LBS anyone?

Question

Is anyone here applying to LBS? I'm researching schools for R2 and LBS has peaked my curiosity. That being said this is still going to be a rushed application. Anyway, has anyone applied or is applying to LBS? I just signed on for their application, and my god, they have the most unorthodox application form. I really don't know how anyone can paint a remotely clear picture of themselves based on the application. They ask for so little information. On the plus-side, I think I can churn out the app in a weekend, which will leave me time to complete another R2 app (probably Duke) I'd like to hear opinions of people who have gone through the LBS app process.

Thanks!

iced_tea · Answer

hi lich,
i am planning to apply for R2 as well.....

dukes · Answer

I'm applying R2. I thought their application questions were pretty standard. But I guess it depends on what you've already written for the other schools.

I actually did a campus visit awhile back and can honestly say that it was the best campus visit of the 5 or so that I've done. I mean this in terms of the access I got - the students were very friendly and after a class visit some of them even asked me to sit in on their group project work, so I got to see some of the deliberation and work that goes into simulation projects. The campus is very small but is awesomely located...Regents Park is one of the great parks of the world. However, I have not been very impressed with the way the school is being administered.

Lich · Answer

dukes, can you elaborate on the last comment on why you aren't particularly pleased with the way the school is being administered.

I agree that the app doesn't ask any for anything different, what makes it unique is what it doesn't ask. There's no section on awards. part-time jobs, ECs, familiy info, etc. If anything the app seems too bare-bones.

willget800 · Answer

I am applyng R2.. And yes the app is very very small..

I am facing hte same dilema on how to include my extra- curricular activities in such a small online application.

Compared to LBS, Cornell's online applciation was more extensive, although the essays were just 400 words each..

i think lbs is a tough nut to crack

GMATT73 · Answer

LBS is one of those schools that you MUST visit before applying. I hear their admit rate was about 15% last year. Not surprising seeing how FT ranked them #4 worldwide.

willget800 · Answer

I cannot visit LBS, as I am here in US, with visa issues. I would have to go to India to get my visa paper stamped.. I would really like to visit LBS..

Lich · Answer

Are you serious??? Where did you hear that you MUST visit to have a decent shot? And where are you getting this 15% rate?

I actually think the acceptance rate is closer to 40%.

Here is what I use to base my calculations
https://www.businessweek.com/bschools/05 ... london.htm

Total Full-time MBA = 629, thus for incoming classing it will be 315 (LBS is a 2-year program)
Total number of applicants = 1467
Assume that LBS has a 50% yield (this is fair assumption, look at their yield rates, it decreasing every year)
So to fill a class of 315, LBS needs to accept approximately 630 people.
Thus 630/1467 roughly equals 43%.
Unless there are any glaring flaws in my calculations (or the numbers provided by BW is BS), I think my reasoning is sound, and I don't how you can possibly arrive at the 15% you quoted based on these numbers.

Yes, the data I am using is for 2005, but really do you think the difference is that drastic in 2006? I doubt it.

BTW, is everyone applying in R2 visiting or has already visited the school? I haven't and don't intend to.

willget800 · Answer

Lich,

R2.. Fingers crossed..
still working on the application system.. its a pain!!!!!!!!

GMATT73 · Answer

Wow, you really picked a bone of contention on this one. Well, according to my sources, your calculations do seem to be glaringly flawed.

According to the school's adcom manager, David Simpson, there is a HUGE discrepency in the stats that you cite.

I read archived Accepted.com transcripts which contain responses to a multitude of questions from current students and adcoms during the 2005 application season. Here are the transcripts of that chat:

https://accepted.com/chat/transcripts/20 ... 6_lbs.aspx

As you can see,

(1) When I say MUST visit the school, I mean every student who participated in this chat (and several others) really stressed the importance of visiting the campus at some point in time during the application process. Gaining admissions without a visit seemed to be an exception rather than the rule.

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the case for most top programs?

(2) LBS received approximately 1800 applications for their full time program last year (varies depending on the transcript, but I have read 2100 in another transcript) and interviewed roughly half, admitted slightly less than a quarter, and yielded about one sixth of the overall applicants (~310)---> This figure can be confirmed on the school's website.

1800~2000, not 1467; 310, not 315. These numbers come directly from the adcom, current MBA students, and the school's homepage, not b-week, so go figure on who is correct?

