Clear Admit School Guide: Saïd Business School at the University … · 2015. 11. 24. · •...

Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford

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The Clear Admit team has prepared this reference guide to the Saïd Business School at Oxford University (“SBS,” “Saïd” or “Oxford”) to assist you in your research of this program. Our comments are designed to be of use to individuals in all stages of the admissions process, providing information rel-evant to those who are determining whether to apply to this program, looking for in-depth information for a planned appli-cation to Saïd, preparing for an interview or deciding whether to attend.

The guide is unique in that it not only addresses many aspects of life as a Saïd MBA student and alumnus, covering school-specific programs in depth, but also compares Saïd to other leading business schools across a range of criteria based on data from the schools, the scholarly and popular presses, and Clear Admit’s conversations with current MBA students, alum-ni, faculty and school administrators. We have normalized the data offered by each business school to allow for easy side-by-side comparisons of multiple programs.

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Table of Contents | v


Contents

1 Introduction to SBS 1

Program Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Brief History of the MBA . . . . . . . . . 1

SBS History . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Student Demographics . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Academics 6

Academic Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Student Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Teaching Methods . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Core Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Electives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Curriculum Comparison . . . . . . . . 10

Grading System . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3 Special Programs 13

Experiential Learning Projects . . . . . . 13

Entrepreneurship Project . . . . . . . 13

Strategic Consulting Project . . . . . . 13

Student Treks . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4 Life at SBS 16

Campus Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Life in Oxford . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Clubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

5 Life After SBS 23

Careers Service . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Recruiting/Interview Procedures . . . . . 24

Career Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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vi | Table of Contents


Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

The U.K. Work Visa . . . . . . . . . . 28

Alumni Network . . . . . . . . . . . 28

6 Admissions 30

Visiting SBS . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Outreach Events . . . . . . . . . . 30

Application Requirements . . . . . . . . 30

Interviewing at SBS . . . . . . . . . 31

Deadlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Other MBA Programs . . . . . . . . . 32

7 Financing the SBS MBA 34

Tuition & Expenses . . . . . . . . . . 34

Financial Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

8 Appendix 36

Essay Topic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . 36

Admissions Director Q&A . . . . . . . . 38

9 Further Resources 42

Publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

SBS Research Centers & Institutes . . . . 42

Contact Information . . . . . . . . . 43

Social Media. . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Table of Contents | vii


Introduction | 1


1 Introduction to SBSProgram Highlights Oxford University Connection – The Saïd Business School is affiliated with one of the oldest and most prestigious universi-ties in the world. In addition to enjoying the international rec-ognition of the Oxford brand after graduating, MBA students can take advantage of the distinguished university’s world-class academic culture.

Academic and Practical Approach – The rigorous academic tradition for which Oxford University is known exists at SBS with a number of experiential learning opportunities. About 20 percent of each course can consist of practical assignments, thereby tempering the university’s traditionally theoretical approach to education with exposure to real-world business problems. Additionally, SBS students can complete two ex-periential projects during the one-year program, the required Entrepreneurship Project and the optional Strategic Consulting Project, as well as participating in the Oxford Venture Fund and other activities that give them practice in real-world busi-ness situations.

Accelerated Program – The Oxford MBA is designed to be completed in about 12 months, which allows students to re-turn to the workforce nearly a whole year earlier than most top MBA programs in Europe and the United States. The shorter length of the Oxford MBA also makes it a less expen-sive option than longer programs, since students pay for just one year of business education, not two.

Brief History of the MBA Originally conceived as an extra year of undergraduate train-ing in finance, economics and accounting, business schools shifted around the start of the 20th century to begin offering managerial training for the U.S.’s new industrialized compa-nies (see Figure 1.1). Their prestige grew throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the research and train-ing generated by business schools was seen as a key to the country’s economic recovery. The unprecedented managerial needs of World War II further increased the demand for for-mal business education, and after the war, U.S. veterans used their G.I. Bill funding to finance their business studies and move into management jobs.

By the 1950s, the MBA was a two-year, post-graduate pro-gram that turned business into a professional discipline on par

2 | Clear Admit School Guide: Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford


MBA Degree

Figure 1.1 Notable Developments in MBA History

• Business schools are established in the U.S. to train managers for the new industrialized world, especially the railroad industry.

• Academic focus is on accounting and book-keeping and most professors are professionals in these fields.

• Association of Collegiate Schools of Business is founded in 1916 to provide resources for the grow-ing number of U.S. business schools, which by 1919 enroll over 36,000 students.

• On-campus recruiting by industry rises.• Curricula begin to include policy issues.

• The research and training conducted by business schools during the Great Depression is popularly seen as a key to the U.S.’s economic revival, sig-nificantly raising public opinion of business schools.

• WWII sharply increases demand for trained man-agers and WWII veterans return to U.S. business schools in droves.

• Most professors now hold Ph.D.s in business and academic research begins to form the basis of business school curricula.

• Strategic decision making and quantitative and statistical analyses become the focus of many cur-ricula.

• INSEAD is founded.• London Business School opens.

• MBA starting salaries rise 5-10% per year at some schools, even during stagflation.

• Entrepreneurship enters most curricula.• INSEAD establishes Asian Business Program.

• Business schools focus on leadership, ethics and interpersonal skills, altering course content and in-creasing classroom emphasis on working in teams.

• High profile corporate scandals prompt call for greater ethics education in business schools.

• INSEAD’s Singapore campus opens.• By 2004, 447,000 students are enrolled in U.S.

business programs.

• Oxford Centre for Management Studies (OCMS) is established in 1965.

• OCMS is renamed Templeton College in 1983. • Oxford University School of Management Studies

takes over business education at the university.• School of Management Studies is renamed Saïd

Business School in 1996.• Professor Colin Mayer is appointed dean.• SBS moves into its current building on Park End St.

in 2001.

• Professor Peter Tufano assumes the deanship in July 2011.

• New building and conferencing facilities opened in 2013.

Said Business School

1880s

1900s

1910s

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Introduction | 3


with medicine and law, and the degree was seen as a ticket to a better, more secure career. The MBA continued increas-ing in popularity, from 21,000 business management master’s degrees awarded in the 1969-1970 academic year to 139,000 in 2003-2004. This rise came in conjunction with a growing demand for MBA graduates in the workplace and with rising starting salaries for those graduating from top schools.

Since the early days of the MBA, there have been conflicts over the purpose of a business education. Initially, tension between a classical education in economics and more “practi-cal” training in business dominated the debate, and in some ways this remains the central conflict. Today, the tension be-tween theory and practice has increasingly taken center stage, as business school professors have become more academic and employers demand broader skill sets from MBA graduates. Most business schools, however, have designed programs that offer students exposure to both theory and practice – intern-ships, fieldwork and school-based consulting programs are widespread. The increase in average full-time work experi-ence among entering MBA students, as well as the growth in Executive MBA programs, ensures that classroom theories are continually tested against real world experiences. Regardless of these tensions, the MBA remains one of the most popular graduate degrees in the United States and around the world.

SBS History Business education at Oxford University began in 1965 with the establishment of the Oxford Center for Management Studies (OCMS), which offered graduate and adult education classes in business and later began offering undergraduate instruction as well. At its inception, OCMS was technically an “associate institute” of Oxford University, not an independent department, due to the fact that management was not consid-ered a sufficiently academic discipline to warrant full incorpo-ration into the university. The high demand for management education, however, did not abate, and Oxford University created a B.Phil. program in Management Studies in 1967. The first OCMS campus, a complex of buildings and extensive parkland located two miles from Oxford’s city center at Egrove Park in Kennington, was completed in 1969 and still houses Saïd Business School’s executive education programs.

