[商学院排名] 华尔街日报：全球最佳一年制MBA项目

myice

Fast Path to the Fast Track

Here are the top 15 schools in the Wall Street Journal's ranking of accelerated M.B.A. programs. The ranking is based on how the programs fared in surveys of students and alumni, including how they were rated in skills and leadership enhancement and alumni impact.

 

School/Location	Rank	Student Rank	Alumni Rank	Students per class	Program Length/ Total Program Cost	Skill Enhancement	Leadership Enhancement	Alumni Impact
IE Business School/Madrid	1	2	1	398	13/69,500	T	T	T
IMD/Lausanne, Switzerland	2	1	2	90	11/73,417	M	T	T
Cranfield School of Management/Bedford, England	3	6	3	40	11/44,800	T	T	T
Northwestern Univ. (Kellogg)/Evanston, IL	4	4	7	80	12/65432	M	T	M
Babson College (Olin)/Babson Park, Mass.	5	3	11	87	12/54,058	B	T	M
ESADE/Barcelona	6	7	4	40	12/61750	M	T	B
INSEAD/Fontainebleau, France	7	10	6	481	10/67,426	M	M	T
IAE/Buenos Aires	8	8	10	40	11/26,000	T	T	M
Miami (OH) Univ. (Farmer)/Oxford, Ohio	9	9	9	27	14/50,000	T	M	T
Emory University (Goizueta)/Atlanta	10	5	16	47	12/63,600	T	M	B
Cornell Univ./Ithaca, N.Y.	11	13	5	41	12/74,850	T	M	T
Copenhagen Business School/Copenhagen	12	15	12	47	11.5/50,000	B	M	M
Univ. of St. Gallen/St. Gallen, Switzerland	13	12	15	41	12/55,538	B	M	M
Durham Business School/Durham, England	14	14	13	46	12/30,537	T	M	B
Univ. of Oxford (Said)/Oxford, England	15	16	14	233	12/49,356	M	B	M

chriszou

thanks for sharing

myice

No Foot in the Door

One-year M.B.A. programs are fast, but they leave no time for internships. Schools are trying to fill in that gap.

• By DIANA MIDDLETON

Most students and alumni say the advantage of a fast-track M.B.A. program is its speed just 10 to 15 months away from the work force to earn a degree.

But that acceleration leaves one big hole in the M.B.A. experience: Most students study through the summer, leaving no time for an internship of the sort that often leads to a job offer for typical two-year program attendees which can be especially important in this tough economic environment.

In response, some schools are going out of their way to create internships or apprentice-like experiences for students, including folding real-world consulting into their curriculums in an effort to make their students more marketable.

Students in the accelerated M.B.A. program at Cornell University's Johnson School of Business, for example, take a four-credit course that matches them to companies in their chosen careers. Students spend two weeks on-site during their winter break to work on projects at companies like Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Fidelity Investments. Before they make the trip, the intern-students have weekly remote meetings with company managers. In early September, the pairs meet to get acquainted and lay the groundwork for the projects, says Randy Allen, an associate dean at the school.

Stories to Tell

"By the time students are on-site for two weeks, the companies will know them pretty well and all the job positions won't be filled" by applicants from two-year programs, Ms. Allen says. The course is critical, she adds, because it gives students "stories" to tell in job interviews and strengthens their networks.

Jon Parrish, a 2007 graduate of the program and formerly a chemist at a pharmaceutical firm, is now a health-care consultant. In his corporate match course, Mr. Parrish researched marketing for a diabetes drug at a pharmaceutical company, culminating in a final presentation of his work in front of the company's management team. He says the experience helped him land his current job. "It helped me organize my thoughts when I talked about bringing a drug to market or how science meshes with business," he says.

 

The internship projects have also gone a long way to enhance students' stature in the eyes of companies that might hire them.

Chip Saltsman, a vice president at consulting firm Capgemini, says the quality of accelerated M.B.A. students has improved dramatically in recent years so much, in fact, that he has hired a few from Cornell's accelerated program. Last year, Mr. Saltsman assigned three Cornell interns to figure out whether one of Capgemini's consulting programs had provided any long-term value to the careers of its participants. Mr. Saltsman was pleased enough with the interns' work that he folded the findings into the firm's marketing materials.

