Wall Street Journal Ranks Executive MBA Programs

The Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA Program ranked #23 in a Wall Street Journal executive MBA ranking published on Sept. 30. The program ranked #12 in the same ranking last conducted in 2008.

The ranking is based on a poll of the most recent graduating class (class of 2010) and employers. A third measure focused on how well a program imparted management and leadership skills identified as crucial in the surveys of recent graduates and companies.

Berkeley-Columbia ranked #22 in the alumni poll (compared to #10 in 2008), #24 in the employer poll (compared to #7 in 2008), and #12 in management and leadership skills (compared to #16 in 2008). The program also ranked in the top third on program quality, faculty quality, classmate quality, and immediately applicable coursework.

To calculate the final ranking, the alumni, corporate, and skills scores were added up, with the alumni and corporate scores each given a weight of 40% of the final total and the skills score weighted at 20%. The ranking is conducted every two years.

For the company poll, employers with fewer than 75 employees and firms at which the E.M.B.A. student was a principal were eliminated. For the skills component, the alumni ratings of each of 20 leadership skills were weighted by the percentage of corporate respondents who identified that skill as most important for an E.M.B.A. program to teach. Strategic thinking, ability to work across multiple functional areas, driving results, managing change, and general leadership received the highest weights.

View the top 25 schools at http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/EMBA-Top-25-Ranking.html

Berkeley-Columbia alumnus Seth “Hoby” Darling, MBA 2008, was one of four alumni featured. Read about Darling’s decision to work at Volcom – a skate, snow, and surfboard apparel company – in the article “Bridging the Divide Between the Beach and Wall Street.”

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