In 1983, a gift from the billionaire investor Sir John Templeton led OCMS to be renamed Templeton College and to be recate-gorized as a “society of entitlement,” which permitted it to en-roll its own graduate students. The college attained full status by decree of a Royal Charter in 1995, and in 2008 it merged with another graduate college, the former Green College, to become Green Templeton College. Green Templeton College is now located in central Oxford on the existing Green College campus and is populated entirely by graduate students, most of whom are enrolled in professional degree programs.

In 1991, the university assumed responsibility for Templeton College’s degree programs with the creation of the Oxford Uni-



versity School of Management Studies. In the same year, a £2 million gift from Sir Peter Moores, the art collector, philan-thropist and former Everton Football Club chairman, led to the creation of Oxford University’s first faculty positions in man-agement. The Saïd Business School name followed five years later thanks to Syrian–Saudi Arabian financier and investor Wafic Rida Saïd, who donated £23 million for the purpose of establishing a formal business school in his name at Oxford University.

Upon the Saïd Business School’s renaming, its primary gradu-ate degree program, the B.Phil., was changed to the MBA in order to make the Oxford management curriculum comparable to those of MBA programs at other leading schools. Profes-sor Colin Mayer, who had taught corporate finance, taxation and governance at the Oxford School of Management Stud-ies since 1994, was appointed dean of the school, a post he held until 2011. During his tenure, SBS moved into its new home on Park End Street – across from the Oxford railway station – assumed responsibility for Oxford’s executive educa-tion programs and launched a number of innovative research centers, such as the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship and the BT Centre for Major Program Management. Professor Peter Tufano, a longtime faculty member and administrator at Harvard Business School, took up the deanship in July 2011. In 2013, Saïd opened a new building next to the original busi-ness school, a buidling that is designed to service the needs of its Executive Education program and provide additional meet-ing and conferencing facilities.

Student Demographics Saïd Business School at Oxford accepts a small class of di-verse and talented applicants each year from across a wide range of professional and educational backgrounds. Students matriculating into the SBS program in fall 2014, hereafter referred to as the Class of 2015, numbered 230 students (see Figure 1.2), an increase of more than 40 students compared to the previous year. Oxford’s class size puts it on the lower end in its peer group, but SBS students outnumber their peers at Cambridge by more than a quarter. However, classes at Oxford are still only about 20 percent of INSEAD’s annual in-take of more than 1,000 students.

European schools generally tend towards a more international student composition than do schools in the U.S., and mem-bers of the Class of 2015 arrived at Oxford from 45 countries. North America sent the largest portion of students with a representation rate of 27% (see Figure 1.3). As in the Class of 2013, students from Central Asia formed the second largest group, making up 23% of the student population, and Europe contributed the next largest batch of students at 17%. Only a tiny 3% of students in the Class of 2015 are native to the UK, while 97% are international, a figure roughly on par with the London Business School, where 88% of entering students in 2014 were international students.

Figure 1.2 Size of Incoming Class

Figure 1.3 Citizenship

North America

Central AsiaEurope

Eastern & South Eastern

Asia

Other Int’l

Africa

Introduction | 5


SBS students in the Class of 2015 had an average of five years in the workplace before enrollment. At 28 years, the average age at SBS is only slightly older than that of students at U.S. business schools, and the age range for this class was 20 to 36 years old. In addition to these statistics, Oxford reports that 11% of its students in the Class of 2015 hold dual citizenships and 19% of students are married.

The mean GMAT of an entrant into SBS in the Class of 2015 was 692, an increase of six points from the previous year but an average that nonetheless still gives Oxford a respectable place among European schools; the members of the Class of 2016 at LBS averaged 8 points higher on the GMAT. This plac-es the mean GMAT at Oxford approximately 30 points below those of leading U.S. business schools, which are generally higher than GMAT results typical of international programs.

A full 35% of the Class of 2015 majored in mathematics and engineering (see Figure 1.4), and 27% focused on business and management as undergraduates. Other students report-ed similarly quantitative backgrounds: 11% studied econom-ics and 5% completed degrees in medicine and science. The rest of the Class of 2015 studied the humanities and social sciences –contributing 8% and 9% of the class, respectively. The percentage of students with social science backgrounds increased from 4% in the Class of 2013, although the Class of 2015 experienced a drop in newly enrolled students with backgrounds in the humanities from 16%.

Despite the rising enrollment of women into other profes-sional studies graduate programs, such as medicine and law, business schools still see a relatively low number of female applicants. While leading U.S. MBA programs often graduate higher percentages of women than do international schools, Oxford’s female population is particularly low. The Class of 2015 increased the percentage of female students as the previous year, and overall SBS has one of the highest percent-ages of women among its peers at 33% (see Figure 1.5).

Figure 1.5 Gender Distribution

Figure 1.4 Undergraduate Majors

Math & Engineering

Business & Management

Humanities

Economics

Medicine & Sciences

Social Sciences

Other



2 AcademicsThe Oxford MBA at Saïd Business School is a one-year pro-gram delivered in four terms. The school’s affiliation with Oxford University and its location in Oxfordshire, one of Great Britain’s technology hubs, have helped SBS to build its repu-tation in entrepreneurship and high technology, as well as pro-viding a strong foundation in general management and global business.

Academic Calendar The academic year at Oxford is divided into three terms, each 10 weeks long, with a more freeform Summer term that lasts through August (see Figure 2.1). The academic year con-cludes with the two-week Capstone, which includes lectures and workshops, in September. The SBS schedule departs slightly from the standard Oxford University calendar, with each term’s courses beginning about one week earlier than those offered by other university departments.

The fall term, which is known at Oxford as Michaelmas, begins for SBS students in the last week of September and ends in mid-December. Following a month-long holiday break, SBS students return to Oxford for the winter term, called Hilary term, which runs until early April. Trinity term begins after another four-week break and wraps up in late June.

Though the end of Trinity marks the end of the academic year for most of Oxford University, SBS students continue their studies through August and into September. SBS students therefore complete the MBA 12 months after matriculating into Oxford.

The first three terms are each divided into three portions. During the first eight weeks of each term, students attend lectures and complete group work for their courses. The ninth week is devoted to reviewing course material in prepa-ration for the exams administered during Week 10, although students in Hilary term spend this ninth week completing the Entrepreneurship Project instead of a review week.

The fourth term, known as Summer term, is the least struc-tured part of the program and follows a different schedule than the previous three terms. SBS students are invited to choose from among a number of Summer term activities which vary in duration from five to eight weeks. Some stu-dents opt to spend their time taking courses on campus or working on a thesis, while others participate in a Strategic Consulting Project off campus. Strategic Consulting Projects

Michaelmas Term begins September 21Term ends December 18Hilary Term begins January 11Term ends April 8TrinityTerm begins April 25Term ends July 1SummerTerm begins July 4Term ends September 2September SessionTerm begins September 5Term ends September 10

Figure 2.1 SBS Academic Calendar 2015-2016

Academic Programs | 7


are generally four- to six-week commitments involving team travel to a client’s location to research and provide recommen-dations concerning a business problem.

Another Summer option for SBS students is to intern with a company in their target post-MBA industry. Since these internships do not qualify for academic credit, students who choose this path typically need to complete a few additional credits during the following September in order to satisfy the academic requirements of the degree, after which they are eligible to graduate.

Orientation Many schools offer pre-term and orientation programs for first-year students prior to the start of the academic year. While orientations are usually required three- or four-day programs focused on meeting classmates and becoming accli-mated to the campus, pre-term programs include an academic component, which may be anything from placement exams to leadership seminars. Orientations are always mandatory, though pre-term programs may be optional, depending on the nature of the activities taking place.

