B-School Videos

Its hard for an international applicant to get a feel for a school, harder for someone like me who knows no one who has a US MBA (surprisingly most of my friends tend to be doctors)

Enter "Web 2.0". We all know, read and love the student blogs, but I don't know how many of us have seen the B-School videos. I certinly didn't know about them, but saw a reference to an INSEAD video in a blog. It was fun, international, well executed... it gave me a better idea of what INSEAD students are like. Then i saw this Desi Week video... it was hilarious. Even though INSEAD is not on my radar, it was interesting.... so, naturally, i searched for schools on my radar

Wharton brings up a lot of results. The videos are mostly student made, and predictably amateurish. They utilize al formats from spice-girl videos to Mac v/s PC ads. However, they are made for their community, and so I don't get some references.

Darden is another end of the spectrum. Most videos are obviously promotional, made by the coolege, not students. Remind me of public service ads on doordarshan.... In student-created videos, Darden daze looks at a day in life, in first year v/s second. and Darden follies are not bad. 

Most Fuqua videos look syndicated too.... they are in the form of music videos, with (presumably) students singing and dancing, but are way too professional. Clearly a marketing strategy. there's even a channel where you can get all those videos.

Tuck's students could only interest me with one video, a take on Good Riddance (Time of your life). All the other videos were academic ones, presumably posted by the school, and while they are interesting at times, they are not what I'm looking for here.

Ross students have this clip making fun of the easiest target in the world, George W. Whats most interesting is the approx 5000 references to him being a harvard MBA, and what that has taught him about leadership. The follies were a disapointment, the B-team was oooookay, but "its business school" sucked like nobody's business

And ISB.... they have the more videos than I expected. Predictably many promotional ones, but the ISB jingle sounds like they meant it, whatever it was they were trying to say. ISB videos remind me more of the IIT/NIT kind of atmosphere. (I didn't go to one, but my wife did) 

All considered, I did get a pretty god idea of the atmosphere and the students. Some schools are more bureaucratic  than others, and some schools are more fun. Will it affect my judgement in the dream scenario of multiple admits? I don't know....