Visiting b-schools: An absolute must?

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Visiting b-schools: An absolute must?

by westsidah408 » Sun May 27, 2012 7:35 am
Hi all,

I've read a lot of articles/forum posts suggesting that visiting a school is the ultimate way to determine fit, and obviously fit is a very important part of b-school selection.

The question is, just how essential is it to visit? Many of us live outside the US and may not have the funds or the time (taking off work etc.) to visit multiple schools in the US. Needless to say the costs of flying and hotels alone are quite expensive.

Some schools such as Stern provide a virtual tour. Are those enough to give us a feel of the school environment? Are there b-schools which provide prospective students with videos of classes so we get a better vibe of the place?

Any insight is appreciated as I am contemplating visiting once the 2012 intake start classes, but for the reasons above am considering if it will be worth it.

Cheers,
west
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by sieken » Mon May 28, 2012 6:10 am
Visiting schools is absolutely crucial. However, don't start buying plane tickets until you know your GMAT and thereby your chance of getting in. Once you have a list of programs, arrange a time to visit when class is in session. This is major. And here's why:

I didn't know if I wanted to attend a part-time or a full-time program. My top choice was Berkeley and they had a part time program, so I applied there without doing a class visit. A good deal of my personal network is Cornell so I felt a good degree of attachment there, so I applied to their full-time program. I didn't do campus visits to either. When I finally got around to visiting Berkeley I was on the wait list. I did a "day in the life of" in San Francisco. I visited clients and worked all day, then attended class at 6pm. Everything was good until 8:30pm and everyone started getting sleepy, but the class powered through. We still had an hour left to go and I was falling asleep! I'm a morning person, and taking that visit showed me how unsuited I was for the evening program. Conversely, visiting Cornell made me fall in love with the place: it offered everything I could have dreamed of, and now I'm wishing I had applied to more programs like it, including Berkeley's full-time program.

I was accepted into Cornell and will be attending this fall, but there is still a piece of me that wishes I had visited more schools before applying.