Forbes B-school Survey 2007: Tuck, IMD and GSOM top tallies

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MBAUniverse.com News Desk |
July 27, 2016
Dartmouth-based Tuck School of Management is the top US-based management school; Switzerland’s IMD offers the top one-year non-US MBA program; and Australia’s Graduate School of Management (GSOM) offers the top non-US two-year MBA program.

These are the findings of the latest international B-school ranking conducted by Forbes magazine, which released its fifth bi-annual survey on August 17, 2007. The survey results are based on “return on investments” (ROI) of graduating students, and show a marked preference for the one-year MBA program.

Apart from Tuck, the other US B-schools in the top five tally are Stanford, Harvard, Darden and Wharton. The survey splits the non-US B-schools into two: those focusing on one-year programs and those focusing on two-year programs. Switzerland’s IMD, France’s INSEAD and UK’s Cambridge Judge School are the top three institutes offering the one-year program. Australia’s GSOM, Sauder School in British Columbia (Canada) and Spain’s Esade are the top three institutes for the one-year MBA. (See the list below)

Noting the better ROI of one-year programs, Forbes says, “Our ranking highlights the appeal of one-year programs. Our survey ranks schools based on return on investment--meaning compensation five years after graduation minus tuition and the forgone salary during school. Each of the top five one-year foreign programs beat out all two-year programs because the opportunity cost, in lost wages, to attend is materially less.”

Giving an example, Forbes adds, “IMD in Switzerland, which ranked first among such one-year schools, had a median five-year gain of $169,000. By comparison, Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, which tops the list of two-year programs for the second time, had a median five-year gain of $115,000.”

The rankings are based on the ROI that graduates of the Class of 2002 received. Forbes sent questions to 18,500 alumni of 102 MBA programs around the world. Twenty-two per cent responded. For the US rankings, only two-year programs were eligible. Forbes asked the alumni for their pre-MBA salaries as well as for the compensation figures for three of the first five years after they got their degrees. Then, the survey compared their post-MBA compensation with their opportunity cost (tuition and forgone salary while in school) and what they would have made had they stayed in their old jobs.

Forbes Top 10 US B-schools 2007:

  1. Darmouth (Tuck)
  2. Stanford
  3. Harvard
  4. Virginia (Darden)
  5. Pennsylvania (Wharton)
  6. Columbia
  7. Chicago
  8. Yale
  9. Northwestern (Kellogg)
  10. Cornell (Johnson)

Forbes Top Non-US One-Year Business Schools 2007

  1. IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland
  2. Insead, Fountainbleau, France
  3. Cambridge (Judge), Cambridge, UK
  4. Instituto de Empresa, Madrid, Spain
  5. Cranfield, Bedford, UK

Forbes Top Non-US Two-Year Business Schools 2007

  1. GSOM, Australia
  2. British Columbia (Sauder), Canada
  3. Esade, Spain
  4. Ceibs, China
  5. McGill, Canada

Source: Forbes.com