These three schools all have, as their flagship, 12 month MBAs without internships. For an internship, you'd normally need to find a longer course which would put an internship opportunity in the middle of the programme (For example, ESADE, HEC, IESE, Lisbon, LBS, Manchester).

Edinburgh does have a 16 month option, starting in April, which does have an internship.

Lancaster does offer a version of an internship: Called a "corporate challenge," it runs for six weeks in June and July, and allows students to work on a project for an external employer. It's actually pretty flexible, though - the school will set you up with an employer or you can pick one yourself if you already have something in mind.

Unfortunately, the six week time frame seems like a paltry amount of time for an internship, compared to the 8-12 week norm at a program like LBS.

There's also a big difference between a formal internship and a project: the salaried role. Working on a one off project is typically a difference experience from an internship where you are sitting in the employer's offices embedded in their team.

Touching on practical work experience during an MBA, Lancaster offers three consulting projects during the full-time MBA. The New Venture Challenge takes place in the fall and is is an excellent opportunity to team up with small local companies. The MBA consultancy challenges helps a client organization with an internal problem. The MBA Internship/Corporate Challenge takes place over six weeks in mid-summer. Basically at the end of the end, the variety of the internships gives you a chance to explore different business areas and meet more people. You also start applying what you learn as you go along rather than waiting until the summer.

Lancaster would be better advised to start its MBA in January, so the internship was both longer and not right at the end. One major advantage of the internship is that it lets employers have an extended job interview, think it over, and then negotiate with the student. Having the MBA right at the end doesn't work because the best students will have lined something up already.

<blockquote>Lancaster would be better advised to start its MBA in January, so the internship was both longer and not right at the end. One major advantage of the internship is that it lets employers have an extended job interview, think it over, and then negotiate with the student. Having the MBA right at the end doesn't work because the best students will have lined something up already.</blockquote>
That's a really good idea. To me, this squeezing in of program elements is a main problem with the one-year MBA format.

With a two-year program, you can do an internship over the summer and take a good breadth of electives (or even a concentration) - it's these kinds of program elements that help students gain experience to accelerate, switch careers, etc.