If you are coming to London Business School from a system where electives were simply assigned or chosen without strategy, the bidding process can look a bit chaotic at first. That was definitely my experience. I had never done anything like this before in Azerbaijan, so it took me some time to understand what was going on and, more importantly, come up with a plan. The good news is that once you do a bit of research and attend the briefings, it becomes much more manageable.
Graduate master’s students get 7,000 bidding points to use across two rounds, to bid for your electives and your Global Experience. You need to meet a minimum of 44 credits, which can be done through three 11‑credit electives or a mix of different electives and, of course, your GE.
Elective courses come in different formats, usually 10‑week, block week, or weekend options, so it is not just about what you want to study, but also how you want your term to look.
Round 1 is the real battleground because everyone is competing for what they actually want. Round 2 is more about picking from what is left. In some cases, you are also bidding against students from your own programme, which makes some courses more competitive than they may first appear.
The biggest mistake I think students make is underbidding on the elective they want most. Overbidding is usually much less painful than losing your favourite elective. One thing I wish someone had told me earlier is that the system is not as final as it first seems. You can often drop and add electives later, so not getting everything immediately is frustrating, but not always disastrous.
When it came to choosing electives, I treated it like a mini research project. I used the LBS website, spoke to previous students, and created an Excel sheet (yes, I am one of those guys) with filters based on my preferences. That helped me narrow tens of electives down to five or six serious options. The most useful source by far was historical bidding data. The most overrated source was what random current students said. Their feedback can create false positives and false negatives very quickly. One person’s “amazing course” is another person’s nightmare.
Your priorities should drive your strategy. In my case, I chose electives that finished relatively early and had assignments instead of exams, because I wanted my final term to be much freer than my second one. That shaped everything. For others, the right choice may be completely different depending on their career path or academic interests. A finance student will not necessarily value the same electives as someone more interested in marketing or economics.
For most students, I think the smartest approach is a balanced strategy with a slight bias towards GE. GEs are often harder to recover if you miss out, especially popular ones like Vietnam, while electives are usually easier to fix later through other rounds or add/drop. My own split was roughly 55% of points on GE and 45% on electives, and I got everything I wanted. A common balanced tactic is around 60% for GE and 40% for electives. Some people go extremely GE‑heavy, even up to 90%, which can leave them scrambling for electives later. Others do the reverse. Neither is automatically right or wrong. It all depends on your priorities.
The best case is simple: you get everything you want, like I did. The worst case is that you miss both your preferred GE and your target electives and end up with options you do not really want. That does happen to some people, although most manage to recover, at least on the elective side. GE is much harder to fix. Also, practical constraints matter a lot. No timetable clashes are allowed, attendance requirements matter, and academically, you can only fail one elective, which stays on your transcript.
My advice is simple: know your priorities, research early, and check timings properly. Also, prepare back‑up combinations before bidding opens. The system is stressful before you do it, but with the right thinking and a bit of preparation, it becomes much more manageable than it first looks.