Ask HKUST Admissions

Hi Trader4Life,

1) Yes! We'll be coming to NYC on Sep 17 (Sat) for the MBA Fair where you can meet our alumni and students. You can find more information on the event here: https://mba.ust.hk/?&m=201109&cat=7#e1990

2) The average salary is around $80,000-85,000 and approximately 70% of the graduates work in Asia (where the salary range and cost of living are usually lower than the West).

3) Our graduates working in finance were employed into a variety of roles, including both investment banking and trading related as well as other middle or back office roles. Some career switchers landed a job in the middle or back offices first by leveraging on their prior work experience, then moved to a front office related roles later with their experience in the industry.

4) It is difficult to tell in general what employers prefer since it really depends on the students' strengths, previous exposure and the nature of the jobs. Employers will prefer local students for jobs which require an understanding of the local market and language as well as working directly with Mainland Chinese clients. But for other roles in which regional or global exposure is important, they may prefer students who are more international.

Feel free to let us know if you have any other questions. Hope to see you at the NY Fair.

HKUST MBA Admissions Team

Hi arjunbt

While we have courses like Global Supply Chain Management, at this moment we don't offer a specialization on Manufacturing and Operations. Instead, we have five career tracks: General Management in China, Consulting & Strategy, Finance, Marketing and Entrepreneurship. But that doesn't stop our students from entering the manufacturing/operations industry.

For example, two of our graduates were recruited into the Management Associate program at Li & Fung, an MNC in manufacturing/trade/operations of consumer goods headquartered in Asia. The two of them worked on the sourcing, distribution and retailing operations in one of the global offices. Rather than purely manufacturing and operations knowledge, what the employer saw in them were a well-rounded grasp of business and understanding/exposure in the Asia markets.

You can find more information on the above here: https://mba.ust.hk/php/CMS/?cat=7&m=201102#e1547

Our graduates were also recruited by these manufacturing companies: 3M, BMW, DuPont, Emerson, Motorola, Robert Bosch, Volkswagen, etc.

Feel free to let us know if you have any other questions.

HKUST MBA Admissions Team

I attended the MBA Fair in SFO. And I met a confident and erudite HKUST representative. It was a very informative session. Infact, I now know that what I need to do before I join HKUST ( provided I get an admission )

I strongly encourage everyone to atleast make an effort to meet the alumni or school representative. Even though I had a long travel as I don't live in SFO, it was worth a trip. Go HKUST!!!!!!

Hi talk2vj

Glad to know that you found the session at SF helpful. And thank you for your reply on the Mandarin course.


Hi shanghaizzle

The pre-MBA Mandarin training lasts for 3 weeks. Two levels are available - one for beginner with no exposure to Mandarin before, and one for those who have at least 40 hours of exposure. If you want to continue to learn Mandarin during the program, you can join the courses organized by our university's language center, which are available at different levels and offered at a discounted fee for students. As you can imagine, we are packing what is a 2-year program in the U.S. into 16 months, so the program is pretty intensive and it may be difficult to find the time to join the Mandarin courses regularly when you will have many other engagements related to student club activities or career preparations.

As talk2vj said, what our students usually do is to take an intensive Mandarin training in China for several months before the MBA so you can at least have a basic understanding of Mandarin when you join the program. Beijing is a popular spot. Some say Harbin, which is less an international city, is good too.

During the program, you can look for classmates who are also interested in learning the language and hire a private tutor together. This way, the time can be more flexible and you can learn the language more effectively with more opportunity to practice speaking in a smaller group. Choosing an exchange school in China is important to further improve your Mandarin before joining the workforce. Of course, speaking with your Chinese classmates (we usually have at least 20% of the class coming from China) is also a good way to practice.

Hope the above helps. Let us know if you have any other questions.



HKUST MBA Admissions Team

I'm still around so can try to help with anything non-admission related.

@alistar: Happy to help. We understand that the application process can indeed be quite tough for working candidates so hopefully this kind of flexibility can help a bit.

If you have any other questions, just let us know.


