INSEAD pushed aside London Business School (LBS) to take the top spot in Bloomberg Businessweek’s annual ranking of MBA programs outside the United States, published yesterday. LBS slipped to second, followed by Spain’s IESE Business School, Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, and Switzerland’s International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in that order. Rounding out the top 10 were Cambridge University’s Judge Business School, Italy’s SDA Boccini, IE Business School, ESADE, and HEC Paris.
To arrive at its ranking of leading international MBA programs, Bloomberg BW employs the same methodology it uses to rank top U.S. MBA programs. That ranking, released last month, featured Harvard Business School in the No. 1 spot for the third consecutive year.
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Five components contribute to the rankings of both international MBA programs and their U.S. counterparts: surveys of employers (35 percent of total score), alumni (30 percent), and students (15 percent), along with job placement rates three months out from graduation and starting salary data (10 percent each).
Bloomberg Businessweek’s Top 10 International Business Schools in 2017
- INSEAD
- London Business School
- IESE Business School
- Saïd Business School
- IMD
- Judge Business School
- SDA Boccini
- IE Business School
- ESADE
- HEC Paris
INSEAD—with campuses in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East—found its way to the top of this year’s overall ranking thanks in part to its high marks from both employers and alumni. It was the highest ranked of all schools on both of those surveys. Barcelona-based IESE outperformed all other schools on the student survey, graduates from Germany’s Mannheim Business School led all others in terms of how quickly they were hired, and IMD grads commanded the highest starting salaries.
As always, those of us here at Clear Admit urge prospective applicants to use rankings as just one of many considerations when trying to determine the right business school to meet their individual needs and goals.
For the full Bloomberg Businessweek 2017 ranking of international MBA programs, click here.
