Visiting Queen's

Appleseed documents his experience visiting Queen's here.

I boarded the train to Kingston Wednesday afternoon. With my previous experience travelling to London, I now knew what to expect as a first class passenger on a train.

I grabbed a cab after I got to Kingston, and arrived at the nice inn that Queen's set me up with. As promised, there was a package waiting for me in my room. It contained a welcome letter and a card, some placement stats, blurb about the professor whose class I was going to sit in the next day, and information on recommended eating places nearby.

Originally I was due at Goodes Hall by 8:15am the next morning, to have a brief tour of the building before class starts at 8:30. Then the lady at the office found out that the B&B served breakfast between 8 and 9, so she emailed to tell me to enjoy my breakfast, and arrive before 9:30. They would then let me into the class during the morning break. This was a minor detail that I really appreciated, and it made me feel that they actually do care about my comfort and well-being.

For the next couple of hours, I sat on my bed and read the material in the package, as well as browsed the Queen's MBA website. Since I was only going to have a "chat" the next day, I hadn't prepared anything except for a question or two that I wanted to ask.

At around 8 or 9, I decided that it would be a waste not to go out for a walk, get some fresh air, and get some food. The dinner that I had on the train before 4pm wasn't going to last until bedtime. I checked out the recommended places on the sheet and walked for 5 minutes to a nearby bar, since it was close. Got a snack to go. It was yummy. My room smelled of fish'n'chips afterwards, but no matter. :p

The next morning I got up and had an extremely delicious breakfast - I totally understood why Queen's didn't want me to miss it! Called a taxi, since I had a taxi voucher from the package, although walking to Goodes Hall would've been under 10 minutes. Arrived at 9:15.

I was introduced to everyone that was at the office at the time. The staff seemed very nice and approachable. I was then led on a brief tour of the building, and saw first hand what I'd seen in the brochure. Messy desks in the team rooms were an indicator that the students really used these rooms. They also had access to photocopier/printer/scanner/fax/etc. Fridge, microwaves, coffee machine, chocolate bars for a dollar! Overall it felt like a comfortable place to be in.

After the tour, I sat down with the associate director for our "chat". Since I hadn't yet put in an application, I spent some time telling her about myself - my background, what I've done, what I want to do. Other than that, there were basically no questions and I didn't need to say a lot of stuff. I then asked her what she thought distinguished the program from other schools, and she said that there were two things she thought were really unique to Queen's: the team-based approach and level of personalization. The Queen's website explains a lot of it. The associate director was honest in explaining that the team-based approach wasn't for everyone. She also mentioned that they use a variety of teaching methods (which is a big difference from using the case-based method only at Ivey).

She asked if I was still just looking around and comparing schools, and I honestly said yes, although by this time I had really started to like Queen's more than other places. She went on to say that the students really appreciate the "little things" that make a difference, little things such as having a team room, having access to photocopiers etc., having somebody deliver your textbooks to your desk, having photocopies of the lecture notes ready at your seat at every lecture. As I mentioned in my previous post, this was also something that really impressed me. One other thing I was told was that since I had already been invited there, my interview later would be over the phone.

We had talked for half an hour or so, when someone came in to let us know that the class had broken out. I was then led into the class to my seat at the back. Since I wasn't there for a formal interview, I had dressed myself in a nice shirt and pants, which were on par with what other female students had on, so I didn't really feel like an odd one out. There was a set of lecture handouts at my seat, and I even had a paper name plate. The student sitting next to me introduced himself and asked if I was there for the interview. I said that I was just invited to come for a "visit" and a "chat", and the student smiled and said "yeah, that was probably the interview."

When class resumed, a team finished off a presentation that they'd been doing that morning. They had been to a certain business, and were presenting their findings/recommendations. After a question and answer period and some comments from the professor, we turned our attention to today's material, which was a consulting case. It was very interesting for me, because the consulting firm presented in the case was one of my previous employers. The main character's problems as a consultant was very similar to what I had experienced. The class discussion was certainly interesting, and there was also some role-playing. This was very relavant to my job as well as my intended future career.

Towards the end of the class there was some discussion on the assignment that was just handed back, and a short lecture on six sigma. The professor had a great sense of humour and was thought provoking at the same time. It was a very good experience for me, and I knew that this was where I wanted to be.

The students I had asked to have lunch with came up and introduced themselves, and off we went. Lunch took almost two hours, during which we talked about almost anything and everything related to the program. Queen's puts you in teams, and then purposefully gives you way too much work to accomplished by yourself, so that you have to utilize your team. The professors are great. Yes, there are classes every morning and every afternoon, 8:30am to 4:30pm, but they don't feel like that's too much to take at all, because the classes are all so interesting. The printers sometimes malfuntion and it can be frustrating. Housing is cheap. It's cold in Kingston in the winter.

I told them that I was an introvert, which possibly means it'd be challenging for me to do team stuff all the time. They were quick to ease my concern by saying that I should look at every challenge as an opportunity. Your teammates have different backgrounds and personalities, and the challenge of team work is an opportunity to learn from others as well as learn to work with them. If you were really good at everything, team work being one of those things, then there would be no need for you to go back to school. An additional comment is that employers report that they could tell Queen's MBA grads apart from other grads, because of the good team work skills that Queen's graduates possess.

