Malaysia Scholarship 2011                             
                                  Malaysia-Scholarship.com                           

Extra aid for women MBA students

IT PAYS to be a female MBA (Master of Business Administration) student as many top schools provide additional financial aid to women, revealed Georges Knell, associate dean of business programmes at the London School of Business and Finance.

“We are offering scholarships worth £4,000 (RM28,270) to students from Malaysia. Women get £2,000 (RM14,140) extra,’’ he said, adding that women make up about 35% of enrolment at the school.

Knell was one of four speakers at the forum on The MBA Experience and Getting Into Business School which was held in conjunction with the World MBA and World Grad School Tour in Kuala Lumpur last Friday.

Over 1,000 people turned up for the World MBA and World Grad School Tour in Kuala Lumpur.
The World MBA Tour is touted as the primary recruitment tool for the world’s leading business schools, and has been making stops in several major cities for over a decade. 

Kuala Lumpur is the tour's penultimate stop in the Asia Pacific region.

At the forum, representatives said many countries encouraged students to study at the postgraduate level and then remain for work after graduation. 

In Europe, where one-year MBAs are the norm, about 50% of students stay back for at least a year after completing their MBA, said general director of the Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School in Belgium Patrick de Greve.

On the question of rankings, the panellists agreed that they should act as a filter to break down the schools that candidates are looking at.

Knell said rankings should be taken seriously as employers scrutinised them. 

He added that it was important students consider whether the school they were interested in was accredited.

“Analytical, enthusiastic and humble,” are the qualities Lynn Garrnett, assistant director of admissions at Darden School – The University of Virginia said they were looking for in an MBA student. 

The University of Melbourne’s Business School marketing development manager Claire Brookes emphasised it wants internationally diverse students who could add value to the class and become “ambassadors for the school.” 

The forum was held from 5pm to 6pm, after which the doors opened for the tour. 

As in last year’s fair, hundreds of visitors got the chance to speak personally to representatives from about 50 of the world’s top universities and business schools at The Westin in Bukit Bintang. 

WANG: International students make up about 32% of full-time students with most coming from the United States and Canada.
About 1,200 people attended, 800 for the World MBA Tour and 400 for the World Grad School Tour. 

There were representatives from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.

Among those taking part were the University of Melbourne, Australia, the Indian School of Business, Cranfield School of Management in Britain and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in the United States.

Visitors were able to obtain information on the programmes’ content, costs, duration as well as financial aid and post-qualification career options. 

Daisy Wang, MBA admissions manager of the Beijing International MBA programme at Peking University in China said they were participating outside mainland China for the first time.

“Last year, we were in Beijing and Shanghai only, but this year we came to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Seoul and Hong Kong. The response has been better than expected as there is so much interest in China.

”International students make up about 32% of our full-time students with most coming from the US and Canada.”

Although only five years old, the Indian School of Business (ISB) based in Hyderabad has already made a name for itself and is ranked among the top schools in India. 

To attract more foreign students, the private school is offering three US$10,000 (RM35,980) scholarships to Malaysians, one of which will be reserved for women.

“Our remarkable progress is largely due to our distinct value proposition that the ISB offers a world-class programme in Management at one-third the cost of leading international programmes,” said director of admissions Ranga Rao IV. “

Cranfield School of Management offers a one-month pre-MBA programme to its overseas students, director of the programme Graham Heard said.

One of the early birds at the fair was investment bank manager Rahimi Ahmad, who is looking to do an MBA to progress further in her career.

“It is such a big investment that you have to plan it properly. I wanted to find out more about the cost of living as well as scholarships available.

“I was surprised at the diversity of institutions represented. A lot of names were not familiar to me,” she said adding that she read about the Tour in The Star.

Lee Yeing-Yeing, a Bachelor of Statistics holder from a local university, was surprised to discover that one of the exhibitors, the National University of Singapore, offered a dual MBA with another exhibitor, Peking University.

“However, that will be more costly,’’ said Lee

who found out about the tour through Jobstreet.com.

UK graduate Kumar Krish was keen to continue his studies by doing an MBA at another British university. The accountant, who works in an IT company, said he wants to pursue an MBA “not for the money, but for personal satisfaction.”

Kumar, who read about the tour in The Star, said he was surprised to find out that some schools had different entry requirements with some only taking students with corporate sponsorship while others did not require the GMAT, only letters of recommendation.

Marketing director of QS Asia Pacific Simona Bizzozero, which organised the MBA and Grad School Tour, said she was pleased with the response.

“This year, many of the visitors had work experience. They also asked relevant questions.

“There is no doubt that events like these help to raise the profile of the institutions taking part. One school which took part had no Malaysian students initially, but managed to enrol six in its second year. We are helping schools diversify their student population,’’ she said.

Source : Author SIMRIT KAUR,The Star