Hey guys,

I'm an HS GR. 12 student and I was accepted to DeGroote's Business program back in February. As the months went on, I have narrowed down my choices to DeGroote and WLU BBA. In order to make the best possible decision, I was hoping I could get some information and insight from current and former McMaster students here.

I'm looking to go into the entrepreneurial, finance or investment banking field of business. Can anyone give an idea of how good DeGroote is in those fields and if WLU BBA would be any better?

The internship option is really attractive for me, but I'm worried about the competition and limited positions. How many positions will be available and what would be required to get in (terms of GPA, extracurriculars, job experience and etc.)?

If I were to get in and do the internship, would my undergrad length be extended (say if I wanted to do a 12 month internship). Would the sequence be something like: Year One (Study, Study, Off) Year Two (Study, Study, Off) Year Three (Study, Study, Off) Year Four (Work, Work, Work)? If not, could someone give me an idea of what it would look like?

Lastly, I have a general question about the overall lifestyle and university experience at McMaster. I've visited quite a few campuses and will be visiting McMaster this Saturday for the May @ Mac event, except I won't be able to see the real student live and environment since school has already ended. I've witnessed campuses with dead social life (UTSC) and amazing liveliness (WLU), what could I expect from McMaster? I've also heard McMaster is the most diverse school in Ontario, could someone breakdown the diversity as well?

Sorry if this is a lot to ask at once but a big decision requires a lot of information. Thanks in advance for any help.

Can't answer your business questions since I didn't take business at Degroote (I took communication studies/multimedia), but I can tell you that McMaster is a fantastic university and I've worked with many of the professors at the Degroote School of Business (Malik, Bontis, Bates, etc) and they are very down to earth, cool people that actually care about their students.

Student life at McMaster is busy busy, and was the reason I originally started this site back in '06! There's so much to do on campus it's hard to keep track with events and hundreds of clubs, plus Hamilton is a great city (though you could consider me biased this being my hometown).

Student life / McMaster Spirit:





MacInsiders Welcome Week Coverage:
http://vimeo.com/1633098
http://vimeo.com/1642842
http://vimeo.com/1634724
http://vimeo.com/1685867

Athletic Centre:
http://vimeo.com/1049671

Watch more vids:
http://www.macinsiders.com/mactv.php

Hi! I'm in third year going to fourth right now, so maybe I could help you a bit. I would say first and second year is introductory to business as a whole, where you need to take courses on all subjects (ex. accounting, finance, org behaviour, etc). When you get into third year, it depends whether or not you are in Honours. If you are, you have two additional Commerce elective courses you can choose from.

You can take a look at this page for courses. The first number in the course code represents the level of the course (ex. Commerce 2FA3 is second year Finance). http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /CALEN...nt/pg1769.html

The internship program IS very competitive. The requirements are quite strict and you need to take a 6 week course which allows you to apply for jobs. I think this year we had more than 250 people registered in the course. But I'm not sure how many are going on internship this year, probably less than 80 people. Your marks do not determine the eligibility to get into the internship program, however, I'm sure employers would prefer people with higher grades, more relevant job experiences, etc.

You go on internship on your third year of studies here @ DeGroote, and it's for 8, 12 or 16 months. It doesn't work the same as schools like Waterloo, whereas their co-op programs are study, work, study, work terms. If you go on internship here, you take 8, 12 or 16 months off then after you come back to do your last year of studies. So yes, you will be graduating a year later with internship.

In the summer, the campus might seem dead, but there are still people here for summer school, grad school, work, etc. MAC is VERY lively So your experience here would be awesome. It's pretty diverse here I'd say, and there are cultural and social clubs for you to join.

Hope this helps!

