Look like the MBA tourism is growing strongly like mushroom after rain.

I am always baffled as to what constitute global MBA, global outlook, global citizen.

I'd say the "global outlook" is understanding other cultures besides your own and being able to know how to properly do business in many different cultures, as well as looking at emerging markets, etc. If you learn solely from your own country's perspective, you don't have a global outlook. I think it's good that there are a number of US schools that want to ensure their students are prepared for international business, since a lot of Americans tend to only see the American perspective.

Donho, I think you'd have to see to believe it. For example, Webster University has a global rotation MBA, where you move around the world in a cohort of people overwhelmingly from the US, and where your accommodation and pre-departure information is organised by the school (http://www.webster.edu/globalmba). I could imagine that such a programme is not a very international experience at all. Looking at the GSU-IAE programme, I guess its is 80% or 90% made up of North Americans (http://robinson.gsu.edu/gpmba/testimonials.html).

A really effective international experience comes from handling cross-cultural conflict in a space that is not rooted in one national culture: like a company, or a school where one nationality is not predominant. For example, if a British student goes to London Business School they are not in the majority, or even in the largest minority. But if they go to most grande ecoles they are surrounded by people who have mostly grown up in and worked in 'Francophonie'; the outsider learns that new culture, and perhaps reduces its 'excesses', but often no-one really learns how to work in a neutral, cross-cultural way.

It really is a huge advantage of the top European, Canadian and East Asian MBAs that the students are, overwhelmingly, international students. In the US only four schools (MIT, Purdue, Rochester and Thunderbird) come close to a 1:1 ratio.

I agree with you totally Duncan, what baffle me is why people have to go to MBA to have a global outlook.

To understand other cultures, to do business in China or India also are not good reasons for doing MBA and not sure why people choose to go to MBA to learn those.

It is a lot easier actually.

I can find a lot of cultures around the corners of my city. There are lots of poor people and lots of posh people. Regardless of nationality, they tend to behave fairly similarly.

And since America congress cant agree on anything they should focus on understanding their own people before reaching out to Afganishtan and Iraq.

Prof Muhammad Yunus originally set up his micro lending banks in the poorest villages of Bangladesh and now he come to serve the poor of New York. Really you can volunteer for those very interesting firms rather than reading about the poor and emerging markets from Professors who never been to those countries or never run any businesses.

I have worked with people from many countries and have no problem at all and I see people from similar countries never get on.

Donho, sorry my question is about schools and not about your view of what "global outlook" means.

Duncan - yes, a lot of American MBA programs have a high percentage of US students. I don't know enough about Thunderbird but I will research it in the coming months. With Temple and GSU, I'm guessing most of the class are Americans, but since I have an interest in working in France, spending some time studying/interning in the country, regardless of whether it's with American students, French students, or other nationalities, is quite beneficial. The same goes for studying/working in any foreign country.

I know both IE and Vlerick tout diverse student bodies and I think they have nationality quotas. As I said I'm kind of interested in IE but Madrid isn't my favorite city. I don't know about HEC but I'm sure a lot of the other Grande Ecoles are mostly French, which I don't mind. I'm not interested in LBS so I don't have any information on it.

Hi Naela,

You can see here that the HEC MBA is 5/6ths international: go t http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-rankings-2011 and add in the data for international students. At EM Lyon it's 2/3rd. Most other French MBAs will be around that: and of course the professors will be more French than the students. I think that might be a better setting to learn the French business culture.

Time in France is useful, but I am sure you can imagine the huge difference in the setting: being there in a small group from the US, versus being in a cohort where the French are the 'hosts' and the largest minority.

I didn't know you could add extra columns on the FT rankings. I figured that if you're going to study abroad as a group from an American school, you'd still get to choose classes where you'd be w/ the students fully enrolled at that school, but maybe that's not how it works.

I actually have a question about the FT rankings. I'm guessing when it says "rank", the lower the number is better? It's very confusing because some numbers are in percentages (so higher should be be better), some are ranks, and some don't say.

For example, I'm looking at top schools like LBS and Chicago, and the value for money ranks are 57 and 89 respectively. In fact many of them are very high numbers. To me that doesn't look so good compared to say, INSEAD, with a value for money rank of 4. Could that have something to do w/ the fact that INSEAD is a 10 month course so you lose less than 1 year of salary, vs 2 full years for Chicago or Harvard (dunno LBS)?

Naela if you hover over the column heading it will show you the definitions: anything which is not a percentage is an ordinal ranking. You have hit the nail on the head with value: two year programmes tend to have a longer time to pay back, so in the three year period over which the FT says it calculates salary they will have less of an RoI. If you compare the salary figures then you'll see the key variable is not the value but the long term difference in salary. Over a five or ten year period (let alone a 40 year career) then two-year Harvard, London or Wharton will out perform one year ESSEC, EM Lyon or EDHEC.

However, the two year programmes tend to recruit more junior people, who are either not in their target market (country, function, industry) or are younger. One year programmes are much less effective for changers: Insead is perfect for the banker or consultant who wants to accelerate in banking or consulting. That is one reason why the percentage increase in salary is so much higher at longer European programmes (London, IESE, ESADE) where people are often changing country, function *and* industry, than at one year programmes aimed at slightly older people who are not changing so much (Insead, IMD, EM Lyon).

For someone who need to learn new skills, cultures and functions then a longer programme opens different doors.