Hi all

i was ready to send all the documents for the admission to ESADE when i received today the admission to IE.

Now I have to decide between the 2 schools...

i want to work in industry after my mba and not in spain...

what do u advise


in terms of school what do u prefer

please some experiencesss

Wow, Andrea, contratulations! See, people were totally wrong about your GMAT score being a problem!

Between the two, I think most people would say ESADE is the better choice. I wrote an analysis in the BusinessWeek forum that outlines my reasoning for prefering IE, despite ESADE's higher prestige level. However, I did not have the opportunity to choose, since I was dinged by ESADE. If I did.. I would have still picked, IE, though, personally. Here's the reasoning I explained on BusinessWeek:

I have discussed in many other threads why IE was my first choice over both IESE and ESADE. It mainly had to do with IE's location in Madrid (I felt it's a better place than Barcelona to learn Spanish, and a better place for my fiance to find work during my program). Also, IE has the most (and largest) scholarships available. IE also has some very cool and unique resources for entrepreneurs. Also, through my interactions with recruiters and current students, it was just the program that I got the most excited about.

Anyway, in Sofy's case, ESADE may be the better choice, especially if brand-power is her foremost concern. I think ESADE is a great program, and I very strongly considered going there. I really do believe instruction quality and student quality (in the English language program, at least) is comparable at both ESADE and IE. But, when it comes to recruitment from large IB and consulting firms, I think you are right that ESADE has at least a slight advantage.

Also, there's no argument that IESE is the most prestigious in Spain. What most turned me off from that program was the very sort of stuffy attitude I got from their staff and alumni. More than a third of their graduates go into finance or consulting, which is something I have no interest in. I did not mind the length of the course, but a major consideration was that the cost is very high and the availability of scholarships is very limited.

Here is the complete discussion on the BusinessWeek forum, so you can see what I was responding to:

http://forums.businessweek.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=bw-bschools&tid=83821

PS if you are interested in talking to other IE admits, you should join our facebook group. It's called: "IE November 2010 intake"

However, I just realized that I was weeks late in responding to your post. So maybe you have already made a decision. Let us know what you chose (and why)!