Deferring Due to Coronavirus

I spoke to a few admits this week who had similar questions. My suggestion is to wait now and see what happens. If you ar e on the younger side and fairly confident that your employment is not at risk, a deferral is a great option. Schools will tend to move slowly but you will definitely hear updates on fee structure revisions for online classes, recruiting updates and whatnot.

So I would wait till April or whenever your R2 fee deposit is due, and then make a decision. Right now, is panic city and nobody makes a good decision during a panic.

I posted part of this reply in another discussion, but here are my thoughts:

It is definitely on people's minds but different minds think differently. Some choose to attend a longer MBA program (e.g. 2 years instead of 1). Others think that the cheaper program is better or a higher ranked one. While another group is thinking of deferring... (if that is an option instead of dropping out and reapplying). It would be awesome if it is available but it is not clear what Schools will do yet. You can check/inquire about it but it is probably too early to get an answer.

So, there are several schools of thought. All of them involve assumptions that can be questioned and I encourage you to do that.

1. Rank vs Scholarship: Higher rank schools tend to perform better in recruiting, especially during harder times. (Better alum network, more employers come to campus, better reputation, and higher caliber of students and professors all add up). It’s easy to have great placement reports on the job market is booming and as you John pointed out many times people get hired for just being alive. The difference becomes greater during the hard times such as recessions when hiring is a lot more selective. This school of thought would indicate that a higher rank program would be a good investment because it would have a higher probability of converting a job. This is a more bullish approach. Another school of thought, believes that do you want to minimize debt and cash burn as much as possible and perform everything at the lowest cost. This is a more pessimistic approach but you cannot fault people for being safe and playing it safe.

2. 1-Year vs. 2-Year Programs: The longer the MBA program, the more time the economy has to recover, the more time one has to prepare for recruiting/etc. There is safety in time.


3. Deferring: Not going to school and hanging onto one’s job does provide income. The downside of this approach is that one can still lose the job and have to recruit again which would put future bschool plans at a risk if they are unemployed for a while. Even if one does not lose the job, opportunities for promotion, bonus, growth will be limited by the general economic outlook. Staying on the job makes sense only if you can limit your downside and secure a deferral admission.

4. Reapplying next hear. There’s a risk that after years of declining application numbers, a recession will cause a flood of applicants looking to winter through the tough years and get ready to rejoin the workforce in 2 years.


We all have different risk appetites the depend on our background and our past decisions. I feel that joining a business school at this time provides higher degree of certainty for the next several years than the alternative (hanging on to a job) for a number of applicants (Tech seems to be untouched at the moment but a number of other industries such as Travel are destroyed). Deferral has a play but it only works if you can get a deferred admission which historically has been tough to secure but I am expecting schools to have to revisit that policy this season.

I feel skipping an M7 admission now is tricky move. I guess it gives you confidence that you can repeat your success... which I hope is the case but there is no guarantee if there is an influx of qualified applicants.

These are my thoughts and they all have assumptions as I mentioned. Welcome you to poke holes in them and provide a different perspective.

JohnJohnJ

Just a question, is online learning in Booth in form of recorded or stream live lectures?

We can ask kmwantstogoschool first hand how it is at Booth and how bad the classes online are....

“A bit of both”
“I’m not sure how it’ll come to pass - there is a Q&A soon we’ll know”

- this is a copy paste of his text reply to your question

Posted from my mobile device

Hey! When school was called off after Week 9 of the winter quarter with another week of classes to go, Week 10 lectures were either older recordings or were cancelled totally, so that was a disappointing experience. However, the lectures that actually happened on Zoom were seamless and everyone enjoyed them! Class participation was as good as IRL because the Zoom technology is great. I think it’s premature to conclude right now, given they we have a couple weeks before spring classes start and professors and TAs are prepping hard to maintain UX, I’ll circle back with reviews once the spring quarter starts in earnest. Hope this helps!

Posted from my mobile device

Awesome! Thanks kmwantstogoschool!

JohnJohnJ - your friend taking class on the spring break? I can see how it would not be enjoyable.

That’s what I was wondering, let me check what he’s talking about.

When asked about spring break - His reply:
“1 week - but booth has 1 more week given covid”
“ti’ll start with the coming quarter. I just finished finals“
No idea what that means

I should trust kmwantstogoschool and not my friend
Posted from my mobile device

I am thinking he is partying and actually skipping online classes and just complaining about them, not realizing it is spring break and classes are off.... busted!

P.S. Always good to talk to someone on the ground who is a student. Always something pops up.

Thanks kmwantstogoschool for your reply.

Also, thanks JohnJohnJ for your support.