4. Top Business Schools in 2007

In 2007, only 32 schools are featured from Europe, because of an increased presence of Asian business schools amongst recruiter choices. The make-up of the Global 100 business schools will vary with changes in employer demand profiles (in 2003, only 30 US Business schools made the cut as more European schools entered the fray).

INSEAD and, following closely, London Business School (LBS), remain the two most popular business schools with recruiters, benefiting from the enduring recovery in consulting and banking. Spanish, Italian, Belgian and some Dutch and German schools, which are succeeding in attracting more recruiters, are making notable progress.

New in the top 30 in Europe in 2007 are; ESCP-EAP, Ashridge, EM Lyon, Lancaster, Mannheim Business School and Warsaw University of Technology. Less high profile schools are featuring competitively at all levels showing that they have caught the eye of international recruiters.  In the past two years, many European based schools, new to the recruiter preference tables, are emerging as strong players. Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School set a trend indicating interest from recruiters in MBAs from Benelux.

The Central European University Business School (CEU) in Hungary and Warsaw University of Technology sustain the recent presence of Central/Eastern European institution featuring within the top European top 30. However, IBS Moscow dropped out of the list this year having just made the cut last year.

Esade, IESE and IE - Instituto de Empresa are three Spanish schools, which have shown a strong increase in performance in the last few years, and in 2007 again feature among the top ten European schools. Italy also provides a core of Southern European business schools, with MIP Politecnico di Milano up two places to 17th and SDA Bocconi stable at 8th continuing to perform well.

French schools in the top 30 are represented by HEC Paris, ESCP-EAP, ESSEC, and EM Lyon. Of these ESCP-EAP has shown the largest position improvement this year, up from 39th in Europe last year to 14th this year.

In Switzerland, IMD which always features amongst the top 5 European schools has improved to 3rd, whilst  University of St Gallen has risen from 22nd to 18th and they are joined by HEC Lausanne in the top 30.

The United Kingdom is always well represented amongst recruiter’s choices and 2007 is no exception. Within the top 20 European schools are featured no less than 7 UK schools; Cambridge, CASS, Cranfield, LBS, Manchester, Oxford and Warwick. Ashridge, Imperial and Lancaster also appear within the top 30.

German business schools have fallen out of favor with recruiters in 2007. Although Mannheim has entered the top 30, and WHU-Otto Beisheim features 32nd in Europe and makes the top 100 globally, several German schools have dropped out – noticeably; HHL Leipzig, Gisma and SIMT.

It is several years now since renowned universities such as Oxford and Cambridge developed MBA programmes and this trend was followed across Europe at universities such as Mannheim, MIP Politecnico di Milano, Copenhagen and Stockholm School of Economics. These schools moved up the recruiter preference tables quite rapidly in recent years, doubtless profiting from the already existing name awareness of their universities with recruiters. With the exception of Copenhagen Business School (which came 33rd in Europe this year and missed out on a top 100 place because of the strong performances of several Asian schools), all these schools have continued to perform well in 2007. Oxford is up 9 places to 6th. SSE is up 3 places to 20th.

Recruiters’ top 10 preferred schools in Europe are:
INSEAD, London Business School, IMD, IE, IESE, Oxford, RSM, SDA Bocconi, HEC, ESADE