I am going to attend MBA in Europe to make a significant career step afterwards and change the occupation from law to management (considering all the priviledges of having law education)
I am russian, 3,5 years work experience (from junior lawyer to a head of legal).
In holland i have friends - so i can save money in living costs.
passing GMAT 31 december 2008, TOEFL - 18 January 2009

Would appreciate ANY advice! (also regarding other B-schools)

LBS - RSM - Tias Nimbas in this order.

Nevertheless, saving money in living cost should not be a relevant criteria for you final choice, it would be more aprropiate other criteria such as Career services, networking, internationalization,...

regards,

SingleSpain

..."saving money in living cost should not be a relevant criteria for you final choice, it would be more appropriate other criteria such as Career services, networking, internationalization,..."

although theoretically true, this is hardly realistic in most cases - there are a lot of students that do have to take Living costs into account when deciding where to do they're MBA. deciding for one place or the other can make a really big difference in the overall costs of the degree, and therefore is a relevant criteria when deciding which MBA program one makes(but not the only one of course). for example, although LBS is considered a great school, living in London is nutritiously expensive!! some student would find that impossible to finance.
I think that if you have friends in Holland, you should apply to RSM - it is considered a very good school, and you would be able to minimize the living costs.

David

I also do believe that RSM is a very good school.

Regarding cost of living, you may consider a loan for the 100% tuition and then your cash for living. I insit that cost of living is a "secondary criteria" in front of the career, networking, prestige, or at least for most of the people, because if you spend 60k for tuition, plus 1,5 years wih no income, so +120k investment, who should care for a 10.000k difference? Make your numbers.

Thanks!
all the arguments are important for making a decision. Although, it also depends upon my GMAT and TOEFL score, because LBS states the highest requirements among all mentioned schools.
Does it seem real to get a loan in the time of financial crisis?

Additional classical question: how to get employed after MBA?
what is the standard path? (or, if there is no standards - is it really worth investing?)

Yes, despite that it´s a bad time for loans, TOP schools have agremenents with some banks that provide loans without a co-signer, which is very suitable for you. Also, interest rate are going down so you can close a good interest in the coming months for a loan. The risk is in the currency because it may change for you.

Ask for career services in each school, which is of coursevery important to know in advance.

I am not saying that one should consider taking a MBA program in a "Bad" school just because the costs of living are low there, but this is clearly not the case - LBS, RSM and TiasNimbas are all highly ranked reputable programs - and that's way the living costs criteria gains more importance.

As for finance - i second SingelSpain on that, just check out the websites of the schools - there is usually a page about financing you're MBA, with info's to scholarships and loans - for example, here is a link to this page in the website for RSM:

http://www.rsm.nl/home/mba/ft_mba/finance_scholarships

david

Any luck with the RSM MBA, particularly with the tuition financing part?