Students

You got in to business school – now what?

You crushed the GMAT. You aced the interview. Congratulations, you did it! But since we know you are probably already planning how to best prepare for day one, let us offer some advice from current students.

Louise Hardman

2019-03-31

You crushed the GMAT. You aced the interview. Congratulations, you did it! But since we know you are probably already planning how to best prepare for day one, here are three tips for making the most of your summer before business school.

1. Relax — Elvis Diaz, Class of 2019

"You've already put in all the hard work in studying for the GMAT/GRE, drafting all of your essays, and preparing for interviews. You deserve to take a break and just relax! Business school will be intense and super busy, especially in the first year. But, you won't know what to expect until you're in it; therefore, don't fret too much about planning for it.

"I recommend spending extra quality time with family or taking a mini vacation to relax before school hits hard. I took about a week and a half to just be home and spend time with the fam. I also decided to drive from Georgia to Arizona before school started. I recruited two friends to make a trip out of it and got to visit some cool places along the way. For example, I stopped in Alabama to visit some family, then stayed a night in New Orleans (my first time there), a night in San Antonio, and a night in El Paso (it was fun to cross the border to Mexico for lunch and come back)."

2. Brush up on your quant skills — Fabiha Naumi, Class 2020

"If you use Excel every day at your job or you aced all the probability questions on the GMAT you can skip this one. For the rest of you, you aren’t alone!

"I used to work in career development and my only quantitative experience was with department budgets. I knew absolutely zero finance before starting school, so I took the pre-work assignments very seriously. As a result, the first couple of weeks of class were a breeze!

"I also wish I would have spent more time brushing up in Excel. One of the professors would walk through problems in Excel during class and it was difficult for me to keep up. Every quarter I learn something new in Excel and I realized if I had done a two- or four-week Excel course during the summer I could have saved time throughout the year."

3. Have a plan — Louise Hardman, Class of 2020

"The MBA program moves quickly and it’s easy to get wrapped up in what everyone else is doing. Using your summer to reflect on your own intentions and think about what you really want to get out of the program will help you come in with clear objectives and save you time and energy when deciding what to prioritize.

"I spent a lot of time in my first semester attending info sessions and applying to jobs that weren’t in line with my long term goals, mostly because everyone else was doing it! While it’s great to explore, I wish I had done more reflection up front and been more targeted with my search. Saving that time would have freed me up to get more out of the things that were most important to me, like building relationships with classmates."

MBA programs B-School Tips Student Experience