US MBA

Appleseed wrote a very good discussion on US or non-US MBA.

My major concern, of course, was the staggering amount of money required in order to do an MBA down in the States. I could get a line of credit, but with over 10k US dollars borrowed, the interest rate alone which I'd have to keep paying while at school, would be hundreds of dollars per month. Where am I supposed to get that money from? I would expect to be paying off the loan for several years after graduation, but it's the aspect of paying interest while I'm in the program that ticks me off. Our dirt cheap Canadian dollars don't help either - it would just make tuition and living expenses that much more expensive.

The other consideration is the length of the program. All top-tier US program are two years in length, which just adds to the time and living expenses that you spend. At this point I was really looking for a good one-year program, and was pretty much set on Queen's and Ivey.

Having said that, a good US school is recognized world-wide, and the compensation for jobs is significantly better in the US than in Canada. (I know this first hand from comparing salaries with my US colleagues who work for the same company, doing the same job as I did, only in the States.) If I can just deal with two difficult years of school and pull it off, ten years from now I would possibly be fairly well off.

Unlike Appleseed, I'm single and open to staying in the US long-term after an MBA. Although in theory you can still choose to move south of the border after you finish an MBA in Canada, in reality I believe that it'd be easier for you to stay in the US, if you had already gone to school there.

I then decided to apply to one good US school. My chances of getting into this school would be similar to my chances at Queen's or Ivey, and this would be a reputable school that nonetheless runs a program small enough to allow for personal interactions, etc. Of course, it also needs to offer a program that I like. After some research, I chose The Johnson School at Cornell University. It's not ranked that much to the top such that I likely wouldn't get in anyway, but it's within the top 20 and an ivy league school with a good reputation. Its program is small (compared to almost all other good US programs), and its based out of the small town of Ithaca, NY. Therefore, in addition to having virtually no commuter students like in big cities, housing would also be relatively cheap. Lastly, it is not that far away from home in Toronto.

I would apply to the Johnson School the same time I apply to Queen's and Ivey, and would hope that I get into a Canadian program. If it so happens that I only get into the program in the States, I would prepared myself for the long (and financially difficult) haul. I also figured that it would take the Johnson School longer to process my application, because they admit a significantly larger class. So by the time I hear a decision from them, I would already have my Canadian decisions.