The Economist Intelligence Unit has ranked the Melbourne Business School full-time MBA at #1 in Asia and Australasia and #32 globally in its 2011 full-time MBA rankings.
MBS is already ranked #1 in Australia by AFR BOSS and #46 globally by Times Higher Education.
Drilling down to the detailed profile for MBS, you get some interesting results.
Missed Networking Opportunities
For example, the school ranks well for networking:
- Potential to network: #5
- Breadth of alumni network (i.e. ratio of registered alumni to current students): #2
But ranks poorly in the use and perception of its alumni network:
- Alumni effectiveness (i.e. student assessment of alumni network): #89
I’m not sure why this might be the case. I can make a few guesses, though. For example, international students might find that, while there are tonnes of MBS alumni that they can network with in Asia and Australasia, there aren’t enough of them around the rest of the world. There might also be some missed opportunities in the students’ use of the alumni network. Or of recent alumni themselves not networking much with each other.
Career Services is Improving
MBS also ranks really well for its careers service:
- Jobs found through the careers service (i.e. percentage of graduates finding jobs through careers service): #2
But students and alumni don’t seem to give it enough credit:
- Student assessment of careers service (i.e. did the careers service meet expectations and needs?): #98
This suggests that, while the MBS Career Centre is doing a good job, it suffers from some perception problems. This might be because perception change among alumni who no longer need or use the careers service lags the reality of the careers service having improved in recent years. I do know that the MBS Career Centre in 2008-09 had a challenging time placing graduates from my full-time MBA batch because we were the first group to come out of the new September intake. This meant the Career Centre had to find jobs for twice as many students (many of whom were international) right at the beginning of the GFC. And, since the EUI’s ranking has memory – i.e. it’s a weighted average of results from 2011 (50%), 2010 (30%), and 2009 (20%) – this alumni perception would still have an impact on perception scores.
Overall
Overall, though, this is a good result and I’m glad that MBS continues to improve its quality, reputation, and ranking.