HKUST MBA Admissions Team

Hi alokag,

Generally speaking, the applications are reviewed in the order of their submission date. But it is actually very difficult for us to control whether the interview notifications are sent out in the same order.

Each application will be reviewed by different (and multiple) members of our admissions committee. Their different pace will give rise to different order when we send out the interview notifications after the admissions committee have found the candidate good enough to be shortlisted.

So you need not worry if you still haven't received the interview message when the others have. Our deadline for sending out interview notifications is on Jan 13. So you will know you are not shortlisted only when you still haven't get the interview invititation on Jan 14.

About the number of interview calls in R1, we don't have a fixed number or quota since it all depends on the quality of candidates in that round.


HKUST MBA Admissions Team

Hi gmatcrash,

1. Here are some examples of China case studies used in our program.
- Acquisition of Hummer: M&A challenges faced by Chiese companies overseas
- Air China
- Arthur D. Little in China: a whole new ball game
- Future of Avon China: Direct Sales, Retail Sales or Both
- Cola Wars in China: The future is here
- Dell vs Lenovo
- East of Africa and West of China: Chinese Business in Africa
- Google in China
- Motorola in China: Failure of Success
- Sanlu's Melamine - Tainted milk crisis in China
- Saurer: The China Challenge
- Shanghai General Motors: The rise of a late-comer
- Shanghai Volkswagen:Time for a radical shirt of gears
- Worldwide Equipment (China) Ltd.: A Sales Performance Dilemma
- Wumart stores: China's response to wal-mart

2. Our mid-70% GMAT range is 600-720. The "acceptable" GMAT score is different for each candidate since the admissions committee will look at it together with the whole profile, particularly the undergraduate performance. So we can't provide you with a "rough weightage".

If your UG grades are good then a lower GMAT in that range may also be ok. If your UG is not so good, then you should work on a better GMAT score.

For GMAT score, remember to have decent percentile for each section since the admissions committee want to have well-rounded candidates instead of those who get really high marks in quantitative but low percentile in verbal, or vice versa.


HKUST MBA Admissions Team

I think they are still in process of reviewing R1 applications. R1 last communication deadline is 15th JAN.

So R 2 should happen post that.

Also from 24th to 27th the admission office is closed for Christmas.

Hi pchak,

While some candidates in R1 received the interview invitation around 1 week after the deadline, some are still under reviewed.

Please expect R2 results to take a little longer because the adcom need to review both R1 & R2 applications together and the time clashes with the holidays.


HKUST MBA Admissions Team

Hi mvikred,

Here are the major scholarships (and available for Indian candidates/students):

1. Merit scholarship (top 10-20% of admitted candidates): HKD60,000-125,000
2. Need based grant (candidates with financial need): HKD60,000-150,000
3. Scholarship for Asians with international exposure (Asian candidates with 2+ years of work experience/studies overseas): HKD125,000
4. Outstanding Leadership Award (students with exceptional leadership potential and contribution to the program during MBA): HKD300,000

For the full list, you can visit our website here: https://mba.ust.hk/ftmba/admissions/financialaid.htm

FYI, our tuition fee for intake 2013 is HKD545,000.

We help students get into consulting industry through several ways:
1. Consulting track electives taught by actual consultants e.g. a current Director at Bain or a former Manager at McKinsey - teach students how to think and work like a consultant
2. Consulting Club run by students - provide skill training workshops delivered by students who are consultants or external consultants invited to school
3. Enhancing Professional Skills training - an intensive program which aims to boost students' presentation, case analysis, teamwork and problem solving skills. After finishing the training, students can form teams to participate in overseas case competitions and compete against other schools in front of global judge panel formed by top business leaders. This can help them to build up their competence and confidence when they work with clients in the future as a consultant
4. Our career office organizes corporate events/recruitment talks/executives meetings with consulting firms e.g. Deloitte Consulting, Gallup Consulting, Siemens Management Consulting - get students connected with industry people and introduce job opportunities to students
4. 12% of our graduates last year are recruited into consulting roles. The management consulting firms recruiting in these two years include: McKinsey, IBM Consulting, Value Partners Management Consulting, ZS Associates, Deloitte Consulting, Boston Consulting Group, etc.

