Jeez. SingleSpain. My former professor recommended it to me and I value his advice. Checked out some of your old posts and you seem to have a chip on your shoulder. Anyway, I'd like to hear from current BMI students to hear what they have to say about the program.

I just give advice to people who aims for a top MBA, with quality and prestige.

If oyu want to lose your money and time, just do it.

hi SS - just saw this post...

Your behavior in this forum confuses me on several levels. What is the reason for your alternatingly acidic and altruistic comments?

As a fan of brands you should love the new approach to the MBA taken at BMI: bringing the top professors affiliated with top schools to teach in Barcelona. Even the Academic Director, Dr. John Branch has a Ph.D. from Cambridge University and has taught at Northwestern (Kellogg) and University of Michigan (Ross) winning teaching awards along the way. My own experience with BMI has been very positive in relation to my experience as an MBA student at Washington University in St. Louis and ESADE, researcher at NYU and having lectured in the Executive MBA program at Washington University in St. Louis.

Also, I've found Jaitego's comments generally well thought out and informative and you let loose on him/her above. Krista appears to be using the forum for information gathering and you unload both barrels.

No need to respond as I assume this part of the post has wandered far from AndrewD's original intent.

Full Disclosure: I am participating in the FIND MBA board as an excercise to provide an illustration for a segment I am teaching of the course "What the CEO wants you to know" at BMI www.barcelonami.org One of the readings for the segment is www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_ceo.html??? Click on Post MBA for more biographical info.

Krista,

Since you want to know the opinion of BMI alumni, I suggest that you get in touch with the school and ask them for contact information of alumni who live in your area.

If your former professor recommended the program, this is something you should take into account. He probably knows people who are teaching there.

However, I must tell you that I find your professor's advice a bit contradictory. The fact that Spanish MBAs lag behind the US programs would actually be an important reason to choose a Spanish MBA that is accredited and well ranked. I don't see how the fact that MBAs are not too good in Spain implies that you should choose BMI, which is not even accredited and has no reputation. I don't see the logic there.

It is possible that BMI will take off and become a well-reputed MBA program in Spain, but it is also quite possible that it won't. It is a risky (and expensive) choice. Why wouldn't you choose an MBA that is more established? If you want to go to Barcelona, I would recommend to choose a program that is accredited and relatively well-known, like IESE, ESADE or EADA.

BMI's idea to use external faculty from different parts of the world is interesting, but my personal view is that it's an unstable model for a business school. The first time they do it, professors find it nice to go to Barcelona and teach a course, enjoy the city, etc. But after the second or third time they will find it less interesting and will give up. The school will have to find other faculty to replace them. That's a problem because a business school needs permanent faculty. I've also had a look at the faculty at BMI and I didn't see anything really extraordinary enough to compensate the risk.

Hi jaitego - the majority of your arguments in the previous post are based on false assumptions and misinformation. To other readers...apologies for the epic length post required to address the previous post. You may want to pour a warm cup of tea, put on some good music and settle in for this one.

SPAIN AND SPANISH MBAs
Why do non-Spanish prospective MBAs want to do an MBA in Spain? One reason: Spain is a nice place to spend a year or two. This is the primary driver for non-Spanish students to seek an MBA in Spain. Until BMI was founded (by top MBA grads, Professors and Business People) the only option for an MBA in Spain was a Spanish MBA. Each student chosing to come to Spain did so knowing that they would be learning from Spanish Professors with expertise in the Spanish economy. And Spain is not the global leader in any of the core subjects of the MBA:

Marketing
Economics
Business Law
Accounting
Quantitative Methods
Finance
Organizational Theory
Interpersonal Skills
Information Technology
General Management

In other words, students had to give up a great deal in terms of education to be in a nice place until BMI brought a North American program with top professors affiliated with top global programs to Spain. For example, at ESADE I was taught the BCG matrix as the latest in corporate strategy (for those who do not know the BCG matrix it was cutting edge in the eighties, led to formless conglomerates which lost billions in shareholder value and has been widely discredited since the early nineties). If an recent MBA hired into my company (or any global company) pushed for this idea he/she would lose credibility and perhaps her position. So, yes, Krista I agree with your Professor's comment on Spanish programs. But how could Spain lead in any of the areas above? It is roughly the size of Poland and has a similar recent history. Spain was a closed society under a dictatorship until Franco fell in 1974. The Poles began opening to the outside world when Solidarity came in 1980. No one expects the Poles to lead in any of the areas above yet. BMI is in Spain and, as it expands and adds locations, will be educating students in additional locations (ex. Dubai) using the North American model and the top professors affiliated with the top global programs.

