Toronto Rotman 2012 - Calling All Applicants

Hey Guys,
Looking for some advice on the PSLP.

I am having a hard time choosing b/w BMO and RBC PSLP.

The biggest difference I found:
BMO - prime +0.5%.

RBC - prime + (upto 3%). The RBC rep says that Rotman students have been paying prime+1%. RBC also has a grace period and comes with Loan Protector Insurance.

What do you recommend? I don't plan to use the grace period (hopefully ).

Haha, I was in the same dilemma as you. The RBC rate "could" be upto 3%, vs a guaranteed 0.5%, over prime. They don't say how much, which is what bothered me. However, they give you an additional 12 month grace period after your degree, before the payments kick in.

So, in essence, it depends on how long you think you'd need to pay back the loan. If the timeline is within a few years after graduation, RBC, may actually be better. If you are planning on stretching it over 5+ years, then BMO would be the better bet.

If you get prime +0.5 with RBC, then RBC for sure.

I will try saying it in the most polite way possible, but it might still be a bit rude unintentionally: how can it be that you got into Rotman and not know how to compare two loans to see which is cheaper? :S

I am an applicant from India. Had an interview with Sheldon, Marie-Eve and alumnus Soumak, in Mumbai on 29th Feb. I was told that my decision would be emailed in two weeks. Heres my timeline

App submitted 20th Feb
Invitation to Interview 20th Feb (Yes..same day within a few hours)
Interview 29th Feb


It seems that decisions are released immediately or within days after the interview. Wondering why it would take 2 weeks in my case. I guess it is because my application would not have gone through the necessary reviews before the interview invite was sent.

Also, I received a letter from Rotman saying how Rotman is the right school for me (And I totally agree to that) and also a signed copy of a book written by the Dean Roger Martin "Diaminds". Did anyone here receive such a package after sending GMAT scores to Rotman?

Hi,
From what i understand about the admission process, once the interview is done, the interviewer presents your case before the admissions panel and the panel takes a joint descision. Since you are an applicant from India, you may have to factor in that your interviewer has to return to Toronto- that is my guess. By the same logic, decisions on Skype/Telephone interviews will be made sooner.

I have not heard of anyone(certainly not me) receiving a book even after I turned in the deposit, let alone a signed copy.

If you strech your amortization period to 15 years, you have to pay 679.14/month - per a third party amortization calculator(you can get the exact amount from BMO - they MAY have processing fees).
With RBC you will have to pay 475/month only on interest (@6% /Annum). Financially speaking, it looks like BMO is a safer and better option.

But you have to take a call also taking into account the relationship you have(or may want to have) with the banks and other value added services. Hope this helps.

For internationals like me(esp for students from India), the grace period is valuable since we will be loaning the remaining amount from indian banks @13.5% compound interest. We would want to complete our loan with the indian banks ASAP post MBA.

PS: I have considered your principal to be 95K and have assumed that we do not have to declare the amortization period/amount first up. So that means later into the loan you can pay up and complete the loan early.

I received that book and letter as well. I suspect - and I could definitely be wrong - that they were only sent to candidates with high GMAT scores (I know a couple of other people with GMAT > 730 who had also received these), so if you did get those, that's a good sign.

Agreed, I received a signed book as well, as well as many feel good emails on how Rotman was the place for me, and how they really really would love to have me. It is easy to be slightly influenced by this gentle persuasion, so it is important to keep things in perspective. Rotman really does try hard because they know that a lot of students with a certain GMAT/GPA combination automatically gravitate towards the US schools.

I also received a personal email from an MBA 2 and leader of one of the clubs that I was interested in joining. Rotman recruitment is very very busy. It is a good thing, but just be aware of that.

Lol...Perhaps, I should have written it better.

Of course, I know which is cheaper and that is why wrote down the interest rates.

According to your logic , nobody in Rotman would even consider RBC. Obviously that is not the case. Some domestic students have taken RBC loans but I haven't spoken to any of them. I have only spoken to international students who were eligible for only RBC loans. So I thought -'Before I call up some current domestic student who has a loan with RBC, let me ask the folks over at gmatclub'. But, you seem to have got caught up in "Look!How dumb can somebody be!!".

There has to be something more that RBC offers. It is this something "more" that I was hoping to find out.

