‘The top thirty’, the Economist, October 15th 2011

This is a short article in the Economist, providing its ratings of international business schools, based on a number of criteria. These combine salary levels, ability to find a job, calibre of faculty, age and experience of students, fees and programme duration. The responses come from former students.

It is interesting, in the light of the above article, that the only Asian representative in the top thirty is the INSEAD school in Singapore, though the article mentions that there are three more in the top hundred, including CEIBS and Hong Kong University. One wonders also if, with seven American schools in the top eight, there is some bias in the criteria or the process. It is also surprising to see the usual suspects like Harvard, Stanford and MIT still well down in 5th, 8th and 11th respectively, with the less well known Tuck School at Dartmouth and Booth School at Chicago taking the first two places. The Tuck and Booth schools were also the top two last year, though the positions were reversed.

So how do UK and other European schools fare? Not too well. The only European entries in the top 10 are IMD of Switzerland and IESE of Spain, which are rated third and tenth respectively. The highest ranked UK school is London at 13th with Bath and Cranfield the only other two in the top 30. This must be bad news for others whose reputations should have put them in the top league, notably Manchester, Warwick and Ashridge.

The full results are available on line at economist.com/whichmba

Click here to read the article in full

http://www.economist.com/node/21532270