Duncan

I just noticed if we look at 2010 rankings, Aston is better placed than Birmingham. Why is there a huge difference between 2010 and 2011 rankings?

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-rankings-2010

I guess you should ask them... my guess is that it's the poor employment record at Aston: if you look at the 2010 data, 77% of Aston graduates had jobs compared to 98% at Birmingham. This year's data for most UK schools will be much worse, because of the recession, so I was surprised to see Birmingham move up in the rankings again this year.

Hi Duncan

I sent an email to Aston. I am waiting for their answer.

Could you also let me know your opinion about Durham MBA compared to Birmingham MBA? Durham is looking better with almost the same fee. Thanks.

The difference in the fee isn't worth noticing. Durham recruits a slightly more senior, and more British cohort. Graduates there are slightly happier, but Birmingham has a huge edge in the number in employment: 96% rather than 82%.

Comparing the programmes, I do think Durham's programme looks richer - other than just the courses, they have a wide range of projects, skills and language training. But it's a personal judgement: if your job hunting skill strong enough to make up for the weaker employment options? In particular, remember that Durham is more distant from the UK's populations centres.

Durham is a general management degree. You can bump into very senior British managers and there are tons of young bright Indian IT programmers eager to learn about management.

Birmmingham have a 2 year degree more organised towards American MBA whee in the 2nd year you can tailor your own route and learn as deep in an area as any other Master degree. As such it is easier to change careers utilising a summer internship.

Durham on the other hand does not help much for career change because England banking sector is tattered as well as consulting. You can still go for big 4 audit but apparently that is not a change that people want anyways.

The projects could turn out to be mickey mouse projects also and they hardly place people into real projects in companies and firms.

If you are young, want a career change and a 1 year MBA you gotta go to those schools ranked higher than Durham.
I probably think only Cambridge, Oxford, London Business School together with Cass, Imperial College and last but not least Cranfield are proper 1 year changer MBA.

Remember this is MBA and it really worth a lot of your time and your efforts, what you never want is to spend a lot of your time and efforts, huge opportunity cost and end up having an education that does not really help to bring your career up another level.

Many MBAs in UK are really not very worthy and I strongly only recommend to go for this ranking

1. London Business School
2. Oxford Said and Judge Cambridge
3. Manchester University Business School, Cass City, Imperial College and Cranfield.

donho199

It is not possible for everyone to go to those school due to fees, even if they meet the entry requirements.

At the end of the day, it is the student himself/herself who get the job, not the school. I think Birmingham,Aston and Durham have good MBA programs with their accreditation and rankings in the world.
Thanks for your opinion.

donho199

It is not possible for everyone to go to those school due to fees, even if they meet the entry requirements.

Henley, of course, have just dropped their fee from 40K to 25K with their new-look MBA.

Duncan is Henley that good? They used to be ranked very highly by the laughable ranking by EIU and they have so much problems that nearly brought the whole school down until they merged with Reading.

Well, I think it's very sad that they closed their full-time executive MBA. That was a very distinctive programme, building on the Administrative Staff College approach which gave them and Ashridge a unique leadership development approach focussed on top-talent teams. But now the growth is all in younger students. The old model isn't sustainable: Ashridge is wisely merging its one-year and two-year programmes, so that the two groups are taught together in London and at Ashridge. Henley is actually moving up in the rankings, but it would have been dead (or dying) if it had tried to stay still. My guess is that even IMD must be under pressure.

My guess is that even IMD must be under pressure.

If you put it that way, I'll buy two!

The University of Birmingham requires three years experience: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/business/mba/courses/entry-requirements.aspx

Hi Duncan and all,

I would like to ask about one of the criteria, 'Recommends', listed on the FT ranking. On this criterion, I have noticed that Birmingham has improved tremendously from being the last amongst all UK universities in 2006 to being the top 9 in the UK this year. Do you know the core reason behind it?

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-rankings-2006

http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-ranking-2016

[Edited by yipkc on Mar 28, 2016]

Birmingham's one of the business schools that has fundamentally relaunched its business school over the last decade. The MBA used to be small, very marginal in the university, and oriented only to students from Commonwealth countries. Now the business school is huge and has a landmark building on campus. It's attracting much better students at the masters level.

I see. It's good to see University of Birmingham and its business school are heading in the right direction, especially when the QS ranking just recently changed its methodology to transfer some weightage from the science subject to the humanities and social science subject. We probably can see a rise in its world ranking this year. The heavy investment into the business faculty and infrastructure is also a smart move for UoB since the school can leverage on its strategic location as well as its university's brand name and prestige as a 'red brick' Russell Group university to improve its rankings.

[Edited by yipkc on Mar 28, 2016]

In addition, another higher ranked UK business school offered me a 4,000 pounds worth of scholarship. However, UoB did not offer me anything. :( I suppose it is really stringent on its entry requirement.

I think the new building will be interesting. Taking the MSc students out of University House will mean that the MBA and PhD students will be more visible to the school.

I think the new building will be interesting. Taking the MSc students out of University House will mean that the MBA and PhD students will be more visible to the school.

[Edited by yipkc on Mar 29, 2016]

Any suggestions for the best university regarding MBA and MBA-Healthcare in uk?
Is Brunel university accredited?
Thanks

[Edited by Docsazm on Apr 21, 2016]