The Warwick Business School MBA: What You Need To Know

Coventry, in England’s West Midlands, is home to one of the best-respected and oldest business schools in Europe. Less than two hours from London, Warwick Business School, also known as WBS, is situated in a prime, central location in the countryside. The B-school ranked 6th in the UK in The Financial Times’ Global MBA Ranking 2023.

Designed for those who wish to change job functions, sectors, locations or simply increase their earning power, the Warwick MBA supports students in achieving their full potential.

Warwick’s fast-paced one-year MBA is highly diverse, with 73 students entering this year from 33 nationalities, on average age 32.

Of their 8 modules, Warwick highlights their LeadershipPlus module, which the schools says diverges from conventional teaching methodologies by extensive experiential learning, reflective practice, theoretical understanding, and experimentation. The module is designed to help students transform into effective leaders.

“A major focus of the LeadershipPlus module is on understanding and navigating diverse cultures. This understanding is vital in our culturally diverse cohort, where many aim to navigate the complexities of multinational corporations. Recognizing the importance of cultural knowledge fosters an inclusive and globally attuned mindset,” says MBA Suman Tomar on Warwick’s site.

Warwick’s full-time MBA students can specialize in Entrepreneurship or Social & Environmental Sustainability, and Warwick offers a range of elective modules to suit individual needs and to give MBAs a global perspective. One of the four electives will be a required overseas module at one of Warwick’s partner institutions. The internship is optional, but encouraged as a great way to apply all students have learned.

To be accepted into the MBA, Warwick wants to see that prospective MBAs are intellectually outstanding and display strong interpersonal and communication skills, motivation, creativity, maturity, drive, and leadership qualities. They must have the ability to work effectively in a team, the desire to learn, and the potential to succeed.

To increase international business exposure, which is essential as a business student these days, full-time MBAs will attend an overseas trip to a partner institution, with previous partnerships taking place at around 30 partner schools like Bocconi School of Management, Italy, Aalto University School of Business, Finland, and Nova School of Business and Economics, Portugal.

Other things to explore include case competitions, professional clubs, arts facilities, and numerous clubs. Warwick MBAs can also engage in global MBA competitions and have opportunities to connect with a vast alumni network spanning 171 countries, while participating in professional networks and international study programs.

During their time at business school, students cultivate a mindset that extends beyond their immediate surroundings, where they are taught to embrace diverse perspectives to become well-rounded leaders.

Warwick Business School MBA Rankings Data

WBS Rankings Analysis

Warwick Business School tends to do well in Poets and Quants’ composite ranking-of-rankings and placed a very creditable fifteenth in the world in the most recent, 2019 list of international (that is, non-US) schools. That is a jump from the previous year when it fell to 24th, but in line with its position since 2015, when it came 14th before rising to the heights of 12th in 2016 and 2017.

In the Economist’s list, WBS ranked fifth of all non-US schools in 2019, down from third in 2018 and fourth in 2017. It fared almost as well in the two preceding years, finishing at sixth both times.

Why does Warwick pace so well in that ranking? Perhaps because the Economist heavily weights “opening new career opportunities”, which accounts for 35% of its total ranking. Because around 90 percent of students on the WBS full-time MBA are international, they tend to do well in terms of new job opportunities — many of them find jobs in the UK or other Western European countries, and the school’s careers service is well geared-up for helping them do so.

“Student assessment of careers service” accounts for about 10 percent of the total Economist ranking. Network (10 percent) and internationalization (7 percent) also favor UK schools with large numbers of overseas students.

The school fares almost as well in the Forbes list, appearing as the eighth highest-ranked non-US school in 2019, 2016, and 2015, although it dropped to 14th in 2017 and 2018. Forbes’ methodology is extremely simple: return on investment, calculated by comparing alumni’s projected salary increase if they hadn’t taken an MBA, compared to what it is five years after graduation.

Forbes’ ranking has the heaviest weight for international schools in the Poets and Quants composite list, and Warwick does well in Forbes because students tend to come from countries with lower salaries than in the countries where they find jobs. Therefore ROI looks very impressive for Warwick MBAs. A word of warning, though: because Forbes’ ranking is based solely on self-reported salary, it is possible that it suffers from selection bias — are high-earners are more likely to respond?

In the Financial Times’ list, WBS has only ever once broken into the top 20 non-US schools, in 2019, when it peaked at 18th place. In 2020 it fell back slightly to 20th. In previous years it was ranked 22nd, 24th, 27th and 21st. It is dragged down by a relatively low salary-increase rating – which is odd, given its high ROI on the Forbes list.

Warwick’s appearances in the Bloomberg Businessweek ranking — which also takes into account a range of factors, placed it pretty much in line with the FT’s — it came in 23rd and 22nd in 2017 and 2016 and has never appeared in other years. That low ranking is perhaps because Bloomberg weights salary increase heavily — it accounts for almost 40 percent of the ranking — but measures it soon after graduation. The lesson from the rankings seems to be that the longer after graduation salary is measured, the better WBS grads do.