Sunday, April 12, 2009

New MBA Rankings 2009 - The Year For Top European Programs

Financial Times and Business Week both published recently their new 2009 MBA Rankings.
A summary of all rankings you can find in my Rankings page at http://www.impactmba.com/rankings.htm

Traditionally, the top 3 US Programs are Wharton, Harvard, and Stanford. 4 other programs make up the Tier 1 US Schools: MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Chicago Booth, and Columbia. NYU, Tuck, Yale, Michigan, Duke, and Berekley are the strong Tier 2 B-Schools. In Europe there are 3 top tier MBA programs - LBS, INSEAD, and IMD.

Looking at the 2009 ranking, the programs listed above remain the top 10 programs. However some other MBA schools, especially from Asia, climbed up to become top tier. There is a definite trend of improvement in the European and Asian business school to become on par with the US programs.

The key takeaways:
  • Definitely the year for top European programs. London Business School is ranked #1 in Financial Times. INSEAD up to #5.
  • 5 Asian programs in the FT top 20.
  • 7 European programs in the FT top 20. Spain is becoming a center of business schools in Europe with 3 universities on the FT Top 20. UK also with 3 programs in the top 20.
  • 6 US MBA programs in the FT top 10, and 9 in the Top 20.

Financial Times
The top 10 US MBA Programs are: Wharton, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, MIT Sloan, NYU Stern, Chicago Booth, Dartmouth Tuck, Yale, Kellogg

Top 5 European MBA Programs: London Business School, INSEAD, IE Business School, IESE, IMD

Top 5 Asian MBA Program: INSEAD, Ceibs, Indian School of Business, Hong Kong UST, Nanyang

Alumni recommendation (one of my favorite categories, which correlates well with prestige): Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Kellogg, LBS, INSEAD, Chicago Booth, Columbia, MIT Sloan, NYU Stern

My insights:
- The list above seems reasonable. I believe that the list indeed contains the top programs in each region.
- The trend of globalization is in full motion - only 9 American MBA programs in the top 20 (6 in the top 10) implies that no longer studying in the US Ivy league is as important as it used to be.
- The #1 school is joint between Wharton and London Business School. Pretty amazing!
- Schools on consistent up trend (3 years) - LBS, INSEAD
- Schools on consistent down trend - Columbia, Stanford, Chicago Booth, Yale

I want to examine some of the key parameters, and list the top 10 schools in each of them:
Salary: Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Tuck, Ceibs, IMD, Chicago Booth, Indian Business School.
Salary Increase: Ceibs, IE, Indian, ESADE, IESE, Yale, NYU Stern, Columbia, Nanyang, Hong Kong
Value for money: IMD, INSEAD, Cambridge Judge, Oxford Said (one year programs are better value-for-money according to FT)

Business Week
BW gives a slightly different view. First, there is no direct comparison between US based MBA programs, and European ones.

Top 10 US Programs: Chicago Booth, HBS, Kellogg, Wharton, Michigan Ross, Stanford, Columbia, Duke Fuqua, MIT Sloan, Berekley Haas.

Top 5 European Programs: IE, INSEAD, LBS, ESADE, IMD

Top 3 Canadian Programs: Queens, Werstern Ontario (Ivey), Toronto Rotman

Business Week also ranks EMBA programs. Top 10: Northwestern, Wharton, Chaicago, Michigan, USC, Columbia, Emory, UCLA, Duke, UNC.


US News
Based on 2008 rankings, US News provides data only on American MBA programs. They do a ranking per specialty.

Finance: Wharton, Chicago Booth, NYU Stern, Columbia, Stanford. I would add LBS to this list.
Marketing: Kellogg, Wharton, Duke, Harvard, Stanford. I would add INSEAD.
General Management: Harvard, Stanford, Kellogg, Michigan, Wharton. I would add LBS and INSEAD to the list.
Entreprenuership: Babson, Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, MIT Sloan. INSEAD would be ranked first or second.


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1 comment:

Glass said...

Top College Business Programs by Specialty.

The best programs in accounting, sustainability, and other specialties aren't always the obvious choices.