1800~2000/310 is where I got that 15% figure from. I do stand corrected, it is the yield, not the acceptance rate.

Furthermore, from what I gathered, most LBS students are proficienct in two foreign languages other than English. Seems like a competitive program.

1800~2000/310 is where I got that 15% figure from. I do stand corrected, it is the yield , not the acceptance rate. Furthermore, from what I gathered, most LBS students are proficienct in two foreign languages other than English. Seems like a competitive program.

Lich · Answer

Wow some people here have no math skills. How in the world can you say my calculations are flawed? Let me ask you a question, do you actually know how to calculate acceptance rates?
Here's the formula I came up with:
numerator = desired class size for entering year/yield rate
denominator = total number of applicants
All I did was plug in the numbers from the BW site. I tried this calculation with other schools using the BW data and the results are in line with published data. 

Here's the thing: judging from your posts I have strong reasons to believe you actually have no idea what yield rates are. 
Your own data even supports this.
Okay so let's say LBS total applicant number in 2006 is 1800. Fine, that seems reasonable. We'll also use the 310 as the desired class size.

You seem to believe that the acceptance rate is calculated by taking 310 and dividing by 1800, which is roughly 17%. Of course, this is completely ridiculous because that automatically assumes that the yield will be 100%. Right....

LBS yield is in fact closer to 50%. So the real acceptance rate would be:
(310/0.5)/1800, which is rougly 34%. Either way you cut it, whether using the BW data or the numbers straight out of the adcoms mouth, the admit rate is closer to 40% as I stated in my original post and NOT 15% as you seem to insist, despite your own data contradicting you.

willget800 · Answer

GMATT73 did not include yield rate in his equations........... that was it..

BUT The yield rate is debatable.. Where ddi you get 50%... I wont be suprised if you are right.. because many people would apply LBS as backup to top 5 American schools.

Lich · Answer

willget
I've already post the link for my calculations here
https://www.businessweek.com/bschools/05 ... london.htm
As you can see LBS's yield rates have been falling. Based on this data I think it is reasonable to assume that LBS's current yield is about 50%.

Also, if you're bored you can go to the admissions411 site and click on the profiles of candidates that got accepted in LBS and see whether they eventually matriculated. Most chose other schools over LBS. BTW according to admissions411 the acceptance rate in 2008 for LBS is 47%, and so far in 2009 it is 44% (remember to use only the R1 applicants for the denominator). Of course, this is from a rather small sample size, but still I have a hard time seeing the 15% acceptance rate quoted by our friend.

Just to be clear on something, I think LBS is a wonderful institution. Heck, I wouldn't be applying there if I didn't so. I'm only posting this because I find GMAT733 posts to be highly misleading. Also I think his math needs some work...

GMATT73 · Answer

Perhaps so, but I never cited  glaringly inaccurate  statistics. ~17% referred to the overall percentage of applicants that eventually enrolled in fall 2006. I stated I made an error in yield to begin with in the previous post. Yield, in the context of b-school admissions, is the percentage of accepted applicants that end up enrolling. Fine, that point is settled. I admitted my calculations were flawed. 

But then you had to insist on exacerbating the issue. 

Seeing how you say  some people here  have no math skills, then we here at GMATClub ask you this: 

How did you arrive at your 50% yield rate for admitted students?? How do you know that? Where did you get that figure from? How do you know for sure that fewer students are accepting offers at LBS every year as you claimed earlier? 

I used hard facts from the school itself. You made broad assumptions based on what you  think  should be correct. 

Wow, some people (in general) are quite presumptuous, aren't they. 

For future reference, I suggest you look a little beyond the numbers put up by business week.

dukes · Answer

Acceptance Rates:
2001 - 26%
2002 - 19%
2003 - 26%

Yield Rates:
2001 - 74%
2002 - 58%
2003 - 53%

Lich's way of calculating the acceptance rates probably isn't that far off, but if you adjust the applicant number up a bit and don't assume the worst about the yield rate, then you get something around 25%, which is a reasonable number to expect and somewhat consistent with history. I have also heard alot about about how visiting the school really helps. When you look at those yield rates it makes sense that they would start looking for ways of identifying folks who really want to come there. 