ACCREDITATION
There seems to be some confusion over what accreditation means. An accreditted school has completed a two year process of documenting its performance against MINIMUM standards. That's it. Thousands of schools are accreditted. As BMI is a new program it will join these schools with an AMBA accreditation over the next couple of years.

To equate accreditation and quality is an error. To use a restaurant analogy, it is the equivalent of saying that because a restaurant does not have live bacteria or dead rats it must serve delicious and inspiring food. A health certification is not a statement of quality. Only someone with little or no experience with restaurants could make such a mistake. To over emphasize accreditation is perhaps understandable as an MBA is never a repeat purchase by highly informed consumers.

BMI exceeds the requirements for accreditation. Here are the AMBA accreditation requirements:

1. The institution offering an MBA should have a clear strategy and mission, explicitly expressed and regularly updated.

2. The faculty should be large enough to fully resource the institution's activities. There should be a critical mass that will be sufficient to ensure the institution is of national and/or international standing. Seventy-five per cent of faculty should have a Masters or Doctoral degree in a discipline relevant to the subject for which they are responsible, and the majority should hold a doctorate.

3. As the MBA is a post-experience, postgraduate degree, students admitted onto an accredited MBA must have a minimum of three years work experience, with the cohort averaging 5 years experience. A minimum annual intake of 20 needs to be sought.

4. The curriculum should be generalist in nature and must cover the core business skills:

Marketing
Economics
Business Law
Accounting
Quantitative Methods
Finance
Organizational Theory
Interpersonal Skills
Information Technology
General Management

5. The assessment scheme should reflect the particular aims, characteristics, and learning outcomes of the course.

That is accreditation.

Accreditation is not required for an MBA as it is a terminal degree. Ph.D. programs are also terminal degrees and are not accredited. Accreditation does matter for undergraduate degree holders who seek a Masters or Ph.D. BMI does not offer an undergraduate degree.

PERMANENT FACULTY
Assumption: The rationale for a preferring a permanent faculty is access and interaction with students. This is an anachronistic view of the relationship between researchers (as MBA Professors typically think of themselves) and students. Professors rarely interact with students outside of the classroom at top MBA programs. A permanent faculty also dictates mediocrity in the classroom. Professors at a school will line up on a bell curve for inspiring teaching (v. bad, bad, ok, good, v. good) with v. good at more than two standard deviations from the mean. What would be the justification for providing students with less than very inspiring teachers? An added concern when looking at Spanish programs is the frequent "Lifer" status, that is, Professors who also did their Ph.D. at the institution further limiting diversity of thought.

The concern over Barcelona failing to attract repeat visits is certainly unfounded and a little weird. It is said that when you are tired of London you are tired of life. I can understand being tired of London but not Barcelona. The latest Porter & Novelli survey ranks Barcelona first for quality of life (for the seventh consecutive year). BMI, in fact, has the opposite problem. Foreign Professors cannot wait to teach again in Barcelona. Perhaps you are from Madrid and/or not a Barça fan? ;-)

REPUTATION
The school is new and is building its global reputation. BMI tells its story with the website (written by fmr. Wall Street Journal reporter Erik Ahlberg) www.barceloanmi.org and video shot on BMI's premises by Financial Times Conferences in support of their recent choice of Dr. John Branch (BMI Academic Director) to participate in their forum on, "Today's MBA".

BMI exists to meet challenges that other MBA programs failed to address. It follows a new approach because the old approaches were less effective. I can understand being skeptical of new ways of doing things (like the automobile, air conditioning, aviation?and that?s just the A?s and just the last century) but an open mind and willingness to try new things pays dividends. Ask one of our first students. Lissy Pope graduated from Stanford University and is delighted with the MBA at the Barcelona Management Institute.

