Full-time MBA

Vlerick’s Full-time MBA is a ten-month, English-taught MBA based in Brussels, and it is the post-experience counterpart to the Masters in International Management and Strategy that this site profiles separately.¹ The two are easy to confuse and should not be: one requires three years of work behind you, the other is designed for people with none.

Overview

The programme runs 10 months and starts 1 September 2027.¹ It is taught in English, in Brussels — which Vlerick makes an argument about rather than a footnote, on the grounds of the city’s proximity to European political and business institutions.⁵ The curriculum was redesigned for 2025 to add flexibility, a second international study-course destination and a streamlined core.⁵

Curriculum

Four core modules come first, followed by five electives and one of three specialisations: Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Strategy & New Business Models, or Digital Business Transformation & AI.¹ Running alongside are three development tracks — Leadership Development, Entrepreneurial Mindset and Immersive AI Learning.

Two things are built into the ten months rather than offered as extras. An international study course, taken at either Singapore Management University or Stellenbosch Business School in South Africa. And a two-month In-Company Consulting Project at the end, which is where most of the hiring conversation happens.¹

Class Profile

The cohort is 35 students at an average age of 32, 88% international, 40% women.¹ Put that beside the pre-experience MIMS — 45 students, average age 23 — and the difference in the room is the whole point of the degree.

Everyone admitted holds at least three years of full-time, post-degree work experience, because Vlerick requires it to apply.¹ Vlerick publishes no average years of experience at entry, no nationality count, and no breakdown by professional background for this programme, so none is stated here.

Application & Deadlines

No standardised test is strictly required. Vlerick admits on its own VBAT — the Vlerick Business Admission Test, which assesses analytical skills, English proficiency and motivation together — and a valid GMAT, GRE, TOEFL or IELTS can exempt you from parts of it.¹ ³ If you submit an external score, the published floors are GMAT 600, or GRE 157 verbal and 158 quantitative.¹

The binding requirement is the experience: three years, full-time, post-degree, plus a degree from an accredited university.¹ No class-average test score and no minimum TOEFL or IELTS score are published.

For the September 2027 intake Vlerick publishes two dated cut-offs: 31 May 2027 for applicants who need a visa, 31 July 2027 for those who do not.¹ After applying there is an interview of about 30 minutes, online or in person, with a decision within five days of it.³ Vlerick publishes no application fee; a commitment fee secures the place after acceptance, and its amount is not published.³

⚠ One inconsistency worth knowing about. On 9 September 2026, Vlerick’s programme page carried the 2027 deadlines above while its separate Full-time MBA scholarships page still showed 31 May 2026 and 31 July 2026 — a year behind. Scholarships are awarded first come, first served, so a reader planning around the scholarship page’s dates could be working to the wrong year. Check both. If you are weighing a Master in Management alongside it, compare every European MiM round on our interactive deadlines timeline (it tracks the Master in Management, not this programme).

Tuition, Scholarships & Funding

Tuition is €44,000 for the September 2027 intake.¹ Vlerick is specific about what that covers:

The exclusion matters more than it looks, because the international study course is a required part of the programme, not an option. Vlerick estimates it at €2,000–€3,000 for flights, visa and accommodation, which puts the realistic all-in figure nearer €47,000.¹

Twelve named scholarships run from 10% to 50% of tuition — among them Female Leadership, Diversity, Academic, Future Leader, Entrepreneurship, Regional, Sector-Specific, EU Indian and the One Vlerick award, which reaches the full 50%.² They are allocated first come, first served, and they exclude cost of living, accommodation, visa and flights. The Academic Scholarship’s threshold sits well above the admission floor: GMAT above 680, GMAT Focus above 630, or GRE 160 verbal and 162 quantitative.²

Vlerick puts living costs in Belgium at €1,050–€1,400 a month including housing, bills, food and healthcare.⁴ Non-EU applicants should budget the visa route separately: a €251 contribution fee (waived for scholarship holders) plus roughly €180 for the long-stay visa, and proof of at least €1,062 a month for twelve months, with the application in by mid-May.⁴ MBA fees can be paid in instalments, and Lendwise loans cover living expenses and up to 100% of tuition minus the deposit.

Career Outcomes

⚠ Vlerick publishes no salary figure for this programme. No median, no average, no starting range — so this profile states none, and no salary for it appears anywhere on this site.

What Vlerick does publish is a 76% salary increase.¹ That is a change, not a level: it says what happened to the people who enrolled, not what a graduate earns, and it cannot be set beside the absolute salaries this catalogue carries for other programmes.

On employment, 85% are employed after six months.¹ Read the window carefully — most programmes profiled here report a three-month rate, and the two numbers are not interchangeable. That is why this figure is deliberately not recorded as a comparable employment rate in this site’s data, where it would be rendered against a three-month label it does not meet.

Beyond that: 75% of the class is employed in Europe, and 65% found their job through Vlerick activities — a high share, and consistent with a programme that ends in a two-month consulting project inside a company.¹

One ranking claim on Vlerick’s MBA pages needs separating out. The “#1 Executive MBA in Benelux” line refers to the school’s Executive MBA, a different programme from this one, and is not restated here as a result for the Full-time MBA. At school level Vlerick is placed #31 in the FT European Business School ranking, and holds triple accreditation from AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS.¹

Campus & Life

The Full-time MBA runs from Brussels, where Vlerick argues the case on access — the city’s concentration of European institutions and corporate headquarters sits inside a thirty-minute commute that Vlerick recommends students stay within.⁴ ⁵ The school was founded in 1953 and also operates campuses in Ghent and Leuven, with a 25,000-strong alumni network.

Applicants weighing this against the school’s pre-experience route should read the Masters in International Management and Strategy profile beside it. The choice is not really between two curricula; it is between applying with three years of work behind you and applying with none.