pleonasm wrote:
bsd_lover - Can you please comment more on your study group. I read this entire thread but just curious to know how the individual dynamics play out in a group. It is very easy to have a group of similar minded people and take on an assignment. However, if innovative ideas have to come out of a group, there has to be differing opinions that can be vetted out/debated in the group. Have you experienced this sort of 'friendly' disagreement in the group ?
The groups can vary somewhat, but as bsd_lover mentioned, they are generally social engineered to contain differing opinions or backgrounds. Also, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to "divorce" your study group in case of issues, so you are effectively tied together for the first year.
Study groups are assigned based on a number of criteria, but the two most important are nationality and pre-MBA background. In most cases, you will not be in the same group with someone else of similar nationality or function, but given some of the demographics (large nationality or job pools like Americans/Indians or consultants/bankers), there may be some overlap. Still, the school does engineer this a bit as well. For example, my group's professions are all vastly different, but there is another American in my group. However, her background was living/working in Europe, while I'm a Southern California native whose main international experiences have been in Asia-Pacific. Additionally, there are also a few other factors that influence the group creation, such as countries/regions lived in, and even GMAT score (!).
That said, much of the dynamics can be driven by personality and work style, which is likely a bit harder for the school to gauge from only the essays/interviews. I've heard of some groups where there are already conflicts for scheduling arrangements (workaholics versus laidback types, etc.) or micromanagement, so this will depend on your individual group. In terms of work schedules, group roles, etc., each group is free to create their own rules. In my group for example, we've decided to rotate leadership roles based on subject or expertise. And we're all lazy, so we've also already pledged not to work weekends.