Maybe BMI has some good points, but it's

not even accredited and has no reputation.

Hi Katalina - thank you for your comments. The previous post should have established that BMI has some very good points - particularly in comparison to Spanish MBAs. If it was not a better MBA then I do not believe that the Professors or top MBAs who founded BMI would have bothered.

What do you imagine are some of the reasons that this group decided to start a new MBA program? (hint: money isn't one of them - MBA programs run on the charity of others through endowments and donations which cover the difference between the cost of delivering the program and the tuition paid by the students.)

It is a new school hence accreditation will follow in the next couple of years.

The reputation of a new school is based on its affiliated Professors. Rather than having to justify the choice of a Spanish MBA when interviewing with a global company - BMI students can legitimately claim to have studied with leading experts from leading institutions. For example, "I studied Marketing with the top Marketing Professor from the University of Michigan at BMI" is much more compelling than "I studied Marketing in Spain at an MBA program that is Accredited and has a reputation in Spain". I can say this from the perspective of an employer of MBAs. In fact, I had no idea that there was such a thing as accreditation for MBA programs until quite recently (I imagine many people in this forum were in the same situation).

As accreditation and reputation are significant concerns for you, please share your thoughts on how BMI could advance more quickly in these areas.

The tuition is a significant discount on the cost of a traditional MBA program. All in costs for an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis or ESADE are approx. 100,000 USD not even including foregone salary. BMI's tuition in 2007 is 19.500 EUR. Once living expenses are included the cost is still less than half and foregone salary is limited to one year rather than two.

The New York Times had an interesting article on tuition for business education (at the University level) today: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/education/29tuition.html?em&ex=1185854400&en=15ae1800572cc010&ei=5087%0A

Post MBA:

I'm sorry, but I've had a look at BMI's web page and none of the instructors are leaders in their field. You can't just place a "top professor" label on whomever you want.

I don't see the logic in your other arguments. The fact that BMI (being a young program) can't be accredited at this point does not imply that it will be accredited in a couple of years. The fact that it's not ranked does not imply that it will be ranked in two years. And the fact that it could be ranked in a few years does not imply that it will be better ranked than IESE or ESADE. So you are asking students to pay an expensive tuition against the promise that in a few years the MBA will be not only accredited, but better ranked than IESE or ESADE. If that doesn't happen, I bet you won't give anybody's money back.

Then, the fact that Barcelona is a nice place to visit/live does not imply that good faculty will be willing to go there year after year for a decent period of time. Professors have families and like to be in places with a good research environment. I don't see how such high turnover can achieve that.

From one point I would not attend BMI for my MBA, but having said that, if some US professors are starting a business school in Barcelona, it can be a positive initiative for the city and for Spain.

Who are the shareholders of the school? Is BMI an acrredited school for teaching business studies in Spain?

Jaitego, regarding the atractiveness of the city for professionals, I think that some professors will be willing to come to Barcelona for one year or similar periods (thus good for BMI). Ive seen these similar atractiveness for doctors coming from Sweden to bcn. The main problem with this strategy is that a BS need a permanent faculty and these professors with prestige won't consider it as a permanent employment.

Hi jaitego ? no reason to be sorry. BMI?s Professors have won teaching awards for their work as teachers in their subject areas and are affiliated with top programs. Perhaps you have made the mistake of assuming that it is not direct feedback from students, or consumers of Professor services (as represented by teaching awards) but research articles published that determine top Professors status. This basic confusion is a common one and has lead to the decline of the MBA as Bennis points out in his article, ?How Business Schools Lost Their Way?. Your assertion that BMI Professors are not top Professors is wrong.

Perhaps an example will clarify this point. The New York Times is generally considered a newspaper of record. Let?s ask the classic MBA question of the New York Times, ?What is keeping you up at night?? Answer: Google News. Why? The New York Times is an institution with a great reputation ? ranked, if you like ? so why would they be concerned about an algorithm with no full time reporting staff? Because on every subject, every day there are hundreds or thousands of sources (similar to the range of MBA options) reporting on the same story (ex. Marketing) but only one of those is the ?best? at communicating the information to the reader (teaching). Google chooses the ?best? article based on the response of people who consume Journalist services (as indicated by linking to the article) and presents it to the reader. BMI chooses the Professors who win the teaching awards and are affiliated with top insitutions. Why would you want a Professor who is less skilled at teaching the subject than one who is demonstrably more skilled?

