St. Gallen FAQ
I started a forum on Businessweek addressing the prospective St. Gallen MBA audience..(http://forums.businessweek.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=bw-bschools&tid=73646)
and immediately i found myself amidst a flood of questions on and off the forum
Well the interest in the program is heartening.. Euphoria?? i checked with the adcom, they are visibly pleased but are having a hard time turning away so many good candidates..
but there is so much interest!!! and the program is rather selective.. just 35 candidates from across the globe...
as i've mentioned earlier this place is worshipped in the German speaking world.. and just at the first round we're having troubles of imposing caps on the nationalities.. germans.. swiss.. indians .. americans.. even a rational cap of 15% means that only 5 students of a nationality would be able to enroll...in our present class we have 16 nationalities..(just 35 students!!) but the coming class is bound to be even more diverse..
each week we have prospective students share classes with us.... we even invited a group of prospective MBAs to our Diwali Party (http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2007/11/indian-connection.html)
guys and gals.. don't miss the second deadline for sure..!!
I think i'll take up a job in Zurich and then get to meet all the business wizzes of the next batch... :)
Anyways, the various questions that are frequently asked to me have spurred me to dedicate a post to the FAQs..In case i see interest.. I'll keep updating FAQs in future posts too.
Q. Where do most St. Gallen MBA grads work?
Looking at the immediate two previous batches, most people are based in and around Zurich...and a majority of the rest are in Europe...this is primarily because of grads prefer working in switzerland owing to the high salaries but amazingly low tax rates here.. so most guys are based out of Zurich... I'd also prefer working here.. imagine u get a 120K swiss Francs and pay 10-15% or less in taxes.. !!! as against 50k-60k pounds in the UK with prohibitively high taxes ... To add to the pleasure.. the cost of living in Switzerland in PPP terms is less compared to say London..
Q. Where do most company reps who visit St. gallen for workshops, presentations or recruitment come from? London / new york / elsewhere?
For recruitment,workshops and guest lectures, the company representatives come from a variety of offices.. Zurich, Frankfurt and London (in that order). Firms having big offices in Zurich send the Zurich guys while others send people from both Zurich and Frankfurt/London offices. So if a firm has a presence only in London.. the london guys will come..
Q. St Gallen Vs. IMD:
IMD is more towards industry and not so much towards I-Banking or consulting. Besides the candidates there are older...the median age of the IMD MBAs is atleast 4-6 years higher than that at St. Gallen.
St. Gallen has a reputation in finance, economics, business administration and international affairs that is unrivalled in German speaking Europe (not just Switzerland). The top consulting and I-Banking firms are full of St. Gallen executives. if on the other hand you want to go to the industry, the ABBs and Novartis and Hiltis of the world will offer you a large number of projects for your MBA summer internship even at St. Gallen. For instance, our Alumni meet in October was sponsored by Alstom. My buddies in St Gallen also applied to IMD but they somehow didn't like it and hence didn't join IMD.. so it is also a question of "fit" and preferences.
Q. St. Gallen MBA and Financial Times rankings:
Since the MBA program is new, it will debut in the FT rankings only in 2010.. but when it does it is going to cause major upsets in the ranking tables! For the moment though, it is worthwhile to have a look at the online businessweek comparisons of St. Gallen with other top European B-schools. http://bwnt.businessweek.com/premium_ft/compare.asp?r=1&schools=186&schools=187&schools=220&schools=538
what is worthy is looking at the career services sub-section in the comparison. Some stats that u'll need are the average salary at St. gallen was CHF 110,000 (class of 2006)
Q. Funding the MBA deficit:
The university of St. Gallen provides funding help for students. EU nationals can avail a loan without collateral from Credit Suisse at a favorable interest rate of just 4% p.a. while non -EUs can avail a loan by the university.. more details in my post
http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2007/08/mba-ahoy.html
For more queries, mail me , leave a comment or ask a question on the businessweek forum.
cheers!
Stuart
and immediately i found myself amidst a flood of questions on and off the forum
Well the interest in the program is heartening.. Euphoria?? i checked with the adcom, they are visibly pleased but are having a hard time turning away so many good candidates..
but there is so much interest!!! and the program is rather selective.. just 35 candidates from across the globe...
as i've mentioned earlier this place is worshipped in the German speaking world.. and just at the first round we're having troubles of imposing caps on the nationalities.. germans.. swiss.. indians .. americans.. even a rational cap of 15% means that only 5 students of a nationality would be able to enroll...in our present class we have 16 nationalities..(just 35 students!!) but the coming class is bound to be even more diverse..
each week we have prospective students share classes with us.... we even invited a group of prospective MBAs to our Diwali Party (http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2007/11/indian-connection.html)
guys and gals.. don't miss the second deadline for sure..!!
I think i'll take up a job in Zurich and then get to meet all the business wizzes of the next batch... :)
Anyways, the various questions that are frequently asked to me have spurred me to dedicate a post to the FAQs..In case i see interest.. I'll keep updating FAQs in future posts too.
Q. Where do most St. Gallen MBA grads work?
Looking at the immediate two previous batches, most people are based in and around Zurich...and a majority of the rest are in Europe...this is primarily because of grads prefer working in switzerland owing to the high salaries but amazingly low tax rates here.. so most guys are based out of Zurich... I'd also prefer working here.. imagine u get a 120K swiss Francs and pay 10-15% or less in taxes.. !!! as against 50k-60k pounds in the UK with prohibitively high taxes ... To add to the pleasure.. the cost of living in Switzerland in PPP terms is less compared to say London..
Q. Where do most company reps who visit St. gallen for workshops, presentations or recruitment come from? London / new york / elsewhere?
For recruitment,workshops and guest lectures, the company representatives come from a variety of offices.. Zurich, Frankfurt and London (in that order). Firms having big offices in Zurich send the Zurich guys while others send people from both Zurich and Frankfurt/London offices. So if a firm has a presence only in London.. the london guys will come..
Q. St Gallen Vs. IMD:
IMD is more towards industry and not so much towards I-Banking or consulting. Besides the candidates there are older...the median age of the IMD MBAs is atleast 4-6 years higher than that at St. Gallen.
St. Gallen has a reputation in finance, economics, business administration and international affairs that is unrivalled in German speaking Europe (not just Switzerland). The top consulting and I-Banking firms are full of St. Gallen executives. if on the other hand you want to go to the industry, the ABBs and Novartis and Hiltis of the world will offer you a large number of projects for your MBA summer internship even at St. Gallen. For instance, our Alumni meet in October was sponsored by Alstom. My buddies in St Gallen also applied to IMD but they somehow didn't like it and hence didn't join IMD.. so it is also a question of "fit" and preferences.
Q. St. Gallen MBA and Financial Times rankings:
Since the MBA program is new, it will debut in the FT rankings only in 2010.. but when it does it is going to cause major upsets in the ranking tables! For the moment though, it is worthwhile to have a look at the online businessweek comparisons of St. Gallen with other top European B-schools. http://bwnt.businessweek.com/premium_ft/compare.asp?r=1&schools=186&schools=187&schools=220&schools=538
what is worthy is looking at the career services sub-section in the comparison. Some stats that u'll need are the average salary at St. gallen was CHF 110,000 (class of 2006)
Q. Funding the MBA deficit:
The university of St. Gallen provides funding help for students. EU nationals can avail a loan without collateral from Credit Suisse at a favorable interest rate of just 4% p.a. while non -EUs can avail a loan by the university.. more details in my post
http://mba-hsg.blogspot.com/2007/08/mba-ahoy.html
For more queries, mail me , leave a comment or ask a question on the businessweek forum.
cheers!
Stuart
Your posts are of immense information. I am considering applying to St. Gallen's masters program in banking and finance.
Though my previous work experience has been in management consulting (PwC and E&Y), I am extremely interested in financial markets and St. Gallen seems like a great choice (incredibly low course fee and great reputation).
Do you have any idea about this program and how its students fare in career hunt.
Alternatively, can you connect me to anybody enrolled in this program ? I shall be grateful for your help.
Please mail me at sau.iitm@gmail.com
Regards, Saurabh