Simon School Admissions Blog

The Last Leg @ Simon

By: Nidhi, MBA Candidate, Class of 2009

Time flies. We all know this, but we still manage to be taken completely unaware. I find it hard to believe that my time at Simon has practically come to an end; I graduate on June 14.

Just like any other phase in life, I find this to be a phase I am already looking back on with smiles and tears, pride and few moments of regret. I realize the advice I share with prospective and first year students is the same I received when I first came to Simon.  Nonetheless, I will pass along some of my insights here.

Don’t come with preconceived notions about what an MBA program entails – other than a LOT of hard work! Be mentally prepared for that and enjoy the bends in the road. Go with them. The past two years have taught me an amazing amount, not just the finer understanding of hard-to-grasp business concepts but nuances of strong and effective leadership. The best part of it all is I can apply a lot of my learning here to my own life beyond the workplace.

The last two quarters at Simon are imprinted in my memory of colleagues trying to learn all that they could and get to better know their classmates and professors. This is not just to network; social events of all kinds are common.  There is always an excuse to throw or attend a party! In these experiences, I have seen first-hand the advantages and disadvantages of attending a small school, and believe you me, the pros far outweigh the cons. In today’s uncertain and depressing times, it is the close knit community and intimacy that keeps us hopeful. Lifelong bonds are formed not just with your classmates but also with professors and the DEAN! Can you find that anywhere else? People all around me have been motivating each other in the classroom and job search; this support fosters a feeling that you are not alone. I could go on and on about the amazing sense of community at Simon.

I am feeling all misty eyed but the crux of it is that, no matter where you do your MBA from, the end of it is an intense feeling. Graduating from a small school, one as intimate as Simon, I believe makes saying "good-bye" overwhelmingly harder.

My Simon Story!

My first introduction to the Simon School came as I was exploring part-time MBA programs while at my first job after graduating from Georgia Tech.  I was the Logistics Engineer for a division of Carrier Corporations (United Technologies) in Syracuse, NY (about 80 miles east of Rochester).  I enjoyed engineering, but wanted to gain a better grasp of business concepts especially in finance and accounting.  My boss raved about how amazing the Simon School was and encouraged me to focus my attention on joining the top part-time program in upstate New York.  As a non-matriculant, I commuted to Rochester in the evenings and took four courses.  These core courses were intensive and far more challenging than I had initially imagined.  After my fourth class, I decided to leave my position at Carrier and used much of what I had learned from those first courses at Simon to launch me into a consulting career at BearingPoint (formerly KPMG Consulting).  BearingPoint moved me to Mountain View, California to serve large Commercial Banks and Credit Card Companies on the west coast.  I realized throughout my years at BearingPoint how valuable those courses had been. 

Several years later, I decided to return to business school to get an MBA.  I applied to the top-schools in the country and was accepted to two schools in the top-15, but felt that Simon really had the best to offer. I liked the fact that it was the smallest school in the top-25 and that students receive so much personalized attention.  I had visited so many schools that felt pretentious and Simon just felt genuine.  I entered the full-time MBA program in the Fall of 2007 and have loved every minute of it.  I like the fact that you get to know everyone in the MBA program, which creates a very tight community at Simon and a strong network upon graduation.  At Simon, we live by our school motto (“Meliora” – which means “ever better”) so we are constantly looking at ways to improve ourselves, our school and our community.  With this common objective, many people take on important leadership roles to initiate the change and everyone participates in a variety of clubs.  In my first year, I was elected as a first-year MBA representative on the Graduate Business Council (GBC), which is the student government at the Simon School.  The first two quarters are very, very challenging.  It is well known throughout the business school community that Simon’s MBA program is one of the most academically intensive.  This makes it a struggle to balance your career search and social life/family, but it can be done!  Networking takes a lot of your time, but Simon alumni are very friendly.  I believe this is because of the small class size, which creates an alumni network that has higher quality.  Through my networking and informational interviews, I initially believed I wanted to go into asset management.  I secured a great  summer internship at MetLife Investments in Morristown, NJ (just outside NYC).  MetLife Investments is a top-25 Money Management firm in the world and manages approximately $350B in its general accounts.  My internship was in Portfolio Management and it was a great experience, but after my internship I was still not convinced that asset management was the correct field for me. 

