Said (Oxford) Class of 2015 Calling all applicants!

FROM Oxford Admissions Blog: The Eight Lessons at Oxford

We always think we have a lot of time. Time to study, time to make friends, time to pursue dreams. Yet time always slips by when we are least aware, leaving us with a feeling of  unfinished business. Without any notice, Michaelmas term is approaching to an end. If history could repeat, I might make some different choices during the past few months. However, this is only because there are always too many options to choose. The available alternatives make only minor regrets such as choosing to attend a career presentation instead of joining a college dinner.I am still overwhelmed with the overall incredible Oxford experience and the opportunities I am presented with. So, here are the eight lessons I have learnt so far in the past eight weeks: 1. Lectures are fun, economics is fun I used to think that business subjects are all boring. While figures cannot describe a romantic autumn as beautifully as poets do, financial statements, statistics, and valuations always tell a truthful story, but not always. Besides teaching us how to build a financial model, lectures in the first term also teach us to keep a detective’s skeptical attitude when reading a company’s business story. During a game in an economics class, we tried to form cartels among different groups, only finding that verbal agreements were ineffective and you could trust no one but yourself. Betrayals could happen at anytime. Lectures have never been so fun. 2. Business people are fun, MBA students are fun People come to MBA programmes to make a change in their lives, but coming for a serious purpose does not mean that we are serious people. MBA students can indeed be very creative and funny. One Tuesday we created nicknames and marked them on our nametags in class, another Tuesday we wore red jeans to celebrate a reddish Finance class. We tease each other as often as we can, and we dance as madly as we should. 3. Be a Quat or a Poet MBA students are either good at financial models (“Quat”) or good at writing reports or presentations (“Poet”). If you are stuck in the middle, like me, you are far behind the “efficiency frontier” (an economic / strategic concept meaning everything on this curve offers the highest expected return) so you better work hard or rely on good luck. 4. Glad there is teamwork Every cloud has a silver lining. You can always seek help somewhere in the class. A classmate good at Excel took initiative in tutoring others and another offered her own prepared notes on a Strategy course. A classmate’s reminder on a task’s deadline is always more useful than looking it up yourself in the diary. The School also spends a lot of effort in forming balanced study groups, as group work accounts for a significant portion in course assessment. My study group members come from five different countries and have different expertise and backgrounds, creating an unbelievable synergy during discussions and group assignments. If you are not a team player, you’d better think hard before you apply for a MBA programme. 5. Introverts have nowhere to hide I enjoy a social life, but I do not use it to network. In a business conference, I am always the shy one avoid taking the first move to shake hands with new people. I am glad that I am forced to practice hundreds of times at the beginning of the programme, as there is nowhere you can hide from knowing your 250 classmates. Every introduction in a new conversation makes you understand your story better, and sometimes interesting stories pop up and relationships are thereby developed. 6. More than a MBA programme Studying the MBA at University of Oxford means that you do not confine your life to the business school. With the college system in place, we have many chances to make friends with people from other subjects. Dining at a historic hall, wearing sub-fusc (formal academic gown) at Matriculation, studying at a college library which was a former medieval church, singing Christmas carols in a chapel…all these form gorgeous experiences that can only be found at Oxford. 7. The world is always larger than you thought One of the most amazing experiences I have had in Oxford is the opportunity to meet world-class business and social leaders. At the signature event Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford, I attended lectures given by Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote. At Oxford Union (the world renown university debating society), I joined talks given by Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia. I even had the chance to have a small group drink and debate on China development with Dr. Eric Li, a venture capitalist who has significant stakes in more than 30 leading companies in respective industries in China. These frequent thought-provoking talks could only be experienced here. 8. In life we search Nelson Mendela died a few days before I wrote this article. As one of the greatest figures this century, he also made an impact at our school. Our main lecture theatre is named in his honour to remind us of our responsibility to follow in his footsteps. He once said, “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” Being here at Said Business School is a key step to changing our lives, and in changing our lives we also change others. Here, we learn to build financial models, but we are also here to learn how to respect others, and how to make the best use of our efforts to build the world a better future. For every little dream we dream, we determine the significance of the life we lead.

Hey all,

I am really considering Oxford Said for Round 3 or 4. I've spoken to some current students not too long ago and they were all amazingly responsive, and loved the school...BUT career services seems to be a major black-hole. If one looks at the stats for 2012 SBS only placed about one third of their students via career services and the other two thirds were student facilitated. Is anyone else torn about this, concerned, etc?

Additionally, how poor are the chances for an American to get a job in the UK/EU post-Oxford?

Thank you for any insight!

Guys open a fb group or something?

