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Use Unimy's 360° Rankings to find your best MBA Career and Culture Fit
Every year leading global business and management publications release their own MBA rankings. Using data from universities and MBA alumni, each ranking offers an overview of the best business schools globally or in a specific region.
Undoubtedly, these rankings can be a great starting point for prospective MBA applicants who are yet to decide where they would like to study. However, they shouldn’t be the only source of information for candidates. If you’re wondering what’s missing from current MBA rankings, this article will help you understand their strengths and weaknesses and it will introduce you to a new, personalized MBA ranking launched in December 2023.
How do MBA rankings work?
There’s a reason why publications such as the Financial Times and US News are so well-known for their rankings – they use the latest insights collected directly from business schools and MBA alumni. Just consider this: a total of 7,134 alumni completed the survey used by the Financial Times for their 2023 Global MBA Ranking. But even so, different rankings have different methodologies and their results may not always reflect everyone’s personal preferences and goals. In some publications, post-MBA salaries are among the main criteria that determine how a business school ranks. Yet candidates may find other factors such as in-class diversity just as important.
What makes Unimy’s 360° MBA Ranking different?
This is one of the points addressed by the global MBA matching platform Unimy with their newly launched 360° MBA Ranking. The new ranking aggregates data from the Financial Times and US News rankings and encourages users to personalize their own results. With this personalization feature, users can decide whether to put more weight on career outcomes, diversity, academic credentials of faculty, acceptance rate, or cultural fit between school and candidate.
By using one of the strongest assets of existing rankings – the quantity and quality of their data – the 360° MBA Ranking adds a personalized perspective for candidates so that they can make the ranking truly their own.
Can MBA rankings measure school culture?
Regardless of how big and diverse ranking data is, there are some intangible aspects of the MBA experience that have not been measured by these publications yet. One of them is school culture or cultural fit. Just like other organizations, business schools have different values, norms, and practices that make up their unique culture.
For example, at some schools it may be common practice to be able to build a friendly and relaxed relationship with professors. At other schools, the accepted norm might call for more formal relations. Culture can even impact the way the MBA curriculum is designed. Some programs might encourage more individual work and personal accomplishments during study projects. Others might find teamwork and group accomplishments more important.
Long before launching the platform in 2018, the Unimy team has been interested in exploring these cultural differences among global business schools. And more importantly, they wanted to help prospective applicants find the MBA program with the right cultural fit.
That’s how Unimy’s Cultural Fit Index developed in-house found its place in the 360° MBA Ranking – the first ranking to include school culture as one of its main criteria. After filling in the specially designed questionnaire, users discover the MBA programs that fit their preferences in a matter of seconds. By emphasizing the value of cultural fit and enabling candidates to design their own rankings, Unimy has created a ranking tool that reflects the individuality of each MBA applicant.