In my second year, I was honored to serve as President of the GBC which was a great opportunity to make Simon even better.  I got to see first-hand how privileged we all are to be associated with such a fine institution.  Each year the current and former GBC presidents represent the Simon School at a global conference which convenes the student leaders of the top-50 business schools in the world.  This year, we went to Taipei, Taiwan and were able to develop “best practices” across the business school community.  At Simon, we are fortunate to have the most dedicated faculty and staff.  The Dean is readily accessible and is passionate about the success of each student, which is unheard of at any top-tier business school.  We also have a strong community.  We have great cultural organizations (National Black, Latin American Student Organization, Jewish Association of MBA’s, Simon Association of Women MBA’s, Pacific Basin Forum, Simon United, etc.), sports clubs (Soccer, Tennis and Golf), professional clubs (Consulting/Operations/Technology, Financial Management, Marketing, Health Sciences, Entrepreneurship, etc) and tons of others (Simon Volunteers, UNcorked, Net Impact, etc.).  This makes for a very busy social calendar with excellent programming that develops our professional skills, our career search, and allows us to have a great time.  In addition to all the fun, our second year is also very academically intensive as you dive into your chosen concentration(s).  My concentrations were in Finance, Competitive and Organizational Strategy and Entrepreneurship.  Just as it is a struggle to balance everything in the first year, the second year was even more intensive due to the career search, especially given the economic situation.  I interviewed for a wide variety of companies throughout the winter and decided to return to consulting.  I just finished my coursework and will graduate on June 14^th.  In July, I will be joining Booz Allen Hamilton’s Economic and Business Analysis (EBA) group and will be moving to their headquarters in the Washington DC area.  I am really thankful for my awesome experience at Simon and look forward to being an active alumnus.

 

Charles “Dusty” Riddle

President – Graduate Business Council

Simon Leadership Fellow & 2009 MBA Candidate

Simon Graduate School of Business

Take 21/22 Program

By: Delaena, MBA Candidate, Class of 2009

The Take 21/22 Program allows MBA students to take two additional classes after they complete their graduation requirement of 20 classes.  These two courses are free of charge and designed to allow students to further pursue academic interests as they end their time as a Simon student.

I decided to take Special Topics in Finance (Real Estate) for a couple of reasons. First of all there is no organized and liquid real estate capital market in my home country Ghana. For the most part, if you want to build a house in Ghana, you just buy a parcel of land and develop it on your own. There is a small mortgage industry but it’s at best, a minute part of the economy. I want to learn how real estate capital markets work in the U.S. and then hopefully apply the useful (not the reckless sub-prime mortgage industry or the 125% Loan to Value that mortgage lenders doled out to borrowers at the height of the housing bubble) aspects of it to Ghana's fledgling financial markets.

Secondly, real estate constitutes about 11% of U.S. GDP and it’s a critical component of the U.S. economy. It played a significant part in the credit crisis that led to this recession. Essentially, the inflated property values during the bubble, allowed mortgage lenders to securitize sub-prime mortgages (bundled with other fixed income asset classes with predictable cash flows) into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), sliced them into different tranches and sold them off to banks and investors in order to provide liquidity to issue more mortgages. With the bust of the housing market, home equity vanished overnight, sub-prime borrowers who couldn’t afford mortgages in the first place defaulted on their mortgages and the CDOs went from being illiquid pieces of paper to being worthless. Of course you don’t realize it’s a bubble till it busts so it’s often difficult to see these things without the benefit of hindsight; but I hope to learn from this class the lapses within the industry that led to such loose lending standards and how such a bubble could be avoided if at all possible.

The lecturer, Mr. John Anderson is the President of Northern Capital Group Inc., a real estate development and investment company based out of Rochester, New York. With over 25 years of industry experience, Mr. Anderson was Vice President (from 1985 to 1989) of Citicorp Real Estate Inc., Citigroup’s main real estate banking vehicle providing financing for large real estate developers and owners on a worldwide basis. There couldn’t be a more qualified person than him to bring real world experience in the industry to the classroom.  I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to learn from such an industry leading practitioner, so I took advantage of the Take 21/22 Program.