This kind of condescending attitude really does betray your general helpful nature on these forums. There really is no room for comments like these unless you have evaluated the options for yourself and in your mind there is only one clear answer.

There is nothing wrong here. We can all do the basic calculations in figuring out what is cheaper or not, so thank you for berating that point home too.

What he was simply asking was if anyone had any personal experience on getting either loan. The RBC loan is kind of a black box as they don't specify clearly what the rate will be (all they say is Prime + x% ( 0< x < 3)). BMO clearly states their rate at prime + 0.5%. The amortization period is the same (10 - 15 years). If you manage to get the same rate at RBC as BMO (prime + 0.5%), the RBC is a better buy because they give you an additional year of grace period after graduation. No such thing with BMO.

If the best rate you can negotiate with RBC is prime + 3% then BMO is a better option.

IF you have nothing useful to contribute then sometimes it is better not to speak at all.

Hi itwasme, if you don't mind me asking, did you get a scholarship from Rotman? You can PM me the answer if you don't mind.

Thanks

mbizhtk, yes, I did.

Point taken. I misunderstood. I thought Stewie was asking how to incorporate a grace period when calculating the NPV of a loan.

Received my book yesterday as well. Got a signed copy of "The Opposable Mind".

Lucky you. I would have personally much preferred a copy of "The Opposable Mind" than "Diaminds".

I did sit in on a second year class with dean Roger Martin with his integrative thinking/opposable mind topic. It was a 4-hour class and man, did it ever involve some serious mental calisthenics. Very useful for strategy. The Desautels centre seems to be doing some really interesting work. The class and the dean actually made quite an impression on me (even though I haven't attended an official Rotman recruitment event yet). The class was very dynamic and engaged in his lecture too, to a level that I hadn't even seen in any of the universities (incl. US) I had been too. Of course it could have been that this was the only Y2 class I sat in on, vs all the others which were Y1 (hence for most people, it was likely an elective).

alinomoto, you sat in his class? I've been reading through Diaminds, and to be honest, I'm not too impressed. How did you find his integrative thinking class? Is it all just, for lack of a better word, fluff and well-disguised bs? Looks like "integrative thinking" is Rotman's differentiating factor, and I'm wondering if it really is something worth, um, thinking about.

Haha. You pretty much spelled out what I thought of the book. I found it tedious and frankly, boring. Which is why I said I'd have preferred the Opposable Mind (which has good reviews). Also, he is the second author on diaminds, and it seems to be more a work of Mihnea Moldoveanu (the chair of the DeSautels Institute).

Of the Integrative thinking - of course, I only sat through one class so I cannot give a complete or full representative picture. It is essentially a method that gives structure to strategic thought and helps you organize and diagram your thought processes. A lot of it is fluff, but there are useful nuggets in there too (for instance, prioritization of issues when suggesting a course of action for a client - saving on time/money - something that the diagramming makes easier).

I am not sure if I was beginning to develop some unique way of thinking or examining problems at the end of the class. But again, I repeat my caveat that this was a single class - apparently these 2Y students have been developing these concepts from their Y1 days.

Also, I was told that they are revamping their courses to make IT (int. thinking) much up upfront and centre right from the get-go (and in the core courses). Until now, it has featured much more in Y2 electives.

Roger Martin is an affable and personable chap, but honestly I found him/his lecture quite dry. He is not a good orator, even though he may be a great thinker. I was much more impressed with Schulich's dean when I attended their event; based on oratory prowess alone. However, it is the vision and the leadership of the dean that is important, not necessarily whether they are good public orators or not.

What struck me was how the students and the staff were completely invested in what dean Martin was selling and towards his vision for Rotman. That is a big plus for a school in my books. If the staff/students are apathetic or even opposed to the dean's ideas, I tend to steer well clear of the school (no matter how good those ideas are). Leadership begins at home. So yes, in terms of a well oiled machine, I think Rotman made much more of an impression on me than Schulich (which seems to have too many arms and is trying too much at the same time to claim - "me too"). Also, I actually met a bunch of American students at Rotman, which surprised me. I asked why they chose to forgo the much higher ranked US schools for Rotman, and the common answer was their belief in the Dean's and the school's main tenets (forefront of which is "Integrative Thinking").