Best business schools in Canada

I too would like to see those breakdowns, I'm a little hesitant to believe information that could so easily be manipulated, especially since every publication has different average starting salaries for McGill...
Absolutely!
I concluded the same thing with McGill. I guess the goal is to be in the top 25% of your class. I will be networking the hell out of every avenue beginning day 1 (in fact, I've already started with linkedin).
Completely agree! I for one am proud to be Canadian and choose to support a Canadian institution. Not to mention that our MBAs cost a fraction of what the American ones do.

Bump* I`m hoping someone from Sauder will chime in at some point.

I believe Mcgill includes guaranteed compensation into salary, which skews the numbers a bit....

I think it's sort of sad that you have to lie about other schools in order to build up your own.
I'm a Schulich MBA, and haven't regretted it at all. You self defeat your own argument when you say Schulich is an ESL fest, then go on about international students who can't communicate but have killer GMATS. Um, isn't the purpose of the GMAT verbal to test english and communication skills? I mean really! You can't get out of a high school without speaking english in Ontario, let alone a top MBA program. Another common hoax that people like you like to spread is that you will get robbed, raped, murdered, or disemboweled if you come within half a mile of York. That's all over forums like this so let me answer that one. 80,000 people come to York every day, and come home in one piece. I'm not going to put down
Ivey. I got in there and it's a good program, but Schulich was a better choice for me. At least I don't go around slandering other school now I'm out.

Boys! Boys! Calm the hell down. The point here is to bring different perspectives to the table, and that's exactly what we're accomplishing, let's just be a little more diplomatic about how we go about it. d55, could you tell us what you like most about Schulich's program? I know they rank very well in the Economist's rankings.

Maroliv12, what's the % of domestic vs international students at Ivey? How do you think that affects job placements? You also mentioned:

"I believe Mcgill includes guaranteed compensation into salary, which skews the numbers a bit...."

What do you mean by that? What does guaranteed compensation mean?

Since the topic of Schulich came up, I’ll chime in with my experiences and observation as a Schulich student taking both part time and full time courses. Student quality here is good, very diverse and international. Schulich GMAT and GPA for admission stack up favourably against any Canadian school. Unfortunately, there are segments of the public that perpetuate myths about Schulich students being unable to speak English then point to our large international student population as the culprit. This is very ignorant. If we can't speak English, how would we then fare on the GMAT and various other English tests? In an increasingly global world, it is actually a benefit to have classmates that bring experiences from all corners of the earth, than a homogenous native student population. A bit of logic will easily disprove these libelous claims.

With that being said, there is a huge spread in terms of student quality. While you’ll find the truly elites here, Schlich also have their fair share of weak students. This is echoed in teaching quality as well. Some instructors are amazing, while others are just down right garbage. Overall though, I would consider both to be decent and in line with expectation.

The last point I want to make concern Bay Street hiring. Everyone brings anecdotal evidences and I too have plenty to support Schulich but anecdotal evidences are not that useful, it is far better to deal in facts and one of the facts I would like to bring up is in regard to the Canadian banks. Of the 5 major banks, 3 of the CEOs have MBA and 2 of those are from Schulich: Bharat Masrani, incoming CEO of TD bank and Richard E. Waugh, CEO of Scotiabank. That’s 66.7% of all Banks CEOs with MBAs. Not too shabby for a school that supposedly placed poorly on Bay Street.

I know plenty of kids who graduated high school in Canada from China/India/etc. who have shockingly poor English skills and managed to get into UBC, U of T, etc. Also, Asian students tend to have sickeningly high Q scores (usually 47+) but could get V scores in the 20s or low 30s. On top of that, just being able to pass English in high school, have conversations in English and getting a passable V score on the GMAT do not guarantee that someone can have complex, academic conversations about business. Is Schulich the only ESL fest in Canada/North America? Absolutely not, and it's far better than most European schools in this regard. But it's a huge school with a lot of international students (and it markets itself internationally more than the likes of Desautels or Queens) so it's bound to have lots of students with less-than-desirable English skills and the reputation is there, like it or not, and imo it is at least partly deserved.

jxcho, are you Canadian or American? Why did you decide to matriculate at Indiana University?

Canadian, with US experience. I decided to attend Kelley because:

1. I'd like to study Marketing and Social Entrepreneurship, both of which are top ranked at IU and there really is no peer school in Canada.
2. I'd like to work in the US Midwest after graduation with a long-term goal of working in Honolulu/Guam.
3. I attended a US state school for my undergrad.

Canada is a great country (better than the US imo) but I've lived all over the world and consider myself a "citizen of the world" of sorts and I think it's time to close the Canadian chapter of my life and move on to another place, at least for now.

Perhaps you should take the fight up with your own graduates.
https://www.canada-city.ca/canadian-univ ... ageid=4645

All I really have to say is that Schulich offered acceptances WITHOUT interviews in many cases. Do you really think a b-school should be doing that?