Any questions, just let us know.

Towni
Marketing & Admissions, MBA Programs
HKUST Business School

Hi amritd,

Yes, you can input your internship as previous employments under work experience.

We are not sure why the characters disappear and haven't heard other candidates having this problem this year. If you send your application number and name to us at applymba@ust.hk, we can ask our IT team to investigate the cause. In the meantime, it is best if you work on a word document first and only paste the text in the form before submitting your application just in case it happens again.

Towni
Marketing & Admissions, MBA Programs
HKUST Business School

Dear admissions team,

I have a few specific questions:

1. I don't think that I will be able to apply by the R1 deadline, however I will be able to do so by Nov end. My questions is that assuming I do submit by Nov end, by when should I expect a decison from the admissions team?
2. Can you throw some more light on the scholarships that are offered by HKUST?
3. What percentage of the class went in the M&A domain - do you have that levelof detail? If not, can you specify what percentage went to IB?
4. What percentage of the class last year go to US for internship? How many went to US schools for exchange?
5. Can you please let me know about my chances of getting through? Below is my brief profile:

Nationality: Indian
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Undergrad: Indian Institute of Technology (I am sure that you are aware that IITs are considered the best engineering colleges in India and have a tough entrance exam with an acceptance rate of less than 1%)
GPA: 6.5 / 10 (relative grading) - not particularly good, though I believe considering that it was relative grading, the pedigree of the peer group should be taken into account. I am not sure if actually it is taken into account or not?
GMAT: 710 (Q50,V35)
Current job (Since June 2010): Consulting (Big 4)
Total work ex: More than 4 years (as of Nov 2012)
Additional qualifications: Passed CFA Level 2 exam and FRM Full (both levels)
Post MBA goal: M&A domain in Asia Pacific region

Many thanks!

Hi Indian Express,

Here is our reply.

1. If you submit your application after the 1st deadline, you will be considered as a Round 2 candidate. And the deadline of admissions results for Round 2 is March 28, 2013.
2. You can take a look at our list of scholarships here: https://mba.ust.hk/ftmba/admissions/financialaid.htm
3. We do not have the percentage of graduates who went into M&A. For IB, we have 6% of our 2011 graduates working in this field.
4. Only very few of our students did an internship in US as most of them want to get work exposure in Asia, which is why they joined our program. Around 45% of our students went to exchange in US last year.
5. It is difficult for us to tell how much chances you have just based on these facts since the admissions decision is more complicated and we take into consideration a range of factors from your academic performance and work experience to your soft skills, self awareness and career readiness. That said, you have a decent GMAT score which can help with your GPA. And a CFA level 2 is also helpful if you are interested in the M&A field, which is good since it shows that you are prepared and determined to make the switch

Any questions, just let me know.

Towni
Marketing & Admissions, MBA Programs
HKUST Business School

Hi Vineet,

I am afraid an official proof from your university showing that your degree was taught entirely in English is required to waive the TOEFL/IELTS requirement. The proof can be your transcript or the official website of your university, both of which need to contain a statement that your degree was taught entirely in English. Some of our candidates will also ask their universities to prepare an official letter which confirms the language of the degree.

You can submit the proof to us after receiving our admissions offer.

Towni
Marketing & Admissions, MBA Programs
HKUST Business School

Hi getgyan,

Both the employment proof and salary proof are required for our admissions.

The employment proof should be issued by employer(s) of ALL your job position(s) listed in the application form and should include the employer's name, your job title and employment period of each job.

You need to provide salary proof for the last 12 months as well. The proof could be salary slips, documents provided by the employer or bank statements which include your annual salary or salary of last 12 months.

Only softcopy is required. You can upload them to our application system directly.

Towni
Marketing & Admissions, MBA Programs
HKUST Business School

@Vineet - You can only see the uploads page once you have made the payment.