If a school is not in one the important rankings lik FT or Economist, how can I evaluate if it's worthwile studying there? F.ex. like University of San Diego?

Besides quality, there are several reasons why some schools are not in the rankings. You should first take into account that, although the rankings are very transparent in explaining how different aspects of quality are measured and weighted, ranking methodologies usually do not explain how they chose which schools would be surveyed to begin with. Obviously if a school is not surveyed (it doesn't receive any questionnaires, its alumni are not asked for an opinion) it doesn't have a chance to get into the rankings.

Some schools are not surveyed because they don't have any international accreditation, but some of them have an international accreditation and are still not ranked. So I would check whether U San Diego has any of the three major accreditations (AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS). Be sure to go to the accrediting agencies' sites to check that, and take into account that in some cases the school can be a "member" of the agency (i.e. it pays the fees) even though it is not accredited. For USD, being located in the US, the main thing to check would be AACSB. EQUIS is European and most US schools don't even apply to it. AMBA is a bit more global but still most US schools don't even apply to it.

The second thing I would look at is the age of the program/school. Older programs have better chances of getting into the rankings than younger programs. To some extent, age might be related to the quality of the alumni network, which is something to take into account. If the program has been going on for a long time and is not in the rankings, it can be a bad sign; but if the program is recent it's not such a bad sign.

Third, if possible I would visit the school and talk to alumni. You are going to be investing a lot of money and you don't want to be disappointed. Make sure you visit other schools too, even if you think now that you really want USD. Visiting other schools will give you something to compare USD with.

Fourth, you can check the business research rankings of UT Dallas and see how USD fares:

http://citm.utdallas.edu/utdrankings/

and even if USD's MBA is not ranked, why not check whether other related programs (undergraduate/PhD) are?

I hope this helps.

Dear Jaitego,
thank you so much for this detailed explanation clarifying all different aspects of my question! You are a real expert.. ;)
What I still find difficult is how to identify those schools which, for the reasons you explain, don't get into the rankings but have international accreditations and offer a decent MBA program.
My results until now are not excellent, so I guess the ranked programs are not for me, but I don't want to waste my money and time, so I should find those programs which are a "level below" the ranked ones. And there are so many! Take those 60 programs in California alone! If I eliminate the ranked ones, there are still so many left that it will take ages to idetify the good programs. What's the specialist's advice?
Adriana

Adriana,

I totally agree with Jaitego, and I would add, lok also for the geaography of the school, you can decide apart of the world where you want to study and may be live in your future, it is important to do the MBA in a place you like. Melbourne, S.Franciso, Barcelona tehere are lots of beautiful cities offering good MBAs, international and challening, this will help you in narrowing the research.

Good luck

You could focus on AACSB accredited programs only, to begin with. Since you want something in California, there are actually not so many schools: if you go to

http://www.aacsb.edu

you can search accredited schools by country and state and, if I'm not mistaken, there are only 34 accredited schools in California, many of which are not ranked. You can narrow this down even more if you are only interested in Southern California.

Besides what I suggested in the other post, I would also look at the following things:

- Tuition: taking into account the cost, how much would your post-MBA salary have to increase to make your investment worthwhile? Does the school offer scholarships?
- Minimum Gmat score.
- Check which and how many electives are offered in each case. Core courses are usually similar but electives can vary more. If there are more electives, you'll be able to tailor your studies to your needs.
- Calendar and schedules --there can also be differences across programs.
- If possible, find out about the student body. A very important part of the MBA is what you learn from your classmates. It is better if there are more international students and people with the same age/professional experience as you.

In any case once you've narrowed your search using AACSB accreditation / location / tuition / GMAT, you'll end up with few schools and you'll be able to visit each of them, which is extremely important.

When you apply, make sure to apply to a few places, some more better but more difficult to get in, and some perhaps less famous but easier to get in.

University of San Diego, which the original poster referred to is actually AACSB accredited: http://www.aacsb.edu/General/InstLists.asp?lid=2

San Diego is alright, but there may be more interesting places in California such as San Francisco (Berkeley).

Thank you guys!
Actually my first approach was geographically, as you say James. For the moment I stick to the plan to go to California, for personal reasons. Europe I didn't consider, that would be a different project... I guess there a good chances to do an MBA here in CA, there are so many programs offered! I have my personal "ranking" of cities, where San Diego comes first as you might have guessed.
I've looked at the AACSB website, now I should check each program in terms of GMAT results and concentrations.
Almost all AACSB accredited schools are Universities, why that Jaitego? I'm sure you know :)
Thanks and happy holidays!
Adriana

I'm not sure, Adriana. I think an important requirement for accreditation is to have a high percentage of full-time professors who have a PhD degree and are active in research. Stand-alone business schools usually have more problems with this requirement. Plus in the U.S. business schools have traditionally been created by the universities, as opposed to Europe where the oldest b-schools are stand-alone schools.

Hi Jaitego, that explains. You can see that as well in the fact that most of the US MBAs which are highly ranked are offered in general offered by Universities.
Thanks and cheers! Adriana