Oxford requires incoming SBS students to participate in a three-week orientation, known as MBA Launch, which is held prior to the start of Michaelmas classes. Once MBA Launch is underway, SBS students are introduced to the school’s aca-demic expectations, examination policies and support services through sessions organized by SBS faculty and members of the career services and alumni relations offices. The formal SBS orientation begins with Oxford Pursuit, a scavenger hunt that sends SBS students around Oxford in small groups to familiarize them with the city.

Additionally, to ensure that all students are prepared to excel in the MBA program, SBS students are required to complete short orientation workshops covering key MBA disciplines such as finance and consulting. Each of these workshops includes sessions hosted by guest practitioners who give students an overview of the available career opportunities in each sector. One of the workshops is dedicated to the year’s Global Oppor-tunities and Threats: Oxford (GOTO) topic. Finally, new MBA candidates are assigned a busy schedule of MBA Launch social events, such as a family luncheon, get-togethers at Oxford pubs and a concluding reception, which keep them busy as they settle into their new surroundings.

Beyond the orientation activities organized by SBS, new stu-dents are also inducted into their respective residential col-leges, scholarly communities that provide meals, housing and social activities for their member students. These college ori-entations include introductions to the college’s dining, finance and student life administrators. All students are also taken on a tour of the University of Oxford’s main library, the Bodle-ian, during which they are made aware of the library’s policies and learn to use its resources; all students must also sign the



centuries-old Bodleian Oath in which they solemnly swear to obey all library regulations. Several of these activities are undertaken together with the college’s new undergraduates, though most colleges also organize social bonding events ex-clusively for graduate students.

Students complete their induction into Oxford by participating in Matriculation Day, a mandatory ceremony for all new stu-dents enrolled in the university. Matriculation Day marks the symbolic beginning of a student’s life in Oxford and as such is steeped in tradition, from the ceremony itself right down to the clothes that students are required to wear. All students are required to wear sub fusc, the traditional academic regalia of Oxford and Cambridge that includes standard-issue black cape-like gowns and mortarboard caps. Following the pho-tograph, the black hatted-and-gowned new students march toward the Sheldonian Theatre, where the Matriculation Day ceremony is traditionally held. The day typically ends with a champagne reception or dinner celebrating the students’ for-mal induction into the university.

Student Body Like most top business schools, SBS divides its entering class into smaller sections for the purpose of encouraging more manageable discussions in core courses. Sections represent a range of cultural, professional and social backgrounds, thus fostering a sense of diversity that reflects the profile of the larger class (see Figure 2.2).

In recent years, SBS has split its roughly 200-student class into three sections, and students take all core classes with their sections. Each section is further subdivided into three- to five-person study groups, similarly chosen to maximize diver-sity. For example, an engineer from India might be assigned to a study group together with a Chinese banker, a Brazilian manufacturer, and Canadian and Irish consultants. Students work in these study groups to complete group assignments over the course of Michaelmas term. Beyond Michaelmas, students begin choosing their own study groups for their elec-tive courses.

Teaching Methods Saïd employs a mix of varied teaching methods in order to convey coursework to its MBA students. One quarter of all teaching is conducted through case studies in which, much like at Harvard Business School, students read a short de-scription of an actual business problem and then discuss or analyze the actions of the players in that case. Another quarter of the Oxford MBA program is taught through team projects, while lectures constitute 40 percent of instruction. Finally, faculty members employ business simulations for ap-proximately one-tenth of the program.

230

Students per class

3

Sections per class

~70

Students per section

3-5

Students per study group

Figure 2.2 Structure of the Student Body



Core Curriculum The Oxford MBA centers on an eight-course core curriculum intended to give students a strong foundation in essential business disciplines (see Figure 2.3). Of the eight courses, six are taken during Michaelmas term and the final two are com-pleted over Hilary term alongside the Entrepreneurship Proj-ect. Since the Oxford MBA is primarily a generalist’s degree designed to give future business leaders a broad foundation in advanced business disciplines, all students are required to complete the same eight-course sequence and cannot opt out of any part of the core.

Michaelmas is the most strictly programmed term of the Ox-ford MBA, as students’ schedules consist entirely of six of the eight required courses. During Hilary term, however, students have greater flexibility in choosing the topics that they study. In addition to completing the two remaining core courses, Ox-ford MBA students round out their Hilary term courseload with the Entrepreneurship Project and two core electives. The final two terms of the program are even more flexible, as students take five elective courses in Trinity term and, during Summer term, may complete either two additional electives, an aca-demic thesis, an internship or a Strategic Consulting Project as their final graduation requirement.

Opportunities to formally apply academic concepts to the real world are a key part of the Oxford MBA, constituting up to 20 percent of assignments in each course. For instance, the Entrepreneurship Project, a team assignment completed dur-ing Hilary term, gives Oxford MBA students the opportunity to apply the skills they learned during Michaelmas by creating a business plan and pitching it to professional venture capital-ists. Outside the classroom, students have further opportu-nities for experiential learning through the Summer term’s Strategic Consulting Project, the Saïd Business School Venture Capital Fund and individual summer internships, all of which draw upon Oxfordshire’s status as one of Great Britain’s tech-nology hubs.

Students receive one credit per core course and must earn at least seven core credits in order to graduate. This effectively means that students may fail one core course and still re-main eligible for the Oxford MBA. Students report that these expectations are more than attainable, especially since SBS provides considerable academic support through study groups and mentorship from an Academic Supervisor.

Electives Beyond the eight required courses and the Entrepreneurship Project, students may tailor their academic program through elective courses as well as consulting and independent proj-ects. Students have their first opportunity to enroll in two electives during Hilary term (see Figure 2.4) after apprehend-ing foundational academic concepts through the required core

•Business Finance•Analytics •Accounting •Strategy•Firms and Markets •Leadership Fundamentals •Technology and Operations Management •Marketing •Entrepreneurship Project

Figure 2.3 SBS Core Curriculum



curriculum programming.

Significantly more elective courses are on offer during Trin-ity term, but class sizes are generally capped at just a few dozen students. This means that demand for certain courses invariably exceeds available space–a phenomenon present at nearly every MBA program. To manage this demand, elective selection at SBS has traditionally been governed by a bidding system similar to those in use at many other leading MBA programs.

The Oxford MBA does not offer any formal concentrations or majors, though students are free to choose electives that would help them acquire deep knowledge of a single field. The lack of concentrations at SBS is likely due to the fact that the Oxford MBA is designed as a generalist’s degree and because the accelerated pace of a one-year program does not leave time for extensive specialization.

Curriculum Comparison All business schools require students to complete a set of core courses, but the length and flexibility of these cores vary significantly from program to program. Applicants may find it helpful to compare the curriculum requirements of the leading programs to understand how much of the academic program is structured by the school, how much is at the discretion of the student, and how much flexibility students have to waive these requirements. As such, when reviewing the curricula of the leading programs, it can be helpful to compare the cours-es that each school deems mandatory, requires but allows for conditional waivers or substitutions, and offers on an elec-tive basis, which leaves the course choice to the student (see Figure 2.5).

To graduate from the Oxford MBA program, students must complete 18 credits. Seven of these credits must come from passing seven of the eight required core courses, two are achieved through completing the Entrepreneurship Project, eight credits are awarded on the basis of passing eight of the nine elective courses, or six elective courses plus a thesis project or Strategic Consulting project, and the final credit is awarded by passing the Global Opportunities and Threats: Oxford (GOTO). Given this breakdown, roughly half of credits are from required courses and the other half are from elective work. Compared to other one-year programs like INSEAD and Judge, Oxford offers students more opportunity to tailor their studies.

