The London Business School 2010 thread

So I MIGHT be one of the applicants .. too tight for R1 so am thinking R2.

bsd_lover - Can you please comment more on your study group. I read this entire thread but just curious to know how the individual dynamics play out in a group. It is very easy to have a group of similar minded people and take on an assignment. However, if innovative ideas have to come out of a group, there has to be differing opinions that can be vetted out/debated in the group. Have you experienced this sort of 'friendly' disagreement in the group ?

Thanks

Pretty sure this is what I did last year. Online PDF attachment at the time of application, and brought my transcripts in person when visiting campus (they ask you to mail them within the offer details email that comes a few days after the admissions decision).

The groups can vary somewhat, but as bsd_lover mentioned, they are generally social engineered to contain differing opinions or backgrounds. Also, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to "divorce" your study group in case of issues, so you are effectively tied together for the first year.

Study groups are assigned based on a number of criteria, but the two most important are nationality and pre-MBA background. In most cases, you will not be in the same group with someone else of similar nationality or function, but given some of the demographics (large nationality or job pools like Americans/Indians or consultants/bankers), there may be some overlap. Still, the school does engineer this a bit as well. For example, my group's professions are all vastly different, but there is another American in my group. However, her background was living/working in Europe, while I'm a Southern California native whose main international experiences have been in Asia-Pacific. Additionally, there are also a few other factors that influence the group creation, such as countries/regions lived in, and even GMAT score (!).

That said, much of the dynamics can be driven by personality and work style, which is likely a bit harder for the school to gauge from only the essays/interviews. I've heard of some groups where there are already conflicts for scheduling arrangements (workaholics versus laidback types, etc.) or micromanagement, so this will depend on your individual group. In terms of work schedules, group roles, etc., each group is free to create their own rules. In my group for example, we've decided to rotate leadership roles based on subject or expertise. And we're all lazy, so we've also already pledged not to work weekends.

Agreed with bsd_lover -- send it in only if you think it will strengthen your application (i.e. the marks are good). Taking the class previously will not opt you out of the same course at LBS anyway (IIRC, you have to be a certified accountant to get a waiver of that core course).

Thanks guys. Yeah, in that case, Im definitely not sending that transcript in ... not proud of my B in Intro to Financial Accounting :D

One more (silly) question ... the R1 deadline is October 7th. Does that mean that my recommenders have to have submitted their recommendations by then as well ?

Yes, the recommenders have to submit before the deadline as well, so you may have to push them. I don't think LBS gives leniency to recommendations/transcripts/etc. being one or two days late, unlike INSEAD.

I'm not sure if I understand the question correctly. There are bound to be disagreements within a group. That is the whole point of the experience. How you manage conflict or disagreement within your study group is entirely up to you and your personal style. Perhaps you can talk about your style in your essays.

I'm not sure if I framed the question correctly . I think you answered my question though.

Thanks again.

Hey everyone I just bought my plane tickets and will be visiting LBS in October ... around the 8th or 9th. Probably the 9th because I can "drop in." Anyone else out there visiting at that time?

Good stuff, Franklin. Where are you flying out from ? Did you manage to get a good deal ? I myself was thinking about November.

I notice that the online application form is quite thorough, and asks for a LOT of information. Any idea what the school asks things like 'where else are you applying to' and what your salary/bonus was ??

LBS receives 2.5 million donation by Sir Donald Gordon:
https://www.sys-con.com/node/1108272

Profile of Sir Donald Gordon :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Gor ... nessman%29

I don't think he is an alumni (I couldn't find him in the directory). Its not 300 million but these endowments build up slowly.

Hey TheDream, I'm flying out of Syracuse, NY. I currently live in Ithaca and attend Cornell. Last time I took a flight out of Ithaca I nearly lost my breakfast and the previous night's dinner! The reason: Ithaca's airport only has propeller airplanes flying out of here. Not even regional jets! With the unpredictable weather changes here in upstate NY, my flight to New York City was incredibly bad. That plane was thrown around like a rag doll. I said "Never again!" Thankfully, I got a good deal out of Syracuse at $502 round trip. Taxes put the ticket in the low $600's.

Where would you be flying from?

Pre-MBA salary/bonus is probably for the ROI figures they will publish in marketing materials, versus your post-MBA salary.

The question about other schools is likely for competitive/marketing research, but also possibly for yield management. For example, a couple of us got waitlisted for interviews at Cambridge last year, and the conspiracy theory was that we had listed LBS, INSEAD etc. as other schools we've applied to. So we thought that Cambridge put us on waitlist to hedge against us likely getting into one of those schools, which we would have matriculated at over Cambridge anyway. At least, that's the best story we came up with for our egos.

Franklin: thats not bad. I'd be flying out of Toronto, and believe it or not, its about 300 bucks more than flying out of New York. Our airport here is one of the most expensive to fly out to, because of all the who-knows-what-they-are-for taxes

Prashok: thats good news .... I thought LBS was spying on me for a second !! They do ask some interesting other questions, such as 'who have you discussed your MBA plans with', 'reasons for leaving each job'.

The certainly didnt work for them. I have a person in my study group who had an admit from Judge.

Were some of the questions at the end of the application or on a separate section? I seem to remember last year's application having an optional "for use by the Marketing team" section with a bunch of similar questions...

This is in the aptly titled 'About You' section

They ask where youre applying, who youve talked to, your interests outside work, what you read