UofT Rotman School of Management, Morning and Evening MBA (Part time)

I completed my morning/evening MBA (also called part-time MBA program) with Rotman a few years ago (< 5yrs). This is a genuine and honest reflection on my experience (and yes, it's primarily negative):

Bottom line: I don't mean to offer a one-size-fits-all piece of advice, but IMO don't do it unless your company pays for it and you work for a large financial firm in which you know your MBA will surely accelerate your career advancement. It's a good program overall and I believe the graduated students are very highly capable and smart experienced people (who are not as arrogant as the full time students), but the program is not worth the cost (>$100k) and efforts (3 years of your life), unless for the aforementioned case.

Even though I succeeded in getting into the big four strategy and finance teams following my graduation, the honest feedback is that my MBA had almost ZERO impact on my success in getting into the big four management consulting strategy/finance teams. I succeeded primarily because of networking, luck, and related experience. Even though my team in big four does pure strategy and finance (in Toronto), they did not care about the MBA during the interview process and I see many many people without an MBA in our team. It's as if almost nobody cares about it. Even though I strongly believe the MBA should matter, in real life, experience and network are far more important unfortunately.

I'd say in big four the MBA probably matters in hiring very junior folks (analyst level) and the ones that go through the rotational out-of-school programs, in which case they'd hire very young full-time students and the pay is low (~$60-70k). Btw, increasingly big four are hiring from Ind.. and pay them low.

As per Rotman morning/evening program, generally speaking it is a good program, but the added-value vs cost and effort (count 3 years of your life as gone) is not worth it in Canada in my view, because of super limited job opportunities and the competition with the full-time MBA students. Overal it was good for me because I had zero soft skills and had no idea about finance and strategy industry, so it gave me a sense, but was it worth the cost/effort? I'd say absolutely not. The Rotman morning/evening program in my view is completely misaligned with the job market. They are not adapting to the market job opportunities unfortunately. If I had spent the 3 years networking, probably I would have got a better result.

In terms of learning opportunities, the added-value is improving your soft skills and a bit of networking (you won't get much though). The issue is many part-time students don't care at all as they are there just because their company is paying. The program coordinators also operate on that basis and hence part-time students don't get the same type of opportunities that full-timers get, especially for student clubs and events.

In terms of courses, half of courses/professors were really good, half bad. Especially the financial courses were great. Rotman is well-known for its financial professors. The fact that the school does not lunch an official courses/professors feedback collection dataset, to be gathered from last year students and shared with new students (so that they know which course is more attractive to pick), tells you a lot about the actual politics behind and the fact that many of those non-qualified professors are still teaching in the top business school of Canada because of their relationship with the school leadership team.

Also, while we had some really nice people, the part-time program students culture was not the best either, many arrogant rich people whose job is not even close to strategy and real finance but they have that blind IB arrogance attitude (I know this now that I am in the actual biggest strategy advisory team among the big four). Btw, internships are not allowed for part-timers (to avoid extra competition for full-timers).

Also, the listed Majors don't mean anything, if you go there you are going to be essentially majored either in finance or strategy.

And I guess if you are in energy, Rotman is really not for that. There is a super limited focus on energy and related sectors.

I took this time to reflect on my experience so that it helps other folks make the right decision,

Hope this helped, happy to answer questions.