Producing the FT Masters in Management ranking involves calculating 17 categories © Getty Images

Methodology

This is the 17th edition of the FT ranking of Masters in Management (MiM) programmes.

A record 124 MiM programmes took part in the ranking process in 2021, up from 114 in 2020. Schools must meet strict criteria in order to be eligible. Their programmes must be full-time, cohort-based and schools must be accredited by either AACSB or Equis. Courses must be directed at students with little or no work experience. The ranking covers general management programmes, not specialised ones.

The table is calculated according to information collected through two separate surveys. The first is completed by the business schools and the second by alumni who finished their MiM in 2018.

The FT typically requires a response rate of 20 per cent of alumni, with a minimum of 20 responses, for a school to enter the ranking calculations.  Due to the pandemic, the FT considered schools with a lower response rate. Some 7,400 alumni completed this year’s survey — a response rate of about 29 per cent.

The ranking has 17 criteria. Alumni responses inform seven criteria that together contribute 58 points of the ranking’s total weight. The remaining 10 criteria are calculated from school data and account for 38 points of the weight.

For this year, the total weight for the table is 96 points. Due to the travel restrictions caused by the pandemic, the weight for the international course experience category has been reduced. This measures students’ overseas exposure during their degree.

The current average salary of alumni has the highest weighting, at 20 points. Local salaries are converted to US dollars using purchasing power parity rates (PPP) supplied by the IMF. The salaries of non-profit and public service workers, and full-time students, are removed. Salaries are normalised by removing the very highest and lowest salaries reported.

Top 25 schools

Here are some quick facts about the top schools in the ranking. By Wai Kwen Chan

Ranked 1

St Gallen is number one for the 11th year in a row — a feat no other school has achieved in this MiM ranking. Alumni of the Swiss institution have the highest average salary in the top 25 at $123,999.

Ranked 3

University College Dublin: Smurfit is ranked highest for alumni who have worked in a different country between completion and today.

Ranked 7

Gender diversity France’s ESCP is one of 11 schools that achieved gender balance in their most recent class — a 50:50 male/female composition received the highest score in the female students category.

Ranked 8

Of the top 25, Stockholm School of Economics has the most alumni in recent years who have spent at least a month on exchange programmes and/or internships overseas.

Ranked 9=

London’s Imperial College Business School has the most globally diverse class, with 99 per cent of recently enrolled students from abroad.

Ranked 12

ESMT Berlin is one of 44 schools where 100 per cent of their recent completing class undertook internships as part of their masters.

Ranked 14

Prague University of Economics and Business is one of five schools where 100 per cent of recent alumni found employment within three months of completing their course.

Ranked 15

For four years in a row, alumni at the UK’s Warwick Business School have seen the biggest leaps in job seniority three years after completing their masters.

Ranked 20

China’s Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management is this year’s highest new entrant and is ranked highest for value for money in the top 25.

Ranked 23

Portugal’s Nova School of Business & Economics is one of 17 schools where alumni are required to be fluent in two languages, excluding English, at a professional level on graduation.

Ranked 25

St Petersburg University’s Graduate School of Management is one of three highest risers, up 16 places. Alumni reported the biggest salary increase — 110 per cent — between completion and now.

Salary increase is the second most important criterion, with a weighting of 10 points. It is based on the average difference in alumni salary between their first MiM-level job after completion and their current salary, three years after completion. Half of the weight is applied to the absolute salary increase and the other half is applied to the relative percentage increase.

Where available, information collected over the past three years is used for alumni criteria. Responses from 2021 carry 50 per cent of the total weight and those from 2020 and 2019 each account for 25 per cent. Excluding salary-related criteria, if only two years of data are available, the weighting is split 60:40 if data are from 2021 and 2020, or 70:30 if from 2021 and 2019. For salary figures, the weighting is 50:50 for two years’ data, to negate inflation-related distortions.

Data provided by schools are used to measure the diversity of teaching staff, board members and students according to gender and nationality and the international reach of the programme. For gender criteria, schools with a 50:50 (male: female) composition receive the highest score.

When calculating international diversity, in addition to the percentage of international students and faculty at a school — the figures published — the FT also considers the proportion of international students and faculty by citizenship.

A score is then calculated for each school. First, Z-scores — formulas that reflect the range of scores between the top and bottom school — are calculated for each ranking criterion. These scores are then weighted and added together to give a final score. Schools are ranked according to these scores, creating the FT Masters in Management ranking of 2021.

After discounting the schools that did not meet the response rate threshold from the alumni survey, a first version is calculated using all remaining schools. The school at the bottom is removed and a second version is calculated, and so on until the final ranking is reached.

Other information in the table — programme length, the number of students enrolled, overall satisfaction and the percentage of students who undertake internships — does not contribute towards the ranking. (See the key to the ranking below.)

Judith Pizer of Pizer-MacMillan acted as the FT’s database consultant.

Key: weights for ranking criteria are shown in brackets as points.

The total table weight adds up to 96 points.

