It's interesting how the whole prospective can change within a short period of time. After my trip to the UK, after much more indepth research and information interviews with both schools and students the information was telling me that the one year programs are actually a better option is a lot of respects. It's about the 96% of the material taught in the conventional two year program compressed in a shorter time frame. Moreover, as it turns out, the timeframe is not that much shorter as the two year programs would like you to think. Typical two year program is 16 months with extended holidays and Fridays off in a lot of cases. I've heard number of students from different programs tell me that it's actually quite relaxing towards the end of their two year programs. So one year programs that are quite a norm in Europe and are a new animal in North America are not as scary as they look. As long as you understand all the facts are able to weight them according to your situation you will be able to make a right choice.
During my trip to London, UK I've arranged to meet with both Cambridge (Judge Business School: MBA) as well as Oxford (Oxford Saïd Business School). Both schools were very accommodating in arranging the meeting, however unfortunately my time wasn't the best and I didn't get to sit in any of the classes because of the Winter break. I was really impressed with Cambridge, member of the admissions staff her name was Natasha I believe gave a thorough tour of the facility and gave excellent questions to all of my answers. Overall my meeting confirmed the preliminary research which shows that his is an excellent school. The only challenge is the cost of living and the tuition itself. The tuition alone is about 26,000GBP on top of that there's a mandatory college fee which gives you access to the college of your choice (an additional 5,000GBP). There are also associated academic and living expenses. All in all the overall cost of the one year degree adds up to around $100,000 US. Which is pretty significant. The big advantage that they are trying to sell you is the international (European) doors that this school opens for you. Non the less I still believe that the cost of the MBA might be quite high.
Oxford on the other hand did not impress me as much, the admissions lady tried to avoid majority of my questions and tried to push their brand name as the main advantage of the school. However, honestly the fact that some college on campus was built in 1287 does not add any value to my future MBA degree. And the answer I liked the most was the one about financing the MBA: she said that its not uncommon for students parents or aunt/uncle to pay for the tuition... and again, how does that help me? So the whole attitude at Oxford did not impress me too much, and I safely crossed that school of my list as well.
Upon my arrival back to Canada I started researching one year North American programs much closer realizing that it was something that I became really interested in. Ivey was one of the schools that grabbed my immediate attention: One of the oldest MBA programs in Canada, as well as highly ranked internationally by both Business Week and Wall Street Journal. I have also done a quick calculation which showed me that actually both Ivey and Schulich cost approximately the same overall. In Schulich half of it goes towards the living expenses and at Ivey it goes towards the tuition. In either case it works out to be about 84K. Either for a year or for two years. One has to also consider the increased opportunity cost at Schulich due to the additional year of lost salaries.
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