Has anyone any insights about the MBA offered by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid?

As far as I know it is a good program, although you won't see it in the international rankings, I guess partly because it is a small program and partly because it doesn't have enough history. The program was recently accredited by the Association of MBAs. There are only 5 internationally accredited MBA programs in Spain: IESE, IE, ESADE, EADA, and Carlos III; so this gives you an idea about the quality.

Positive things about the program (besides accreditation): good faculty; student groups are relatively small; the university is public so tuition is quite affordable compared to the "big four" Spanish business schools; very nice campus.

Negative things: it doesn't have as much history as the big programs, so its alumni network is weaker. Also, the school is not very well known so that may be a disadvantage when looking for a job.

In any case, it is always good (if possible) to visit the schools and get first-hand information.

Thanks jaitego, that is really helpful, I appreciate it! Are you based in Spain yourself?

Yes I am. I suggest that you have a look at other threads in this board which also deal with Spanish programs. There's been quite a bit of discussion which I think is useful.

Has anyone any idea bout Lassalle MBA programme, i heard they have a good reputation and a solid MBA programme.

Hi Sunnyboy,
You mean la salle in Barcelona, no? Interesting, I never came accross this program during my reseaerch about MBAs in Spain.
I looked on their website to know what accreditations they have and what the tuition is, but I couldn't anything. Do you know maybe, Sunnyboy?
Kata

Hi Katallina
Actually i spoke to the admission office this morning and they sent me the information, the tuition fee is about 21000Euro and includs two weeks in New york and two weeks in China in some stage of your MBA programme , Duration of the FT mba is 10months in Barcelona campus unfortunately they do not have accreditations however they have a good reputation in the international level and also good connectios with Companies .

No accreditations? How do you "measure" the quality of that program, especially on the international level?

La salle university is very well known and is accredited by ACBE,AACSB,EFMAD and CLADEA as i mention before they do not have accredited by AMBA ,so this the downsize of the La salle ,however the MBA programme they are offering is very well structred any way this is the iformation i've got and the end of the day you choose the school that suits you best. bone chance

Sunnyboy:

You are mistaken. La Salle is not accredited by AACSB. The only AACSB-accredited schools in Spain are ESADE, Institut Quimic de Sarriá, and Instituto de Empresa. None of the other Spanish schools is AACSB-accredited, as you can check from the AACSB web site (http://www.aacsb.edu). You should be very cautious whenever you read information about accreditation in the schools' web sites, because many schools play tricks to deceive you. For AACSB, a common trick is to register the school as member and then claim that the school is accredited. Membership and accreditation, however, are completely different things: to be a member of AACSB, the school just needs to pay a membership fee. That's all. Whereas to be accredited the school has to go through an external auditing process. So don't let any school deceive you. You must always check the accreditation agencies' web pages. As far as La Salle is concerned, they are members but are not accredited, so beware!

As far as the other "accreditations" that you mention are concerned.... I'm afraid those are not accreditations. CLADEA is just an association of Latin American business schools. A school can just pay a membership fee and be a member. They don't grant any accreditation.

As far as "ACBE" and "EFMAD" are concerned, I don't know what they stand for, but they are certainly not accreditations.

As I said, don't believe that a school is accredited just because it tells you so. Check it. And also: I wouldn't trust a school that posts erroneous or misleading information on its site.

Thanks for the advice jaitego

jajtego:
What you thinke about EADA ,or Carlos III because ESADE is quite expensive and seems out of reach,do you think its a wise idea to apply for one of these BS?

I think both Carlos III and EADA are good schools and offer good quality MBA programs. Carlos III is accredited by the Association of MBAs. EADA in addition has the EQUIS accreditation. EADA is larger, has a longer history, and more alumni than Carlos III. On the other hand, Carlos III has better faculty and a more affordable tuition. I would suggest two things:

1) Why don't you visit both schools? In this way you'll better know what you are choosing.
2) Why don't you consider other schools in Europe too? It is not a good idea to narrow your options too much.

Yes that's a good idea to visit the school but i am not sure if i have time to do that however my first choice is Grenoble Business school in France but i would rather to doing my MBA in Spain,currently i am working in UK and also had my BA here in UK so my obtiona are France and Spain.

Isn't EADA ranked in some of the important international rankings as well?

As far as i am concern EADA has triple accreditatons and is one of those 4 best Business Schools in Spain

Sunnyboy, Katalina,

EADA doesn't have three accreditations: it is accredited by the Association of MBAs and has also the EQUIS accreditation, but it is not accredited by AACSB. As far as rankings are concerned, it is ranked #100 in the World by the Financial Times and The Economist.

Jaitego, sorry if I am redundant, but what about the two accreditations EADA has, are they not good enough?
Exactly, they are ranked in FT and Economist, which I think is great!

Katalina,

I didn't mean to say that EADA's program is not good. Not at all. I think the two accreditations are great, and probably the difference between having AMBA+EQUIS and having the three of them (AMBA+EQUIS+AACSB) is not a big one ---once a school has been able to get one accreditation, it usually has enough quality to get more of them. And being in the rankings is clearly a good sign. But I get a bit nervous when I read that some school has some accreditation when it is not really the case. As I said before, some schools place the AACSB logo on their sites but are not really accredited (they are just members). Anyways I don't think in EADA's case it makes a big difference, but I don't like it when schools do that.

I think the fact that there are only three schools from Spain that are AACSB accreditated, and IESE is not one of them, shows that it is not a perfect parameter about the quality about the programme. IESE is ranked 16th in Financial Times rankings worldwide.