The Degroote School of Business is one of only approximately 10-15% of business schools worldwide that has AACSB International accreditation. It is literally one of the absolute best business schools in the world - to put it bluntly, you cannot pick a better university than McMaster.

http://www.degroote.mcmaster .ca/ab...-july2005.html

Originally Posted by Taunton

The Degroote School of Business is one of only approximately 10-15% of business schools worldwide that has AACSB International accreditation. It is literally one of the absolute best business schools in the world - to put it bluntly, you cannot pick a better university than McMaster.

http://www.degroote.mcmaster .ca/ab...-july2005.html

So is WLU though, so I don't think you can really judge on the basis of that.

https://www.aacsb.net/eweb/DynamicPa...4-33768F1DE01D

for investment banking i would rather go to wlu it seems like more employers recruit from wlu for ibanking. other than that i have no idea, which one to choose as i have not been to the WLU campus.

ive worked in finance dept at a company listed on the NYSE and my co-worker was from WLU. From what i understand, Their first/2nd year is already straight into business. The mac program has a lot of emphasis on electives such as taking a bunch of non-commerce whereas wlu might have a lot less. From what i know and seen on the course calender, they have a heavy emphasis on math/calc as well in the business program. For example, he was telling me how his 2nd year stats course was using this 300k military software to calculate probabilities - this is stuff that u might not see at mac. However, we are the only school to have a trading floor. From your post it seems that you are interested in finance, so having a trading floor and ability to get hands on experience plus certification is definitely a plus.

For wlu, they are more known for their accounting program than finance in my opinion. I dont think many ib hires from there so i would think that we are on the same field as they are in terms of ib recruits - correct me if im wrong or do a bit more research.

hopes this helps.

Originally Posted by T-Core

Hey guys,

I'm an HS GR. 12 student and I was accepted to DeGroote's Business program back in February. As the months went on, I have narrowed down my choices to DeGroote and WLU BBA. In order to make the best possible decision, I was hoping I could get some information and insight from current and former McMaster students here.

I'm looking to go into the entrepreneurial, finance or investment banking field of business. Can anyone give an idea of how good DeGroote is in those fields and if WLU BBA would be any better?

The internship option is really attractive for me, but I'm worried about the competition and limited positions. How many positions will be available and what would be required to get in (terms of GPA, extracurriculars, job experience and etc.)?

If I were to get in and do the internship, would my undergrad length be extended (say if I wanted to do a 12 month internship). Would the sequence be something like: Year One (Study, Study, Off) Year Two (Study, Study, Off) Year Three (Study, Study, Off) Year Four (Work, Work, Work)? If not, could someone give me an idea of what it would look like?

Lastly, I have a general question about the overall lifestyle and university experience at McMaster. I've visited quite a few campuses and will be visiting McMaster this Saturday for the May @ Mac event, except I won't be able to see the real student live and environment since school has already ended. I've witnessed campuses with dead social life (UTSC) and amazing liveliness (WLU), what could I expect from McMaster? I've also heard McMaster is the most diverse school in Ontario, could someone breakdown the diversity as well?

Sorry if this is a lot to ask at once but a big decision requires a lot of information. Thanks in advance for any help.

If you want to do Investment Banking, and your choices are only between McMaster and Laurier, then don't worry, both schools are on the same "tier" with regards to employment in that field. It's challenging though

I regret coming to Mac and if I can be frank, all of this elective garbage is bullocks.

Thanks for all the responses and information guys, it is really appreciated.

I just came back from May @ Mac today and I was really impressed by the facilities, getting a good feel for the campus. There was a lot of diversity between all the other prospective students visiting as well.

It appears there will probably be around 100 internship positions once it will be my chance to apply for it. I really want to acquire business work experience by the end of my undergrad so I'd be competing with around 500 students (250 apply) for 100 spots at Mac or with 1000 students (500 apply) for 250 spots at WLU, though WLU's cut off for their students is 5% higher making the competition tougher. I'm honestly liking WLU's Coop program better because you can still graduate within 4 years and you'll get to experience 3 different jobs instead of 1.

WLU has the better reputation in Canada but if I were to step foot outside of the country, Mac would easily have the prestige advantage since it's a known school on the international level. Salary stats and employment rates from graduates are looking better for WLU students though.

Trading floor at Mac looks really interesting. Have any students applied their experience and knowledge from there into the real stock market during studies in order to try to pay off some debt (assuming they're making money and not losing money)?

In terms of campus life, both schools are different but both seem great. I honestly think I'd fit in better at Mac though since WLU is mainly Caucasian (I'm not) where as Mac looks completely diverse.

I'm still torn between the two but I still got a good 3 weeks to think about it and decide. Any further suggestions and information would be welcome, thanks!