Hi

Looking for some advice...

I have just received MBA offers from Newcastle University (~40% Scholarship) and Durham University (No Scholarship).

Obviously I know both schools have a very good reputations (triple accredited) but Durham is ranked higher. Is the gulf between the two universities so big that the relative disparity in tuition fees is justified (we're talking 5 figures).

My experience thus far dealing with the admissions process is that the facilities and course structure are very similar. If anything I have found Newcastle admin team far more helpful and responsive.

Will going for the cheaper option of Newcastle Uni in anyway hinder my job hunting prospects later? Would I be crazy to turn down Durham?

As a Newcastle alumnus (I was there for a year) I recommend Durham. It's a classic example of the situation on this post: The sad facts about scholarships http://www.find-mba.com/board/37055

Since Newcastle isn't in the FT or Economist rankings, it's reasonable to assume that its salary and employment data are similar to or worse than the schools at the bottom of those rankings. Durham has risen to be ranked 64th (and 57th by The Economist), with salaries around $104,306. the schools at the bottom are around $92,000. That $12k gap will get wider over time, so it's probably worth more than $500,000 over a 40-year post-MBA career.

In the new QS full-time MBA ranking, Durham is 67th while Newcastle is in the 201+ band (on a par with Kent and LUISS, well below Sheffield and Robert Gordon). I think that is a huge difference in quality. Go to https://www.topmba.com/mba-rankings/global/2018 and click through to page 9 to see Newcastle.

Of course, you are right: all triple crown MBAs will have a similar core and adequate facilities, since those are specified by the accreditation bodies. Strip out the core and see what the difference is.

Duncan many thanks for your reply and perspective. May I ask roughly when you were at a Newcastle? what you studied there and how your general experience was?

I was looking at another website (https://www.emolument.com/salary-reports/universities/uk/15521) and it say that the average salary of Newcastle MBA students last year was higher than Durham (I.e $99k vs $93k).

Also to note. Think class size as Newcastle is ~30 and Durham is ~50. Not sure which is better. I assume smaller class is better to enable more close attention teaching but larger ones are better for networking with bigger pool of cohorts. Which should I factor as more important?

I guess the bit i’m strugglng with, regarding league tables, is that it doesn’t seem like you see much movement year to year. Which makes me wonder, if some of the older unis are are maintaining their positions higher up on the table due to their historic reputation rather than by merit of recent performance. It almost like the the ancient unis are incumbents when it comes to tables. Still not clear what Durham offers that Newcastle doesn’t other than its rep.

Interesting website, but the data volumes are very small. Unlike Newcastle, Durham has an online MBA which could skew the averages.

I was at NUBS a long time ago, as an undergraduate, but have kept in touch.

Typically a bigger cohort also attracts more employers.

Durham isn't an incumbent in the full time MBA market. It's a relative newcomer to the top tier and Newcastle has fallen. I don't see it as being static at all. Bradford has fallen. Lancaster and risen. Warwick has risen. Cass, always good at part time, is now serious at full time. Ashridge and Bradford closed their full time MBAs. Henley is struggling. No, I think there are long terms trends and a lot of movement. Even at Edinburgh... What an amazing rise.

I don't put a lot of stock into that QS ranking because a lot of their metrics don't seem very serious, compared to the FT.

Durham is going to be the better choice for nearly ever candidate.

Indeed, but the QS ranking covers more schools. It's useful, for example, to give a sense of the gap between Durham and Newcastle.

More on class size: 30 vs 50 students isn't *that* big of a difference, when you consider that for example the LBS class is over 400. Maybe you'll have a bit more 'hands-on attention' at Newcastle, but in my experience most of the value of an MBA really lies in the quality of one's classmates, not the size of the class or even the ratio of faculty to students.

Separate but related to this is the overall network size of each school. Use LinkedIn to determine how big the alumni networks are for each school, where they're located, and in what firms they are currently working.