At IE Business School in Madrid, students who enter the program in November (versus an April entry) will have time for a short summer internship. The school added the option to its schedule in 2007 after an increasing number of students expressed interest in changing careers or functions within their industry. Students receive course credit for their work and make inroads into new career paths, school administrators say.

At the Farmer School of Business at Miami University in Ohio, internships were built into the program in 2006. Students work unpaid one day a week with local companies, including General Electric Co. and Procter & Gamble Co. Interns did such things as a supply-chain project for Dell Inc. and a plan for how a Chinese fashion company could enter the Italian market. Separately, the students travel abroad for five weeks to countries in Western Europe or Asia to tackle a company's problem and present their results.

A Leg Up

Students who have participated say the work was meaningful and gave them a leg up later in the job search.

Jonathan Baker was working as an information-technology administrator for a newspaper before joining Miami University's 14-month accelerated M.B.A. program. First, he worked at Procter & Gamble to develop Internet search tools to connect the company with small businesses that produce technology for consumers. Later, Mr. Baker also traveled to China to work on a supply-chain management plan for a German faucet company's Shanghai office. The experiences "gave me something to talk about during job interviews, and projects to put on my résumé," says Mr. Baker, now an IT project administrator for a consulting firm.

At Ashridge Business School in Hertfordshire, the United Kingdom, students typically fold a mandatory consulting project into their course work. All students spend 10 to 12 weeks of the 12-month program working as consultants at local companies for about 40 hours a week. Narendra Laljani, director of graduate programs for Ashridge, says students are also paid for their work an average of $14,000 in 2008, excluding those students who did pro bono work. The school taps its executive- education students to scope out projects within their organizations and also uses a direct-marketing campaign to target companies for consulting projects.

Some students create their own internships with support from their schools. St. Louis University, for example, helps students get internships with nonprofits. The school also makes it easy to pursue the outside work: In the fall, students take elective courses at night, freeing up three days a week to work.

Pros and Cons

Although students and alumni says these efforts at internship experience are valuable to building their skills and to their job searches, some school administrators argue that it's not important because many students go back to their former fields. And more than 30% of alumni surveyed by The Wall Street Journal said they did not need an internship to help them change careers.

"This degree is designed for career advancement, not a career change," says Beth Flye, assistant dean and director of admissions and financial aid at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

But even some students who say the appeal of the program is the ability to go straight through without the summer tryout wonder if they'd have been better off with one. Christy LaVanway chose the Kellogg one-year M.B.A. specifically because it didn't have an internship. A former brand marketer for Unilever USA, she had spent more than three years in the field and wanted to sharpen her skills to snag a more senior position in branding. "I just figured [an internship] was a waste of time at that point," she says.

Looking back, Ms. LaVanway, who now runs a personal-branding consulting firm, feels differently. "I think I would feel more settled if I had taken the time to look around and explore other opportunities," she says. "I wouldn't have all the 'what if's' floating around."

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2009-9-24 11:24

myice

Hidden Gems

These schools missed the Journal's ranking of accelerated M.B.A. programs, but they get high marks from students and alumni

• By JANE PORTER

A handful of accelerated M.B.A. programs that didn't make The Wall Street Journal's final ranking were a hit with their students or alumni anyway.

Despite having too few responses in one survey or another to qualify, these programs put a distinctive stamp on the M.B.A. experience, from yearlong consulting projects to international travel opportunities and social entrepreneurship. Here's a sampling.

ASHRIDGE BUSINESS SCHOOL

LOCATION: Ashridge, U.K.
PROGRAM LENGTH: 11 months
STUDENTS: 30

 

Students at Ashridge hail from around the globe its 30 or so students typically come from 14 countries but the small class size makes for an intimate learning experience. Students progress through courses together, developing close-knit relationships over the program's 11 months. By the end of her time at Ashridge, Enid Beall, one of two U.S. students who graduated in May, worked on projects with classmates from the U.K., India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Italy, Germany, Russia, Israel, China, and Singapore. Students at Ashridge tend to be older than those in most accelerated programs, so they bring more real-world experience to the classroom.