Grading System Although there is some variation by course and professor, Ox-ford course assignments consist primarily of papers, projects and exams, which are completed both in small groups and on an individual basis. Students are evaluated on their academic

•Culture and global markets •Entrepreneurialfinance•Finance II •Global Strategy•Macroeconomics •Socialfinance•Strategy Implementation •Valuing performance

Figure 2.4 Selected SBS 2015 Electives



performance using the university’s 0 to 100 numerical scale, but these marks are not printed on students’ transcripts; instead, final grades of 70 to 100 are designated “Distinction,” those from 50 to 70 are designated “Pass” and those below a 50 are designated “Fail.”

A minimum grade of 50 is needed for a completed course to count toward the SBS graduation requirements. It is rare for anyone to fail an Oxford MBA course, since the school permits students to re-sit exams if they did not do well the first time. The type, or “class,” of degree that students receive at the end of the MBA program depends on their cumulative marks. For example, students who earned at least a 70, or Distinc-tion, in six or more courses with average marks of 65 are awarded a first-class degree.

Faculty There are close to 100 professors, lecturers and fellows at Saïd Business School, and the school reports that the fac-ulty has a high degree of interaction with practitioners in other fields of study, affording the faculty an interdisciplinary perspective and connections across the university. Oxford MBA students are overwhelmingly pleased with the quality of teaching at SBS; many praise instructors for their real-world business experience and enthusiasm for exploring new ideas, as well as for their eloquence and wit. A few of the most illus-

Figure 2.5 Course Type as Percent of Credits Required to Graduate

Note: Mandatory classes are required for graduation and cannot be waived under any circumstances. Conditionally required courses are part of the core curriculum but may be waived by exam or credential or substituted with other coursework.



trious and beloved members of the faculty are profiled below.

Mari Sako Mari Sako is a Professor of Management and Co-Director of the Novak Druce Centre for Professional Service Firms. Her research interests include comparisons of business systems and global value chains in business and professional service firms, with her most recent field of focus being that of the global cost pressures driving outsourcing. Sako’s work on outsourcing has been featured in such publications as The Economist, the Financial Times, The Times, and The Economic Times of India. She holds memberships with the Research Strategy Group of the UK Legal Services Board and the Fi-nance Committee of the University of Oxford Press. At SBS, Sako currently teaches the Global Strategy course in the MBA program.

Tim Jenkinson An expert on private equity, IPOs and regulation and cost of capital, Tim Jenkinson is the Director of the Oxford Private Equity Institute and Professor of Finance at Saïd Business School. His bountiful research on finance and economics, including close to 40 journal articles and book chapters, has been published in a number of top peer-reviewed journals, in-cluding the European Economic Review, the Journal of Finance and the Review of Financial Studies. Additionally, he has writ-ten or coauthored four books on economics and financial top-ics, including Competition in Regulated Industries with former SBS Dean Colin Mayer and Going Public: The Theory and Evi-dence on How Companies Raise Equity Finance with Alexander Ljungqvist of New York University’s Stern School of Business. Outside his scholarship and teaching, Jenkinson serves as a director with the consulting firm Oxford Economic Research and the investment fund PSource Structured Debt, in addition to being an academic advisor to the Global Valuation Institute at KPMG. Jenkinson is a longtime member of Oxford Univer-sity, having joined the Economics Department in 1987, and has been with SBS since 2000, where he teaches the popular Private Equity MBA course as well as Entrepreneurial Finance.

Linda Scott A professor at SBS since 2006, Linda Scott teaches a variety of courses on topics related to marketing and branding. Her expertise is in consumer culture, with a recent focus on im-ages in advertising, marketing and the arts, and religion and commerce, especially with regard to education, sanitation and women’s issues. Scott is the author of Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism and Persuasive Imagery: A Consumer Response Perspective, as well as dozens of journal articles and book chapters. In addition to her research, Scott edits the Advertising & Society Review, serves on the board of the Advertising Educational Foundation and advises the Or-ganization for Women in International Trade. In recognition of Scott’s groundbreaking work in the field of advertising and consumer culture, SBS’s Oxford Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation appointed her the DP World Chair for Entre-preneurship and Innovation, which continues to support her research and teaching efforts in those areas.

Special Programs | 13


3 Special ProgramsExperiential Learning Projects During their yearlong program, Oxford MBA students are re-quired to complete an entrepreneurship-focused assignment designed to give them firsthand experience with creating a new company. SBS also gives students the option of under-taking a second experiential learning project that involves solving a complex business problem for a real company or or-ganization in a team setting. In both projects, students work with a diverse group of peers to obtain expertise in a range of business issues and have the opportunity to apply the critical thinking skills learned in the classroom to real business envi-ronments.

Entrepreneurship Project SBS students embark on their first experiential learning as-signment, the Entrepreneurship Project, during Hilary term. Working in teams of approximately four to five, students de-velop a business plan for a new venture or service, which they will pitch to a panel of investors at the end of the term.

Student teams receive support in the form of a designated Entrepreneurship Project Advisor. At the end of Hilary term, each team presents its business plan for evaluation by a panel of venture capitalists; the most successful may be selected to continue into the development stage, backed by the profes-sional investors and venture capitalists on the panel.

As they develop the business plans, students draw upon the foundational business skills, such as finance and operations, that they learned in their core courses, complementing them with additional entrepreneurship-specific tools drawn from related SBS evening workshops. Among the ideas that stu-dent teams have recently developed for the Entrepreneur-ship Project is an alternative fuel project, designed to process waste and other raw materials to cut down on Indian cement factories’ use of conventional fuel. The project made it to the semi-final round of SBS’ Venture fund competition.

Strategic Consulting Project The Strategic Consulting Project (SCP), one of the three Sum-mer term activity options available to Oxford MBA students, takes place over July and August and gives students the op-portunity to apply their previous three terms of coursework to solve a complex business problem for a real-world corporation or social organization. Though students are not required to



participate in SCP to graduate with the Oxford MBA, it is typi-cally one of the most popular Summer term activities on offer each year.

To complete the project, students serve as business consul-tants for a sponsor corporation or organization, working in small teams both in Oxford and at the client’s location. To help students track down consulting placements, the school maintains relationships with corporations and social organiza-tions located around the world. Students are also encouraged to draw upon their own professional contacts to secure spon-sorships for “student-sourced projects.” More entrepreneur-ially minded students often choose to use the SCP to further develop the business plan they pitched during the Entrepre-neurship Project (see Figure 3.1).

Generally, students form their teams of around four first, and then choose a consulting project based on the interests and talents of the team members. The projects can come from any area of business; in recent years, students have com-pleted SCPs as diverse as providing recommendations on the sustainability of various growth plans for Port-au-Prince and exploring new ways to improve relationships between social entrepreneurs and their investors at the World Bank. Once they return from the client site, the student teams have roughly a month to complete a paper discussing their recom-mendations, which will be submitted to the client and to SBS faculty supervisors.

Students frequently cite SCP as the highlight of the SBS MBA program, specifically praising the opportunity it gives them to solve a business case in a real-world context. Additionally, the program allows many students to spend much of Sum-mer term outside the UK at their client site, giving them the chance to explore other regions of the world while gaining practical business experience.

Student Treks Each year, Oxford sponsors a number of student treks that travel to particular cities and countries. These treks are de-signed to help interested students learn about the local indus-tries in their target region and begin building their networks in order to secure post-MBA employment (see Figure 3.2). The treks are each one to two weeks long, take place dur-ing the vacation between Hilary and Trinity terms and consist of meetings with recruiters, SBS alumni and representatives from businesses in the area. During Oxford’s 2012 treks, stu-dents visited companies including Google, China Renaissance Capital, Nomura, SBI Ven Capital, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Shell, Toyota, UBS Wealth Management and more.

Each trek is organized and led by one or two SBS students who have previously lived or worked in the area to which the trek is traveling. These student organizers arrange the itiner-ary with the help of Careers Service staff members, who con-nect the trek leaders with recruiters and alumni in that area.

