So here's an interesting comparison from the Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey 2015 results (more at http://bit.ly/1I0p7qI). Students scores have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Schools in pretty places, with on-campus housing, cheap facilities, lots of sports students all do well. Those things might not matter much for MBA applicants and some great schools, especially those in costly London, get weak scores. The scores are from all students, not just MBAs, and at least 50 responses were needed so smaller institutions are not on the list.

I'm always interested by the recommendation score, since I think that gives a more holistic measure than which questions the Times Higher Ed chooses, and how they weight them. You can download the whole data from the page I've linked to above, and below I have put the score for some notable universities with accredited MBAs. Generally, almost all of the scores are high. The average across all UK universities is 5.8 on this question and, of course, five of the seven bottom schools in this list are in London.

University name I would recommend my university to a friend
Newcastle University 6.5
University of Bath 6.5
University of Oxford 6.5
University of Cambridge 6.4
University of Exeter 6.4
University of Sheffield 6.4
Loughborough University 6.3
Lancaster University 6.3
University of Birmingham 6.3
University of Leeds 6.3
University of Nottingham 6.3
Durham University 6.3
Robert Gordon University 6.2
University of Warwick 6.2
Imperial College London 6.1
University of Edinburgh 6.1
University of Strathclyde 6.1
University of Manchester 6.1
Royal Holloway, University of London 6
Aston University 5.9
University of Bradford 5.7
Brunel University London 5.7
City University London 5.3
Kingston University 5.2
University of Westminster 5.2

PS If you want to see the scores for other universities, just download the data from the page above. Apologies if you don't see the university you are interested in my selection.

[Edited by Duncan on Apr 11, 2015]

The average across all UK universities is 5.8 on this question and, of course, five of the seven bottom schools in this list are in London.

London schools score poorly because of the city's high costs and poor student housing. The structure of the survey benefits campus universities. Cass is not on this list: City Uni is. Cass is a great business school, but City is a pretty average university.

Cass graduates get good outcomes, but the experience is that of a school in a banking district. The top universities on this list are either on campuses or in towns whose centre essentially is a campus like Durham and Oxbridge. Those schools have great student experiences and better social lives, as well as much lower costs. Obviously there cannot be a traditional university campus in central London (Regents University comes closest). But this survey shows students opinion, and that is not the same as reputation.

This makes sense. I'm not looking for a traditional college experience, nor will I be mad at the school if I have to pay a lot for housing (I actually expect it, this is London we're talking about!). So I'll rest easy.