In the space of six years, Indian business school SP Jain has managed to clinch a spot on the top 100 list of the Financial Times' (FT) Global MBA rankings this year.
The university's Dubai/Singapore Global MBA programme came 68th among the world's major business school players.
Apart from its Global MBA ranking highly, the Financial Times ranked the university 7th in Asia, 9th among Asian schools on "Value for Money" and 13th in Asia for "International Mobility" and "Placement Success". SP Jain has links in Dubai, Delhi, Mumbai, Singapore, Shanghai and Sydney.
"Our core strength is that our programme is conducted in two cities and all students have to study in Dubai and Singapore to get global experiences — it's not an option," said SP Jain president Nitish Jain.
"Our philosophy is that if businesses have gone global then business schools, too, need to be global and graduates need a global perspective. This is where we stand out," Jain added.
Global MBAs, he said, are beneficial in career advancement and graduates move up the corporate ladder faster than those who don't have the qualification.
Value for money
An area that helped boost their position on the rankings table is the value for money offered compared to more expensive western schools. The Global MBA programme costs $35,000 (Dh128,450), which includes housing, and students average at 25 years old.
Another strength is in the university's placements and salaries — placement is 100 per cent after graduation and students get a 100 per cent rise in salary three years after graduating, Jain said. Commenting on how reliable rankings are in the business school arena, Jain said: "At the end of the day the rankings are certainly looked at by our applicants. This is how they gauge quality."
He explained that prospective students do not have a direct way to ascertain which university is better and rankings help them make up their mind. Therefore "if students look at it then we need to look at it as well if it attracts the best and brightest students", said Jain.
SP Jain is also looking at scoring high on other well-known ranking tables. "The interesting thing is that we're only six years old and that's the minimum age to even qualify. If you look at the top 100 schools, we're the youngest by a long distance." Jain said the university was proud that they had scored high as soon as they were eligible to apply.
Accurate
The president said rankings were accurate as all the best schools are listed in the top 100. "We may have our own opinion that some should be ranked higher than other schools — all of us may have some argument for some ranking."
He suggests that applicants look at the rankings as representative and a guide of the best schools and not take too narrow a view as there are other criteria to consider when choosing a school.
Rankings
Universities, with campuses in the UAE, that were also on the Global MBA top 100 list:
- London Business School: 1
- Insead: 4
- IE Business School: 8
- University of Chicago Booth: 12
- New York University, Stern: 15
- Duke University, Fuqua: 20
- Manchester Business School: 29
- City University
- Cass: 32
- Hult International Business School: 61
- University of Strathclyde: 74