•APOPO •Cisco •Etrade Securities • International Cricket Council •London Stock Exchange •Macquarie Bank •The Prince’s Trust •STIC Investments •The Walt Disney Company •World Bank

Figure 3.1 Recent SCP Sponsors

Special Programs | 15


Students report that the treks are informative and fun excur-sions that allow them to bond with their classmates and learn about the industries and companies they hope to join after graduation.



4 Life at SBSCampus SpacesThe Saïd Business School campus is located on the south-eastern edge of Oxford University, with most of its offices and classrooms contained in a relatively new building completed in 2001 by Dixon Jones, the same architectural firm that built London’s Royal Opera House in the 1980s. The facility lies just across the street from the city of Oxford’s railway station, while Gloucester Green, the location of the city’s bus station and a bustling commercial district, lies to the east on Hythe Bridge Street, just over the Oxford Canal. This area of Oxford is of relatively low density compared to other parts of the city, though several restaurants, shops and residential colleges are within five minutes’ walk of SBS.

The Saïd Business School building itself is a sleekly modern structure, featuring technologically equipped lecture halls and seminar rooms, a spacious common room used for networking and social events, an interior courtyard, an open amphithe-ater and a concert hall that can seat up to 300 people. Also located in the SBS building are a dining hall and the two-story Sainsbury Library, which contains reading rooms and meeting spaces and serves as the official business library for Oxford University. The SBS grounds feature the Fellows Garden, where faculty and students can lounge outdoors, as well as a croquet lawn.

SBS has been undergoing a £15 million expansion, and its new building opened in February of 2013. This new facility, which is contiguous to the existing building, houses part of the school’s executive education program as well as areas for conferences and exhibitions.

Life in Oxford The University of Oxford, the oldest English-speaking universi-ty in the world, is the focal point of the city of Oxford, which is located about 90 kilometers (56 miles) northwest of London in south-central England. The city center is situated just above the intersection of the rivers Cherwell and Thames, the latter of which is known as the Isis as it approaches the city. As a school without a formal campus, Oxford University maintains facilities that are scattered throughout the city of Oxford, but students generally inhabit the city center, where most colleges and academic buildings are located. The city has a population of about 158,000, about 22,000 of whom are Oxford Univer-sity students.

Life at SBS | 17


The city of Oxford was founded in the eighth century A.D. by Anglo-Saxons, who initially named the new settlement Ox-enaforda (“Ford of the Oxen”). Though the university’s origins are unclear, the school is posited to date back to the late 11th century–about one hundred years after the establishment of the first monastery at Oxenaforda–when foreign scholars began traveling to Oxford to teach Latin and religious topics to would-be priests and monks.

The university flourished over the next several centuries, increasing the number of academic programs and establish-ing scholarly communities, which are now known in Oxford as colleges, to accommodate the growing population of stu-dents. In the 17th and 18th centuries, many scientific and technological discoveries came out of Oxford, including Robert Hooke’s wave theory of light and Edmund Halley’s eponymous comet. The city of Oxford grew substantially in prosperity and population throughout the 20th century due to the printing and motorcar manufacturing industries moving into the area during the 1920s.

Landmark buildings in Oxford include the Radcliffe Camera, which is the undergraduate library associated with the univer-sity’s centuries-old Bodleian Library, and the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, an imposing Renaissance-era building situated on High Street in the center of the city. To under-stand why Oxford is frequently called “the city of dreaming spires,” visitors are encouraged to view the city from a high vantage point to see its expanse of dozens of towers, most of which belong to the university’s residential colleges. The most famous of these is Christ Church College’s Tom Tower, which was built by the famous English architect Christopher Wren in the 1680s and is the focal point for the college’s Great Quad-rangle, the largest of any at Oxford. Another famous tower is Magdalen College’s Great Tower, which was completed in the early 16th century and has for many centuries been the site of the May Morning caroling, which takes place every May 1.

Beyond its architecturally diverse collection of buildings span-ning much of the city’s thousand-year history, Oxford is also known for its waterways. The Isis, which is the local name for the stretch of the river Thames that passes through Ox-ford, is the site of many of the city’s most popular entertain-ment events, particularly competitive rowing, a sport in which many Oxford students engage. The smaller Cherwell River is generally reserved for punting and canoeing, both relaxing ways to while away a summer afternoon in Oxford. Oxford is also home to several gardens and parks, the largest of which is University Park on the northeast side of the city, which contains sporting fields and several stands of rare trees. A smaller, but no less charming, park is the university’s Botanic Garden on the High Street, which boasts greenhouses full of flowers from around the world.

For indoor entertainment, locals and visitors alike flock to Ox-ford’s museums, including the Ashmolean, which is one of the first such institutions in the English-speaking world. Founded in 1683, the Ashmolean is home to permanent exhibits cov-



ering a diverse variety of topics, such as Egyptian relics and early European musical instruments, as well as the largest collection of Chinese art outside of Asia. Also in Oxford is the Pitt-Rivers Museum, which contains over 500,000 anthropo-logical and ethnographical artifacts from all over the world.

Theater is also popular among residents, with frequent big-ticket plays, musicals and dance shows drawing crowds at the Oxford Playhouse and the New Theatre. The Burton Taylor Studio, named for its benefactors Elizabeth Taylor and Oxford alumnus Richard Burton, is a much smaller theatre that is mostly used for Oxford University student productions. For musical entertainment, locals attend venues such as the O2 Academy Oxford to hear major rock acts, the Cellar for local artists and the Wheatsheaf for jazz. Numerous classical music performances are held at halls throughout the city, including the Sheldonian Theatre and the Holywell Music Room, the old-est dedicated chamber music performance space in Europe.

As a long-established university town, Oxford maintains a lively pub and bar culture. Among its most popular establish-ments are traditional English pubs such as the White Horse, the King’s Arms and the Turf Tavern, as well as the Eagle and Child on St. Giles Street, a favorite haunt of writers J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. In recent decades, Oxford has be-come home to a number of upscale cocktail bars and night-clubs, many of which are clustered on or around Park End Street on the southwest side of the city.

Oxford is also a restaurant town, with several new fine eat-eries opening in the past few years, such as Quod on High Street and Malmaison Brasserie on New Road, which is located in Oxford’s former Victorian-era prison. These hot spots com-plement more established places, such as the popular Japa-nese restaurant Edamame on Holywell Street and the cozy Old Parsonage on Banbury Road.

The city’s maritime temperate climate results in average temperatures of 7.4°C (45.3°F) in winter and 21°C (70°F) in summer, with occasional snowstorms and heat waves. Precip-itation is relatively normal for a central English city, averaging around 644 millimeters (25 inches) annually. Rainfall tends to be evenly spread throughout the year, with no single season getting more precipitation than the others.

Oxford is highly accessible by bike and on foot, though its cramped medieval layout and dearth of parking makes the city difficult to navigate by car. As a result, most students pur-chase a bicycle once they get settled in Oxford and find that it serves them well throughout the year. For travel outside the city, a railway station stands just across the street from the Saïd Business School facilities, and bus service provided by the Oxford Bus Company and the Oxford Tube runs to and from London around the clock. Additionally, the Oxford Bus Company offers 24-hour service to Heathrow and Gatwick airports, which are located roughly 80 and 145 kilometers (50 and 90 miles) away, respectively. Stansted airport, which is about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Oxford, can be ac-

Life at SBS | 19


cessed via National Express bus route 757.

Housing A distinguishing feature of England’s oldest universities, in-cluding both Cambridge and Oxford, is the residential college system. Under this system, every undergraduate and gradu-ate student at the university is a member of a smaller college within the university that provides its students with housing, meals and an extensive roster of social activities. Many stu-dents report that participating in college life, including attend-ing the college’s formal hall dinners and making use of the college grounds, is the highlight of their year at Oxford.

