Posted by - killa - on 13 June 2013 - 10:27am

• Posted by - killa - on 15 June 2013 - 4:39pm

  Dear Thomas,

  Once again thanks for all the info. :)

  Reply

• Posted by - Thomas Graf - on 13 June 2013 - 12:30pm

  Hi Killa,

  thank you so much for your kind words and congratulations for being accepted for the Grenoble MIB.

  In fact, you raise an important question: How can I finance my studies? Without clarifying this in advance, you will hardly be able to actually study. Here are some generic suggestions:

  • Savings
  • Loans from family
  • Loans from banks (ideally in the business school's network, providing low interest rates)
  • Scholarships from the school
  • Scholarships from external parties (e.g. employers), available through the school's financial aid office
  • Scholarships offered from other parties and not through the school's financial aid office, e.g. external foundations in the school's country or your home country
  • Support by the students' employer - if they are employed and leave work for a year while being supported from their employer to come back after graduation
  • Student work during the master's studies

  As for the scholarships provided from or through the school, I recommend having a look at Grenoble Business School scholarship website and contacting Rachel Standring (you find her contact data there). Generally, schools offer two sorts of scholarships: need-based (for this you need to demostrate that you are effectively unable to study the master without becoming supported financially) and merit-based (a GMAT score of 650 would be for this - at least many schools apply this as a pre-condition for such scholarships).

  As for the scholarships available outside the school, I recommend having a look at the French National Agency website Campus France. They provide useful informatin on studying in France in general - and also on financing your studies.

  As for working during the studies, you hopefully get paid during your internship. So, depending on how high your salary will be there you may save a bit of that money in the second year to pay back loans from the first year.

  Another idea - actually a hot advice in my opinion - is to ask the school whether they can provide you with an assistant job where you work for a professor. This job should not include more than 20 hours per month and provide you with around EUR 500 per month.

  Why is this a hot advice? Because often, no one actually works these 20 hours, even though they get paid for them. My personal experience as a PhD student is that some MBA students accept such a job, get the money, and work a little bit - but not necessarily the full 20 hours. This can be a pain in the ass for researchers like me who want to see results from their assistant students' work - but at the end of the day they are clients and they have a hard time during their studies. Hence, I finally let them get away even if they have not worked effectively 20 hours per month - and that's what I guess most professors do.

  So, you have several ideas now and I thoroughly hope you can take use of them and study your master's.

  Best wishes
  Thomas

  By Thomas Graf

  Reply