Accreditation ? BMI already exceeds the standards for accreditation. It is simply a lengthy process of approximately two years.

Ranking ? BMI is not hyper focused on rankings. Not one person in the business of business education takes rankings as an indication of quality (same story as accreditation). Rankings will come when they come.

Money back guarantee ? A good idea. Why not apply, jaitego ? if you are accepted, perform well in the program and find it was a poor investment we can talk.

Barcelona ? your speculation is based on false assumptions and betrays a poor grasp of the dynamics of business education today. It does, however, appear that you value family above all and on that we can both agree.

I have been looking at MBA programs in Spain, particulary in Barcelona. Financially IE, ESADE and IESE are out of my league. I am looking more at EADA and Universitat Pompea Fabra (UPF). EADA is accredited, but UPF is not. I find the EADA program too short, only nine monts, but the UPF program too long, 15 months. In UPF there are less than 20 students in each class, which is one criteria for accreditation.

I have read a lot on this web page about EADA, but less about UPF. Can anyone (perhaps current or former students at UPF) give me information about the MBA program that UPF is offering? Even though it is not accredited how are the courses, the faculty and your experience (if any)? Is it better or worse to have less students?

UPF is ranked in the BW ranking - but it's true, it doesnt seem to be accredited whatsoever. Curious!

Katalina, I haven't seen UPF in any international ranking. Could you please send me the Business Week link where you've seen UPF's rank? I've checked their international ranking web site but haven't seen UPF there. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong page. Thank you.

Hi Jaitego,
here is the link, of BW, UPF is in the ranking of Western Europe:

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/04/geographic.htm#w_europe

Ooops, maybe I got it wrong and this is not a ranking, it says "2004 MBA profiles" - right, it does not sound like a ranking. Sorry for the confusion...
But anyways, it's mentioned by BW in a list of otherwise very good, reputed prorgams, still surprising if UPF does not have any accreditation. Don't you think?

UPF is a public university with studies in many fields with a very good reputation in Economics. Regardings the previous comments, UPF has a strong reputation for its research in Economics and the school recently launched Barcelona School of Economics. They are more focused on research and their model would be to repplicate the LSE model.

So, for me, yes UPF is a reliable place for postgraduate studies in the field of Economics and business. Their MBA is very young but it probably deserves good standards. It might be a risky option (in the sense that recruiters do not consider it for its MBA) but I believe that the level of the program should be acceptable.

Sure, the MBA at UPF seems to be a good program, I didn't want to say the opposite. UPF is not one public University among others in Spain in this case, but the MBA program is one that sticks out of the other public program in terms of quality.
I was just surprised to see in mentioned among all these European top tier MBAs such as IMD, IE, ESADE, IESE, HEC, INSEAD, RSM, LBS, Cambridge, Warwick...
without it being accreditated

Ooops, maybe I got it wrong and this is not a ranking, it says "2004 MBA profiles" - right, it does not sound like a ranking. Sorry for the confusion...
But anyways, it's mentioned by BW in a list of otherwise very good, reputed prorgams, still surprising if UPF does not have any accreditation. Don't you think?

Nowadays it's quite difficult to distinguish between information and advertising. Business schools advertise in many ways. One of them is banners, but there are many others. For example, when newspapers interview the dean of a school or publish an editorial written by some faculty member, it's hard to tell whether they do it because of the information they want to provide, or because the school is a client that's paying for it in some way or another.

Nowadays it's quite difficult to distinguish between information and advertising. Business schools advertise in many ways. One of them is banners, but there are many others. For example, when newspapers interview the dean of a school or publish an editorial written by some faculty member, it's hard to tell whether they do it because of the information they want to provide, or because the school is a client that's paying for it in some way or another.

Right. And some universities obviously use discussion forums like this one to push their schools. All you can do is get several opinions.

I don't know if you are too naive, Katalina, but in any case I agree with you that UPF is worth considering. The university has very good reputation in Spain and, even though their MBA is not accredited, I think it is probably a good option.