Ask a Program Advisor from Stockholm School of Economics

Hej munhugg, I think i am a better person to answer your question because I happen to be a first year Master student in the Accounting and Financial management program! The informational session SSE_MBA that was mentioned earlier is probably related to their program, not ours but of course, you can always welcome visit our school at any time and arrange the meeting with the student services.

I can answer all your questions from my experience. The accounting program has mandatory courses for the first year (fin accounting, corporate valuation - one of the best courses at SSE!, financial analysis, management controls and so on) and then the electives and thesis during the 2nd year. But actually most of students (almost everyone I know) is going for an exchange next year. So it doesn't matter which specialty you choose, the possibilities to go an exchange are equal for everyone. We are part of CEMS program, which gives a MIM (master in international management) in addition to your original degree. SO you can even get a dual degree. Check out more about it: https://www.cems.org/ We also have a regular exchange. My classmates are going for an exchange in universities all around the world - Australia, India, Singapore, Japan, Mexico, China, Phillippines, Korea, Chile, Thailand, the US, almost all countries in Europe. It is about 66 schools in total and about 150 students go abroad each year. Some schools worth mentioning: DUKE, Chicago Booth, UCLA, Columbia, NYU Stern, Wharton, University of Texas, ESADE, HEC, Ivery, McGill, SDA Bocconi, you name it.

I should not probably say it but the best part (besides being a very good school) is that our school is free. Yes, it has no tuition. I know that Sweden has changed the rules last year so if you are not an EU citizen, then it is too bad because they started charging for the program. But for the EU it is still free. So the best thing is that you not only get a very good education at SSE for free but also you can go for an exchange for one of the top universities in the world for free as well! Of course the food & board and the plane ticket is at your expense but you don't need to pay for the classes that you take at an exchange school that usually has high tuition costs such as American schools. And you can even take the same courses there as other MBA students! SSE even gives you a small scholarship I believe so. At least they did in the past.

I personally decided not to go for an exchange although I was admitted at Erasmus Rotterdam CEMS program. I am staying in Sweden because I am tired of taveling and living all around the world, and I decided that I would like to remain in Sweden after my gradaution and I am trying to learn Swedish. I actually already got a job for a summer in one Swedish companies even though i don't speak Swedish yet (that was my big concern at first)

Let me check about the average GMAT and get back to you. I know that Finance and Accounting & Financial Management programs are the hardest to get into at SSE. The average GMAT tends to be quite high. I personally was planning on doing an MBA (if you see my other posts here) but I ended up in Sweden for many reasons. I realized that I don't want to go into any more debt for my education (I have done my Bachelor in the US and I still carry a lot of loans). And that was the best decision that I ever made. My GMAT was 700 and I was a top student in my university but guess what... I am barely average at SSE. That could be very hard at first! I guess because I worked already and I forgot about the student life so it took me time to adjust to it. But I love the challenging environment that I am thrown into. It could be quite intimidating at first not being the best anymore, but it feels great to study with such bright people from all around the world!

I think other thing worth of mentioning is that we have a very good recruitment system and very active student association. We get company presentations every week. SSE has very good ties with banks, especially in London. If you want to work in investment banking, it is a perfect school for you. London loves SSE! A lot of students fly to London for interviews all the time. It also has a lot of focus on management consulting with all the biggest companies recruiting - McKinsey, BSG, Bain & Company, Oliver Wyman, Capgemini, Arthur D Little and so on. All big four (accounting) companies heavily recruit here too. But I have to admit that there is a problem because it seems that big four have very independent offices, so Swedish offices tend to recruit for themselves and if you are in auditing, they deal with lots of Swedish clients so they want people who speak the language. So it could be a problem for non Swedish speakers (like me). So I just had to open my mind because the company choices are unlimited in my opinion. We have random activities every week and everything is sponsored by some company. So if you have the social skills, it is really easy to get your way in. Due to all those posibilities, most students already secured their summer internships even in the middle of their first year. And this is all due to our own student association. It is very self-efficient. Everything is organized by students and they manage to pull off the biggest and the fanciest events that I've ever seen! We host huge parties from the Nobel Night Cap to fantastic job fairs like Handelsdagarna. You can get involved almost in anything related to business, education, sports, IT or entertainment. We have a lot of international projects that one can become part of: China Project, the Exchange Japan, Focus CSR (this year they traveled to India), East African Entrepreneurship project, London Career Week (a week in London visiting companies - I went there!). Lots of scholarship opportunities and competitions. The question is what we don't have?? It is easy to get involved into so much that you forget that you came here to study in the first place! LOL

Check out our student association's website. It speaks for itself: https://www.hhss.se/student And it is a bit quiet now because we are getting close to the end of the year. But it gets extremely busy in Fall packed with events almost every day!

I could go on and on about this but I don't want to bore you Let me know if you have any other specific questions. I will get back to your about the GMAT averages. I have seen them somewhere. Sorry for such a long message. I am just really happy with my choice so i can talk about it day and night.