Proud Decision

The decision of whether or not I was going to attend business school was never a difficult one for me.  I just didn’t know which school I wanted to attend.  The business school decision process was a long, grueling and emotional one but my diligence definitely paid off.  After a few visits to Rochester and a lot of interaction with Simon faculty, staff and students, I knew that Simon was the right school for me.  Being a Consortium student (www.cgsm.org) was a fringe benefit and has also proved to be extremely instrumental in my success thus far.

 

All Consortium students are required to attend an Orientation Program where we attend workshops, network with other students and attend a career lab to network with companies.  I knew this was going to be an opportunity unlike any other so I took advantage and made sure I was on my "A" game.  My interviews with many companies resulted in a few offers for an Internship and I took the offer from Kraft Foods in a brand management position.  My summer in their Glenview, IL office was fantastic and translated into a full-time offer.  I started my second year of business school already with an employment offer and knew the year was going to be much more enjoyable as a result.

 

As graduation quickly approaches it forces me to reflect upon my time in Rochester and at Simon.  I know that I have been equipped with the knowledge, skills, and relationships necessary to be successful in any task or challenge that I take on.  I am truly going to miss my time as a student but am looking forward to wonderful new adventures that await me.

 

~Puja Kalra

MBA Candidate, Class of 2009
Simon Graduate School of Business
University of Rochester  |  917.686.9781
puja.kalra@simon.rochester.edu

“Thinking-outside-of-the-Box” Simon Alumni Panel

By: Nidhi, MBA Candidate, Class of 2009

The Simon School held an amazing panel last week. Actually, there were two panels with 18 alumni from industries and cities all over the map. This “Thinking-outside-of-the-Box” Event, organized by Net Impact, Simon National Black and the Career Management Center, made me think, and open my eyes to the fact that all industries are not dead in today’s economy.

Simon does have a smaller alumni network compared to the Ivies of the world, but we are pretty diverse and well represented in terms of the industries we cover, and the functions we are employed in. For instance, this panel had alums working in industries as varied as fashion, healthcare, not-for-profit, retail, real estate, technology and law firms!

The panelists were very open and eager to give Simonites’ the benefit of their struggles and triumphs. All of them provided great insights into the ins and outs of their roles and careers, what makes their particular industries tick and how the economy has affected their worlds.

I’ve attended a lot of guest speaker events during the course of my MBA and have had the opportunity to hear pretty remarkable people share their life and career stories. Most of them have been incredible and enriching experiences and this panel surpassed them by leagues. I walked away with renewed hope and enthusiasm as well as many new ideas about what options I had and what I want from life post-MBA.

The Economic Crisis and B-School

By: Tarang, MBA Candidate, Class of 2009

What does this economic situation mean for a professional in terms of their future career planning?  Basically, it is a good time to consider earning an MBA. In fact, it might be the best time to be studying even for those who hadn’t thought about it before but made recent job compromises due to the economic crisis. 

Most people give up a reasonably well paying job and the opportunity to grow both economically and professionally over the two-year time they are in business school. That is the opportunity cost we pay for a business education because we believe that it will provide us with a much better and faster career progression thereafter. The best time to enter school then, is when this opportunity cost is the lowest. In a bad economy such as this, the value of our professional and economic benefits over the next two years is expected to be lower than ever. Thus it makes the most sense to invest this time in enriching our human capital by going to business school.  In doing so, you will return to the job market two years down the line with a set of tools and skills that will guarantee a much higher return on investment than before.

Also, like any other economic crisis, this one too is predicted to have a two year life cycle. You will graduate as the economy is rebounding and companies are looking for growth, firm’s eager to innovate and most importantly recruit! So before you discard any of your personal planning in light of another scary economic analysis article or financial report, take a closer look at what this situation means for you!

For those adversely affected by the economic crisis in the United States, please consider applying for Simon’s InnovatUR Scholarship.

 

 

Applying a Simon Education

By: Nidhi, MBA Candidate, Class of 2009

Commonly an emphasis is placed on the value of practical learning – after all, the Internship component of the MBA Program is designed just for that.  However, choosing the right elective courses and the right mix of class topics is imperative.  This sparked my quest to take classes that maximized my business knowledge.  By this, I do not mean information I would forget the day after the exam or could ‘Google’ to obtain; I sought out knowledge that would help me respond to different situations in the best possible ways.

