IESE open day in Barcelona

Last week I traveled to the sunny and lovely city of Barcelona, to attend the open day at the IESE Business School. I will write a short article because I don't have much time, as my GMAT is in 9 days.




I arrived to Barca the day before the open day, and enjoyed a nice afternoon of sun by the beach. You don't need me to explain how great is this city, but in case you don't know yet that the location of a b-school in Barcelona is a great advantage, just Google "Barcelona" and you'll understand yourself. Better than that - go there and feel the vibe for yourself!

Fast forward to the open day then. I arrived one hour too early to the IESE campus, a small campus in a rich neighbourhood of the city. I used the free time to explore the buildings and grab a much needed morning coffee in the bar. The prices are low and the service is great.

I then moved to the amphi were the first part of the open day was held. We were about 60 to attend, and first to speak was Javier Munoz, an associate director from admissions. He asked us to introduce ourselves and I was impressed by the diversity of the profiles. He then explained the structure of the open day and showed us the standard marketing presentation of the school.

Mr. Munoz was followed by the associate dean, whose name I didn't write down. He explained about the program in more detail. What I thought was more interesting in what he said:

• 1st year of the program is very rigid academically and very demanding. Consists mostly of core courses.
• 2nd year is more flexible, with lots of electives and a possible exchange program
• Between the two years there are 4 months for internship, exchange or language courses.
• The MBA program is based mostly on the case method, with about 70% cases and 30% lectures in average. Over 700 cases are seen over the two years, and about 2-3 every day!!
• Class size is ~215 (he said that it was the smallest top-10 MBA program, but let me remind you that ESADE is even smaller, maybe the associate dean doesn't include ESADE in his top-10), average age 27 years old.
• Every year, about five students are thrown out of the program due to bad grades. (the system is basically z-scoring and you're not allowed to have too many bad scores below the average)

About Spanish studies:

• A month of intensive Spanish course before the start of the first year
• Followed by Spanish lessons every day of the week except Friday (1.5 hours / day)
• Second year you can choose electives in Spanish
• Your wife/husband can come also to the Spanish classes (even though he/she will for them)
  

About the exchange program:

• The exchanges are during the first semester of the 2nd year.
• The list of possible exchange locations is very long, but some schools are in the global top-20 and worth mentioning: LBS, CEIBS, Wharton, Sloan, Duke, Darden, Kellogg, HEC-Paris, RSM
  

Financing your MBA:

• Tuition fees for the entire program (two years) are currently 64,900€
• You can get a 100% loan with no guaranties only requirement is to be admitted to the program
• He did mention the interest but I forgot to write it down :(
• You start paying 6 months after graduation

After this important lecture, we went on a coffee break in a lovely bar inside one of the campus' buildings. The standard were very high, and reminded me of my visit to INSEAD. From the bar we left in small groups to do a campus tour, which wasn't really helpful. We then returned to the amphi for one of the open day's most attractive parts - the case . We were given by email a case to study about the Barcelona Football Club and some issues it had in the past. To summarize the one hour and a half of the case course: it was absolutely BRILLIANT! very interesting and actually made me want to go into sports management :) I don't want to ruin the surprise for people who will attend the open day in the future, but I really had fun and it only made my view regarding cases stronger, for me the case method is the best one to learn and assimilate new concepts and theories.

After the case we went to the other, new campus just up the street. This new campus is so amazing it will make you go "WOWWWW" even without you noticing it. It's like a modern palace made of the most expensive materiel out there and put on a hilltop overlooking Barca. Simply amazing. We sat in a restaurant-like huge room, 8 at a table, and on each table two current MBA students from 1st and 2nd year. We could discuss with them during lunch, and I really liked this concept. Besides the lunch which was great, we were able to talk freely with the current students and get their views on the school.



To finish the day, we went into another amphi, in the new campus this time, for a career services lecture and an alumni panel. This was very interesting for me, but nothing really new was told. The only discovery for me was an interesting rating of job opportunities drawn by careers rep featuring industries' willingness to recruit MBAs and the MBAs' willingness to join the industry. on the low-low corner were retail, high-tech and telecoms meaning that both the industry and the MBAs weren't so much interested in each other. on the other extreme end were of course finance and consulting. The interesting thing for me was to see that heavy industry is on the high side on its willingness to recruit MBAs and on the low side for MBAs wanting to go there, which will leave me with less competition and maybe better salaries after I finish my MBA.

Some general final thoughts about IESE and the open day:

• The facilities are just amazing. For example each amphi has three projectors aimed at three screens with different angles, so every student can find his optimal viewing angle. You also have a plasma screen on the wall behind your back, it's for the teacher so he can see the current slide himself.. how cool is that?!
  
• The school has a very elite feel, I think it's partly due to the strong relationship it has with the Harvard Business School.
• The case method is great and even though they do A LOT of cases at IESE, I still think it's the best for me.

So, to sum it all up, I think that IESE was so far the best school I've seen, and I put it as the top priority in my list. I encourage everyone who read this and who consider getting an MBA to go and visit IESE to see for themselves, that Barcelona has one of Europe's best kept secrets in its suburbs.