MBA50.com has compiled the results of the major media MBA rankings of the last twelve months to produce the MBA50.com Premiership.
How do the top business schools in Europe perform when you combine these results?
| 2012 Rank | 2011 Rank | Institution | Country | The FT 2012* | BusWeek 2012* | Economist 2012* | Forbes 2011* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | London Business School | UK | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 | Insead | France / Singapore | 2 | 2 | 6 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 | Iese Business School | Spain | 4 | 6 | 1 | 3 |
| 4 | 3 | IMD | Switzerland | 5 | 7 | 2 | 1 |
| 5 | 5 | IE Business School | Spain | 3 | 3 | 7 | 3 |
| 6 | 7 | HEC Paris | France | 6 | 9 | 4 | 5 |
| 7 | 6 | Esade Bus Sch | Spain | 12 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| 8 | 11 | Univ of Oxford - Sad | UK | 7 | 4 | 14 | 6 |
| 9 | 9 | Manchester Business School | UK | 11 | 12 | - | 2 |
| 10 | 8 | Univ of Cambridge - Judge | UK | 8 | - | 13 | 5 |
| 11 | - | Mannheim Bus Sch | Germany | - | 8 | 10 | - |
| 12 | 11 | City University - Cass | UK | 14 | - | 9 | 9 |
| 13 | 10 | Cranfield Sch of Mgmt | UK | 13 | - | 11 | 10 |
| 14 | 14 | Warwick Business School | UK | 9 | - | 18 | 8 |
| 15 | 13 | SDA Bocconi | Italy | 15 | 10 | 23 | 4 |
| 16 | 17 | Rotterdam Sch of Mgmt, Erasmus | Netherlands | 10 | 11 | 20 | - |
| 17 | 17 | EM Lyon | France | - | - | 17 | 11 |
| 18 | 19 | Lancaster University Mgmt Sch | UK | 18 | - | 26 | 7 |
| 19 | 15 | Vlerick Bus Sch | Belgium | 17 | - | 21 | - |
| 20 | - | Univ College Dublin - Smurfit | Ireland | 21 | - | 19 | - |
| 20 | - | Aston Business School | UK | 22 | - | 31 | - |
| 22 | 20 | Birmingham Business School | UK | 20 | - | 28 | - |
| 22 | 21 | Durham Business School | UK | 24 | - | 24 | - |
| 24 | - | University of St Gallen | Switzerland | 23 | - | 27 | - |
| *Ranking figure above is relative to other European b-schools | |||||||
Methodology
Very few of the European business schools are ranked by four of the major media rankings. BusinessWeek assesses only a limited number of non-U.S. business schools, and Forbes produces two separate lists, both very short, for one year and two year programmes. US News does not consider business schools from Europe at all.
MBA50.com has calculated overall performance by looking at each ranking position compared to other European schools. In the case of the FT and Economist rankings, if a European business school ranked #41 in the overall FT ranking and #33 in the overall Economist ranking, but among European business schools was #14 in the FT and #10 in The Economist, then the relative European regional figure was used for the calculation, and added where appropriate to those of BusinessWeek and Forbes, before dividing the results by the number of rankings in which they appear to achieve an average score.
The idea of the MBA50.com Premiership is to compare the performance of schools in multiple rankings, and therefore does not include the many good European business schools that appear in fewer than two rankings. This means that, for example, Imperial College in London – an outstanding business school as recognised by it’s position at #46 in the overall Financial Times ranking – has not been included for 2012.
Candidates should remember that this is not scientific approach, and there is no attempt to weight any one ranking greater than the others. As stated before, each ranking uses a different methodology and measures different things with the inherent limitations of each assessment, so doing particularly well in one ranking and less well in another is reflected in the overall average score.
We’ve compiled all the Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, Linkedin groups, MBA blogs, YouTube channels and iTunes podcasts of the top b-schools. Click for our listings of b-schools on social media.