EM LYON BUSINESS SCHOOL

LOCATION: Lyon, France
PROGRAM LENGTH: 12 months
STUDENTS: 30

While some programs offer brief consulting projects that give students a taste of real-world corporate work, EM Lyon's Entrepreneurial Leadership Project runs the length of the program and gives students the opportunity to apply what they learn in the classroom to a start-up or established business.

"You can read books about how to make a business plan, but we really had to go through the whole process," says Olivier Lise, who graduated from EM Lyon last September.

That entrepreneurial bent also carries over to the school's course offerings and case studies, including a core entrepreneurship course required of all students in their second semester.

MANNHEIM BUSINESS SCHOOL

LOCATION: Mannheim, Germany
PROGRAM LENGTH: 12 months
STUDENTS: 50

 

The only German business school considered in the survey, Mannheim is located 40 minutes from the country's financial hub of Frankfurt. The school weaves international travel, consulting and social entrepreneurship into its 12-month curriculum. Students choose one of four regional tracks German, Eurasian, Transatlantic or European and are given the opportunity to spend time in as many as three countries during their studies. Mannheim students also must complete a social project of their choosing. In the past, student groups have created art classes for a children's hospital and Internet classes for senior citizens.

PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY GRAZIADIO SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT

LOCATION: Malibu, Calif.
PROGRAM LENGTH: 15 months
STUDENTS: 19

At this coastal school, it's all about the personal touch. Students at Pepperdine praise faculty for their accessibility outside the classroom, which they say translates into meaningful relationships with professors. Joshua Platt, who graduates in December, says he often meets with faculty after class, even catching a few waves with his decision-analysis professor after an afternoon meeting. "It's more than a student-teacher relationship," says Mr. Platt. "There's really the possibility to jump into the minds of some of these professors."

 

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

LOCATION: Coral Gables, Florida
PROGRAM LENGTH: 11 months
STUDENTS: 14

The summer internship is the most common sacrifice students make when choosing an accelerated M.B.A. But at Miami's program, students get the full summer off to allow for that real-world experience. That means heavy workloads and compressed schedules the rest of the time. Courses are short each only seven weeks long and students pack in 19 classes during the program. Miami's accelerated program also allows students to take classes alongside two-year M.B.A.s, giving them broader choice in elective courses and greater networking opportunities.

--Ms. Porter is a writer in New York.

myice

Race Car Driver Turns to a Fast-Track M.B.A.

By JANE PORTER

Steven Goldstein has always been fast on the racetrack, winning the Formula 2,000 Championships in 2004, but it was not until he graduated from the accelerated M.B.A. program at SDA Bocconi in Milan last December that the race car driver's brand really took off.

"There are many elements you need to be a succesful driver," says Mr. Goldstein. "Driving quickly is one of them, but there is a whole busines aspect and that's where I needed to learn more."

At Bocconi, he says his class on return on shareholder value taught him how to maximize his resources. Mr. Goldstein has since begun working with three sports and entertainment management agencies in Colombia, Europe, and the U.S. A class on digital marketing opened his eyes to brand visibiity and led him and his manager to set up a Facebook fan page, a wikipedia entry and a blog. "When people are lecturing, in my head [I'm] thinking, 'How am I going to apply this to my own field?'" says Mr. Goldstein. "I had a whole year and four months of how do I apply this to me?"

Before pursuing the M.B.A., the now 28-year-old driver was on the Official Audi Sport Italia Team and had a sponsorship with Café de Colombia. In January, a month after graduating, Mr. Goldstein signed a contract with Ferrari and has since widened his portfolio to include four sponsors and endorsements with three companies and three non-profit organizations from Café de Colombia to Italian tire company Pirelli, to Nokia, to the Barcelona-based non-profit Arts Relief.

 

"There was a path I wasn't sure how to cross to speak with all those potential clients," he says. Learning about the importance of working with outside agencies gave him instant exposure to these many clients, he adds.

