ESADE BUSINESS SCHOOL · MBA GUIDE
Esade’s full-time MBA starts in September on its Pedralbes campus in Barcelona and runs for 12, 15, or 18 months. Start here to understand the program and prepare each part of your application.
September 2027 intake
GET TO KNOW THE PROGRAM
Everyone starts with the core in September 2027. By the end of the third term, around April or May, you choose 12, 15, or 18 months, and all three lengths carry the same 90 ECTS credits (the European credit system).
12 MONTHS
The core, your electives, and the final project, with no internship or exchange.
15 MONTHS
Room for one optional experience: an internship, or up to four months at a partner school.
18 MONTHS
Room for an internship and an exchange.
Its three terms are called Awareness, Create & Innovate, and Transform. Courses include strategy, accounting, finance, analytics, marketing, operations, and ethics, and Esade says AI is built into the learning.
12 months: The program formally ends in late September, but if you’ve already completed your credits, you don’t need to be on campus then.
Exchanges: On the 15- or 18-month track, if you meet the academic conditions, you can spend up to four months at one of more than 50 partner schools. Esade says roughly 35% of students take part.
When exchange places run short: Esade decides by academic record and an interview, with no separate exam or form, and your preferred school isn’t guaranteed.
Internships for credit: After the first-year core, an optional internship of at least four weeks can earn 3 ECTS credits. You need the company’s confirmation, reports, and an evaluation, with an academic tutor and a company tutor.
Electives: Advanced Management Topics electives carry 24 ECTS credits, and the list changes every year.
The final project: A two-week group consulting challenge for a company, in June, worth six ECTS credits. A coordinator assigns the projects, with faculty support.
CERN: Challenge-Based Innovation is an elective that brings together students from three institutions, with two weeks at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory. Esade’s page describes 18 students in all, across the three.
A dual MBA: A limited number of selected students spend a year at Esade and a year at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, and earn two MBAs.
Clubs: The MBA Student Association (MBASA) runs business clubs, communities, and social clubs, for professional development, networking, sports, and hobbies.
Housing: Esade has agreements with agencies for single and shared apartments, but plan to find a place yourself, and start early if family is coming with you. Once you’ve paid your deposit, you can join your intake’s Facebook group.
Spanish: An optional beginner bootcamp runs in August, and Spanish, French, and German courses for credit come later. Ask Admissions for the bootcamp’s price and the 2027 dates.
Health cover: Health insurance is on Esade’s visa checklist, and Esade’s admissions and fees pages don’t say tuition includes it, so budget for your own.
Who needs one: These rules are for students from outside the EU, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland. To study in Spain for more than 90 days, you apply through the Spanish consulate responsible for where you live.
Your documents: Esade’s Welcome Pack includes your admission and housing letters. Once you’ve paid, you get an official admission certificate through MyEsade, Esade’s online portal.
Timing: Esade advises applying at least 60 days ahead, and Spain says at least two months before your studies start, with some exceptions. For a stay of more than six months, you apply for a TIE, Spain’s foreigner identity card, within a month of arriving.
Money and insurance: You show funds for each month, separate from tuition, equal to 100% of IPREM, an income figure Spain sets, plus more for each family member who comes with you. You also need health insurance from an insurer authorized to operate in Spain, and adults staying more than six months need criminal-record documents.
Working while you study: Study permission generally allows up to 30 hours of work a week alongside your studies, with separate rules for internships that are part of your study plan. Esade expects you to study full time, apart from internships.
After you graduate: Because the MBA is an official university master’s, it meets the degree level Spain requires for its 24-month job-search stay. You must also meet the other conditions, such as an earlier study permission, funds, and insurance, and apply in the 60 days before your study permission expires. The stay can’t be extended and doesn’t let you work: for a job, you need a separate work authorization.
UNDERSTAND WHAT ESADE LOOKS FOR
Its committee considers your academic performance, work experience, test scores, international experience, essays, references, and interview. Esade asks for an application that reflects “your own experiences, motivations, and accomplishments.”
WORK EXPERIENCE
Esade requires at least two years of full-time professional experience after your degree. The Class of 2028 averaged six years.
Letrado’s adviceNear the two-year minimum? Ask Admissions whether internships or part-time work count.
YOUR NEXT STEP
Only the 15- and 18-month tracks leave room for an internship or an exchange, and you choose your length around April or May of your first year.
Letrado’s adviceChanging industry? Plan for 15 or 18 months, so you can test the new field in an internship. If a role is waiting for you, 12 months gets you back sooner.
INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE
Esade weighs international experience, and 97% of the Class of 2028 is international. The largest groups come from Asia and Europe (30% each) and from Latin America and the Caribbean (26%).
Letrado’s adviceNo time abroad? Use a project with a team or customers in another country, and say what it changed in how you work.
WHAT ESADE DESCRIBES
Shortlisted applicants are invited to interview
In Barcelona, at an Esade event abroad, or online
The admissions committee decides, and the result appears in the application portal
Esade doesn’t give feedback on applications it turns down.
CLASS OF 2028
Before the MBA, 24% of the class worked in financial services and 17% in consulting services. The largest groups had studied business or management (27%), economics (21%), or engineering (20%).
Esade’s admissions page gives recent GMAT averages of around 615 on the current edition (the GMAT Focus Edition, scored from 205 to 805) and around 660 on the previous edition (scored from 200 to 800).
WHAT ESADE SAYS
Esade asks for two references. Plan for at least one to be professional, from someone who knows your work. Once you save your referees’ details in the application, they get an automatic request.
Esade asks that your application reflect your own experience, and you sign it electronically.
Read what you’re confirming before you sign.