Sent from my Viper HOX

FROM Oxford Admissions Blog: Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford

As a technology entrepreneur and former MBA student, I was delighted to be invited to speak at Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford, a flagship event at the Said Business School. I am currently working on two projects. One is a mobile technology start-up that aims to help professionals network and connect more easily in real-time at events, conferences and exhibitions. The other project is a social enterprise that I founded three years ago that aims to use technology to help disabled people travel and which recently received a grant from the Skoll Foundation. So as someone who works in the technology sector, being able to take part in an event attended by entrepreneurs and representatives from companies that created and shaped much of technology we use on a daily basis was a privilege. Going from being an attendee at last year’s event to being a speaker this year was a little nerve-wracking. Fortunately, I was able to present alongside a fellow entrepreneur, Chris Thorpe, an experienced pro who helped me feel at ease and able to comfortably deliver our presentation on the day-to-day realities of entrepreneurial life. One of the really cool things about SVCO is that the event strikes a strong balance between the inspirational and practical, which are vital components to the success of any entrepreneur. On one side, speakers like Mike Olson talked compellingly about the future opportunities presented by the growth in artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data; and on the other side, presenters like Brendan Baker and Omar Mangalji talked in detail on the practical aspects of raising early stage finance. One major benefit of being both a speaker and an attendee was the chance to network and get to know both my fellow speakers and other attendees. Events like this always attract a fantastic mix of people from a diverse range of backgrounds and interests who have considerable insight and experience to offer. SVCO provided me with some excellent contacts and future leads that I have been able to follow-up on and which have been of great benefit to my ventures. I look forward to next year’s event and hope that anyone reading this blog takes advantage of the unique opportunities available to come and join us next year.

Anyone applying for the march deadline? Or is it too late to apply.

How you guys going on with networking with SBS alumni. I was looking for someone within my industry to discuss the relevance of SBS's contribution.

Anyone knows people from Retail industry from SBS please send across the contact details.

Thanks

Why don't you check with the admissions team at Said Business School... I'm sure they'd be happy to get you in touch with an alumnus

Sorry about the delay in response. I'm not sure if it's too late, but I'll answer anyway.

Firstly, career services data for any college always comes with big caveats.

Secondly, your chances of getting the job you want depend as much on the economy as on your college and your own ability. Yes, the visa situation in UK is challenging, but it is again a function of the economy. When the economy grows, graduates will get better jobs and even a poor performance from a college's career services will not stop you from getting a good job. So if you feel the school meets your overall objectives, give that school a serious consideration irrespective of career services data from one or two years. Things can change quickly

I tried this, but I got a very polite refusal saying I can be connected to Alums only after I submit my application. I understand the scenario with the number of requests I am sure it might get difficult for all alums to spend so much time on prospective students.

Hello all!

I got 640 on the GMAT two weeks ago. This is dissapointing result for me, so I hope, that the next try will be around 680-700. If so, would you think I have considerable chance to be admitted in 4 or 5 round this year? My essays and all other things are at zero level completed at the moment. Should I calmly prepare only for the next year?

Thank you in advance for every reply.

First of all, do not lose hope. Regardless, it seems like the next step is to do a retake of the GMAT. You can literally score anything you choose to as long as you give yourself the requisite amount of time. Now, the GMAT came pretty natural to me because I am naturally more quant inclined than verbally, but my experience with another placement test may be informative. When I was preparing for the LSAT (yes, I made the law school mistake), after one month of studying I was scoring on practice tests around 145 (below the 50th percentile) -- this should put things deeply into perspective on the fact that a 640 really isn't bad but instead the world's expectations are a bit inflated -- and I was totally devastated. Anyhow, I sorted things out into categories of: (1) what I knew and got right all of the time; (2) Areas I was competent, but not great; and (3) things that made no sense in any world at any time. Well, I targeted the question types, specifically, where I struggled. Then I endeavored to take dozens of practice tests. Ultimately, the end result was a autodidactic 174 (99.3 percentile). So, that would be my starting point -- you damn well can do it.

Now, how would I approach the GMAT?
First, I am curious whether you struggled with the quant section, the verbal section, or was time the impediment? If you struggled on quants, specifically due to timing issues, this book would be a must: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/listing/2 ... 4215411782 (I think you can find a cheaper version on Amazon since the book is now reprinted as "Chili Hot GMAT" and this edition which is slightly better is an old edition) This book provides a number of extremely useful math tricks, decent practice problems (properly categorized and reasonably calibrated, but calibrated differently in my opinion than the GMAT). The explanations in this book are the most straightforward of any GMAT book I've seen, too -- it's almost in lay speech. This book helped me tremendously in meeting the timing strictures of the quantitative section because, although I am excellent at mental math, there were a few questions that were taking me an inordinate amount of time that it turned out there were shortcuts for.

For sentence correction -- pretend there are no commas in the answer choices (because the correct answers on the GMAT are often riddled, in my opinion, with comma errors). The focus on these should be (1) which sentence is the most direct; (2) which sentence properly uses parallel structure; and (3) what differences are there amongst the sentences (this is critical -- identify what type of question it is and if you do then the answer should be self-evident). I really didn't find anything that was more helpful for sentence correction than the Official Guides and the GMAT Verbal review (by GMAC). Fortunately, whereas the Official Guides and GMAT Quant Reviews were too easy in comparison to the actual test questions, these resources seem properly calibrated for the test. So use them up and use them carefully.

