Two Australian MBAs — Melbourne Business School (3rd) and the AGSM at the University of New South Wales (5th) — have made it into the top MBAs in Asia, according to the latest rankings by QS Top MBA.
Globally, Melbourne Business School MBA was ranked 34th and AGSM 39th.
A further four Australian MBAs – MGSM Macquarie University, UQ Business Business, University of Western Australia and Bond University – were ranked inside the top 200. Deakin University, RMIT, Wollongong (Sydney Business School), La Trobe Bsiness School and and Victoria Graduate School of Business were all in the top 250.
Harvard (United States), INSEAD (France), HEC Paris (France), Stanford (United States) and London Business School (United Kingdom) were the top five schools globally.
The MBS report showed an average class size of 52, an average student age of 28, with 50% of students and international and just one-in-five students female. AGSM’s average class size was 44, average student age was 30, 63% were international students and 30% of students were women.
The annual QS rankings consider five performance indicators, including: Thought Leadership, Diversity, Employability, Entrepreneurship & Alumni Success, and Return on Investment.
Melbourne Business School Dean Zeger Degraeve said the latest result added to a growing list of accolades for the MBS MBA.
“It really has been a bumper year for our MBA, and I am very proud of the work our faculty, staff and students have put in to show the value of our MBA to organisations and careers. When you add this success to the other great rankings results our MBA and other programs have achieved this year, I am truly proud of what we are achieving at MBS,” Professor Degraeve said.
The MBS MBA jumped seven places in The Economist’s recent rankings to 27th spot globally. Earlier in the year it, climbed 11 places in the Financial Times MBA rankings and made it to Bloomberg Businessweek’s top-10 list of international programs and Poets and Quants’ top 20.
Along with our MBA, QS also ranked our Master of Business Analytics for the first time, ranking it the fifth best in the world and top program of its type in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
AGSM achieved strong results in the area of Diversity with a rank of one in the Asia-Pacific region. The Return on Investment indicator also positions AGSM favourably, achieving a score of 82.6 which is well above the global average of 53.0. T
his result compares the total opportunity cost of an MBA program – including international tuition fees, forgone salary and cost of living (using the Mercer Index) in the location of the program – against the annual salary premium and bonus levels a student is set to earn.
Interim Director and Deputy Dean UNSW Business School, Professor Clinton Free, said the result reflected the ongoing strength of the institution globally.
“The QS rankings are very well respected internationally and based on a robust methodology,” he said.
“Not only do the QS Global MBA Rankings outline important criteria that business schools are evaluated against but they also reinforce our position as one of the leading institutions globally,” said Clinton.
Further details on the results and methodology of the report can be found on the TopMBA website.
