The London Business School 2010 thread

Sign me up for R1! It's going to be tight, I hope my application is fully prepared by then!

Anyone have any advice for Question#3:
Please describe your experience of working in and leading teams, either in your professional or personal life. Include any specific challenges you have faced. Given this experience, what role do you think you will play in your first year study group?

How many leadership examples should I use? I'm thinking I'll mention 2 in detail, 1 briefly and very briefly note another significant experience that I really want to bring up in the optional essay?

Is this fine? Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks.

Count me in. I'm applying in R2 since I didn't get the GMAT score I feel I need to be competitive. I will be following this thread with great interest. Good luck to you all!

Application deadlines are out!

Stage Application deadline Interview decision sent on Admission decision sent on
1 07 October 2009 06 November 2009 16 December 2009
2 06 January 2010 09 February 2010 25 March 2010
3 03 March 2010 09 April 2010 20 May 2010
4 21 April 2010 28 May 2010 02 July 2010

https://www.london.edu/programmes/mba/applying.html

Some inside info. This year's GMAT average has been 697 - slightly higher than the last few years, but still relatively low compared to major US schools. I do feel that LBS try and get folks with incredible work experiences first and dont focus on gmat as much. I had a 10 hour day yesterday 6 hour stats lecture and then 4 hour UGM (Understanding general management) - welcome to bshool ...... it doesnt get any easier after you get in.

Hey stopper5! This should be fine -- just make sure that the experiences complement each other appropriately. For example, in this essay you may want to show that you can excel not only as a leader, but as a "team player" as well. Essentially, my approach on this essay was to show that you can be flexible in your role in the study group, as the situation demands.

Any idea when the application form will be out ?

I'll try to answer some questions posted earlier about the teaching style at the LBS. The answer is that "it depends". We used the case method (yes exactly like HBS) for some classes. In fact the cases we read were originally written at Harvard (I believe LBS faculty write many cases on their own - but why reinvent the wheel for classic cases such as Honda). The teachers are unbelievable. For UGM I had Prof. Brandon Lee who made the subject extremely enjoyable. For Statistics we do NOT use the case method. We use traditional lecture notes instead. Our first group assignment is based on a real life case (also from HBS). But I must stress how "applied" the nature of the course is. Preference is given to applying the concepts using tools such as excel in real world situations, rather than to develop a deep theoretical understanding of the formulae.

We also had a computer simulation, in which my study group had to be in charge of an airline company for 9 years and we tried to grow the company and raise its stock price by controlling variables such as #of planes, new hires, prices, service levels etc. It was an incredible example of how they teach you concepts while making it a thoroughly enjoyable process...

disclaimer: we haven't had 2 full weeks of classes yet, but it feels like I've been here forever.

Hey Bsd, I've corresponded with Brandon Lee, super nice guy and fellow Cornellian. He's a friend of a friend. I'm glad you like him. From what I hear he is a dynamic teacher.

I'm planning a trip in October to visit the school. Is there any specific day you would recommend visiting? Does LBS have designated days for visitors?

Count me in for Round 1. Good luck all.

Hi everyone, I updated the root thread with names. I realised that the original author is away for a while and decided to get an idea of who is interested in applying. Please double check and register your interest as a response if you don't find your name in the list.

Any idea where I would be able to find a copy of the LBS recommender's form ?

IIRC, the recommender completes the reference online, but the following document contains some info on what kinds of questions are asked:

https://www.london.edu/assets/documents/ ... ctions.pdf

With R1 deadlines a little over three weeks away, I am starting to have a total nervous breakdown (ok..that is just me being dramatic buy you get the idea!). I hav a few questions and was hoping some of you can offer some insight into these. Here goes:

a) How strict are the LBS admissions folks as far as word limit goes? My single biggest issue with the whole admissions process is the word limit - especially for the essay the asks applicants to describe an experience outside his or her home country in 150 words. Is there some type on unspoke rule where I can go as high as 5% or 10% more?

b) One of the essays asks about future student club participation at LBS along with potential contributions that one could make to them. I know which ones I would like to be involved in if I actually do get admitted but the club website offer a very brief and "general" description of what they do. Is there a way to access the member roster of any of these clubs so I can ask more questions to some of these people? I mean, I have contacted the people that run these clubs but in the event that they either don't respond or don't respond in time, I want to be able to talk to others that can provide me with the information I am looking for. Any thoughts on this?

c) One of the essays is about the first year study group. I have a few questions about this. Do the members of the first year study group typically have the same class schedule? How are the groups put together? Furthermore, is there a group leader or is the responsibility for the group assignments a collective responsibility?

d) Any thoughts on R1 vs R2?

e) Last, but not least, if I want to ask questions to LBS students on this forum, what is the best place/thread to post them?


Responses to my questions will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Pranav

Hi pranav I'm a current student and I am keeping an eye on this thread at the moment so this is the best place to post.

a) Keep it short and sweet. LBS folks know the value of brevity and hence provide tight word limits. If you did exceed, make sure its never more than 10%.

b) Visit https://www.londonsa.org You will find not only the list of all the clubs, but also names and contacts of the organisers of the clubs. If you are not able to find anyone from a specific club send me a pm.

c) In a nutshell class of 400 is split into 5 streams of 80. You take all your first year classes with this group of 80 (same schedule / lecture halls). Within this group you are assigned to a study group of 6-7. You are effectively "married" to this study group. This group is socially engineered (i.e. it will be extremely diverse and you WILL have conflicts). Organisation within the group is up to the group members. Group assignments is collective responsibility.

d) R1 is definitely better for admission chances statistically.

e) As I mentioned earlier, stick to this thread.

Good luck.

The LBS application form is now accessible online:

https://www.london.edu/register/do?actionId=186

Hi bsd_lover, prashok

I want to have a quick confirmation regarding the "application checklist".
I am asking this because INSEAD requires transcripts, unofficial GMAT score copies to be sent by post at the time of application.

From information on LBS website, it seems, while submittting the app we do not need to send anything by post.
It seems that applicants only need to attach the scanned copies of transcripts to the online app and self-report
GMAT scores . (while arranging to send the scores through Pearson Vue)

There is no postal work at the time of submitting app, right?

Thanks

You might want to double check this. I clearly remember posting my original transcripts while submitting my apps. But this was in 2007, things might have changed since then.