SBS students gain admission to a college after being accepted to the MBA Program and generally receive some guidance from the Admissions Office in selecting a few colleges to which they will direct their applications. While the colleges have the final say in which students they accept, all SBS students are guaranteed placement in a college by the time they are re-quired to be on campus in September.

The college with the most MBA students is typically Green Templeton, at which about one-third of the entering SBS class matriculates each year. Though a relatively new college by Oxford standards, having been created in 2008 by the merg-ing of Green College and Templeton College, it has a history of affiliation with management studies at Oxford, as Templeton College was Oxford’s original business school before the Uni-versity took over business education in 1991. Other colleges that accept a large number of MBA students include Linacre and St. Hugh’s Colleges, due to a combination of their proxim-ity to the SBS campus, the strength of their graduate student community and the multitude of useful spaces they make available to MBA students.

Each college is a self-contained community with its own quirks and traditions, and students who are newly admitted to SBS are encouraged to research the colleges to determine their top choices. Those who would like to gain membership to a col-lege with a distinguished history, for example, should consider colleges such as Christ Church, Magdalen, Merton and Bal-liol Colleges, which date back hundreds of years. By another token, students who seek a more mature community without a strong undergraduate presence might consider Linacre, Kel-logg, St. Cross, Wolfson and Green Templeton Colleges, which only admit graduate students, as well as Harris Manchester College, which is open to undergraduate and graduate stu-dents over the age of 21.

SBS students generally try to secure housing through their college, as it is less expensive than private rentals and allows them to take full advantage of college life. Some colleges, such as Worcester and Magdalen, rent one-and two-person bedroom apartments or houses located on college grounds. Others, such as Mansfield and Hertford, maintain off-campus dormitories and apartment buildings in which graduate stu-dents typically live. The cost of college-provided housing for



a single student averages around £500 per month. Students who bring their families to live with them at school may have the option of securing family housing, though not all colleges offer this option.

Housing that is not college-owned is generally expensive, especially in the areas closest to the city center. East Oxford, a culturally diverse area of the city that contains a host of ethnic restaurants and quirky shops, is the most affordable, with one-bedroom flats renting for £650 to £850 per month and two-bedrooms for £800 to £1,400. On the other hand, in Jericho, a trendy neighborhood west of the city center that is popular among young professionals, a one-bedroom flat rents for £800 to £1,000 per month and a two-bedroom for £1,000 to £1,500. Both neighborhoods are within a half-hour walk of the SBS campus.

Clubs The Saïd Business School boasts over a dozen organiza-tions centered on the common professional goals, interests and characteristics of its students (Figure 4.1). Though this might seem like a relatively small number of business-focused organizations in comparison to some of Oxford’s peers, SBS is very well integrated into Oxford University as a whole, and SBS students are encouraged to become involved in university clubs as well as those organized through individual residential colleges. Thus, there is a plethora of ways for MBA students to participate in extracurricular activities while at business school.

Most organizations based at SBS are overseen by the Alumni Relations Office and are categorized as Oxford Business Net-works (OBNs). These are primarily professional clubs that typically focus on a single industry or job function and are composed of both current students and alumni. Other SBS organizations, referred to as “groups” or “clubs,” are generally student-run and have no affiliation with the Alumni Relations Office.

The most popular organization at SBS is Oxford Entrepre-neurs, which boasts over 10,000 members worldwide. Cur-rent Oxford students and alumni from all university programs are welcome to join this OBN to take advantage of its net-working events, practical workshops and opportunities to pitch venture ideas and even incubate a new venture. Some of the group’s most popular events are the Ideas2Market pro-gram, which gives students the tools and funding they need to launch companies during their time at Oxford, and the TATA Idea Idol business plan competition, which awards a £10,000 cash prize to the competitor with the best pitch. Other events include themed guest speaker series such as the Changemak-er Speaker Series, which profiles entrepreneurs whose work has reverberated throughout the UK and beyond, and the Emerging Markets Series, aimed at exploring the entrepre-neurial culture and practices found in emerging markets.

•Oxford Business Network for Africa•Oxford Business Network for Art and

Business•OxfordBusinessNetworkforAsiaPacific•Oxford Business Network for Consumer

and Marketing•Oxford Business Network for Energy,

Environment and Resources•Oxford Business Network for

Entrepreneurship•Oxford Business Network for Finance•Oxford Business Network for Healthcare

and Pharmaceuticals•Oxford Business Network for India•Oxford Business Network for Latin America•Oxford Business Network for Management

Consulting•Oxford Business Network for Media,

Design and Entertainment•Oxford Business Network for the Middle

East•Oxford Business Network for Private

Equity•Oxford Business Network for Real Estate•Oxford Business Network for Social Impact•Oxford Business Network for Technology•Oxford Business Network for Women’s

Leadership

Figure 4.1 Oxford Business Networks (OBNs)

Life at SBS | 21


Of course, students’ professional interests extend well beyond entrepreneurship. With more than 11 active industry- and function-focused OBNs spanning common post-MBA fields such as Private Equity and Management Consulting, as well as less common areas like Social Impact, students are able to connect with like-minded peers and network with alumni no matter what they plan to do after their MBAs. OBNs organize speaker series, networking events and continuing education programs related to each industry.

Finally, SBS students are welcome to join any of the over 200 artistic, athletic, cultural and common-interest clubs organized by the University of Oxford, as well as dozens more facilitated by individual residential colleges. These student-run organiza-tions allow students to explore common interests and cultural traditions together with a broader base of students than most SBS clubs provide.

Sports are particularly popular on campus, especially rowing on the Isis. The majority of students interested in rowing, save the exceptionally talented few who are scouted for the varsity, or Dark Blue, squads, can row competitively through their college boat club. Even novice rowers can join a college crew when they first arrive at Oxford, rowing in the Christ Church Regatta at the end of Michaelmas term after a few weeks of practice. Rowing is also a beloved spectator sport at Cambridge; one of the most important university events of the year is the Varsity Boat Race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, held on the river Thames at Henley, London. Just as exciting is the Summer Eights tournament between college boat clubs, which takes place during Trinity term.

Conferences Student groups at SBS host a number of conferences each year, bringing industry leaders and researchers to campus to explore current trends in a variety of fields.

One event, the Annual Private Equity Forum hosted by the Private Equity OBN, was held in March 2015 at SBS. The day-long conference, which was in its eleventh year, included panel discussions, presentations on private equity management is-sues, and Q&A sessions on themes in the global private equity forum. The event ended with a cocktail networking reception in which SBS students mingled with faculty and guest speak-ers.

In March 2015, SBS hosted its first annual Oxford Real Es-tate Conference. The event covered the future decade of real estate investment, with a particular focus on technological influences as well as global investors’ targets. Among the 30 speakers were industry leaders including Sabina Kalyan, the Chief Economist of CBRE Global Investors, and Peter Freeman, the Founder of Argent.

Another event, LAUNCH: Social Impact Careers Conference,



supported graduates related career interests, and the impact can be seen in the high placement rate of SBS grads in the non-profit sector. The Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneur-ship and the Saïd Business School Careers Centre hosted this two-day event in March 2015. Attendees could engage busi-ness leaders, recruiters and consultants about the space. The event also attracted a wide range of speakers, covering such issues as consumer brands, policy making, NGOs and more.

Life After SBS | 23


5 Life After SBSCareers ServiceThe Careers Service at SBS organizes the school’s on- and off-campus recruitment efforts and guides students through the job search process. The office works to cultivate relationships with a broad base of firms in the U.K. and abroad, as well as organizing opportunities for SBS students to learn about these industries and companies from the senior executives who are active in them.

