No Surprise: Swiss School Tops FT’s 2022 Master In Management Ranking Again

Swiss school St. Gallen is once again the top Master in Management program in the world according to The Financial Times. File photo

For the last 12 years, one school has dominated the premier — and now only — ranking of global Master in Management programs. Once again in 2022, the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland, offer’s the world’s top MiM according to The Financial Times. 

It’s a remarkable record of consistency for a small European school, even as competitors grow by the year, particularly in Asia but also the United States. Nearly as consistent as St. Gallen at No. 1 is the No. 2 program, HEC Paris, and the fact that European programs dominate the top tier: rounding out the top five are the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands, the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden, and ESCP Business School of France. See below for the top 25 of the 100-school ranking.

But though the MiM is a thoroughly European program, first launched on the Continent and dominated to this day by European programs, change may be on the horizon. While French schools fill the latest FT ranking — there are 24 in all, including five of the top 12 — and the UK boasts eight schools total (led by London Business School in seventh place), Asian schools are increasingly present in the rankings, even rising from the lower tiers. In all, 13 programs based in or jointly operated with schools in Asia, made this year’s list, including seven from India. China’s Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, rising to 11th place from 20th last year, is the highest-ranked among the Asian MiMs.

BIG VOLATILITY IN THE 2022 RANKING 

The Financial Times Master in Management ranking contained 100 schools for the second year in a row, up from 90 schools two years ago. If there is a theme to this year’s list, it’s volatility, with 28 schools seeing double-digit changes in rank from last year, and 13 schools that were unranked last year making the new list. The highest of the latter: Russian B-school IBS-Moscow Ranepa, which tied France’s Edhec for 12th place.

Some of the biggest declines in status occurred among UK and European schools: Durham Business School dropped from 52nd to 87th, Alliance Manchester from 63rd to 83rd; Tilburg University’s School of Economics and Management in the Netherlands from 49th to 80th; and the University of Edinburgh Business School from 52nd to 69th. In the upper tier, Prague University of Economics and Business fell from 14th to 25th, and Warwick Business School dropped from 15th to 27th.

Many of the biggest gains, notably, were MiM programs at Asian schools, particularly in the upper tier: Tsinghua climbing from 20th to 11th, Shanghai Jiao Tong from 36th to 18th, China’s Tongji University School of Economics and Management from 35th to 21st, and IIM Bangalore from 47th to 31st. The overall biggest gain, though, was Italy’s Luiss University in Rome, up 23 places to 53rd; other big gainers in Europe included Sweden’s Lund University of School of Economics and Management, which climbed from 77th to 57th; and among top schools, France’s EMLyon, which jumped from 21st to 9th.

Once again, U.S. Master in Management programs were largely left out, partly because many do not participate in the FT ranking. Only three programs with U.S. cohorts made the list, led by The Global 3, a program split between the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia, Lingnan University in Guangzhou, China, and Spain’s Esade; it fell from 11th to 33rd this year. U.S.-based Hult International rose to 41st from 48th; and, making its first appearance in the ranking, the MiM at South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business was ranked 46th.

STUDENT GENDER PARITY ACHIEVED AT NEARLY HALF OF RANKED MiMs

What makes St. Gallen’s Master of Arts in Strategy and International Management so dominant? The 1 1/2-year, 90-credit program, founded in 2004, boasts the academic rigor of an MBA program, with a practice-oriented approach centered around strategy, leadership, finance, marketing, organizational behavior and international management. “The SIM curriculum prepares you for a successful career in today’s increasingly digitalized world as a respected and responsible manager, entrepreneur, business consultant and beyond,” the program site declares, adding that SIM “teaches you to approach problems holistically through the integration of management courses and contextual studies from various other disciplines. This stems from our strong belief that only an approach of this nature can give you the tools to tackle complex management challenges.”

As at nearly half of the MiM programs ranked this year (and every year) by FT, international students make up the majority of students at St. Gallen — in its case, the vast majority, at 93%. Internationals comprise at least half of the intake at 44 ranked schools.

Elsewhere on the diversity front, gender parity is nearly a reality in the MiM programs of the FT ranking, with almost half of the schools’ programs reporting at least 50% women; the highest was 77% at China’s Tongji University School of Economics and Management in China; the lowest, 22%, was at Tilburg. Gender parity in the faculty, however, is another story, with only 14 of the 100 schools reporting that at least half of their faculty were women, led by 54% at NMIMS in Mumbai. The lowest: 15% at Indore’s Indian Institute of Management.

What, in the end, does the ranking signify? What does it measure? See our analysis last year here and here.

See The Financial Times' 2022 Master in Management ranking here.

DON'T MISS RANKING THE BEST MASTER IN MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS and IF IT'S THE FINANCIAL TIMES MASTER IN MANAGEMENT RANKING, ST. GALLEN IS ON TOP AGAIN 

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