This guide is for people joining a one-year, full-time MBA with an experienced cohort: classmates who typically bring five to ten years of work, a calendar compressed into twelve to fifteen months, and campus placement that runs alongside classes rather than after a summer internship.

What the year is. An intense reset. In about a year you take a full core curriculum, build a network of a few hundred peers across industries, and change or accelerate your career through campus placement. Few experiences pack so much into so little time.

What it is not. A guarantee. Admission says your past was strong; it does not decide your next role. Two people from the same section can leave with very different outcomes, and the difference is mostly in how they used the year: how early they got clear on what they wanted, how they spent their time, and how they handled the hard weeks.

Arrive humble. A director once told an incoming class: "Let your selection be the smallest achievement of your life." The programme owes you excellent teaching, and you can push hard for that. Everything else, from the network to the job, you earn during the year.

You are free to disagree. Everything in this guide comes from people who have been through the year, and experiences differ. Use it as one informed view, question it, and form your own. Learning to disagree well is one of the most useful things the year teaches.

How to use this guide. Read the first two modules before you arrive. Read the others at the start of each phase of the year. The Phase checklist tab turns the advice into actions you can tick off, and the Decision tools tab helps you choose what to say yes to.

For the detailed preparation itself, use the specialist academies: Placement Prep for functional interviews, Consulting prep and PM Prep for those careers, the resume builder, and interview practice.