Ivey - University of Western Ontario - Admissions time

NOTE: The text below describes admissions process for May 2007 Cohort

Having looked at different program types I realized that one year format was the one that I excited me the most. First of all, it will definitely be a challenge and I love challenges. Second, and even more important, it will save a year of my life, and a year of living expenses as a poor student. Even if it's not a full year, but lets say, 8 months, that's still close to 2% of average person's work life. Anyways, enough with the philosophy and on to the application process :)

After a thorough research of variety of MBA programs, having visited couple of them in-person, I narrowed my search to Ivey MBA. Being really impressed with the level of service I received from Admissions department at Ivey (20 min average response time to emails throughout the day, even at 11pm!), and also the feedback from current and past MBA students who were raving about the program, I decided that Ivey MBA just might be the one for me.

One of the most challenging parts of the whole application were the essays which told you to describe your short and long term career goals and how Ivey fits in those in UNDER 200 WORDS!!! That's like saying, well tell me your life story, past, current, and future, but I'd appreciate if you could do that in half a page. I personally, found it much harder than Schulich's 750 word essays in which you could add a lot of water to dilute the real content. At Ivey they wanted the concise "elevator pitch" style presentation of yourself. I must have gotten through at least 10 complete rewrites of those essays. But found it quite interesting non the less.

Originally I was aiming for the Jan 8th, 2007 deadline, however, I was told by Admissions that those deadlines are fairly artificial and it's typically a rolling admissions process. Moreover, the final decision should be expected 3-4 weeks after all the documentation has been submitted. Most of the application is filled and submitted online, apart from the two transcripts and the scholarship applications. A copy of your resume has to be emailed to admissions as well as your Referees has to submit their Reference letters electronically or paper directly to the admissions office.

Admissions office was helpful in providing status of my application and the receipt of the supporting documents. I got the invitation for the first of the two interviews with Admissions manager within three days of my last part of the application being received by Ivey. I received an invitation to the second interview, which was done with Career services staff member, about a week later. Both interviews were done over the phone and lasted 30 min each.

After the interviews comes the most painful part... you've done all you can and now it's just sit and wait for somebody else to decide your faith ;)