MBA Insider: Admissions Q&A June 5, 2008, 10:31PM EST

Queen's Seeks Team Players

Director Scott Carson says the school is looking for students who can thrive in an intense 12-month program and contribute to their teams from Day One

Scott Carson
Queen's University

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Scott Carson is the director of Queen's MBA and a professor of strategy at the Queen's School of Business at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont. (No. 1 in BusinessWeek's most recent ranking of full-time non-U.S. MBA programs). Prior to overseeing all aspects of the full-time, on-campus MBA program at Queen's, including the admissions process, Carson served as dean of the School of Business & Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University and as dean of the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary's University. He is also a past chair of the Canadian Federation of Business School Deans.

Teamwork is the centerpiece of the Queen's curriculum, and Carson says that while some other programs promise to turn students into CEOs, Queen's actually teaches students how to leverage their personal strengths as they work together in teams, an ability that helps grads accelerate their careers. Carson recently spoke with BusinessWeek reporter Kelly Bronk about the team-based program and how students can land a spot in the class. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.

How do application numbers look this year?

Our program is a 12-month, highly compressed, integrated program which starts in May and goes until the end of the next April, so our new class is about three to four weeks into the program. In terms of expressions of interest in the program this past year, we were up staggeringly: 50%. The program is small, and only has 75 students in it, but on the expressions-of-interest side we had about 3,000 [students]. However, the number of completed applications is a much smaller number. The program is very selective and there's a lot of self-selecting out of students who just think that they're not going to make it. We're also one of the most expensive Canadian programs—there are about three of us at $60,000—so a number of people, once they get a fix on the price point, will self-select out as well. In terms of completed applications, we're probably on par with the year before.

Could you tell me a little bit about the application process? Has anything changed significantly in recent years?

No, we use an application system called Embark for the actual application completion, and that's an online application process. In terms of student recruitment, the recruitment process starts pretty much about now [late May]. We're planning the information sessions that we're going to do across Canada and the MBA fairs that we're going to enter virtually around the world. We've made our decisions on international travel and we're now booking flights and registering for both of the two fair companies we're going to attend. We'll be going to India in September and throughout the autumn we'll be going to China, certain locations in Europe, and South America. After the new year, in January and February, we start the whole program of independent open houses that we'll do across Canada.

The application deadlines are Nov. 15 for international students, Feb. 1 is the final deadline for international students and the first deadline for domestic students, and then Mar. 15 is the absolute deadline.

Are admissions decisions rolling? Are there advantages to applying earlier in the process?

Yes, admissions are rolling, and there are absolutely advantages to applying earlier. When we're full, we're full. Also, the decisions around scholarships get made at the admissions point. So the advantage for students has a lot to do with (a) getting into the program and (b) getting scholarship money, because once we've finished our scholarship pool, we have nothing left. So early is much, much better than later.