What's more, instead of putting his race winnings in the bank as he had for the previous five years of his racing career, this year Mr. Goldstein invested in the Ferrari race team, with a 120% return on investment so far. "The Bocconi M.B.A. is quite heavy on the financial part," says Mr. Goldstein. "The first thing that made a big difference for me was to understand the math."

Growing up in Colombia, Mr. Goldstein earned his undergraduate degree at American University in Washington, D.C.where he majored in marketing. He began racing in 2002 and three years later, realized he needed an MBA if he wanted to build his brand.

"By [looking at] different angles, you understand there is an equation for a company to sponsor you," he says. Instead of just approaching potential sponsors with his list of racing awards, he now comes to them with a business plan--counting the hours of TV coverage in Europe and how much it would cost to advertise in such channels, for example, to show potential clients that an investment in his brand would be a wise move. "I sell myself as a business instead of just an athlete," he says.

Write to Jane Porter at jane

myice

Help Wanted

For students in accelerated programs, less time in school often can mean more time needed to find a job. They blame the schools.

By ALINA DIZIK

Even as accelerated business-school programs claim to have the same benefits as their two-year counterparts, many students in the shorter programs say they have a tougher time finding jobs. The reason: less access to career services.

Most respondents in The Wall Street Journal's survey of accelerated M.B.A. students gave mediocre scores to their schools' career-services efforts. Only the programs offered at IMD, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management scored well in this area.

Common complaints about career services in one-year programs included insufficient recruiting and placement services and too few chances for students and alumni to connect. Most two-year programs, in contrast, offer a full roster of placement opportunities, company visits, job fairs and career workshops, plus frequent access to alumni.

Part of the problem may be that the one-year programs have started attracting a new type of student. In the past, fast-track M.B.A. candidates were mostly looking to quickly ramp up their skills and return to their careers. They needed help with things like résumé writing and interviewing skills, but not so much with job placement. In the past few years, however, accelerated programs have attracted a growing number of students who are interested in changing careers. In those instances, and particularly in this job market, more help is often needed.

It's About Jobs

"They help you market yourself and build a story, but [they] don't really help you find a job," says Murtaza Kapadia, 33, who graduated from Copenhagen Business School last month. Mr. Kapadia has a master's in chemical engineering and is searching for a management role in the pharmaceutical industry, but he says the school expects students to rely on their own former networks rather than connecting them with hiring managers.

 

In two-year programs, by contrast, where students making significant career changes have long been the norm, career-services offices typically offer a strong, two-step process of internship-placement services during the first year, and recruiting and career fairs during the second year.

School administrators point out that one-year students often have less time for the handholding that their two-year counterparts receive. "We cannot do the legwork for [them]," says Derek Walker, director of careers at Oxford University's Sa?d Business School in England. Indeed, administrators at accelerated programs say they don't typically orchestrate help, like arranging trips to career fairs, because students can't take time out from the compressed class schedule.

At George Washington University in Washington, D.C., two-year M.B.A. students begin their first year by interviewing for internships, says Gil Yancey, executive director of the business school's career center. But students in the one-year plan aren't part of the internship process. The school does give them opportunities to schedule employer visits and company information sessions. Mr. Yancey urges one-year students to make exploring career opportunities a priority. "You have to treat career management as an additional course," he says.

At some schools, including Kellogg and Emory University's Goizueta Business School, accelerated students start during the summer with a heavy class load, and are then integrated into classes with students who are in the second year of the two-year program. For the rest of the year, they participate in on-campus corporate presentations, networking opportunities and recruiting sessions.

'Very Challenging'

Still, the process is difficult for career changers, says Wendy Tsung, executive director of M.B.A. career services at Atlanta-based Emory, where 50% of one-year students are career switchers. "To be honest, being in the one-year program makes it very challenging," she says, adding that the lack of summer internships and the short timeline make it tough for students to stand out to employers.

