INSEAD, the international business school that introduced the one-year MBA format to the world more than 50 years ago, has climbed on to the first rank in the FT 2016 Global MBA Ranking.
Incidentally, this is also the first time an institution that offers the short but “more value for money” course ended up on the top spot in the Global MBA Ranking list.
INSEAD, which had been in the running for the past 17 years, has beaten an elite club, including Harvard Business School, London Business School, the Wharton School and Stanford Graduate School of Business that now fill the remaining top five places with their two-year programmes.
INSEAD’s Class of 2012 managed to garner an average salary of about $167,000 three years after graduation, nearly double their pre-MBA earnings. Alumni from the four other schools in the top five have roughly similar salaries and salary increases three years after graduation.
However, INSEAD is ranked 10th for value for money, way above the four runners-up, which are in the bottom quarter in this category.
What seems to work in favour of INSEAD with the students is that while its program is only half as long, its fees are also lower than those of the top three US schools.
INSEAD was set up 58 years ago in Fontainebleau, outside Paris and prides in calling itself “the business school for the world”. The claim rings true as not only are more than 90 % of the professors and students from all across the world, with campuses in France and Singapore, the school is ranked fifth for international course experience. Its alumni are also ranked third for international mobility.
The school has, over the years, been progressively hiking investment in the past few years in the careers team from 30 to 40 since 2014. It also managed to get donations from the alumni for state-of-the-art video conferencing interview suites on all three campuses. The careers team also proved themselves equal to the challenge, despite the short 1-year format, the geographic diversity and sheer size of the 1020 strong student body.
INSEAD also could claim credit for facilitating 84% of students change sector, function or country, and an impressive 25% switch on all three dimensions. The school has built relationships with a huge roster of regular recruiters from across the globe, and last year graduates took positions with 440 different organizations in 64 countries.