B-School Tuition costs per year or Total

just did a cost analysis of the places i applied to.

Surprisingly, singapore had the highest average rent of all the places. (off campus rental)

Come on toga, that was to be expected - NUS is like the only school in a proper city you've applied to.
Sometime I wonder how you're going to deal with life if you ended up at Cornell!



I think a realistic estimate of annual expenses for the average U.S. MBA program at a private university will creep up to the $75,000 mark over the next year or two.

Cornell came out with the cheapest accomodation of all the places i applied to, but not sure if that is a rough area or not. ave. $1100 for a 3 bed apartment. I used real estate companies to do a quick 'prive' check of the areas.

To be honest, i have a feeling i will be too busy to realise if i am in a city or not

It's a nice, cheap area alright. What I meant was, after all that globetrotting you've been doing, Ithaca is going to come as an..umm change!

Ha ha, probably, so used to living in massive cities.
Off to Vancouver next month (on business), last time i went there i found it far too quiet. Even the downtown area. I've always preferred cities that have decent public transport links.

toga, if you think Vancouver is "too quiet", then you are in for a shock in Ithaca... it's... um... "silent"

I am used to big cities (I only consider Manhattan/NYC a "real" city in the US), coming from many years in Taipei. Ithaca was beautiful and peaceful, but I would probably go crazy living there for 2 years.

Ho Chi Minh was too busy for me. Too many motorbikes, almost impossible to cross the road. Bangalore's traffic is even worse!!!!
Singapore was nice when i went there, apparently they restrict the number of vehicle ownership licenses per year so that the roads don't become too congested.

If you have Ithaca questions, let me know.

There are no bad areas in Ithaca. (Seriously - we had a house in Ithaca that was essentially kitty-corner from some public housing. The "danger" was that someone might toss an empty 40 in your yard. We didn't even lock our back door.)

Beware - as an international student in the US (which I believe you would be) you may fall foul of the lovely landlord "rent upfront" stunt unless you get a guarantor. This may just be another beautiful New York trick however, and could easily only happen here, where they know they can because they feel like it.

happens in london too unfortunately.

arrived here from NZ 18 months ago and had to pay 2months worth up front. Also hurts when moving from a weaker to a stronger currency

lucky you`re not moving to Japan. 5-6 months and only 1 month of that is the deposit
1 months for the landlord
1 months for the agent
2 months key money (used to make the flat newer e.g replace tatami mats)
1 months deposit
1 months rent in advance.

oh! and you usually have to pay a renewal fee of a month every year or 2 depending on the contract :D

Is a car necessary? Because I don't drive.

Can you say "rip-off"?

yes you can. But that's the system in Japan. If you want to move there you have to handle it.

That's why most foreigners get international transfers on an ex-pat package and let their companies handle it.

Not 100% necessary, no.

Ndhlp and I had just one car. I biked to work, he bussed to campus. That was fine. A friend of mine lived in Ithaca for years without a car. Here's what you should know:

You'll want to live close to campus (which will make rent more expensive) so you can walk to the Johnson school. Or live close to the Commons so you only need to take one bus and so that bus will be frequent. You can get farther from the Commons and still only need to take one bus, but it will probably pass only once an hour. Nearly all the busses go to the Commons and then up to campus, so that's a good place to be.

Ithaca is highly walkable - all of the downtown neighborhoods are walking distance to the Commons (restaurants/shops/bars) and some of them are walking distance to the grocery store. The one place where having a car is nice is if you want to go to a big box store - Home Depot, Target, WalMart. Some of those are on the south side and potentially walkable and certainly bikable. Some of them are up by the mall - not walkable or really bikable from downtown.