Babson College's F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business asks incoming one-year students to submit résumés and cover letters in advance so that they can be refined in time for the September recruiting season. "Before they arrived, we had done a pass-through of their résumé and cover letter, so that we were prepared to [help] students figure out their first step," says Tracee Petrillo, director of Babson's M.B.A. Center for Career Development.

But compared with the help that two-year students typically receive, most accelerated M.B.A. students everywhere have to fend for themselves in an extremely tough job market.

Michael Fenton, a May graduate of the University of Florida Hough Graduate School of Business in Gainesville, expected to learn about job openings from career services but quickly realized that the school's on-campus recruiting and other connections for jobs for its accelerated class may not be enough to get him hired. So last September, he gathered about 80 of his 140 classmates and organized a visit to the National Black M.B.A. Association career fair in Washington D.C. "I didn't go to business school to get a 4.0 [grade point average]," says Mr. Fenton, 25, who previously owned a business exporting sport-utility vehicles. "I [went] to make sure I had a good job."

Mr. Fenton is now a financial controller at Exxon Mobil Corp. in Washington, a job he got because he forged relationships with Florida's career-office administrators while organizing the trip. But he says that many of his classmates didn't make similar connections. In contrast, many two-year programs have trips for students—arranged and often paid for by the school—to career fairs.

If students in the one-year program want to go to career fairs, "we encourage it, but it's up to them to find their own way there," says Craig Petrus, director of Florida's career services, adding that the school does host an annual career fair. Florida received among the lowest student scores for career services in the survey.

A Year in Europe

In Europe, where most M.B.A. programs focus solely on one-year degrees, including Copenhagen and Lancaster University Management School, the schools say they simply don't have the resources for on-campus recruiting. Students "read a lot about what career services do in America; we don't have those [same offerings] here," says Cana Witt, M.B.A. career development manager for alumni and students at Lancaster, in Lancaster, England.

Manish Agarwal, 33, a 2007 INSEAD grad who lives in London and recently lost his consulting job, wants more face-to-face networking opportunities for the several thousand London-based INSEAD alums. But he says that INSEAD, which has campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore and has about 39,000 alumni who hail from more than 160 countries, "hasn't really leveraged the alumni network as well as they could." It's not easy to access INSEAD alumni in industries in fields outside of banking, he says.

INSEAD officials say that the alumni association in the U.K. is very active and that many alumni there work in sectors other than banking.

INSEAD last year began inviting students to a career-assessment session four months before classes started, so career switchers can focus on goals, says Sandra Schwarzer, director of career services. It also gives students time to utilize career services and participate in workshops on interviewing, recruiting and résumé building, says Ms. Schwarzer.

INSEAD has also extended internship-like opportunities to recent graduates, who can take on consulting projects at nonprofits for a small stipend. "This gives them time while they continue to job search," says Ms. Schwarzer, as well as experience in a tough recruiting season.

At IMD, students must take a full-day assessment during the application process and devise a career plan—which is sometimes an indication of a student's motivation to change careers, says Katty Ooms Suter, IMD's director of marketing, admissions and career services. "If someone says, 'I think I want to go into the movie industry but I'm not sure,' I say go to school in L.A., because in nine months I can't help," says Ms. Ooms Suter.

--Ms. Dizik is a writer in New York.

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The ranked schools also prepared graduates to land higher-paying jobs and excel in a global business environment, according to students and alumni. And most survey respondents say recruiters and managers view their fast-track degree in the same light as a two-year degree.

There was one big divide among the schools: Students and alumni thought programs outside the U.S. offered a much stronger international exposure. Eighty-six percent of students at non-U.S. programs identified their program's international focus as critical to their choice. Only 36% of those at U.S. schools said the same.

Why the divide? Non-U.S. programs often take great care to choose students from a host of countries and industry backgrounds. In addition, students at many European schools are often required to learn another language, and some schools require that students be bilingual before setting foot on campus.

 

Albany, N.Y., native Ian Rogan, a December 2008 graduate of Switzerland's IMD, says the school was his only choice for an M.B.A. program. For Mr. Rogan, who had been working as an assistant director of the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics at Boston College, studying abroad was the best way to test his leadership style.

