LennyBee

I didn't - I'm just assuming it's a reject based on: a) it's April 13th and I haven't heard a word from them; and b) I heard (unsubstantiated rumour) that they weren't likely to take any CB students this year.

Program: CB Marketing GMAT: 740, V47, Q45 Undergraduate: 80% Canadian school, Finance Graduate: 85% Canadian school, MBA Marketing Research Experience: 1 publication (finance), 7 conference presentations (marketing), 4 years RA Admitted: Colorado-Boulder, Wisconsin-Madison, Oregon, York Rejected: UBC, Stanford, Minnesota Attending: Colorado-Boulder

Congrats Possible! and congrats phdapplicant! I accepted Colorado-Boulder. It was tough, I really liked Oregon as well, but I'm relieved to have made a decision.

It has really died down - I still check as often (if not more) than before, but I think people are posting less now that they're getting into the real decision-making time. We're no longer obsessing over possibilities, but now we've either decided or are getting close. It'll be another week and a half before I make a final decision (I have one more school visit), but I'm getting very anxious for this process to be over.

I have to second Possible's point about not expecting to know until April - I definitely thought I'd know by now, and it looks like I won't know until really close to the deadline. And I'm not even on any waitlists. It's just that visiting schools, and trying to decide between a couple good schools that I'd be perfectly happy to attend and none of which have any obvious advantages over the others is really hard!

I think I'd take either an Oregon or a Madison winter over the snow and freezing rain I've been getting all week.

Thanks Doriangray - I haven't decided yet, it's down to Colorado, Oregon or Wisconsin-Madison. I loved the program and the people though, when I visited.

I've gotten an offer from Colorado-Boulder. They had five candidates out to visit a couple weeks ago. Don't know if they've made all decisions though.

From what I've been told, most programs now are heading toward a 5-year average simply so that candidates are more competitive on the job market - the job market is more competitive now, so candidates need better publications, the extra year gives you time for that.

Does anyone know which school has the better reputation / brand name out of University of Colorado, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Oregon? Are they all kind of similar?

I think your profile looks good for a lot of good schools. If you're not aiming for those top 10-15 big name schools, your low GMAT math score shouldn't hurt you because your overall score is good. My scores were very similar to yours, and I've gotten 2 offers from good schools, and am being considered at three more good schools who haven't made decisions yet - any of those schools I'd be pleased to go to. (I'm also a CB applicant). That being said, it's always good to try to make up for low scores in one area by being really strong in another area. For me, that was a low GMAT math score and literally no math courses, but I made up for it with a publication, conferences, and a lot of research experience. For me, the purpose of the master's degree was getting the research experience. Also, getting a master's from a school that isn't a top university, if you get good research experience while you're there, in my experience that won't hurt you except perhaps at the biggest schools - I have an undergrad and master's from a school that's virtually unknown and I'm really pleased with my results from this application cycle. Good luck, I hope you get good results this year and don't have to go through applying again.

I thought it was strange too that they flew out two CB applicants without knowing if they had any spots this year, but I guess they don't want to risk their top choices taking other offers in the meantime. They're waiting to hear back from the graduate school, and then they need to decide within the department how many Quant and how many CB applicants they'll take.

UBC hasn't made their decisions yet - when I was out there, they said they still didn't know how many spots they'd have available this year, so they wouldn't be making decisions until closer to the end of March.

I would have applied to more big name schools. I only applied to 1 top ten school and got rejected, but I got interviews and offers from all the other ones (which were also good schools, but not the big name ones), so I feel like I should have applied to more schools that were a long shot just to see. At the time I applied, I was considering only faculty research interests, and not the impact of brand name on future prospects.

In my experience, the on-campus is only more detailed in the sense that you're spending 30 to 45 minutes with each prof individually, rather than 10 minutes with several profs as a group as in phone interviews. I much prefer the on-campus ones because you get a better sense of how you'd fit with the school, and you can be more personal. It's not necessarily harder questions, it's just that you talk more, so more detail, greater variety of topics. Level of detail in my experience has been, at most, specific questions about my past research (including methodology and results questions).

Congrats Possible! My update: In at Wisconsin-Madison and York, interviewing at Colorado. - Has anyone been to Wisconsin-Madison, can give me a little more information about it? I only had a phone interview with them. Has anyone heard anything from Oregon?

btpig - Madison emailed on Saturday. I was pretty surprised because they've had admits awhile ago. I thought they would have been done interviewing, but perhaps they do quant marketing and cb at different times. Or, it's just been a very long process for them.

This has been a busy week for me! I've had three requests for interviews: UBC (phone, then fly-out), York, and Wisconsin-Madison.

PHD-dreams, it was UBC.

Telephone interview with two profs this afternoon! I'm horribly nervous, but so relieved to finally hear something!

Doriangray - I'm the same boat, CB applicant, 8 schools, I haven't heard a single word. It's driving me crazy! I applied kind of all over, 2 top 15 schools, 3 good Canadian schools, 3 other good US schools. And while I know it's still very early to hear, and I'm pretty sure I'm a good candidate, that doesn't stop me from worrying.

Congrats Possible. Do you know if Wisconsin-Madison is still interviewing/accepting? I haven't heard anything from them, just curious if this means it's over.

This is the link: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/salary_report.pdf

Canadian salaries are very competitive - according to countless articles, Canadian business schools don't graduate enough business PhDs in any given year to keep up with demand, so they need to pay competitive salaries in order to recruit internationally, although apparently they also use lifestyle reasons heavily in their recruitment. If you check out the International Comparison of Academic Salaries (available online), which looked at salaries while controlling for cost of living, Canada's professors are the highest paid for entry-level professors and second-highest (behind Saudi Arabia) overall.

I think it's hard to judge the prospects of non-US PhDs in the US just by looking at faculty profiles. You have to consider that if you got your PhD in your home country, you may prefer to stay there. I'm Canadian, and I only applied to schools in Canada and the US, but if I end up doing my PhD in Canada, I'll likely stay here forever - I applied to US PhDs because I'd be willing to work in the US, but I'd rather work in my own country. I would think that if you got your PhD in one country and then wanted to work in another, if you have a good research/publication record, and you've made US contacts through conferences and such, you wouldn't have many problems.