Dear HKUST Applicants,We recently organized a chat event with Admission officers of HKUST Business School. In the event,
Ms.Kara Leung and
Ms.Crystal Wong - Members of School's admission committee - spent an hour with GMAT Club members in out chat room and answered their questions about HKUST MBA program.
For our friends who could not attend the event, here are some key questions and Admission officers' answers to them. You can also download the complete session transcript which is attached to this post.
Tell us something about HKUST MBA program.Crystal: HKUST MBA Full-Time Program offers 12 months and 16 months options for students and includes 5 career tracks for students: General Management in China, Finance, Consulting and Strategy, Entrepreneurship, Marketing. We have a diversified class for our program, 95% of our students are with non-local nationality and with 24 nationalities.
What’s the range/median/average GMAT score for past intakes?Kara: we don't set a minimum GMAT requirement as the admissions committee looks at your profile holistically. You may take the range of GMAT score of our last intake as reference which is 600- 720
What weight is to GMAT / Work Ex / Interviews in admission decision?Crystal: In making the admissions decision, the admissions committee will consider a bundle of factors including your undergraduate performance, the quality and amount of your work experience, your global exposure, work references, GMAT score, IELTS/TOFEL result (if applicable), etc. There is no single factor that dominates the admissions decision.
What % of students is from countries outside of Asia?Kara: the nationality breakdown of class 2014, 18% from North America, 20% from Europe, 23% from other Asia regions, 35% from HK & China, 4% from others
What's the core content of General Management in China? What does this part most focus on?Crystal: Students shall be able to choose their elective courses based on their preferred career track. The courses "General Management in China" cover External relation of China, Investment and Finance of China, Economic Impact of China, etc. You may refer to the course list of this career track in our website
“Full-time helps student to make a bigger career switch (geographical/ industry/ function)”. Can you please explain a little more on this?Kara: if any candidates are thinking to make 2 or more degrees of change, let say change from working in Europe to HK and change from marketing to finance, I would suggest you to do a full-time program. The training in FT program is designed to help you for a bigger switch. Internship and a lot of career and networking events are included for FT class
How many hours per week required to be spent by full-time MBA students?Crystal: For full time students, the total number of credit required to be completed shall be 52 credits. Each class lasts for 3.5 hours. For a 2-credit course, there are a total of 8 classes in general. Each course usually has one class per week so it takes 8 weeks with the final week on examination to complete a course of 2 credits.
Is IELTS or TOFEL needed?Crystal: At HKUST, applicants are required to take the Test of TOEFL or IELTS unless their (1) first language is English; or (2) qualification (e.g. undergraduate degree) is awarded by a University or an institute where the language of instruction is English.
How the interviews are arranged for applicants that cannot go to Hong Kong?Kara: it depends on your location. Sometimes, our interviewers will fly over, sometimes we will do Skype interview.
What are the typical careers after an MBA from HKUST. Are there any placement statistics that you publish? Crystal: 40 % of our graduates enter the finance industry, while 22% work in Retail/Supply/China Management and 18% of them are in Consulting . We do have the career statistics in our website
Do you have more information about the career treks? Do they differ from year to year?Crystal: Our career office will connect with employers for internship and placement opportunities for students. Recruitment talk, executive meeting in small group setting, career treks to Shanghai and Beijing, different networking activities will be organized, regular alumni talk will be held downtown for students as well. Company visit in mainland will be organized by the career office for students who are interested in developing their career in China. We would also help student with career consultation and training.
Chat Transcript
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