In the 2009 global MBA rankings released yesterday by the Financial Times, London Business School came in at number one for the first time ever, sharing the spot with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Also of note, three Asian schools were among the top 20, including one, Ceibs in Shanghai, which was in the top 10.
This year the FT’s MBA rankings feature some new bells and whistles, including interactive tools that allow readers to chart and compare business schools to one another. Accompanying the rankings is an in-depth special report examining the changing MBA landscape. And a special “Ask the Experts” feature invites readers to pose questions to a panel of experts online, who will respond to them during a live online session on January 28th.
In one analysis, the FT’s Della Bradshaw posits that the combined factors of the financial crisis – which include recruiting falloff, endowment devaluation and a negative perception of business and, by extension, business school – may bring about a sea-change in business education.
One shift already being observed is a reduction in the number of foreign applicants to U.S. schools. With business schools in Europe and Asia growing in reputation, more non-U.S. students are opting to study there instead, the FT reports. Additionally, the credit crisis’s impact on endowments also has reduced schools’ abilities to provide scholarships, especially to foreign students. According to the FT report, international applications to U.S. schools have fallen by 20 percent this year.
But domestic applications remain strong in the United States, the FT continued, noting that the Graduate Management Admissions Council, which adminsters the GMAT exam, recorded its best year ever in 2008 in terms of the number of test takers.
Still, a lot will depend on recruiting prospects. Early indicators from Europe show mixed results. At IMD, which graduates a class in December, the news is good, the FT reports. According to IMD’s Director of Admissions and Careers Katty Ooms-Suter, 82 percent of the class of 90 students had a job offer on graduation.
At INSEAD, which had 460 MBA graduates in December, the news was not as rosy. According to Jake Cohen, dean of the program, only 65 percent of the class had accepted an offer on graduation. And the near future doesn’t look much better. “I do believe July 2009 will be very bad,” Cohen told the FT. “We’ve never lived in such a market.”
Both European programs pointed out that their students are flexible about the regions of the world in which they are willing to work and happy to travel, a view some feel U.S. students would be wise to adopt as well.
“If there’s a global market in automobiles there is no reason why there shouldn’t be a global market in talent as well,” Joe Thomas, dean of Cornell’s Johnson School told the FT.
To read more of the special report, click here. To access the interactive rankings, click here.
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