At orientation, students are introduced to the Careers Service staff, which maintains ties with recruiters, shares information about their assigned industries, conducts mock interviews and organizes workshops for students. These workshops typi-cally cover job search–related subjects such as cover letters and résumés, as well as substantive topics relevant to popular industries. The staff also runs industry boot camps for finance and management consulting, which are designed to introduce students to the skills needed to successfully obtain a position in each sector. The two-day-long boot camps take place dur-ing orientation week and are taught by Careers Service staff members, industry experts and recruiters.

In addition to receiving general career guidance, students have many opportunities to meet with representatives from their target companies and learn about a range of fields. The Careers Service office schedules informative employer presen-tations and industry panel discussions throughout the year, as well as works with students to organize treks to corporate headquarters located around the world. Students report that the most valuable expert guidance that the Careers Service provides comes from its Sector Consultants program, which pairs senior executives with students interested in obtaining employment in the executive’s field. The Sector Consultants meet with their students one-on-one, conduct mock inter-views and maintain open lines of communication throughout the year to answer questions about their fields.

Most Careers Service activities are geared toward helping students obtain full-time employment, though there are some opportunities for students who are less sure of their post-MBA plans to complete a short internship during Summer term. Employers interested in hiring students for internships gener-ally participate in the same workshops and presentations as full-time employers, and Careers Service staff members are available to help students search for both internships and full-time positions.



Recruiting/Interview ProceduresRecruiting is conducted year-round at SBS, due to the pro-gram’s relatively short length compared to peer programs in Europe and the U.S. As a result, Oxford MBA students can expect to begin recruiting and conducting job interviews soon after arriving on campus in the fall. In 2014, a pool of em-ployers including leading finance, consulting and technology firms from around the world came to campus to recruit SBS students (see Figure 5.1).

Most recruitment events, which typically consist of a presen-tation given by a company representative followed by a net-working session, are open to all SBS students, though some recruiters sponsor targeted events in which only students fitting a specific profile are invited to attend.

Interview opportunities are also available through Oxford’s online career management system, Career@Saïd, in the form of open and closed job postings. In a closed posting, the re-cruiter only invites selected students to interview after review-ing résumés and meeting candidates at company events. This is the only type of posting offered at Oxford, as open postings, in which all students at the school may bid for interview slots with the company, are not an option for recruiters.

In addition to these methods, some companies also use Ox-ford’s experiential learning activities, such as the Strategic Consulting Project, as a proving ground to recruit students for full-time positions. Participating students may be given a for-mal job offer after completing a project for that company and may be able to forgo the formal interviewing process entirely.

Career Statistics All MBA career offices work to build recruiting relationships with companies in many industries and geographic locations. However, if a school boasts a high number of students with an interest in a particular industry or location, that often suggests that the school is more likely to attract recruiters from those fields or regions, and that those companies are more likely to have a successful recruiting season and be interested in build-ing partnerships with the school. Likewise, when a large num-ber of companies from a particular industry or region regularly visit a school, it tends to attract a larger network of students interested in that field or location.

Because of this cycle of interest in on-campus recruiting, MBA candidates should research the industry and regional employ-ment statistics of their target schools to get a sense of the relative recruiting opportunities available. Of course, with up to half of students at some schools finding their full-time positions through independent searches, it is important to remember that there are many opportunities available beyond on-campus recruiting.

•Amazon•Accenture•Boston Consulting Group •BP •Dalburg Global •Google •HJ Heinz• Jaguar Land Rover •McKinsey & Company •Shell Foundation

Figure 5.1 Selected Top SBS Recruiters 2014

Life After SBS | 25


Figure 5.2 SBS Industry Placement

Other

Financial Services

Consulting

Technology

Media/ Entertainment

Non-profit

Consumer Goods/ Retail

Industry Financial services and consulting are the most popular indus-try choices for members of the SBS Class of 2014, as they are at nearly all of the leading international programs (see Figure 5.3). Oxford’s industry placement in financial services has been somewhat erratic, and may be attributed at least partial-ly to the economic downturn. Graduates entering the finan-cial services industry went from a high of 34% for the Class of 2010 to a low of 22% for the Class of 2012, but there has been a slight rebound with 25% in 2014 (see Figure 5.2).

Similar to financial services, there has been much fluctuation in consulting placement at SBS in the past several years. In 2010, 31% of students entered the industry, while for the Class of 2013, that number dropped to 27%. The most recent class of 2014 continued this downward trend, with only 23% of their graduates entering consulting.

Despite the dominance of consulting and financial services as industry choices, the remainder of the Class of 2014 spread out across media and entertainment, energy, and consumer goods in almost equal numbers (see Figure 5.2). As has been an emerging trend in post-MBA employment, many more graduates are choosing the technology industry; Oxford is no exception to this trend, with 19% of its Class of 2014 entering the sector. It is also of note that 10% of the class entered the non-profit sector—a leading statistic among its peers.

Geography The geographical distribution of a school’s graduates can also be an important factor to consider when evaluating MBA programs, since the percentage of students taking jobs in a particular area often reflects the strength of the alumni net-work in that region. Most business school graduates tend to accept jobs in the same region as their school, and SBS is an example of this phenomenon (see Figure 5.4). In 2014, 41% of graduates found jobs in Europe, a percentage that is signifi-cantly less than placement by other European schools includ-ing IMD, IESE and LBS (see Figure 5.5).

However, the second most popular destination for the Class of 2014 was Asia, where 20% of students settled after gradu-ation, followed closely by North America at 18%. This data point is an aberration from the rest of the peer group and could reflect the fact that nearly one third of the members of recent SBS MBA classes are of North American origin com-pared to 15% North American makeup at LBS and 28% at Judge, for example. Oxford sends a lower percentage of graduates to Asia than does INSEAD or IMD; however, due to IMD’s 90-person class size, Oxford places double the num-ber of MBAs in this region than does IMD’s smaller program. Rounding out the Class of 2014 are the 8% of graduates who find work in Sub Saharan Africa as well as the 13% that take up positions in other areas of the world, including Oceania, the Middle East, and Central America.

Figure 5.4 SBS Regional Placement

UK

Asia

MENA

Africa

Other

North America

Energy

Europe, excluding UK



Financial Services

Consulting

Consumer Goods/Retail

Technology

Health Care/ Pharma./ Biotech

Manufacturing

Non-Profit/ Public Service

Media/ Entertainment

Real Estate

Figure 5.3 Job Placement by Industry

Energy

Life After SBS | 27


Figure 5.5 Job Placement by Region

Europe

North America

Latin America

Asia

*IMD combines the Americas (9% total) in their employment report.



The U.K. Work Visa In 2011, the United Kingdom adopted a new visa regime for graduate students who are not U.K. nationals or citizens of a member nation of the European Union. Among the restric-tions are a permanent cap on skilled immigration, with a limit of 20,700 visas per year, and an English-language require-ment. The most significant changes are for students in one-year MBA programs, such as those at Cambridge and Oxford, who are required to find a job within four months of graduat-ing with the MBA. This means that these MBA students have a total of 16 months in the U.K. to complete their one-year programs and secure employment; those who exceed the 16-month cap will not be permitted to remain. Since MBAs from some of the country’s top schools, such as London Busi-ness School, Judge Business School and Saïd Business School, are among the most in-demand skilled immigrants in the U.K., it is not expected that they will experience difficulty as a result of the immigration cap, provided they are employed before their student visa expires.

Dependents of international students in the U.K. also face new restrictions with regards to work. Right now, only the depen-dents of students who are enrolled in an academic program of over 12 months in length may seek employment in the U.K.

