Australian business schools highly placed in QS rankings

THE largest ever survey of MBA employers ranked the Melbourne Business School the third most preferred in Asia.

In Australia it was followed by the University of New South Wales’s Australian Graduate School of Management at sixth, the Sydney Business School at 13^th and Macquarie University at 14^th.

In Melbourne, Monash University ranked 15^th.

The top prize was taken out by INSEAD in Singapore, the same spot it had in 2010. Surging up the rankings was the IIM in Ahmedabad, which rose from sixth place to second, knocking Melbourne down to third place in the process.

The rankings were compiled by the QA intelligence unit, which surveyed MBA employers from around the world to identify the business schools they most prefer to hire from. There were over 2000 responses from 42 countries.

Nunzio Quacquarelli, managing director of QS says, “The number of Asian and Australian schools featured in the report has increased from 10 in 2004 to 36 this year. This rapid rise in the number of internationally recognized schools is indicative of the improving standards of Asian institutions, as employers increasingly recognize the quality of MBA graduates from certain schools in the region.”

11 of the 36 top-ranked business schools were located in Australia.

Quacquarelli said this reflected the unique position of Australia in the world.

“The country’s European heritage and proximity to emerging markets in Asia makes its business schools a unique bridge between two distinct cultures,” he said.