Hello,

I am an international student looking at expanding my education through an MBA program. I have done extensive research with respect to UK business schools. The reason for UK schools is that I want to pursue a distance MBA, because I have full-time employment in the legal field and also have a young family.

Like I stated above, I have done quite a bit of research into different UK schools. Up until a couple days ago, I thought I was set on Imperial's DLMBA program, but now I am not too sure.

The reasons for my uncertainty are two-fold:

1) This ranking released by The Economist (not too sure how much thought I should put into this report) media.economist.com/media/WMBA/WMBA_Special_2010b.pdf

2) The fact that the actual degree will indicate the method for study (i.e. MBA (Distance Learning)).

I probably shouldn't really be too concerned about point 2, as it's not like I can tell people I took a full-time program, anyway, but it still somehow detracts from the program. The reason being that I was preached to by Imperial that this distance program is almost identical to the full-time. If that's the case, then why differentiate the awarded degree?

Anyway, as I mentioned, I was pretty sold on Imperial, not necessarily due to the business school ranking, which is still very respectable. http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/global-mba-rankings-2011

I guess, for me, I was looking more into the university's standing on a global scale, versus the business school itself.

Ranked 9th in the World

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/top-200.html

Ranked 7th in the World

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2010

I am more confused, than anything. What I am not sure of is whether a school such as IE would have more value than Imperial, specifically on a global scale. I know this topic has been discussed in previous threads, but I don't know that the discussion of university rankings globally versus business school rankings and the influence each has on employment has been discussed.

Any real world information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

I would pay a lot of attention to the Economist report. I think it's excellent. Imperial's DL offer is just not mature enough now. If I was doing a DL programme, I would really look for one with a great student experience. I'm a big fan of the Euro*MBA and others schools that allow some residential attendance. In the UK, Warwick, Henley, Manchester and Durham seem to be the market leaders. The Imperial and Holloway programmes seem really weak.

Thanks for the comments, Duncan.

I am wondering if you can elaborate on the following:

"I would pay a lot of attention to the Economist report. I think it's excellent."

- Why is the Economist report so important? I want to try to distingish between all of the other rankings/reports out there. Is there a reason why I should pay particular attention to this one?

"Imperial's DL offer is just not mature enough now."

- Can you please elaborate? By saying not mature enough, are you referring to the structure and content of the programme itself? Do you have personal experience, or is this something you read? Again, trying to get the most unbiased, "hands on" feedback possible.

"I'm a big fan of the Euro*MBA and others schools that allow some residential attendance."

- What type of residency is available through the Euro MBA? There is 3 weeks total residency for the Imperial MBA.

"In the UK, Warwick, Henley, Manchester and Durham seem to be the market leaders."

- What is this statement based on? Are there statistics to back this? Again, looking for the full picture.

"The Imperial and Holloway programmes seem really weak."

- Is this statement based solely on the Economist report? What other substantive information exists to back this claim?

Lastly, my statement about the university's reputation versus the business school is something I am trying to weigh. Any thoughts? Warwick, for example, is no where to be found in any "global university" rankings, whereas Imperial is in the top 10, or top 30, depending on the table you look at.

Thanks again for providing your thoughts.

Sadly, I wrote a long reply to this and then it disappeared when I pressed 'submit'. So, in a nutshell

Euro8MBA is three weeks a year for two years
http://www2.euromba.org/view.asp?view=page&show=JNOPLOC8&mmid=53&sid=155

Yes, I am replying on the Economist report because that shows a buge difference in students' experiences: Imperial and Holloway are in the red while IE and the Euro*MBA are in green.

For market leadership I mean this: which schools have both scale (see the FT online listing) and brand equity (see FT full-time ranking).

Duncan,
Manchester program was not considered by Economist.. where would you place it among Imperial,Aston, Warwick and Henley?
(Imperial pays a lot in the stats due to people completing the MBA and the "sense of connection" .. probably they didn't elaborate a good DL strategy or they are too much affected by their succesfull full-time mba)

I think one major factor here is whether or not the school has a local centre near you. Personally I prefer the Warwick course because of the greater weight of electives. The Henley MBA is less customisable. But they are both great programmes. I would put Manchester's global MBA after those two, just because of its lesser experience with DL. However if I was only near a Manchester centre then I would pick that perhaps.

I don't really think Imperial has any excuses that are not equally available to the other schools. I just think the DL MBA is less important to it, and that the low quality of the programme is inexcusable at its premium price: almost double Durham or Henley.

The Aston programme is very small. I don't really have a comment on it, except that the brand name of Aston doesn't carry that far.

Interesting discussion. I did not look at the universities standing in the world as opposed to biz school ranking when I selected Durham.
The link above says Durham is at 85 in the world ranking better than some of the Russell universities such as LSE, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Newcastle, Glasgow, Sheffield, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Queen Mary, Southampton, Cardiff. I thought they are the big names!

After all, Durham name is not bad at all for half the price of Imperial.