The London Business School 2010 thread

Thanks bsd_lover. I will email the school. And I understand with the arm-twisting bit. And I struggled with that decision for a week. The only problem is that the other school starts in April and it's not the question of a admissions deposit but the whole fees and logistics. Hence, I decided to email the school. I know it might be a big negative but I had no choice.

fordfirestone - that's fantastic news and definitely telling of your value to your firm.

I would definitely drop a note to adcom highlighting - though position it as further increasing your need to know LBS's decision as you now have a responsibility to your company to let them know (rather than using it as leverage to enhance your candidacy)

All the best!

Just checked out the MBA 2012 facebook group a few days ago and there were already 122 members... and R2 decisions aren't even out yet! If school class remains at 350-390ish that means 1/3 of the seats were gone in one round, and if there are more R2 applicants than R1... that actually leaves only quite a limited number of seats for R3/4!

Hi guys,
Just been reading some of the posts and profiles, I presented the GMAT just a few hours ago, got a 660 (Q49 , V31) , Verbal killed me . On Saturday I will do the IELTS, hopefully I'll get a 7.5 and probably undermine my GMAT Verbal score?

Will you recommend me to apply? there are only 3 weeks to do it.

Thanks
GT

Hi octopus2010,

I doubt there would be 122 admit decisions in round 1. Maybe the 122 members in the facebook group include current students and admission officers helping with the group discussions.

I think Dr. Manhattan or someone from Round 1 admit would be able to give us an exact number.

hi gerteix... i think that an IELTS won't mitigate a GMAT score too much. they really test different things. TOEFL and IELTS test only ability to communicate in English (a shallower rating, really only required of non-native English speakers)... the GMAT tests verbal on a deeper level: reasoning ability, comprehension and yes, sentence correction i.e., you can be a native English speaker, not even require an IELTS or TOEFL, and still do poorly on the GMAT verbal. IMO, taking the IELTS to "undermine", as you say, your GMAT isn't a good way to go about it.

That said, I got into a solid US school (Darden) on a 660 GMAT. I've since retaken the GMAT for the LBS R2 applications and gotten a higher score, but fact is, a 660 isn't a deal breaker, provided other aspects of your application are solid.

just some information people might find useful... the london 2010 class profile

Number of students 320
Average age 28.6 years
Age range 23-34 years
Average work experience 5.6 years
Work experience range 2-12 years
Average GMAT score 694
GMAT score range 600-800
Percentage of female students 25%
Nationalities represented 60
Percentage of international students 91%

You are absolutely correct. I am a member of this group and so are a few other MBA2011s. I also remember last year's group had a few people who did not end up matriculating. There is not much point over-analysing these numbers; you will never get the full picture. Admissions are tough even if you apply at R1 - doing probabilities to quantify uncertainty only serves as preparation for the Decisions Risk Analysis class.

Bsd_lover, thank you for your continued contribution and insight to this forum.
I am interested in knowing if in your finance/acctg classes, is the academic focus on US,European, or Asian companies and GAAP? The reason I ask is that while in banking, I did a few valuations of German, UK and Italian companies, but the differing accounting conventions sometimes made it more difficult to value those companies than it would be to value US companies. Take care.

undafry,

At this time, there are exactly 122 members of the "London Business School (LBS) MBA Class of 2012" Facebook group. That said, I would hardly call each member of that group an admitted student. As someone else pointed out, and as another confirmed, some members of this group will not matriculate and ultimately decline their offers, others might be current students or staff, and others still might be sponsors or individuals with some sort of affiliation with the School.

Facebook membership is not indicative of the larger population; I know at least two admits from Stage 1 with clear intentions of matriculating who are not on Facebook, let alone members of the Admit group. Switching gears, though, while bsd_lover is right (in that attempting to analyse numbers to guage admission chances is a futile exercise), it does appear that Stage 1 Admit numbers have been rather robust. For a targeted class size of 400 (five streams of ~80 students), the Portal is showing a number significantly in excess of 122 of admitted MBA2012 students. I'm under the impression that the Portal terms of agreement restrict sharing certain information outside the Portal community, and so, for now, I must remain vague about the exact number. To be honest, I really wouldn't worry about this as there's nothing you can do to change the outcome of your application. The nasty Wait ends in 6 days, doesn't it? Hold on a little longer.

In the meantime, I wish you guys the very best of luck! Before applying myself, I read every single London Business School thread on the GMAT forums (back in the days when an entire year's thread had only 11 or so pages!), and this Stage 2 crowd's been incredibly supportive, and cheery; one can't help but wish you success in your endeavours. Once you get onto Portal, you'll have a much more efficient medium to network, and of course, you can then join the Facebook group which, in my personal experience thus far, has provided a few positive and "unique" networking experiences in addition to Portal!

Good luck guys!

On Languages:

As we all know, achieving Level 2 proficiency in a language other than English is an exit requirment at London Business School. I've met current students and alumni who already spoke a second (or third) language before joining the programme, so this wasn't a concern for them. For those that will be undertaking study in another language (perhaps you've already started), what languages are you considering?

I'm interested to know what languages people are have chosen simply out of curiosity, or as a means to gain an edge in the Business environment, or for that matter, any other reason. Additionally, can any of the current students comment on what languages appear to be the most popular at the School?

I was talking to a student from the graduating class and he mentioned that he submitted 4 recommendation letters during his application. I would have loved the opportunity of sending in more recommendations. Has anyone here submitted more than 2 recos? Good luck for round 2!!

I submitted 2 professional recs, plus an alumni rec.

We cover both GAAP and IFRS and their nuances.

I was one of those who decided to take the exemption and not worry about the language aspect. But many people I know took a language even though they were eligible for exemption. Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, French and Spanish seem to be the most popular ones. In addition to the King's college classes you also have access to the partners club courses, where partners of current student who are native speakers of different languages teach other partners (and students). Some clubs also organise "lunch in <name of language>" where everyone speaks the given language forcing people who are interested to converse in that language as well.

Thanks for the help!
Well I still need to take the IELTS as I am venezuelan/portuguese ... I think I will apply, although, I am not feeling confident given my work experience:
* 1 Year: Managing a sales force of 5 and dealing with service providers.
* 5 Years on IT & Telco troubleshooting departments, I'd been working so far in 4 countries on contracts.

I should have read this forum before.... I needed to practice SC a lot more.
GT

Thanks Bsd & Dr. - Agreed. No point over analyzing the numbers - 6 more days left anyway