Said (Oxford) Class of 2015 Calling all applicants!

Yeah, same here...I shortlisted 5 bschools (and it seems to me that we aim to the same bunch of MBA programs) but R1 at SBS will end very early this year. Probably they want to take people who are strongly leaning toward Oxford - like "Ok I'm in, now I'm going to matriculate since I don't care about other programs".

Hey Guys,

Wondering if I should apply this year or next.

Here is just a small description of my profile. I know its harder to apply after you have already applied and was denied. Wondering what the community thinks about my prospects

Education
Berkeley - 3.56 GPA, Science Degree

Work
Google - 1 year, Sales Operations
Start up (Worth around 200 mil) - Marketing Analyst ( Currently 3 months)

Letter of Recs
Have two letters of rec from professors, I had gotten into Imperial College's Bschool but decided to not go.
3 letter of recs from 3 managers from google and one possible letter of rec from current manager at start up

Gmat score
650

Right now im in between if I should wait for next year, get more work experience and get a better score then apply or apply this year. I am also applying to Stanford for an engineering and management masters which I am studying for the GREs for. So in my mind the options are -

Study for GREs, apply for stanford M&E, and try my chances at Oxford. (my confidence comes from my strong letters of rec and the fact that both my jobs are quantitatively heavy positions - Data analysis, etc)

Or

Wait till next year and retake the Gmats and apply to many more Bschools

My urgency in all honesty comes from the fact that I want a change in scenery and to propel my career as quickly as possible.

Thanks in advance for the input

Hi LiquidGrave,

My two cents: if applying this year instead of the next one makes a big difference to you, then maybe it's worth it giving a shot, no matter what the result can be. As you said, your application will reflect some of your strengths and the adcoms might be very interested in your profile. Anyway, in my opinion much depends on your applicant pool - that GMAT score might grill your chances or put you in a good position depending on your nationality, work experience, background, etc.
On the other hand, if you can live with the idea of applying next year maybe you could shortlist more bschools and increase your chances of admission.
Bottomline, if I were you I'd definitely submit my application if my top priority was re-entering the job market asap (your profile is quite solid and I'd put my money on you getting an invitation for the interview round); otherwise, given that the MBA is a huge investment, I'd rather play safe and enhance my profile in order to apply to Said and some other elite bschools next year.

Hope this helps,

David

Thanks David. I am just applying to Oxford because it seems schools out of the U.S. is easier to get into. My nationality is American and my ethnicity is Asian if that makes any difference. Ideally if I apply next year, it would solely be to schools in the United States since I dont know how the value of a Oxford MBA weighs with American MBAs

All,

Has anyone noticed that some of the elements of the Oxford app don't work? It keeps giving me error messages for various fields, even though they've been filled in correctly. Furthermore, it's telling me that I haven't filled in fields that do not appear anywhere on the application. Has anyone encountered this before? I've opened a ticket with the administrators, but I'm not sure how long it will take to resolve... let me know if anyone knows and/or hears anything about this, or if you've encountered this before.

daedalus1989, I experienced the same problem you are mentioning, even though only for a few fields. I should say, though, that I am not going to submit the application in the next few days, so I am not too worried about this, and I still have to check if I have the same problem using other browsers (right now I am using Firefox); until now, I only experienced this "error" with the date of some English test and those fields that are not even in the application form (as far as I know), what about you?

Davide,
We have the exact same problem. I had trouble with my date of birth (I'm pretty sure I know that one!) and the dates associated with my "Second Nationality", even though these do not appear on the application. I tried filling the app with Chrome and Internet Explorer, and those didn't work; if Firefox doesn't help, it's most likely a problem on their end.

I tried looking at the HTML code that produces the page on the form, and I cannot see any "hidden" fields or anything like that. The "invalid" date fields don't appear to be on the page - plain and simple.

I've opened a ticket, but I probably won't hear anything til next week. I'm just glad we didn't leave applying til the last minute; imagine seeing an error like this if your app is due in two or three days!

Changing topics, though - did you notice that there is a 5000 character "essay" about your job roles, challenges overcome, and greatest accomplishments? 5000 characters equates to 750-900 words, depending on how you write (I think). Even if it's not a required field, it's longer than any of the essays! I'm going to fill it by writing my own essays for it, but I certainly wasn't expecting that.

Anyway - looks like Oxford has already provided several surprises for us, what with the early deadlines and app issues. Hopefully, it'll be smoother sailing from hereon in!

Hey all!

Count me in for R1 as well.

Yeah, it's more of a fourth essay rather than one of those additional questions of the application form; in the form for the 2013 intake, applicants had 8000 (!) characters to complete a similar, additional essay, so maybe to some extent things are getting better for us...

Since Said's first round decision date is October 18th, and they usually only give people one month to submit their deposits, is anyone else worried about potentially missing out on the decisions of other schools, on account of the fact that Oxford's decisions come out so soon?

I'm wondering whether or not I should apply in Stage 2, just to make sure that I have the time needed to make an informed decision.

Does anyone else have the same thought-pattern on this?

daedalus, we have the same problem...I was wondering if Oxford would allow me to have some more time to secure my (fingers crossed) spot at Said...

Hey everyone - does anyone know what the recommendation questions/form looks like? I know most other schools list the recommendation questions on their website, but Oxford doesn't seem to do that. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi kdub, are you talking about the form for your recommenders? If that's the case, Said does not provide any form, at least as far as I know.

Hi David, yes I'm talking about the form. I was also under the impression that Said doesn't provide any form per se, but when I logged in to the application online they asked for the contact details of my recommenders in order for the school to forward the recommendation information to them, so I presume there's some sort of format or structure to follow. If anyone's gone through the process with the recommendations, please let me know how it is structured whether or not there are specific questions, or if it's just a blank page that allows the recommender to upload a generic letter in Word/PDF/etc format. Thanks!

I never applied before, but I'd put my money on that being the second case. Let's see if anyone here can shed some light on this question - otherwise, you can try to ask in the 2013 calling all applicants forum...

Anyone attending the open day (30/08) @SBS?

Hi I have a really stupid question very late in the game. Is the admissions process for said a rolling process or do they start looking at applications only after the 13th for the round 1 deadline?