For Logical Reasoning -- this book will solve all of your life problems. On the LSAT, which has two logical reasoning sections that are much trickier, I didn't miss a single question because of this book. What is wonderful about it is that it separates the questions into thirteen different categories (if I remember the count correctly) and tiers them from 1-star level of difficulty to 4-star level (so you can learn the concept and then apply it to a harder question). This book is a million times more useful than the Logical Reasoning Bible (which I've always thought was the most useless of the LSAT series bibles from Powerscore) and do not be turned off by the fact that it was written by Kaplan -- it is probably the only competent thing they've ever published (I am not a big fan of them because I think they are economic exploiters who provide a mediocre product and develop a false dependence using improperly calibrated practice exams in their courses). Here it is: https://www.amazon.com/LSAT-Mastery-Timi ... B004NJM6YW THAT SAID, TAKE NOTICE!! The LSAT has a few logical reasoning question types that are not on the GMAT. Specifically, you can bypass the "parallel reasoning" section.

Reading Comprehension -- I used to really suck at these because I'd read the questions first, try to remember everything verbatim, read at an unnaturally slow or fast pace, and just completely spaz. Don't spaz. Just read the darn stimulus like you would read the newspaper, make sure you remember the general idea from each paragraph, and then just answer the darn questions based off your memory of what you just read. This really is the best advice that can be given because it will help you to avoid all of the trick answers. If you read for every detail then you'll get tripped up when one of the answer options include key vocabulary or jargon from the stimulus. However, if you read it for concepts then you'll realize when you are getting jived. The other thing I would say on this section is focus on ruling out the wrong answers rather than looking for the correct answer -- that is more of an issue here than on the other sections. Think in terms of logic whether you can think of a situation that doesn't match the answer but matches the stimulus or vice versa... if you can then you've ruled it out and you don't have to think twice about it even if it sounds right or is half correct.

Final thoughts -- Take multiple practice tests. I know people are really big on the Manhattan ones. I, honestly, just did the four from GMAT -- the two free ones and the two you buy. Do them on the computer and under realistic test conditions because it is important to get used to the extra time it will take to read things on a computer versus reading off a sheet of paper. Also, a pro-tip is to reuse those four tests -- you can reset the test!!! What's better, you'll more than likely get different questions when you reset the test because the CAT is still adjusting difficulty based off what you get right and wrong. I think I retook my practice tests three times over and I had maybe ten questions that overlapped (it may give you a slight deviation from a proper prediction when you do it that way, but hell... we can all use a temporary ego boost, anyways).

So, that's how I'd attack it. Go score 750 or above and don't think twice about whether you are applying too late. In this academic environment and with schools constantly looking for a final student here or there that comports with their number targets, my dollar says you'll be fine and that the conventional wisdom about the rounds is no longer valid (or valid to a lesser degree). Go do great things and have a wonderful life.

- Bill

I am interested in feedback regarding these points as well -- (1) career services; and (2) American finding a job in the UK or EU. That said, the name seems to have no issue in translating into the U.S. considering how many North American placements there were versus how many North American students there were. Is career services actually inactive or are there other dynamics at play. People feel free to elaborate.

I not only checked Said's employment report but also its current and previous students' linkedin profiles. What i found out is that Said's career service is literally non existent.

Any idea and comment??? I would really appreciate if you could share your sincere comments.

So, in looking more into the matter, I believe it may be partially a product of the Oxford college system -- which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- but that the paradigm is different than we are used to with the American business school model. It's a thought although I don't know if it is correct.

This is for the information of all R3 as well as European school applicants.

Admissanado experts - Jon and Lauren - conducted Q&A chat in GMATCLUB chat room few days back in which they offered tips and guidance to prospective R3 & European school applicants.
I have updated the first post with the transcript of this chat. Interested members can download this transcript from there.

Good luck to everyone applying and have a nice weekend.

Thank You!

Having previous experience at Oxford, I don't see the college model having any impact on career services. Especially not anywhere near the impact on Said's on-campus jobs number...

IMHO the only impact the college system might provide is a broader network (i.e. not just the business school). From there it depends on your luck whether your college network has any connections or insights into your desired role/function/industry.

Hello GMATCLUB Members,

We are bringing a webinar with Q&A as well as chats with current students focused on the Waitlisted Applicants.
The first event of this series is Webinar conducted by Admissionado's Founder and HBS Alum Jon Frank. Jon will share his suggestions followed by a Q&A session. This is your opportunity to ask your specific questions. The webinar will take place on 31st January 2014, Friday, 9 AM PST.

We shall also be conducting chat sessions with some Current students from various schools who were successfully admitted from a waitlist so you can learn what to expect from the process, what worked for them, and what it takes. These chats shall take place in our Chat Room. We will release the times & Dates (all will be the first week of February)

Webinar Link: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/pjoin/531329318/105379349
Download event to your Outlook
If you are on a waitlist - you do NOT want to miss these!

The webinar and chats are free. There will be a 30-minute Q&A session at the end of the Webinar on Friday Jan 31st at 9 AM PST - join to have your questions answered.

Thank You!