How to prepare for business school?

Hello!

I would see two main buckets: 

1. Logistics: find accomodation, fix any VISA (if applicanble, organize sending your belongings, dates of the international students welcome week, etc. You can also attend one of the admit weekends before to start with the preparation of all this. 

2. Academics/content: very much depending on the time you have and on what you want to get out of of the MBA. If, for instance, you are there to change career paths (i.e., you want to do corporate finance later and this is the whole point for you), makes sense to start networking, preparing for the subjects that will be focused on that, etc. If you want to become and entrepreneur and you are looking for the business basis and right partners, I would start with developping the idea as much as possible... So it really depends. 

Hope it helps!

Cheers, 

Clara

Well, congrats with your choice of going to a business school! But it really depends on where you would like to go and what you would like to get out of it. You have to make sure your reasons. 

When I was about to start my MBA at IE in 2016 I had few years in McKinsey, an offer from Google and just started my startup. For me the motivation was to broader perspectives for my own company, rather than getting some job. Having this in mind helped me a lot to lower my stress. Otherwise I would be quite struggling with mixing studying, socializing and sleeping. 

From another side, I also prepared quite in advance. Here what I've done:

* Purchased tickets

* Searched for appartments websites

* Linked with current students/alums who I knew or could know

* Organized logistics of my belongins (don't forget i travelled with my family)

* Got visa

* Secured loan and got some extra cash

* Got a plan on how to have myself in Spain (where IE is) and how to progress over

Still my arrival, first few weeks and new culture made me quite stressed, having all the boxes covered helped me with structuring of my thoughts. 

Good luck, and I am even a bit jealous!

Hi,

my recommendation is only to solve all the logistics and organizational problems in order to be able to be fully focused on your courses and campus life. If you pass the admission process you do not have to spend any other effort in hard preparation since you will have time to understand what will be important and focus on these.

Best,

Antonello

I would suggest to focus your effort only on logistics and bureaucracy. You will have time once you are there to study and to understand how to maximize your results.
If you start studying something now, unless you don't know an aumni, it's likely that you will use your time not in an efficient way.

Best,
Luca