Which schools are best for study abroad in Europe?
Currently a junior done with SA recruiting and want to study abroad senior fall in Europe. My options are:
Erasmus Rotterdam, Stockholm School of Economics, Copenhagen Business School, University of Edinburgh, ICADE, KU Leuven, King's College London, LSE
LSE is my top choice (highest prestige out of the above, fun city) but unfortunately they don't offer on campus housing like the others, which is making me reconsider it because finding a flat in a high COL city and living alone sounds stressful and not fun.
What I mainly value is university prestige, travel and nightlife opportunities, and easy classes to maintain my GPA. Which of the other schools are the best blend of those three?
Hi, out of those that you listed LSE is the best choice. Afterwards, I would put Rotterdam, Copenhagen Business School and Stockholm School of Economics in that order. King's College London is a great university but not so much for business.
Let me know if you have any specific question :)
can i just say that for fun and student community kcl is a hell of a lot of fun tho
If you're using fun as a metric, then LSE doesn't even compare lol.
bump, any other insight?
UK perspective, others may disagree and it may be different in the US:
Aside from LSE, Stockholm School of Economics has the strongest placement in finance. Very expensive city though. I think Erasmus/Copenhagen have good local placement but don’t really have an international rep compared to SSE. Leuven is a strong uni (top 50 globally) and places well into MBB/policy, while being in a beautiful city - could be an interesting experience. Never heard of ICADE.
For the UK, Edi is a fun uni, lots of Americans and a great city, with decent prestige (but semi-target placement) and would probably be my pick here. Don’t go KCL (few recent threads on here about it); if you’re gonna go London then definitely go LSE, but I might plump for Edinburgh or Leuven here.
what does semi-target placement have to do with going there on exchange?
If you want a more detailed explanation, then here are my more detailled comments:
LSE is probably the university that has the best reputation from the ones you mentioned. Although, its reputation is more for economics than management. It is located in the center of London, which is an advantage if you want to live there after your studies. It has a very academic focus, do not expect much practice :) Also, it can be quite expensive but it is really worth it, if you want to stay in London afterwards.
Rotterdam (or RSM), on the other hand, is mostly known for its management department. The fact that you will study outside of the capital (Amsterdam) means that you have a "real" campus with onsite housing. Rotterdam is a very modern city (although, I prefer old ones to be honest haha) and like LSE it is research oriented. Although, it has some practical courses included in its program. With regards to price, it has a good price/value ratio.
Copenhagen Business School is a good university also known for their management department. Although, the Danish government is currently trying to reduce the number of international students (and consequently increase the number of danish students). A lot of foreigners go there and take ages to finish their degree (as it's free)... Apart, from that Copenhagen is a fun city to live (and work) in. It has one of the best price/value ratio in Europe (as it is free)!!
Stockholm School of Economics is a really nice university. They have a very good bachelor program in business administration. Overall, a good school but it is slightly less known than the ones above and Stockholm can be quite cold (aha). Like with Copenhagen, it has one of the best price/value ratio in Europe.
With regards to Edinburgh Business School it is a good university but not really focused towards business studies. A really good university for law or international relations although. The same comment applies to King's College London. Also, these schools are expensive they are located in the United Kingdom and that is really helpful if you want to stay after your studies, as recruiters will better know these universities.
KU Leuven is a very big university with over 50,000 students. Consequently, it has a lot of alumni spread across the world in all fields. It is a good university that due to its size has a lot of faculties and departments. It has a decent business school with quite good international academic partners but is slightly less known than the ones above. As with business schools generally located in the Benelux and Scandinavia, they have a really good price/value ratio.
ICADE, I must admit I know less. It surely has a good business school but I it is less known than the ones above. On their website, for their bachelor of business administration, I found that their fees are: course fees: € 1,400.51 plus nine monthly installments of € 1,209.24 each. So a moderate price/value ratio...
On your comment you mention that you want a mix of prestige, travel and nightlife opportunities, and an easy to maintain GPA. In this regard, I would go either to Rotterdam, Copenhagen or Stockholm. Overall, they have a similar way of teaching and present equal travel/nightlife opportunities without mentioning a really good price/value ratio, which is very important considering the extremely high prices some business schools ask for a single year of their bachelor in business administration...
There, I tried to keep it as short as possible. Let me know if you have any remarks or questions. I would be glad to answer them :)
School prestige doesn't matter for exchange, find a school to get drunk and smash hoes
Agreed but having LSE on your resume looks better than Rotterdam right?
Surely this is obvious to anybody here. It's basically US > UK > conti-EU. In some cases we can make outlier cases, think HEC Paris or St. Gallen.
Reality is that the value of the school name will vary based on where you see yourself working. I have a masters from a no-name EU university in my home country - it's probably top 10 for the extended Scandinavian region. It has absolutely no realistic value outside this area besides the 'He spent 5 years studying' part. People who studied at SSE could realistically benefit from it if they were to go to Germany or the UK, whereas I couldn't.
I would genuinely say that the most important part is not the name on the CV. Post-COVID you can get recruited from anywhere basically, there's huge inflation in terms of school name prestige already in the US and we will probably see that in EU going forward too. Think you should pick based on the other things you want. If you're not Swedish and you go to SSE, never know - you might genuinely end up liking Sweden and staying there. To this day I think that I'll go to the US (applied for green cards 3 years in a row atm), but the reality is that I've always just wanted the $ and if I can get that $ here then the US, to me, would be nothing more than a tourist destination.
And btw: I'm not Swedish, SSE was just my pick out of the selection that I researched when I considered leaving my home state for a foreign masters pre-COVID.
Agreed, uni prestige is important but not vital in life. You can do very well without :)
Also, post-Brexit I think your "US > UK > conti-EU" will become "US > conti-EU > UK". See this article which indicates that the UK might lose a ton of EU students... (up to 84%)!!
https://www.study.eu/press/uk-universities-might-lose-84-of-eu-students…
Good luck :)
No-one will care where you went to study abroad. Go to the university with the best social life and easiest classes to have a fun time - most people from the US end uo traveling Europe every weekend or so. I’d say ICADE/Copenhagen are cool places to go.
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