Salary today US$: average salary three years after completion (not used in the ranking calculation), US$ PPP equivalent (purchasing power parity. See methodology at ft.com/mim-method) †*

Weighted salary US$ (20): average graduate salary three years after completion, adjustment for salary variations between sectors, US$ PPP equivalent. †*

Salary increase (10): average difference in alumni salary between completion and today. Half of this figure is calculated according to the absolute increase and half according to the relative percentage increase. †*

Value for money (5): calculated according to alumni salaries today, fees and other costs. †*

Career progress (5): calculated according to changes in the level of seniority and the size of company alumni are working for between completion and today. †*

Aims achieved (5): the extent to which alumni fulfilled their goals for doing a masters. †*

Careers service rank (5): effectiveness of the careers service in supporting student recruitment, rated by alumni. †*

Employed at three months % (5): percentage of the most recent completing class that found employment within three months of completing their course. Figure in brackets is the percentage of the class for which the school was able to provide data. §

Female faculty % (5): percentage of female faculty as of April 1. ‡

Female students % (5): percentage of women on the masters programme on March 31. ‡

Women on board % (1): percentage of women on the school advisory board. ‡

International faculty % (5): calculated according to the diversity of faculty (on April 1) by citizenship and the percentage whose citizenship differs from their country of employment — the figure published in the table.

International students % (5): calculated according to the diversity of current MiM students by citizenship and the percentage whose citizenship differs from the country in which they study — the figure in the table.

International board % (1): percentage of the board whose citizenship differed from the school’s home country.

International mobility (8): calculated according to changes in the country of employment of alumni between completion and today. Alumni citizenship is taken into account. †*

International course experience (4): calculated according to whether the most recent completing masters class carried out exchanges and company internships, lasting at least a month, in countries other than where the school is based. Virtual experiences are not included. An average calculation was taken from the 2021 survey and the past two years’ international course experience data (2020 and 2019), if available. For schools that have taken part for the first time this year, only data from the 2021 survey were used. Due to travel restrictions caused by the pandemic, some schools were unable to provide recent data for this category. If you are a prospective student, please contact the school to check if they offer study trips and internships abroad. †§

Extra languages (1): the number of languages required on graduation, excluding English.

Faculty with doctorates % (6): percentage of faculty with doctoral degrees at April 1.

The categories below are for information only and are not used in the ranking calculations.

Average course length (months): average length of the masters programme.

Number enrolled 2020-21: number of students who enrolled in the first year of the masters programme in the past year.

Overall satisfaction: average evaluation by alumni of the masters course, scored out of 10. After alumni answered various questions about their masters experience, including the quality of the school’s careers service, they were asked to rate their overall satisfaction, on a 10-point scale.

Company internships (%): the percentage of the last completing class that undertook internships as part of the programme. §

† Includes data for the current and one or two preceding years where available.

‡ For all gender-related criteria, schools with a 50:50 (male/female) composition receive the highest score.

* Data from alumni who completed their programmes in 2018 included.

§ Completed MiM between March 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021.

Criteria for taking part in our ranking

NOTE: We review the criteria on a regular basis. The pandemic has affected business schools and our ranking process, but we have done our best to accommodate feedback from schools. Please note, we are unable to include requests from every school.

The FT MiM ranking is based on two surveys: one of the business school and one of the alumni who completed their MiM three years ago.

The following are the criteria schools must meet in order to participate in the annual MiM ranking:

  1. The business school must be accredited by AACSB or Equis, or have an affiliation with an AACSB or Equis accredited organisation.

  2. The full-time MiM programme must have been running continuously for the past four years and the first class should have graduated in the calendar year at least three years prior to the survey date.

  3. Your programme must be a generalist programme in general management. We will not consider specialised programmes (such as Masters in Marketing or a Masters in Finance with a management element).

  4. This ranking is directed at Masters in Management degrees for students with very little or no prior work experience.

  5. At least 30 full-time students must have completed the programme, per year, for the past three years.

  6. Students must matriculate and graduate in cohort(s).

  7. The business school must have a minimum of 20 full-time permanent faculty.

  8. The MiM programme can be delivered in several languages but it must be fully available in English. Graduates need to complete the survey in English.

  9. Ideally, business schools should be able to supply the email addresses of all its alumni who completed their programme three years ago. These will be used purely for editorial research purposes and held securely and destroyed after use, unless they agree for us to contact them again for future research, respecting GDPR and the FT rankings privacy policy: https://bschoolportal-ft-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/privacy-policy. Please exclude those who want to opt out of our survey. Please do not select and lobby alumni to complete the survey.

We need a response rate of at least 20 per cent from alumni with a minimum of 20 completed surveys from any school wishing to be considered for the ranking. E.g., a class size of 100 graduates will require 20 completed surveys and a class size of 200 alumni will require 40 completed surveys. This response rate is based on the total size of the cohort we are surveying, not the number graduate emails you will be able to supply, as we are aware that some alumni will opt out of the survey. 

Meeting these criteria does not guarantee automatic participation in the ranking. The final decision rests with the Financial Times. 

Please note, the table is finalised about five weeks before the publication date. It is too late for schools to withdraw from the ranking after the five-week mark. 

Email mim@ft.com by the start of February if you have questions or wish to take part as the ranking process starts in early March. By this time, the onus is on schools to get in contact with us if they wish to take part in the ranking, as we are unable to email every single school to check if they wish to be considered. 

Rankings: https://rankings-ft-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/home/masters-in-management 

Report: https://www-ft-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/mim 

Methodology: https://www-ft-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/mim-method

Timings

Invitation to participate: March

Schools to confirm participation: March

Schools to upload alumni list: April

Survey open: April

Survey close: May

Data checks with schools: May – June

Publication: September

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2024. All rights reserved.
Reuse this content (opens in new window) CommentsJump to comments section

Follow the topics in this article

Comments