PLAN THE APPLICATION
Esade reviews applications on a rolling basis, within these deadlines. Your application counts as complete only once your supporting documents are in. If you need a visa or an award, apply early.
Deadlines in fall 2026
Sep 30 or Nov 18, 2026Deadlines from January to March
Jan 13, Feb 17, or Mar 17, 2027Deadlines from April to June
Apr 21, May 12, Jun 2, or Jun 30, 2027The calendar gives no time of day, so don’t wait for the last day. Ask Admissions when interviews and decisions follow.
Register online, then add your CV, your essays, and your passport (or your national identity card if you’re Spanish). You sign the application electronically, and the €150 fee is nonrefundable.
You need one of three: the GMAT (current or previous edition) or the GRE, taken within the last five years, or the online Esade Admission Test, included in your fee. Upload your score report and send the official one.
A bachelor’s degree, or an equivalent that lets you go on to postgraduate study in the country that awarded it. Scan your transcripts and diploma in their original language, with an official translation unless they’re in Catalan, Spanish, or English.
Plan for at least one to be professional. Your referees get an automatic request once you save their details.
With an Associate Director of Admissions, in Barcelona, at an Esade event abroad, or online.
Esade’s minimum scores are below. If you think you’re exempt, confirm it with Admissions before you skip the test.
Minimum scores: TOEFL iBT 100, or 5.0 on the 1–6 scale TOEFL has used since January 2026, with at least 4.5 in each section; IELTS Academic 7.0; Cambridge Advanced B+ or Proficiency C+; and, as Esade writes them, Pearson (PTE Academic) +68 and Duolingo +130.
Sending scores: Scores must be less than two years old. Send official TOEFL scores to Esade’s code, 0884, and keep originals or certified copies of IELTS and Cambridge results, which Esade asks for.
Your degree: It must be awarded before the MBA starts. Without it, Esade treats your registration as void.
Original documents: If you’re admitted, Esade asks for originals or certified copies of an EU degree, and degrees from outside the EU must be legalized.
Visa applicants: Esade urges you to apply early, and its calendar doesn’t set a separate last deadline for international applicants.
Ask Admissions: Esade’s public pages don’t cover reapplying, applying as a couple, or deferring a place.
WRITE IN YOUR OWN VOICE
Questions open when you registerYou’ll see how many essays there are, their word limits, and whether there’s a video.
Esade weighs them with your record, your test, your references, and your interview, so write about why you want this MBA and what you’ve learned along the way. Some awards ask for writing of their own, so check Esade’s current award list before you write.
Letrado’s adviceBefore you register, write a page of plain notes: the work you’re proudest of, a time something went wrong, and the role you want next. Then shape those notes to each question.
The award is for U.S. and Canadian citizens and values international experience.
Three awards, worth 50% to 75% of tuition, for Chinese candidates with strong academic and professional records, who act as ambassadors for Esade. The essay covers your merits and how you’d support Esade’s admissions and careers work in China.
MAKE ROOM FOR THE FINANCIAL QUESTION
That’s Esade’s published fee for the September 2027 intake. The €150 application fee and the €100 MBA Student Association fee are separate. For living costs, Esade’s undated estimate is about €1,200 a month, and it covers only a shared apartment, food, and transport.
EXCELLENCE AWARDS
You can apply for one Excellence Award, in the Award Information section of your application. Esade encourages you to apply with your MBA application and evaluates it alongside your admission documents.
WOMEN WITH IMPACT
Each has its own focus: leadership and club contribution (Women in Business), career progression (Women Leaders), leadership potential (Forté), or diversity, financial need, and unique perspectives (Women of the World).
INCOME SHARE AGREEMENT
You repay it after graduating, based on what you earn, and repayments pause if your income falls below a minimum. You apply during admissions, and it can be combined with an award.
Esade’s own awards can’t be combined with one another. Its admissions page says they average 25% of tuition, without naming a class, and that funds normally run out early, though some are kept for later in the process.
Esade awards and financing (opens in a new tab)PUBLISHED FEES · SEPTEMBER 2027 INTAKE, WHOLE PROGRAM
€82,500Covers teaching, course materials, and on-campus IT and library services. Two nonrefundable €8,000 payments come before the installments.
Esade’s fees page lists one fee rather than a price for each length. It doesn’t say how the two €8,000 payments count toward the September installment, or when the commitment payment is due if you’re admitted after June 15, 2027, so ask Admissions before you accept.
Esade fees and financing (opens in a new tab)Letrado’s adviceYou get one award application, so pick the award whose criteria fit your record best, and send it with your MBA application.
For its Class of 2025, Esade reports that 90% found a job within three months. Its careers page lists companies that recruited Esade MBAs over a three-year period, among them Amazon, BCG, Google, McKinsey, Nestlé, and UNICEF.
Esade MBA careers (opens in a new tab)ADMITTED TO ESADE · A.L.
A French professional five years into luxury retail and e-commerce, she had a well-known employer, international experience, and early essays built from carefully chosen successes. We helped her set aside the polish, examine a real failure, and test whether she needed the MBA.
She had joined projects linking e-commerce with physical stores, and her plan targeted omnichannel strategy before any general-management ambition.
She weighed recruiting in London, in Barcelona, and across Europe, along with curriculum flexibility, program length, leadership development, and access to consumer businesses.
She chose the project to write about, checked the business details, and wrote all her materials.
Esade asks for your own experiences and motivations. A.L.’s application showed both: a first goal she could name, and a hard example she chose and wrote about herself.
AI illustrationHER ESADE OUTCOME
Offered a place in the Esade MBA
HER CHOICE: LBSLondon Business School, London · Photo: Rapdas111 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped.
Esade offered innovation in Barcelona, but London’s consumer businesses drew her to LBS.
ALSO ADMITTED TO
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