello Donho & Duncan,

Just to update you on my application progress. This year my results are as follows

USA
1) W&M: admit with scholarship, will join
2) UC Irvine: admit without scholarship
3) SMU Cox: reject after interview

Canada
1) UBC: reject without interview
2) HEC: reject after interview (they were not releasing the admit list, and I had to decide with other colleges, so told them to let me know the result earlier which they did not like)
3) JMSB: reject without interview
4) McGill: reject without interview

France
1) ESSEC: Admit with scholarship OR E33000 loan.

Result
After weighing all my options I finally decide to enroll in College of William & Mary.

Observations / Learning for others
1) Duncan's classification of schools (those 4 tiers) based on GMAT is good, but not a rule of thumb.

2) Identify schools that demand premium on GMAT of students belonging to over - represented schools, and schools who see candidate in more holistic sense.

3) With my 630 GMAT, I got admission into UC Irvine. It goes to show that there are other aspects to application than the GMAT as well.

4) I started learning French and now DELF A1, had I been admitted at Montreal based schools or decided to enroll at ESSEC, I would have pursued till A2 atleast.

5) Keep in mind the timing of your application. If you are from an over represented pool, and your GMAT is BELOW the average GMAT of your target school. Then IMHO, its better to apply to that school in R3 or R4, i.e. apply late (for schools having rolling based admission within their Rounds)

It's risky! But if you apply in R1/R2 (early) they may simply reject you since they know that there will be more students who shall apply in later rounds. By R3/4 (later) Admission Committee is aware the number of seats taken and number of seats vacant, they also have a target number of students. It may increase your chances.

5) Finally, do you own research, list your own limitations and expectations. Follow your heart, apply to the schools that you WANT to attend (of course be realistic about it) not what some consultant says. Customize your essays specific to schools.

All the Best to everyone!

Best Regards
Ayon

Great post, thanks.

Yes, it's especially interesting to note that a GMAT score outside of the average is not necessarily a deal-breaker. It depends on the school, what they're looking for, what round it is, and who they have already accepted, among other factors. Despite a focus on the bottom-line score, it's still an organic process.

Congrats on your admission to W&M. Be sure to check back in once in a while to let the board know how it's going!