"In my study group, there was never any one nationality represented twice," says Mr. Rogan. "We were put under pressure to deliver solutions, and when you have different personalities at play, you have to navigate the cultural differences and find a way to come to a consensus." Mr. Rogan returned to Boston College, but in what he calls a "significantly heightened role," as a director of operations and finance at the school's Center for Corporate Citizenship.

There are other distinctions between U.S. schools and their European counterparts. For one, few U.S. schools offer the shorter M.B.A. option. Those that do still focus the bulk of their attention like career services and recruitment on their two-year offerings. Non-U.S. schools tend to have larger graduating classes and older students an average of 30 years old vs. 28 at U.S. schools. Programs outside the U.S. are slightly shorter as well with most averaging just under 12 months.

Still, U.S. programs have their own strengths. Partway through the one-year programs, some accelerated M.B.A. students at Kellogg and Cornell, for example, start taking classes with two-year MBA students, offering an influx of new study partners and work experiences to incorporate in their personal networks. And U.S. schools tend to have more women 35% vs. 23%.

American schools also tend to excel in softer skills, like teamwork, building relationships and managing across functions. According to alumni, Kellogg outperformed all other schools in negotiation training, for example. (The one European school that stood out in this area was IMD, which focuses heavily on leadership training.)

What's Not to Like?

Of course, these programs aren't for everyone. If you're expecting hand-holding or significant help changing careers, an accelerated M.B.A. might not be for you.

Many students complained that their career-service departments didn't do enough to help them build contacts or make inroads to a new career. In addition, there's sometimes not enough time to squeeze in an internship or consulting projects which means no chance to build contacts at a new company. And some students said the alumni networks weren't well developed, unlike the strong networks at two-year programs.

Still, for people looking for a boost in their current career or a way to wrangle the skills they have into a new industry the fast-track M.B.A. can produce a boost in title and salary. On average, alumni survey respondents reported pre-M.B.A. base pay of $55,050. At their first job after graduation, that figure increased to $95,000. And two years later, the same alumni earn just over $110,000.

Economic Buffer

What's more, many alumni said they felt the degree protected their careers in the economic downturn. "I have friends who've been laid off who were at the same level as me [prior to graduation]," says Justin Rose, who graduated from Kellogg's one-year program in June. "When they interviewed for [new] jobs, they were told the firms would only hire M.B.A.s."

Mr. Rose says the degree also helped him land a promotion: Before the program, Mr. Rose was a project leader at Boston Consulting Group; now he is a principal with the firm. Overall, alumni of the top 15 programs largely gave their schools high marks for making a lasting impact on their careers. "I can lead and participate in conversations around any functional area of business and feel well prepared to make decisions quickly," wrote one Babson graduate.

IE Business School in Madrid tops the Journal’s ranking of accelerated M.B.A. programs.

 

All of this comes with a heavy commitment to studies. While IMD is famous for its six-day, 100-hour weeks, most of the programs in our ranking also have rigorous course work. Nearly two-thirds of the students surveyed said they spent more than 15 hours each week on schoolwork outside the classroom.

Some students said they wish they had more time to absorb case studies. Others said that the fast-paced curriculum was exhausting, leaving little time for extracurricular activities, like clubs or business-plan competitions.

It's all true, administrators say. "These students want to be taught, and then they want to move on," says Sean Rickard, director of Cranfield's M.B.A. program, adding that students have no time to do anything but study. "They never stop. It's five days of intensive lecturing and projects, week after week except for Christmas. They begin to realize they can handle any problem you throw at them."

myice

The Top M.B.A. Programs if You're in a Hurry

With more students strapped for cash and time, accelerated business programs are growing in popularity. A WSJ survey identifies the best.

• By DIANA MIDDLETON
     

In these tough times, lots of workers are stuck in a bind: They need an M.B.A. to boost their career, but they can't afford the cost or the time out of the work force.

The solution? Many are turning to programs that let them earn a degree in half the time, often at a fraction of the cost.