Hey Carl,
Ivey program management said this year that they have to increase the number of international students they take because it sits around 30%. Don't get me wrong, having too few is a problem too. I should actually reword what I said about guaranteed compensation. From what I understand based on the report here, they lump signing bonus in with year-end bonuses.

https://www.mcgill.ca/desautels/programs ... ment-stats

Whereas other schools only used guaranteed compensation to report salaries. Given that discretionary bonuses are pretty significant, that's what I meant by the numbers being skewed. Not that it would appear to make much difference. Every decent MBA school is within 10k of each other.


Also regarding the fact that Schulich has a high amount of banking CEO's. I think that's good for the schools reputation and contributes to visibility. Let's leave Ivey aside for a minute and compare placings between the school that places best into finance, which lately is Rotman, versus Schulich.

https://www.schulich.yorku.ca/client/sch ... Survey.pdf

vs

https://mbaschoolprofile.topmba.com/uplo ... Report.pdf

In every capital markets function, Rotman pretty much doubles the percentage placement that Schulich has. Now you may very well say that's because not as many students in Schulich are as interested in banking and I would actually agree with you. The same applies to Ivey, we had maybe 20% of the entire class who wanted capital markets vs probably 50% or more at Rotman. All the same, at the end of the day, Rotman places better into finance and is a finance school.


I personally went to Ivey instead of Rotman for finance as I felt I had enough of a finance background (consumer credit risk modelling for JPMChase) to make the capital markets jump and luckily it worked out. Ivey's finance placements have significantly declined though as it's switched to a 1 year program because half the finance jobs go to interns and you can't intern at Ivey. That said, if you're already in capital markets and want to move up, it's a great place to be. We had kids from hedge funds, s&t etc etc, and they all got placed very well.

Also would like to add that for someone like Carl, who wants to work in Montreal, Mcgill is a better choice as they place significantly better there.

d55 is a bit over zealous in his defense of Schulich but dude, the link you posted is by an anonymous poster from 2006 about his supposed experience at Schulich a further few years prior. I can assured you that our lobby doesn't "smell like urine" and there's no "mold", you can visit our building and see for yourself lol. Where the f__k did this guy came up with this stuff. While I do agree on the education being "a mix bag but over all good" part, the rest of what he wrote is complete bs.

I do agree on the part about interviewing every accepted applicants though, even if only to put us inline with accepted industry practices.

Is there a way to retroactively add a poll to this thread?

Think we are in agreement that quite a few published rankings for CDN b-schools are dicey - so I'd like to see best b-school by popular vote.

I agree I think he's OTT and I'm sure that your facilities have considerably improved since the post. They probably weren't ever that bad anyway. The point I was trying to make earlier was that, for some reason, I've encountered lots of students who have attended Schulich and bash it. I don't know why that is, really but hopefully it gets sorted out. I don't really want to turn this into a pissing match...I'm sure that Schulich has areas that are very strong (I believe brand management is one of them?). In sum total I would say that go to whatever school suits your area of interest. I think as far as finance in Toronto goes, Ivey and Rotman (more Rotman now) have it cornered. Consulting as well. That's the only area I feel knowledgeable enough to comment on; I'm pretty sure in Montreal, they recruit more from Mcgill and they probably recruit more for marketing in Schulich.

it pretty much turns into everyone voting for the school they're accepted into and attending

the best poll you have is the employment reports of the respective school. I worked at it backwards....I figured out what I wanted to do and went to the best school possible for it. I was waitlisted at Yale otherwise I'd *probably* have gone there.

Maroliv`s right, McGill is the best.

Dear friends ,
I am from India and the major chunk of my work ex. is in pharmaceutical selling . I am planning to settle in Canada post MBA . I have read about all the top MBA programs in Canada but the cost of MBA programs from these top B-schools is a big deterrent as I would have to offer my sweet little home as a collateral to fund my education & then repay that loan . I discovered a scholarship from the Govt. of India that enables an Indian to pay the same fee that is paid by a resident of
Quebec ( very less compared to the fees paid by International candidates ) and this has given me a ray of hope . McGill does not differentiate between locals & internationals in the fee structure & has the same for locals as well as Internationals , so , despite of McGill's great reputation etc. etc..... , it is not for me because I do want to pledge my assets to an Indian bank for an MBA . Post MBA , Indians can get 1 yr. work permit after 1 yr. MBA and 3 yr. work permit after 2 yr. MBA . Taking this fact into consideration , I am highly inclined towards John Molson . Please guide me about John Molson . Is it worth doing an MBA from this place ? My aim is to settle in
Canada, work in pharma industry ( 1st preference ) & earn handsomely . I know that it is not a top tier B-school of Canada but my financial circumstances coupled with low risk taking capability are big deterrents in the way of an MBA from top B-schools . Please help me resolve this "great dilemma". Warm regards !