Every year, the British business daily Financial Times publishes seven rankings on different categories of academic programs. The last overall ranking to be published this year, the European Business School Ranking, is based on the aggregated results of five of these program rankings. This means that the number of individual rankings a university participates in influences the end result. The top three universities have good results in all five or four program rankings. WU only participates in two of these global sub-rankings, the Global Masters in Management ranking (18th out of 95 programs ranked) and the  Executive MBA ranking (34th out of 100 programs). In the European Business School Ranking, WU is the highest-placing school with only two individual program rankings.

WU excels in international experience

In the two relevant individual rankings, WU excelled with the high salaries its graduates earn and the students’ high levels of international experience. Student exchange programs and international internships are an important part of WU’s Executive MBA and Master’s in International Management programs. This is one of the reasons why the graduates of these programs are so sought-after in the job market and, on average, earn very attractive salaries. WU Rector Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger says, “The ones who benefit most from such ranking results are our students and graduates. What you’ve studied is certainly an important factor when applying for jobs, but the university you studied at is very important, too. This good result in the Financial Times Business School ranking rounds off a year full of great positions in international rankings for WU.”

International success for an Austrian university

Austrian universities are often criticized for their results in international rankings. It is often overlooked that most of the general rankings compare universities with wildly different subject areas, target groups, organizational structures, and sources of funding. The Rector says, “WU has always maintained a critical perspective on rankings. Rankings with a more specific focus that compare similar degree programs or, as in this case, specialized universities, certainly yield more usable results.” To put WU's results in the right perspective: As a public university, WU is competing with international universities that operate under completely different conditions, for example excellent student-teacher ratios.”

As last year, HEC Paris takes the top spot in the ranking, followed by London Business School and France’s INSEAD.

To view the complete ranking, please click here: https://rankings.ft.com/rankings/2869/european-business-school-rankings-2021

Contact:
Cornelia Moll
Press Relations Officer
Tel: + 43-1-31336-4977
Email: cornelia.moll@wu.ac.at