SDA Bocconi School of Management

SDA Bocconi School of Management

Via Bocconi 8

Milan, 20136, Italy

Telephone: +39 02 5836 6605

Website: http://www.sdabocconi.it/en/mba-executive-mba/full-time-mba

Apply: http://admissions.sdabocconi.it/public/index.php?id_master=113

If you want to get your MBA in Italy, you really have one choice. It’s the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, the only ranked player in the country. The school is part of Universita Bocconi, the first Italian university to grant a degree in economics. Milan may not be Rome, Florence or Venice, but it is the industrial and fashion capital of the country and a city overflowing with culture, food and design.

With just about 100 MBA students, Bocconi’s full-time MBA program demands a heavy investment in relationships and a commitment to cooperation and team-oriented work.

The school says that this environment results in bonds built with classmates, faculty and alumni that will last a lifetime.

Bocconi says that its one-year curriculum is designed to give students the theoretical knowledge for managerial excellence, while a practical perspective within the program enables MBAs to test knowledge gained and skills learned in the classroom.

As is true of any top MBA program in Europe, a major appeal of the program is the diversity of the students in the classroom. Some 83% of SDA Bocconi’s MBA students come from over 30 different countries.

The school offers students four concentrations despite the packed one-year timeframe for the MBA degree: finance and financial institutions, customer marketing and social media, innovation management and new product development, and private equity and entrepreneurship. Students are, in fact, required to take two concentrations.

In addition to the four concentrations, the MBA program offers students the possibility to further personalize their development through the new sector-based Track in Luxury Business Management (LBM) in partnership with Bulgari, the well known global player in the luxury market. The LBM track is held in Rome at Bulgari offices. The active involvement of Bulgari managers in the program assures an ideal interaction between theory and practice.

In 2011, the school’s top recruiters were Johnson & Johnson, Bain & Co., Boston Consulting Group, Adidas Group, McKinsey & Co., Amazon, and Samsung Electronics–a very impressive group of mainstream MBA hirers.

Latest Up-to-Date Rankings:

Poets&Quants (2012): 10 (non-U.S.)

BusinessWeek (2012): 16 (international)

Forbes (2011): 4 (one-year international)

Financial Times (2013): 39 (global), 22 (non-U.S.)

The Economist (2012):  70 (global), 31 (non-U.S.)

Rankings Analysis:

SDA Bocconi, the only ranked MBA program in Italy, moved up one spot in the Poets&Quants’ composite ranking in 2012 to finish in tenth place among non-U.S. schools, up from 11th a year earlier. The school is ranked by all of the four most influential organizations that track business school education on a global level.

One recent graduate summed up his experience at Bocconi this way: “Students are congenial, friendly and warm. There was no competition between students, which made it a low stress environment to learn and grow. We were like 96 people who became a family – we got to know each other so well. Italians present themselves well and have very strong “emotional intelligence” and personal interaction skills. This cultural trait of Italians was a soft-skill that over time students picked up on and is a useful trait in the business world.”

Total Tuition & Fees: $55,917

Average GMAT: 664

GMAT Range: NA

Average GPA: NA

GPA Range: (mid-80%): NA

Acceptance Rate: 39%

Full-Time MBA Intake: 100

International: 77%

Female: 34%

Mean Age: 29

Average Base Salary: $98,410

Average Signing Bonus: $19,298

Percentage of MBAs with Job Offers at Graduation: 55%

Percentage of MBAs with Job Offers Three Months Later: 80%