In the rush to learn as much as possible, sometimes you forget to actually let the information sink in.  Often, the best learning never happens in a day or even a quarter.  The experience of utilizing obtained information will surface when you have a situation which allows you to apply that fresh knowledge.  Bingo!  That is when you realize classes you initially felt were impractical are now completely relevant.

Therefore, learn by doing.  Simon MBA graduates seem to know better how to reach solutions and find answers in their business adventures.  You certainly cannot 'Google' to reactivate that kind of knowledge.

 

How I Picked Simon

By: Delaena, MBA Candidate, Class of 2009

Choosing Simon was one of the most important decisions of my life and it has been absolutely worth my while. An MBA is a huge personal and financial call, in terms of the costs and the forgone salary and family time. For me these costs were huge because I am from Ghana and the youngest of five siblings in a very close knit Ghanaian family. I still miss my family especially my mum but it’s all worth it. Prior to Simon, I worked as an auditor in Ernst & Young for two years after getting a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Ghana.

Surprisingly I first heard about Simon when the admissions office sent me a letter through the GMASS (Graduate Management Admissions Search Service) and offered me a fee waiver. I was very impressed with the school’s consistently high rankings in finance because that was an area that I was interested in. I reviewed the rankings and graduate comments on U.S. News, Financial Times, and Business Week and I began to get more interested in Simon. In addition, I had two much older friends (mentors) who were second years at U. Penn (Wharton) and Duke (Fuqua); they told me that if finance/economics was what I wanted to do, then Simon was the place for me.

So, I sent my GMAT scores to the school, sent in my application and here I am. I also applied to Duke and Cornell. I was on the waitlist for Duke when I received an offer from Simon, and it was a clear choice for me to accept Simon. Of these three schools, what distinguished Simon was the close personal relationship I built with the Admissions staff and the International Services Office staff. They were quick to reply to my emails, and when I got here, Julie Sadwick (an Admissions staff) actually remembered my name. That made me feel pretty special.

Time to Re-Charge

By: Greg MacDonald, Executive Director of Admissions

While the holiday season generally brings an opportunity to spend some more relaxed time with friends and family, in the world of admissions work it also marks the conclusion of the fall recruiting season.  Many of us have logged thousands of miles since mid-September meeting with prospective students at a variety of outreach events.  Now is the time where we can put away the suitcases, reconnect with our families and co-workers, and settle into the process of reviewing admission applications.  After what seems like an endless routine of airports, rental cars, and hotels, being at home for an extended period is a treat.

From the candidate’s perspective, this also marks the time when the applications are pushed off your desk, and onto our desk’s.  Or perhaps I should say from your PC to our PC’s?  In a sense, the process is now out of your hands, and can be cause for some distress as you await final admission decisions.  My advice is to use this time to re-charge your batteries, and get the rest you need to resume your graduate school decision making process as the offers roll in.  Soon enough, you’ll be back in charge of the process, evaluating perhaps multiple admission offers, and deciding what is the best fit for your needs.

In other words, hang in there.  The admissions finish line is in sight.

Final Exams: The Good, The Bad, and The Not So Ugly

By: Tarang, MBA Candidate, Class of 2009

The good part is making it to B school and finally starting the MBA I had been dreaming about for so long. The bad is realizing and then doing all of the hard work that goes into being a successful student. And the ugly part (or at least what I anticipated was the ugly part) are the big fat final exams: the moments of truth! But are they actually that bad… I think not!

Having lived through 4 exam periods at the Simon School (we are on the quarter system) now I can honestly say that ‘exam week’ is not that bad. In fact, as I look back, they are the times I now cherish! For finals, a lot of students study in groups at school. We all study late into the night; it is fun to find so many people in the hallways of Gleason and Schlegel Halls at 3 AM. More importantly, every time I get stuck or need to understand a certain concept, I can just walk to another study room and classmates are there ready to help me. Discussing cases and solving problems together not only makes studying easier and faster, but enjoyable 

I would add that if you attend and participate in class actively and do the homework, then exams are nothing to stress about. They feel like a “cake walk,” while the class grades are a reward for the hard work throughout the quarter.