Consider Marco André. He knew if he wanted to achieve his dream of managing companies and working in different countries, he'd need to get an M.B.A. But taking two years away from his career for a traditional program was too big a sacrifice. So, Mr. André, a product-management director for a technology company in Portugal, opted for ESADE's one-year program in Barcelona.

His M.B.A. brought him the change he wanted: After graduating last April, he landed a job as a market-planning manager for Procter & Gamble Co. in Madrid. "At a certain point, the extra length just doesn't add value," says Mr. André. "You can learn everything perfectly well in a shorter time span. Nowadays, the opportunity cost of two years is just too high."

Accelerated M.B.A. programs, which take between 10 and 15 months to complete, have been around for decades and are the norm in Europe. Although these programs are much less common in the U.S., they're growing increasingly attractive especially among older students, who are becoming less willing to spend two years out of the work force.

More and more students are opting to attend one-year MBA programs, rather than the typical two-year program. While these can be more stressful, student Alli Johnson finds they offer rewards. Diana Middleton reports.

These programs have rarely been evaluated by outsiders, in part because they're still less ubiquitous than their two-year counterparts. About 90 accredited schools world-wide offer the accelerated M.B.A., and many of them only recently added the option.

But the degree's growing popularity and reach led The Wall Street Journal to take its first close look at accelerated M.B.A. programs. To measure these programs' quality, and student and alumni satisfaction with them, the Journal, with the help of research firm Management Research Group and survey technicians Critical Insights, surveyed the current graduating classes and alumni who graduated two years earlier at 48 schools. We looked only at schools that have graduated four or more classes with 12 or more students. We eliminated schools where students had little or no work experience. Responses came in from 1,361 recent grads and 735 alumni. We asked students about everything from the programs' flexibility to career services. And we pressed alumni on issues like the usefulness of the training in their careers and whether their degree protected them in the recession.

European Edge

The result is the Journal's first-ever ranking of accelerated M.B.A. programs. The ranking comprises nine European schools, five in the U.S. and one in Latin America. Some smaller, lesser-known schools along with bigger schools that haven't been offering a fast-track degree long enough might be noticeably absent for now. But as the degree gains ground, more entrants are sure to be evaluated.

At the top of the list are three European schools with a strong tradition of delivering respected degree programs.

At No. 1: IE Business School in Madrid, praised by students and alumni for the diversity of its student body and networking opportunities. From Switzerland, IMD's rigorous leadership-oriented 11-month program came in

at No. 2. The U.K.'s Cranfield School of Management, with its teamwork-focused atmosphere, is

No. 3. Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and Babson College's F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business both in the U.S. round out the top five.

Frank Brown, the dean of INSEAD, a business school with campuses in France and Singapore, discusses the advantages of taking an accelerated MBA program. He also tells WSJ's Diana Middleton what he believes are the benefits of attending an international school.

These schools stood out by delivering a strong curriculum and cramming in a healthy dose of international exposure. The best schools also cultivate relationships with local and global companies, giving students the chance to work on real-world projects.

At IE, students and alumni say the program's intensity lent itself to constant engagement in their course work, as well as close bonds with their classmates. They say they benefited from IE's additional programs, such as the Venture Lab, a competition that awards student entrepreneurs capital to launch a business. At IMD, the course work had the rhythm of a real job, students said real, that is, if 100-hour workweeks are the norm.

Spanning the Globe

The driving factor for pursuing a fast-track M.B.A. among those surveyed was the ability to re-enter the work force faster more than 82% of students put that at the top of their list. When it came to choosing a school, students and alumni cited reputation (92% said it was critical and 43% called it the most important consideration) and an international focus (74% said it was critical and 15% said it was at the top of their list) as the biggest criteria.

Indeed, almost all the schools offer plenty of chances to stretch internationally. At IMD, students recently traveled to South Africa for 12 days to meet with 20 companies to help get new ventures off the ground. Eighty percent of INSEAD's students spend time at the school's two campuses one in Fontainebleau, France, the other in Singapore. Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, requires its students to spend two weeks abroad doing mini-internships. Other schools, like IE, offer international seminars and exchange programs from Latin America to China.

Northwestern’s Kellogg School is the highest-rated U.S. program