Hi,
Your top 50 list for MBA doesn't seem to align with a lot of other lists I've seen so I was wondering if there was any narrative published on your selection criteria. I'm being sponsored to do my MBA at Northampton BS (listed at 28) and I've never seen it this high in any other MBA UK listing - so I'm interested to know why it scores so highly on your list?

To whom are you talking, and about what list? This website's directory lists schools by the popularity of their profile pages (http://find-mba.com/schools/uk-ireland) but that is not a ranking of MBA programmes (except, perhaps, but their search engine optimisation).

If you forgot to click the filter for accredited schools then, I guess, Northampton is high because there are a lot of people who would like to find a cheap UK MBA that did not require much work experience and has a 'top up' pathway for people with weaker qualiications.

PS Can you try to reason with your sponsor about the Northampton MBA? $14,000 is a lot of money for an MBA without international accreditation. A world-class MBA like Illinois is only $20,000 via Coursera.

[Edited by Duncan on Feb 18, 2016]

Yes, I would assume that that list is popularity driven, there's no way Northampton is "ranked" above Henley or Lancaster, or even Bath for that matter.

Hi Maury - Although I'm doing my MBA at Northampton BS, I've previously graduated from both Lancaster (LUMS) and WBS on post grad qualifications, and I fully agree with all that's been said with exception that a 'Top Up' pathway is for people with weaker qualifications - it is certainly not the case with myself or my fellow NBS cohorts. My MBA is really a 'side bar' qualification undertaken for personal professional development, so it's not that important to me if its triple crown etc. as it is to someone for whom the MBA will be a defining qualification.
Why did I choose NBS myself? - well the 'Top Up' route is $4,500 and I want to offer it to some of the high performers in the team I lead, and being an old school leader wanted to lead by example and do it myself first. At this price point it is the cost of a weeks course in a hotel, and I can support one MBA Top Up/year within my training budget. Hopefully I can offer my top performers something they can't get elsewhere and hopefully they will stay a year or two longer. How many people get offered a fully paid MBA - albeit a 'Top Up' without any global accreditation? - not that many I suspect!

A degree from an officially recognized UK university, with the mandatory institutional accreditation i.e. "Recognition" in UK terms, and with the QAA approval of its quality standards, seems by no means useless, in my opinion.

Regards,

What the guy is referring to is with MBA's there are globally 3 accreditation bodies - an MBA holding all three accreditations is normally referred to as a triple crown. In the UK the most relevant body is AMBA. These MBA accreditations are very important to some people - I would say the younger the person is with limited business experience and a first degree in a subject with no real relevance to business or the industry they intend to work in the more important these accreditations are. MBA's are Orwellian - all MBA's are equal but some are considered far more equal than others!

Yes, no-one has called it useless so that's a bit of a straw doll. But the fact is that not every British university is the same, even if they all have charters.

People have different reasons for wanting MBAs, and Ian seems to be a savvy guy who know exactly what he is getting for his money. But most readers who come across Northampton are not like that: they are looking for an MBA that is cheap for international students and will get them into a good job in the UK for a few years. Sadly, there is no such degree. You really do get what you pay for in that situation. So triple accreditation and business school rankings are very useful for people who want to change careers and change country.

Duncan - fully agree with your comments. Without it sounding like an advertisement for Northampton - if on the other hand you are reading this thread and you have solid business experience and some post graduate management quals you've accumulated along the way PgA/C/D or DMS, I would certainly research doing an MBA by the Top Up route. Only a handful of UK Universities are offering it now - but I think this is a largely untapped market and will be the next 'big thing' in the MBA market, and Universities like Northampton, Derby and Essex are actually ahead of the curve at the moment. For me the best thing about the Top Up route has been for a little more commitment and money I have been able to wrap up a previous PgA & PgD into a legitimate and recognised qualification that gives me MBA after my other letters. For me it has definitely been worth it and in the context of the above I would recommend Northampton to anyone.

I, personally, do not feel comfortable while talking about higher education as if it were securities or FX trade. Education and research are different. The right way indeed varies significantly depending on one's own specific situation and goals. "What you pay is what you get" is not the way I think about higher education, no matter it is MBA or any other degree.

Even for the "international accreditation" in terms of this site, in my opinion this is also perfectly open to discussion on what really makes a stamp "international". Is it that the accrediting body accredits institutions in multiple countries across the world (though mostly with concentration on one or a few countries actually) or is it that its stamp is recognized officially by other countries' higher education authorities. For example in my country, any degree from any foreign institution would not be officially recognized unless it has the official institutional accreditation and/or quality stamp of its home country's official authority (i.e. HEFCE and/or QAA for UK HEIs) no matter whether it has triple, quadruple whatever crown in terms of professional accreditation. From this point of view, the QAA is the one which is truly international. (From the point of official recognition, I mean, not the the HEIs covered within the scope the accreditation or quality assurance body). This does not naturally makes professional accreditation useless or void, of course. It has its added value, admittedly, but not a "must" for all cases.

[Edited by sts on Feb 20, 2016]

I think we can discuss this without making straw dolls.

You might not prefer to approach the selection of an MBA as if it is an investment decision, but that is a choice that is:
- morally, neither better nor worse than other approaches
- not the approach of most other people on this site, who are trying to get the best return from a seemingly infinite set of choices about which their is great information asymmetry.

In the context of MBAs, international accreditation has a specific meaning: http://find-mba.com/mba-faq/mba-accreditation-why-is-it-important There are three highly-respected accreditation bodies. Indeed, every legal university meets the minimum criteria of the country in which it operates and, of course, there is no internationally-accredited school that does not have also that minimum standard.

The point is that international accreditations verify successful commitments to delivering above-average standards. That is a powerful tool for someone looking to cut through information asymmetry and find a way to focus on the best of the available options.

Of course goals differ, and I have already said, but most students take professional degrees like the MBA in order to make professional advances which are often measured by career progress. The rankings measure that, in different ways. They show the schools that are most successful with employers, that have the highest salaries, that offer the most diverse and useful networks, which have the most qualified people and so on. These are typically the criteria that matter to most applicants for professionals degrees since they are investing to make career progress.

Indeed, not all students must attend a school with international accreditation. But if an applicant is choosing where to invest their money, then it's quite valid to treat it like an investment decision and to see which is the most valuable option, among those that meet their criteria. And those options, almost always, are the schools which are above average.