They also assured me that my GMAT score was definitely looked upon very favourably. That, combined with my good work experience, they thought that I almost had no problem getting in. Nevermind bad undergraduate marks, other components of my application can make it up. The one thing I was to really work on was my application essays. I needed to nail them.

After lunch, we returned to the MBA office, where I got a taxi voucher for getting back to the train station. My train wasn't until after 6pm, so after saying goodbye to the staff and students, I was off to "explore" on my own. I did no exploring. Instead, I found a spot in the library and started working on my application essays.

It was a very positive experience. The people that I met are down to earth and happy to help. Not to mention the serious level of personalization, both in the program and during my visit. I also loved Goodes Hall, it's beautiful.

Uniquely Queen's

I read the Queen's brochure, which just continued to impress me. Specifically, I was impressed with the following aspects (that I may or may not have known before, but was just outlined more clearly for me - in no particular order):

• Dedicated team-rooms. I wasn't sure that after years of being in the corporate environment, if I could stand being a student again, with no assigned desk, hauling my bags of laptop and books around wherever I went. The team rooms just make the logistics of getting around and meeting up with team members that much easier.


• Fit to lead. I hesitate to say that I'm unfit, but I'm definitely not the fittest. It should be interesting to see what this program has to offer.


• Personal assessment/coaching. Just adds a personal touch to things!


• Professional team facilitator. They're actually hired professionals, but also independent of the program, so they can focus specifically on teamwork issues that students encounter.
  
• Professional designation. I'm possibly interested in a PMP, so this is good for me.


• Incredible personal support. Somebody buys my books and delivers them to my desk. Somebody prints out powerpoint presentations and delivers them to my seat in class. This is too good to be the life of a student.

Most of these I have not seen offered at other business schools. I got very excited at the prospect of visiting Queen's.

QS World MBA Tour

I decided to go to this event and check out the schools that I was considering.

The Toronto stop was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. I arrived just before 3pm, and there was a huge line up at the registration desk. If you had registered before the event, you would only need to pay $5, otherwise it would cost you $10. There were people in suits and ties and other people in jeans and T-shirts. Suit and tie was totally unnecessary, in my opinion - I think that as long as you're not in ripped baggy jeans and T-shirt with weird logos, you'll do fine.

Once I got in, my first stop was Queen's. This was also one main reason why I came to the event at all: since I was going to visit them the week after, I figured it'd be nice to say hi and get a brochure. I waited for my turn to talk to the lady I'd been corresponding with (they all wore nametags), and introduced myself. She was happy that I dropped by and said that she actually thought of emailing me to let me know that they'd be in town, but didn't get around to it. Since there were many people waiting at the table, I said that I'd chat more when I visit. Grabbed a brochure and left.

Other tables that I visited:

Ivey must've brought in a team of over two dozen people, of admissions staff, professors, and students. All of whom were busy talking to interested prospective students. It was quite the scene. I managed to say hi to the director of admissions, who remembered me from the visit a month back.

Cornell answered the questions I had about sending transcripts/proof of degree. Since I was "foreign", they had some special requests that I wanted to clarify. It turned out that because the system in Canada is fairly similar to that in the States, I could also just send a copy of my transcripts and not worry. They were friendly.

I found out that the "HEC" in HEC Montreal stood for "good school of business", or something like that. It also has nothing to do with HEC Paris. They assured me that one doesn't need to know French in order to live in Montreal. I liked the nice ladies at the table, and I also liked their program. If I didn't get into any of my top 3 choices, they would be the next down the list.

DeGroote wasn't so impressive, somehow. They were very adamant about not considering starting a 1-year program, and they say that their strength is in the co-op, which doesn't mean much to me. The admissions lady I talked to also didn't strike me as very enthusiastic.

Rotman's admissions ladies seemed like they weren't interested at all in anything people might possibly ask them. They chatted amongst themselves, I waited for about 15 seconds for them to notice me, to no avail. Since I wasn't very interested in them to begin with, I just left. Having said that, I did attend an MBA lecture given by one of Rotman's professors, and it was quite interesting. Although, I'm sure that almost any properly recognized school can put forward a good lecture, let alone Rotman. I just wasn't interested in their program as a whole.

Telfer didn't even participate in this thing. I hoped I wouldn't need to one day seriously consider the school, who either isn't in the the same or similar "league" as the other schools, or just didn't bother with these types of events.

I should mention that once you register with your email address, be prepared to be forever electronically bombarded by a hundred MBA schools around the world.

Queen's Visit Scheduled

I got a FedEx package from Queen's MBA. It basically says this:

We were very happy to recently receive your GMAT results, and congratulations on your excellent score of 770! We would like to invite you on an all expense paid overnight trip to visit Queen's, whenever you wish, during which time you would have the opportunities to sit in a class, chat with our program's Associate Director, and have lunch with students whose interests are similar to your own.

This is great! You gotta understand, I haven't even applied to Queen's yet. ALL I did was listing them as a recepient of my GMAT score report. What a deal. I had been looking for something similar to Ivey's class visit, from Queen's, but couldn't find anything. I guess it's fairly exclusive.

I emailed them back and said I'd be really happy to visit. After a couple of emails back and forth, I've picked a date and a couple of students with whom I want to have lunch. The lady in charge of this scheduled me with first class VIA rail travel and booked me at a B&B.