Alumni Network As a relatively young MBA program, SBS has fewer total alum-ni than most of its peer schools. However, its alumni base has been growing steadily since 1998, when the school’s alumni association, the Oxford Business Alumni Network (OBA), was formed. The organization now numbers over 13,000 members worldwide, a count that includes MBA graduates, executive education students and alumni, other post-graduate degree students at SBS and Oxford University alumni who work in traditional post-MBA fields.

SBS alumni are heavily involved in the admissions process, serving as resources and interviewers for prospective stu-dents, recruiting current students and planning ongoing social and networking events for alumni around the world. The OBA event calendar is packed with seminars, happy hours, sporting activities and other events. Alumni can stay up to date on the latest developments at SBS and learn about upcoming alumni events through the official OBA website. In addition, SBS hosts a yearly alumni reunion during which graduates from across the globe are welcomed back to Oxford for a weekend of dinners, social activities and lectures.

Beyond maintaining a vibrant community of SBS graduates, the OBA also facilitates alumni services such as the Oxford Business Networks (OBNs), organizations whose members encompass both current students and alumni. These organi-zations are a source of lifelong learning and networking op-portunities for alumni in a diverse array of fields and regions.

Life After SBS | 29


Alumni also have access to a range of career-development and job-search services, including résumé reviews, interview preparation, one-on-one advisory meetings with a member of the Careers Service, access to job vacancies through Career-Connect and an official Oxford MBA alumni email address.



6 AdmissionsVisiting SBS The Saïd Business School’s MBA Admissions Office is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every weekday throughout the year. Admissions officers are available to answer questions during those hours on an appointment-only basis. Applicants who wish to drop in without an appointment may visit the office on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

The MBA Admissions Office provides a number of avenues through which applicants can get to know the school and its offerings. Each fall and winter, the school organizes four or five MBA Open Days during weeks when classes are in ses-sion, which give prospective students a chance to tour the campus and listen to a full day of presentations on the admis-sions process and the Oxford MBA program. Term-time MBA Open Days start at 10 a.m. and end at 3:00 p.m., and include a class visit, Q&A sessions with students and admissions staff, a career presentation, a tour of the school, and a catered lunch attended by students and faculty who are available to answer questions about SBS.

Outreach Events In addition to its on-campus MBA Open Days, the MBA Ad-missions Office staff organizes several off-campus informa-tional events held in the evenings throughout the year. These events generally include a presentation from an admissions representative, a Q&A session and a concluding reception. Admissions representatives travel throughout the world to host these overseas information sessions, stopping in Tel Aviv, and several cities in the United States and China. A London session is also held semi-annually. Representatives from SBS are also present at one or two global MBA fairs per year.

Finally, the SBS Admissions Office hosts virtual MBA Open Days, online information sessions where faculty and staff discuss the program’s strengths and advantages and answer questions posed by perspective applicants via an online form. Current students and alumni also discuss their time at Oxford.

Application Requirements All applicants must have completed an undergraduate degree or its equivalent in order to be qualified for admission to SBS. The school prefers applicants to have earned at least a 3.5 GPA under the U.S. grading system, a 2.1 under the U.K. sys-

Admissions | 31


Essay 1 HowdoyoufitinwithOxfordSaïd’smis-sion? (500 words maximum)

Essay 2Is there anything not covered in the applica-tion form which you would like the Admis-sions Committee to know about you? (250 words maximum)

Essay for 1+1 SchemeExplain why you see this as particularly beneficialforyouandhowitfitswithyourcareers and personal development aims. (250 words maximum)

Reapplicant Essay What improvements have you made in your candidacy since you last applied to the Oxford MBA? (250 words maximum)

For Clear Admit’s strategic advice on how to approach the SBS essays, see the section “Essay Topic Analysis” in Chapter 8.

Figure 6.1 SBS Essay Topics 2015-2016

tem or an equivalent mark in another country. Those who did not perform as well at university but have excelled in a role with a great deal of responsibility may still be given consider-ation.

While SBS does not require applicants to have any work expe-rience, most SBS students enter the school with an average of six years of experience in the workforce. Despite the predom-inance of slightly older and more established professionals in the student body, applicants with fewer years of work experi-ence are encouraged to apply. All applicants are evaluated on their experience to date as well as on their future leadership potential.

All SBS applicants must submit their materials online through Saïd Business School’s ApplyYourself online application sys-tem. Two essays and two letters of recommendation are also required to complete the application (see Figure 6.1).

Applications are only considered complete once the school receives an official copy of the applicant’s GMAT score, along with their score on the TOEFL, if applicable. Applicants who hold a bachelor’s degree from a university in the United King-dom, United States, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia or other English-speaking countries, or who have studied or worked for three consecutive years in any of those countries, do not need to take the TOEFL. The minimum scores Oxford will accept are 110 on the internet-based TOEFL. Applicants may submit the Academic IELTS in lieu of the TOEFL if they prefer.

As part of their online applications, candidates must include one unofficial transcript for every collegiate or post-under-graduate institution they have attended. Foreign transcripts should appear in the institution’s official language accompa-nied by an English translation. Applicants who receive an of-fer of admission and decide to enroll at SBS are then required to mail official transcripts from each institution.

Interviewing at SBS Saïd Business School conducts its admissions interviews by invitation only. Applicants may be contacted with their inter-view invitations by email on or before the interview decision date. Those who receive invitations will be asked to interview on campus with a member of the SBS faculty, admissions team or senior administration.

Applicants in a position to interview on campus can choose to schedule their interviews either on an MBA Open Day or on one of the school’s devoted Interview Days. Those who cannot travel to campus can arrange to interview during an overseas informational event, or by Skype or phone if no ap-propriate travel arrangements can be made.



Application Deadline Interview Decision Notification DateStage 1 September 11, 2015 September 25, 2015 October 16, 2015Stage 2 October 30, 2015 November 20, 2015 December 11, 2015 Stage 3 January 8, 2016 January 29, 2016 March 4, 2016Stage 4 March 18, 2016 April 8, 2016 April 29, 2016Stage 5 May 6, 2016 May 20, 2016 June 10, 2016Stage 6 June 10, 2016 June 24, 2016 July 8, 2016

Figure 6.2 SBS Deadlines 2015-2016

Deadlines SBS accepts applications in six rounds, or stages, although the admissions committee may close the application season any time after the Stage 4 deadline should all the seats be filled (see Figure 6.2). After processing all incoming applications in a given stage, the MBA Admissions Office releases interview invitations to qualified candidates two to three weeks after each deadline. Two weeks after the last day these invitations can be released, all applicants receive their final admissions decisions.

While applications to the formal rounds are accepted until the beginning of March, applicants are advised to submit their completed materials as early as possible to ensure that there will be space available in the class. Filing applications early also prevents delays in applicants’ financial aid and scholar-ship requests, as well as maximizing the chance that admitted students will be able to join their college of choice.

Other MBA Programs Saïd Business School offers several other master’s programs in addition to its full-time MBA. The MSc in Financial Econom-ics, or MFE for short, is designed for individuals who wish to pursue careers in finance or seek to obtain a theoretical knowledge of finance and applied economics. The nine-month full-time program is offered jointly by the finance faculty at SBS and Oxford University’s Economics Department and provides rigorous training in the skills required for finance-focused roles. To receive the MFE, students complete a core curriculum in asset pricing, corporate finance, financial econo-metrics and economics, rounding out their year with five elec-tives of their choosing.

For Oxford hopefuls who have advanced further in their ca-reers than the typical full-time MBA candidate, SBS offers a part-time Oxford Executive MBA program (EMBA). The EMBA is organized into 16 modules, or week-long self-contained courses that require EMBA students to travel to campus – or, in one case, to a specified overseas location – which allows them to continue working full-time throughout the program. Modules generally occur every one or two months. To receive the MBA, students c

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