A few days ago I received my IESE admission e-mail and am now in the fortunate position to choose between the two schools I applied to: IESE and ESADE.
I am reading anything I can find on those two schools and am trying to make an educated decision. However, I find that both schools have their individual pros and cons and have to figure out how to weigh those.
Today I spoke to an ESADE Alumn who came from Consulting and was confronted with the same choice. He was happy with ESADE and mainly used the collaborative and teamwork character, that the school represents, to build his argument for the school.
Basically it boils down to the following differences:
Atmosphere
IESE: Traditional and conservative
ESADE: Collaborative and pluralistic
Campus
IESE: Central in Barcelona, short ride by moto from anywhere in the city
ESADE: Distant in St. Cugat – 1 hr by train and min. 30 min by moto
Rankings
IESE: Recently dropped in the FT 2016 ranking, but consistently ranked in the world top 10 over the last years
ESADE: Always below IESE but still safe to consider Tier 1, well known as a Business School because of its various MSc programs
Professional Focus
IESE: Strong in Finance and Consulting
ESADE: Equal spread of different profiles, strong in tech and innovation. Most graduates go into industry.
Number of students
IESE: 297 students and your team remains the same for the whole program
ESADE: 180 students and teams are changed after each term (3 teams total)
And another interesting fact:
2015 Acceptance rates
IESE 25% out of 1951 applicants
ESADE 61% out of 555 applicants
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