By Elizabeth Taiwo (Student Recruitment Manager)
Summer isn’t just for holidays and sunshine – it’s also the perfect time to get a strategic head start on your business school application. This period offers a valuable window to reflect, research, and prepare. Whether you’re aiming to start your Graduate Masters next year or just exploring your options, investing time now can make your application stronger, less stressful, and more authentic. From refining your goals to polishing your CV, here’s how to make the most of your summer and set yourself up for success.
Consider your ‘why?’
You should aim to anchor the application to your core goal(s). Think about the experience you want during the programme, as well as the ideal short-term impact. These will be shaped by the academic, social and career-focused activities you’ll participate in, so it’s important to do your research and connect them to your career goal. If you have a long-term career plan, also reflect on how the programme will support this.
Refine your profile
The admissions process is competitive, the job market even more so. Career development is at the heart of everything on offer at LBS and the Graduate Masters Programmes are designed to build a strong foundation. We’re not looking for ten years of coding experience for an entry level role… but we do like to see some business exposure. Our students typically join with at least one or two internships under their belt, showcasing their ability to contribute to class discussions and benefit from the programme.
If you could benefit from gaining more experience, now is the time to start thinking about internships for next summer. Summer internships are a great way to explore potential career paths. Ideally, your admissions profile will show alignment between your existing experience and your post-masters goal. With this in mind, you should be strategic with your internship applications – be focused, not limited. If you aren’t able to test your chosen sector, use this summer to think about how the experience you have gained informed this interest and how it will support the transition.
Research
I mentioned earlier that the journey to your career goal will be shaped by your academic, social and career-focused activities, so naturally, you need to research them. Research to understand, not for a quick shoutout in the essays – the latter will be quite… evident.
Discover the clubs on campus and the range of activities held throughout the year (the clubs’ social media accounts are perfect for this). Explore the Career Centre’s coaching, networking events and company presentations. Learn about the courses and electives as well as the amazing faculty teaching them – from their books to publications, there are endless resources for you to sample. The connection to LBS doesn’t stop at graduation, so you’ll want to have an idea of the long-term impact it will have on your life, and that you will have on the community.
You can dive into all of this through the blog and social media. To hear from staff supporting the admissions and student experience, current students and alumni, join our events throughout year. If you can, I recommend going along to an in-person event to get a sense of the atmosphere on campus. We’d love to see you at our next Open Day in September – a faculty masterclass and insights from the Career Centre, Programme and Recruitment & Admissions Teams will certainly help your application journey!
Reading list:
Exceptional: Build Your Personal Highlight Reel and Unlock Your Potential | Dan Cable (Organisational Behaviour)
May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics and Studies Exploit Our Biases | Alex Edmans (Finance)
Entrepreneurial Finance: The Art and Science of Growing Ventures | Luisa Alemany (Strategy and Entrepreneurship)
100-year Life: Living and working in an age of longevity | Lynda Gratton (Organisational Behaviour) & Andrew Scott (Economics)
The Ends Game: How smart companies stop selling products and start delivering value | Oded Koenigsberg (Marketing)