Last year \'The Economist\' published an excellent series of ratings of large DL MBAs. It\'s online at http://media.economist.com/media/WMBA/WMBA_Special_2010b.pdf . Half the score comes from students\' own ratings, and half from research by The Economist. It says that:
\"Two programmes achieved our top rating of ?excellent?: Florida?s Internet MBA and the International Executive MBA offered by IE Business School (...) Honourable mentions go to Thunderbird School of Global Management, Indiana?s Kelly school (both in America) and the Euro*MBA, which is offered by a consortium of European business schools, all of which rated as ?good?.

What do you think?

yeah.. very interesting article (that i ve read several times in the last month).
Some thought (just an outlook from an inexpert)

1) it\'s weird but Manchester is missing ...........

2) Warwick which is very supported in this forum (and in all other forums covering mba\'s topic) doesn\'t perform so well

3) Imperial very very bad (if you even consider costs) but some results are missing(% of faculty), low completition rate is low... maybe is too demanding for the online format???)

4) I can say nothing about USA... but the best euro schools (IE and Euro*mba) are the one having the shortest programs and less exams (they don\'t have the typical UK schema: main course ----> 3h open text exams; they are more focused on case study... easier for people who works 8-10h x days)

5) except Imperial .. the more you pay the more you have (but imperial gives you some edge in the US...where is very well known...so some north americans told me)

6) value for money is over 4 for every programs .. so, at the end, everybody looks happy lol

Interesting that Warwick isn't up with Florida and IE. And it is certainly strange that the more US schools aren't on the list - especially ASU and Babson/Olin.

I also wonder if the new UNC program will make the list next year.

Consider the low price, Warwick does really well. The report doesn't say anything about the method, but I guess The Economist was limited to schools that gave them access to students by email. The ranking does include most of the large accredited online MBAs (and excludes Heriot Watt and other unaccredited offers). But, yes, Babson and ASU are conspicuously absent as are RMIT, Syracuse and GWU. With smaller programmes like Oxford Brookes, Strathclyde and UTD I guess they could not have ben assured of enough responses.

Ultimately I guess it's hard to rank these programs due to a lack of standardized variables, differences in platform technologies, etc.

I think it will be easier to rank them after a few more years, when we can see where the graduates from these programs end up and how much they are making - the real sign of an MBA program's success.

I talked to an IE admission manager (who is italian and also a global program teacher) and asked him if taking part to the global program can give me real chance to switch my career; the answer was mostly toward those points:
1) in general career switch and country switch are difficult task even for full-time mba (much more difficult than 15y ago)
2) stats for the global program are influenced by the fact that people already have a job so they can wait and ponderate offers with more delay .... he stressed me the fact that, at the end, the chances give by the full time and the global was actually the same

in general career switch and country switch are difficult task even for full-time mba (much more difficult than 15y ago)

I was talking to Admission coordinator at Imperial and apparently Imperial did not provide any data or students contacts to the Economists , they are not sure what is their ranking based on!

I am sure that The Economist knows how to identify them (for example, one could perhaps buy from GMAC a list of people who have sent their GMAT to distance-learning programmes, and from QS, JK or other firms a similar list. If your survey enough people then you don't need the school to give you the address list.

Hi Duncan, I agree but my point is that since the institution has not shared any data with this particular ranking body;I will question a level of data validity. After all, any evaluation criteria bound to include a lot more than just taking to the MBA graduates.

Just noted that in the report they consider the online Executive IT mba.. not the online MBA (which cost 39000e)

Assad, why do you question the validity? Imagine two scenarios: [a] the schools gives me a list of people to survey and I identify potential recipients myself. There are pluses and minuses with both approaches. But as long as I get enough data, I don't see the problem. Most customer satisfaction research is competitive, and by definition the competitors do not supply their clients' names.

PS There is much more to their methodology than the survey of graduates. Take a read of the report; you can see the method there.

sorry..I have a different opinion-

If you are meaning difficulty in country switching to Spain, after doing an MBA from Spain..then you are absolutely right.Because Spain is in big financial trouble, and 50 % of the population are jobless(As reports say)

But, what about Thunderbird MBA in International Business, Gateway to Germany MBA, Harvard MBA, Stanford MBA? . I don't think you will face much difficulties in whatever "switching"(whether it is country or career)

I talked to an IE admission manager (who is italian and also a global program teacher) and asked him if taking part to the global program can give me real chance to switch my career; the answer was mostly toward those points:
1) in general career switch and country switch are difficult task even for full-time mba (much more difficult than 15y ago)
2) stats for the global program are influenced by the fact that people already have a job so they can wait and ponderate offers with more delay .... he stressed me the fact that, at the end, the chances give by the full time and the global was actually the same

In addition to what Duncan has pointed out about data-gathering, keep in mind that Imperial makes a lot of its enrollment data public in all the various brochures and program information it gives out. Have a look at the actual report - there are no statistics there that would be that hard to find by just looking at Imperial's website. I doubt the Economist is making any of that up.

Hi Duncan, I agree but my point is that since the institution has not shared any data with this particular ranking body;I will question a level of data validity. After all, any evaluation criteria bound to include a lot more than just taking to the MBA graduates.