About
My name is Jean-Etienne “Jep” Poirrier and this blog accompanied me during my part-time MBA at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School. My main blog is at http://jepoirrier.org/.
Feel free to ask questions about this blog or MBAs at Vlerick below, in the comments. As I graduated, I may not be aware of all new developments at Vlerick. But I’ll try my best to answer asap!
Jep does Vlerick 
Thanks, your page on the admission test really helped me prepare for the test yesterday. I passed for the PT MBA. Success rate was over 50 % in our group (21 participants). Maybe that was my luck. How many students started last year in the PT MBA?
Congratulations! Approximately 50-70 people were selected last year. See you soon!
Thank you for all of this useful information. I am writing from Lima Peru and I am still deciding whether to go to Vlernick or not. Now that you are a student there and can see things first-hand what do you think of the school? Is it worth the investment and inspite of the fact that it has gone down in the rankings is it as good as it says it is for MBA’s??
P.S. I can’t find that admissions test page Jurgen Depuydt mentioned.. Would you help me with that please? thank you very much.
Dear Amanda,
Thanks for your comment. I will try to answer your questions the best I can (see below). But my first advice would be to have also other opinions (for instance from those who commented on some of the posts – most are students or past students). And it all depends on what you want to do next, where do you want to go next, which kind of MBA you want to take, etc.
What do you want to do with your MBA (once you’ll have it)? Vlerick (at least in the current format) offers a general MBA, there are currently no possibility of having specialisation topics. Some other schools are offering these specialisation topics. So of course Vlerick offers a course on entrepreneurship (for instance) (with one of the best teacher, IMHO) but it might not be exactly the same as a specialisation (with several courses, cases, etc.). But for an all-round, general purpose MBA, I am biased enough to say Vlerick is a good one in the area :-)
This leads me to the second question. Where do you want to go with your MBA? Clearly (and unfortunately) if you are coming all the way from Peru for Vlerick and intend to go back and use your MBA, forget it. Vlerick MBA is clearly a local MBA, well recognised in Belgium / Luxembourg / Netherlands (and probably known in UK, France and perhaps Germany). But of course there are always ways to be recognised – the proof is that Vlerick has alumni all over the world. But today Vlerick doesn’t have the same aura as INSEAD or LSE for instance.
Which kind of MBA do you want to start at Vlerick? As mentioned on their website there are basically 3 types of MBAs. The full-time one is the most international one (i.e. few Belgian students). The part-time one is clearly less international (i.e. few non-Belgian students). But the part-time allows you to work at the same time (most Belgian companies will provide you with educational leaves, some will even sponsor your MBA).
Finally regarding the rankings we were told that the management took measures to improve what can be improved (according to rankings) – but exactly what measures were taken, that’s still a bit fuzzy. The rebranding of Vlerick is accompanied by some important changes in their offers (changes that are unfortunately not yet on their website!). Will it be better or will Vlerick continue to go down? Being a student I hope this will be enough to go up again, of course! But in general students coming out of well-ranked schools will tell you that rankins are all that matters (and for a recruiter having no clue of what is Vlerick, it’s sadly true that she will be “on the safe side” by taking someone from a well-ranked school). And students coming from a B-school from a second league will also tell you that all what matters is what you actually do with your MBA.
Hope this help,
Jean-Etienne (on October 27, 2012)
DearJean-Etienne,
Thank you very much for your thorough explanation and clarification of things. You have posed some good questions that are making me re-think things out in order to make better career decisions. Everything you said certainly did help! I can assure you.,Thanks again and good luck in all of your endeavours! :-)
Hi
We have registered to participate in the Fresh connection contest and this being the first time we planned to participate, we are not sure on the aspects of game. If you can provide you valuable tips about the game that would help us prepare better
Regards
Vasu
Hi Vasu,
I would advise you to contact winners of a previous edition …
Jep