Oxbridge 2011 applicants

DGreenleaf

Thanks for your frank email. I wanted to address two points you made, about professionalism and my blog post.

From reading your post, I will assume (and I might be misinterpreting you) that by professionalism, you are talking about structure and processes; and separately about how schools handle diversity. On the first point about structure and processes, you are right that compared to other schools, Cambridge does have a less structured process, which came as a big culture shock to me when I, who was trained as an engineer and economist, first joined the school. I resisted the temptation to come in all guns blazing to change everything and instead took about 6 months to understand the culture and the rationale behind certain things. I am glad I took that time because it helped me understand the implicit benefits of certain unstructured processes, and it also helped me understand how the business school works within Cambridge University itself.

My view is that schools with larger MBA classes have no choice but to have strict and rigid structures. There is no other way to admit that number of people, and get them through their MBA programmes. And because these processes have been stress-tested by the large number of applicants, they work for the average candidate.

Cambridge, on the other hand, has decided to have a smaller class size and give more individual attention to applicants and students. Having spent one-year on a Sloan Masters with a class of 64 people, I can attest to the very different advantages of having a smaller, tighter knit group. This allows us to have more individualised processes, and is something which our students and applicants value.

However, this focus on the individual can come across to some as being less corporate and maybe less professional compared to other schools. For example, our building does not look like the glass and steel structures in many American schools or even Oxford (some applicants have turned us down because we don't look corporate enough), but it was designed specifically to allow individuals to meet, discuss and collaborate. Our careers team have one-on-one sessions with all our students, and they work a lot with the programme team to ensure that our students can attend job interviews without disruption to their classes. I know that Insead simply designates a two-week window and insists that companies have to do their hiring that time, take it or leave it. We don't have that approach and we work with the companies, students and faculty to reach some compromise. Now, you could argue that, because we are a lower-ranked school, we don't have the same bargaining power with companies that Insead has. But I would say that our approach caters better to the interests of our students, many of whom are interested in smaller companies that have interesting businesses but who themselves don't have the ability to fit into a business school's schedule.

On the issue of diversity, I take your comment about generalisations very seriously. You did not mention any specific instance that involved Cambridge, but if there was such an instance, please send me a personal message to give me more details and I will look into it. At Cambridge, we treat all our students equally regardless of ethnicity or nationality. We have to because of the global composition of our class and I always emphasise to my team that we have to assess each applicant on their own merits, and not on their passport.

Having said that, at the risk of committing the generalisations that you mentioned, I have observed different cultural approaches between Americans, Europeans and Asians. Perhaps because I was born and grew up in Singapore, studied in the US and the UK, and worked on projects throughout Asia and the Middle East, I am in a different position to pick up on these nuances. For example, when I was studying in the US, everyone assumed I was American and treated me that way. In continental Europe (UK is a bit different), there is less acceptance of you as a fellow national, but there is more acceptance of your ethnicity. And open discussions about race and religion are much easier to have in Europe than in Asia, where it is not so much a legal PC environment that keeps things under wraps, but it is a deeper sense of how ethnicity and religion are intertwined. For many people, these differences are strange, jarring, uncomfortable and many decide to just keep to their preferred zones.

To me, this is the real value of a globally diverse MBA, where you have to become more culturally aware and adjust what you do. I thought that after studying in top schools in the US and the UK, I could adjust seamlessly into working life in the UK. I was wrong and I made mistakes in how I communicated with colleagues or how I implemented certain ideas. But I learnt and the experience has helped me greatly, just as our MBAs have grown through this one year and learnt to fine-tune their cultural antennae, something that I believe they will find very valuable when they work in a global environment.

On the issue of my blog post, I feel that people have to realise that just as applicants look for red flags in schools, admissions professionals have red flags about candidates. There can be what I would call explicit red flags, eg poor GMAT, low GPA, poor references etc, but there are also implicit red flags. One red flag that we look out for is whether an applicant is only interested in taking benefits from the school, and not contributing to the rest of the class or to the school. This is a red flag because the central tenet of the Cambridge MBA is collaboration and that means everyone has to contribute in whatever way they can to make the MBA experience a great one for themselves and for others. We have found that students who only have an What's In It for Me attitude become very disruptive in the MBA. For us, with a class of only 160, it only takes a few people to change the dynamics of the experience. That person, with the way he approached me and asked his question, would have been a negative influence in the class.

On reflection, I think it is because I am so proud of how our MBAs have helped one another, that caused me to have such strong negative reactions to the person who approached me. I have made this point several times in my blog, that an MBA is not a purely transactional exercise. Students have a right to expect high standards of customer service, teaching and careers support, but they also have a duty to contribute to the MBA itself. I felt that the person I met, with his attitude and questions, would have severely jeopardised our class if we had admitted him. I could have just kept quiet and be polite, but I felt strongly that I had to write about it as that type of attitude goes against the very core of our MBA.

I am personally worried that the balance in the MBA world is tipped so heavily towards student expectations of the school, that we lose sight of the school's expectations of students. Many of my counterparts in other schools struggle with students who skip classes, come in late for recruiter presentations etc, and justify their actions by saying they paid good money and the schools have no right to tell them what to do, even if their actions diminish the educational experience of other students; or give recruiters a negative perception of the school.

As always, I welcome any comments or PMs.

Conrad Chua
Head MBA Admissions
Cambridge Judge Business School