To answer Lich's question: Using the word "administration" might have been too broad, but I guess the impression that I got was that things werenâ€™t as sophisticated/professional/polished compared to what I saw at US schools. It's mostly a bunch of small stuff that adds up. For example, the school is very behind the times in terms of facilitating access to the alumni network and using the alumni network to promote the school. Instead, I was told, everyone joins the Ruby club to make job connections. 

They were also very unaccommodating and unresponsive when it came to setting up a visit. One the one hand they say that campus visits are important, but information about how to do a class visit is buried somewhere on their relatively poorly designed web-site and not advertised in any of their other materials. The only thing they openly offer is a 45 minute info session which is pretty bad when you expect folks to make trips from all over the world to visit your school. When I went to the info session I was the only one (of about 15) who knew that class visits were available and when the other prospects asked about it the adcom gruffly told them that they had to request a class visit at least x days in advance. Keep in mind that most of the folks there had already traveled to the UK to visit the school and likely didn't have time to stick around for another week. No other school made that difficult to attend a class. My impression might also be overly colored by the unfriendly adcom who ran the info session. 

Also, one of the promotional materials that they have on their web-site are some fairly ghetto videos from circa 2002 where you can hear students talk about what a rough time theyâ€™re having with their job search. Altogether, it didnâ€™t seem like they put the kind of effort and thought into promoting the school brand as US school do. (I had also read about this a little bit in the Vault MBA buzz book). 

That sounds like a negative write-up but I actually had a good time. LBS definitely has the nicest students of all the school visits I did and the fact that itâ€™s so small makes for a very cozy and collegial environment. If you see yourself working in Europe then the job access is appearently as good as with any US school.

Paul · Answer

Hi guys, let's keep this discussion within friendly terms.

mbadart07 · Answer

yup, following up on Paul, I guess we can cool down!! Though i'm not appin to LBS, just was browsing thro this thread and i guess arguements on numeric data( which in anyway cant be completely authentic unless you happen to be the Dean of LBS) have just created some tension here. You guys are doing great and there is no need to take opposite stands on issues like these. Best to work on your apps and pray that you get good news from LBS!! all the best guys

.

Lich · Answer

dukes, thanks for that post, it was very insightful

Ok, not further exacerbate the issue, but there is a few things I have to get across. First GMATT73 says my calculations are glaring flawed, and now he is saying that my stats are glaring inaccurate. In fact, he claims that he is the one here using "hard data". Sigh....

Ok then let's compare our sources. BW published data vs adcom's quote on a chatroom. I don't know how most people here feel, but when BW publishes a very specific number, like LBS has 1467 applicants in 2005, I tend to believe them. Why? Well, I certainly don't think that BW editors randomly pulls these numbers out of a hat. Also, there's the issue of getting sued if they make crap up. So where does BW get there numbers from? Probably straight from the source, the schools. 
Now compare this to what some adcoms say in a chatroom. 1800, wow, such a nice round number....Also, I think you are fogetting the fact that these adcoms often function as promoter/salesman. Now would you really believe everything a salesman tell you? Hard data, please, what a joke...Perhaps, you should engage in a bit more critical thought instead of just taking what people say at face value.

Second, I've already explained how I got my yield rates and even posted the site where I got my data...twice. If you can't be bother to check it out, that's your problem, please don't accuse me of making crap up.

Third, you know I still don't think you understand what yield rates are, because if you did you wouldn't be protesting so much about my projected yield for LBS, which I still think is close to 50%. Out of curiosity, what do you think LBS yield rates are, 70%, 80%???? Oh, and whatever, number you come up with, I'd like to see your rational as well. BTW, what do you think LBS acceptance rate is?

I know I might come up as a bit confrontational, but it's all in good spirit. I just have problems with people quoting what adcoms say and treat it as gospel, without bothering to perform further checks.

GMATT73 · Answer

After all is said and done I think you might come to the realization that LBS is significantly more competitive than what you originally stated, especially when you take into considation the foreign language requirements and emphasis the school places on a campus visit. 

Knowing that, you're probably better off saving your energy for those unorthodox essays.

IMO, LBS a top brass program with proud alumni making waves worldwide. Good luck!

jaynayak · Answer

Matt,

It is Gandhi.... not Ghandi

LBS anyone?

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards