Business Week Business School Rankings - 2001

Richard Ivey School of Business - University of Western Ontario

The information provided below was copied from the following source: Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools, ed. by Betsy Gruber, et al. 7th edition, 2001. See Chapter 7: "The Best Business Schools Outside the United States", p.410-412. The book is available in the Business Library (see the link provided in the citation at the bottom of this page for additional details).

THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO
Richard Ivey School of Business
1151 Richmond Street North
London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K6
E-mail address: mba@ivey.uwo.ca
Web site address: http://www.ivey.uwo.ca/mba

Corporate ranking: 5 Graduate ranking: 5
Enrollment: 600 Annual tuition & fees: $14,000
Women: 25% Room and board: $4200
International: 40% Average GMAT score: 661
Part-time: 0 Average years of work exp.: 5
Average age: 28 Accepted applicants enrolled: 70%
Applicants accepted: 40% Intellectual capital: 5
Median starting pay: $70,700

Teaching methods: Lecture, 10% Case study, 80% Other, 10%

If you want the kind of MBA that builds on the case study method employed at such schools as Harvard, but don't want to pay Harvard prices, go to London, Ontario, located two hours from both Detroit and Toronto. That's where you'll find the Richard Ivey School of Business, part of the University of Western Ontario. Pay with U.S. dollars and you'll find that the exchange rate allows you a first-rate education for a lot less than most elite U.S. schools. Though tuition is on the rise, it hit just $14,000 a year in 2000.
This year, the school has the ability to tag itself "elite:' too. That's because in BUSINESSWEEKS first ever ranking of B-schools outside of the United States, the Ivey school ranked No. 5. That will make it easier for the school's dean, Larry G. Tapp, to continue with his crusade to bring more revenues to the 79 year-old B-school as he removes the public school tuition caps.

The school is considered Canada's best, and it now attracts 280 MBAs to its campus every fall. The school has continued to make a big effort to attract non-Canadians, moving from 10 percent in the mid 1990s, to 36 percent in 1999, and 45 percent in 2000. Best known for finance and general management training, the two-year, full-time program focuses primarily on the case study method the same employed at Harvard. The school is also the second- largest writer of cases in the world, after Harvard, and boasts a world-class faculty to teach them. That means a tough workload, but an experience to help young managers think on their feet.
The first year of the program is devoted to the core curriculum, offering such basics such as marketing and operations, as well as the global environment of business, business statistics, and management information systems. The mandatory classes lean heavily on the case method and run daily from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. "We've had to come up with tough answers for tough problems using the case method," says Andrea Lekushoff, 30, who will graduate into a job at Deloitte Consulting in Toronto in 200 1. In December, many first-years also participate in case competitions -sponsored by Accenture in 2000. To slip into the second year of the program, tagged MBA II, students need to meet basic requirements. But don't think that means that students are competitive in class. "This is not a competitive school," says Lekushoff. "[My classmates] are supportive and cooperative. Last year, when people got an exam framework [outline] they e-mailed it to the entire section of 70 students."

In the second year, students create their own schedule based on a selection of elective courses and have the option to choose concentrations or "streams" in consulting, entrepreneurship, or any other relevant subject area. In the winter of 2001, the school introduced a new stream called "e-leadership," focusing on developing leaders who have skills in e-business. Students have to bid, however, to get into the 70-person streams. Students can also choose courses outside of the business school, such as languages or law, or opt to spend a term at exchange partner schools in I of 16 international locations. Learning a second language is encouraged, but not required.

Like other B-schools, Ivey is working hard to expand its ties with Asia and Asia's rising demand for MBA skills. Ivey has a dedicated campus in Hong Kong, thanks to a $3.75 million gift from Dr. Henry Cheng of New World Development Cp., Ltd. And the school offers an executive MBA program in Hong Kong. Every May, four Ivey MBA students are selected to teach a four-week business class of business students at the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Fifty other students travel to Eastern Europe as part of the LEADER (Students Leading Education and Development in Eastern Europe) program. LEADER participants teach three-week classes at selected host institutions.

On the home front, Ivey's MBAs spend most of their time in the school's handsome sandstone building, set on the University of Western Ontario's 100-year-old campus. London, Ontario, is a pleasant, if sleepy, university town, and most students live off campus in reasonably priced apartments or houses. There's plenty to get involved with on campus, too. In the fall of 2000, students began LeaderLab, a student-led forum that invites such leaders as Alan Webber, the co-founder of FastCompany Magazine, a former U.S. naval commander, and Toben Anderson, a Canadian adventurer and cancer survivor, to campus. About 500 people come to the events, with about 100 alumni and business execs tuned into live Webcasts. Next year, the students expect to double the number of speakers.

One weakness shared by most Canadian Bschools is attracting top-name recruiters to its campus. But at Ivey, 96 recruiters came on campus to hire summer interns, and 240 recruiters came to hire full-time employees in 2000. In 1999, top recruiting companies included Ernst & Young, General Motors, Scotia Bank, CIBC Bank (Canada), and Salomon Smith Barney. Graduates reported to BUSINESSWEEK median starting salaries of $70,700 after incurring about $92,000 in debt for the two years of study. Since non-Canadian and non-U.S. Ivey MBAs tend to have a hard time being placed in North America for summer internships, the career office offers the MBA Step-Up Program, which places them in local companies to get job skills, as well as a course for credit over the summer. Once they're on the job, the school keeps in touch with its 8500 alumni through 20 alumni clubs worldwide and through the lifetime e-mail addresses given to students in their first year.

Becoming part of the 600-strong MBA community remains relatively easy, with 40 percent of applicants making the cut in 2000. Students have, on average, five years of work experience. Some 5 to 10 percent of the MBAs are admitted without undergraduate degrees, an allowance the school makes because such students have about 13 years of work experience behind them.

Source: Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools, 7th edition. 2001, p.410-412.

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