Arriving Already Knowing 20 Other Students: How EBS Universität Builds Candidate Confidence Before Arrival

For business schools today, candidate experience increasingly shapes candidate confidence.

Candidates compare rankings, employment outcomes, international opportunities, and program offerings. Yet even after accepting an offer, many students still face the same challenge:

"Will I actually feel like I belong there?"

The period between offer acceptance and arrival often comes with uncertainty. Students navigate accommodation questions, moving countries, understanding life on campus, building friendships, and adapting to an entirely new environment. For international candidates especially, those concerns can influence how prepared and confident students feel before day one.

At EBS Universität, early peer connection became an important part of supporting that transition.

Arriving Already Knowing 20 Other Students

Across the EBS community:

• 20 average peer connections per student before arrival
• 40 nationalities represented
• 32% of friendships formed between students from different nationalities
• 47% of connections formed between students from different study programs

Or put differently:

Students arrived already knowing more than 20 other students who would be there alongside them.

For business schools, that matters.

Early peer connection creates familiarity before students ever step onto campus. Instead of arriving knowing nobody, students arrive already recognizing names, building friendships, and developing support networks before classes even begin.

Beyond Candidate Communication

Business schools invest heavily in candidate communication. Offerholder events, webinars, email campaigns, and information sessions all play an important role in helping students prepare for arrival.

Increasingly however, students expect more than information. They want reassurance, practical support, and to understand what life will actually feel like before arriving.

At EBS, students organically created spaces around shared interests and practical support, including:

• Travel to EBS together
• Part-time jobs
• Book clubs
• Buy / Swap / Sell communities
• Program-specific communities

Questions that would traditionally sit with admissions teams increasingly became conversations between students themselves. Concerns became shared experiences, helping candidates build familiarity before arriving on campus.

Building Integration Before Arrival

Connection also strengthened diversity and integration outcomes.

At EBS Universität:

• 32% of friendships formed between students from different nationalities
• 47% of connections formed between students from different study programs

For globally focused business schools, these interactions matter. Students are not only evaluating academic quality. They are evaluating whether they can picture themselves socially, academically, and personally within the institution.

Building those connections earlier can help strengthen confidence long before orientation begins.

What Students Said

Across EBS’s community, students consistently linked early connection with reduced anxiety, greater confidence before arrival, stronger belonging, and reassurance around moving abroad. Finding familiar faces before starting university helped make the transition feel less overwhelming and more manageable. Together, these patterns suggest that peer connection supports more than engagement alone. It helps students build confidence and preparedness before beginning university.

Students described this experience in their own words:

"Moving abroad can be both exciting and overwhelming, so having a platform like Goin that helps build a community early on can ease a lot of the uncertainty."
— MBA Student from India

"Connecting with classmates before arriving can reduce anxiety and make it easier to settle in and make friends."
— BSc Business Studies Student from Sweden

"It has really helped me by finding where to live."
— BSc Business Studies Student from Mexico

"It enables students to get to know each other beforehand so they can adapt to the university environment quicker."
— BSc Business Studies Student from China

"Seeing other people's faces and interests gets me excited and thrilled to meet all of them."
— BSc Business Studies Student from Germany

Friendships As A Candidate Experience Strategy

For business schools today, community-building is increasingly becoming part of recruitment and conversion strategy.

When students build friendships earlier, practical challenges become easier to navigate, confidence grows, and students can arrive feeling more prepared for the transition into university life.

At EBS Universität, students arrived already connected: forming an average of 20 peer connections before arrival. More importantly, it helped create familiarity, confidence, and friendships before students even stepped onto campus.

For business schools competing for increasingly discerning candidates, that difference matters.