After talking again with a friend from my church about Vlerick School, he contacted an old teacher he had during his MBA course to have his opinion. The feedback he received was very positive. This made me consider the idea more seriously, of course.

Then I decided to prepare and apply for the admission day Vlerick School had in the beginning of March. I had bought previously a book to prepare for the GMAT exam, and had already started reading a little bit at that time. I could do everything online, in terms of applying for the admission day. I could upload my copies of university transcripts, photos and copy of passport. It worked like charm.

While applying online, I could also submit a 500 words essay, to apply for a scholarship from Vlerick School. I put some special effort on this, even had the help of some good friends reviewing what I wrote, and I still managed to submit my essay on time.

I’ve booked a 5 days vacation at work, booked a hotel for 4 days in Leuven. I would stay in Leuven 2 days before the actual admission day. This would give me the chance to get to know the city, walk around, see how I felt over there, and also try to study a bit more. I’ve managed to use some of my Lufthansa Miles to book my flight to Brussels, thus saving some money.

I’ve talked before going there with a friend of mine who is leaving in Antwerp. He was my colleague at university and during my internship job. He was surprised for my decision, but fully supported me. He also told me about friend from another colleague from our university who was actually living in Leuven. He gave me his contact and I started telling him about my plans. Good! I already had someone I knew living in Leuven.

Another thing that worried me, in case I would get in, was if there was a church in Leuven, a Evangelical Church. I started doing some googling and searching around, and found ICEL, a English Speaking Church. I’ve emailed them about my plans to visit Leuven between the end of February and beginning of March, and how I would like to get to know the church. They replied me back, expressing happiness to hear about my willingness to meet them and their church.

So, I kept studying and preparing in the weekends before my trip to Leuven. I did countless math and english exercises, and also bought some “economy” magazines, like Business Week and The Economist, and read them a bit everyday. I ended up subscribing to The Economist, because I really liked to read it.

And the story goes on in a next post…