The secret sauce for business schools seeking a better EMBA ranking

Have business schools dropped the ball on what the EMBA was designed to do? For years schools having been worrying about a decline in numbers and an even sharper decline in alumnus engagement. They have tweaked their programs, adding more functional and specialist elements which are often cut-and-pastes directly from their full time programs. In some cases they have welcomed those with less experience into their EMBA classrooms. The Financial Times rankings for EMBA programs, released this week, showed how this approach might be doing more harm than good.

Let’s first take a step back. The 2024 rankings hold some additional points of interest. Once again the top of the list was dominated by programs held jointly by two or more schools. Asia also continues to flex its muscles in the EMBA space: Chinese schools make up four of the top 10, either as joint programs or, in the case of this year’s top ranked school, CEIBS, as a single-school program. But a deep dive into the data behind the rankings is where the most interest is, both for schools desperate to climb higher, and for prospective students wondering what they’ll get if they sign up to do a program.

It's the salary, stupid

For schools the data points to something that has long been known: the programs with the wealthiest alumni do best in the FT rankings. Indeed, with a correlation of 0.72 between ranking position and current alumni salaries the earning power of graduates is the only strong correlation this year between FT ranking criteria and a school’s ultimate ranking. Hardly news, given that, at 15%, this data point dominates the overall methodology. What is interesting, though, is that, despite making up 16% of the ranking methodology, salary uplift only features in 5th place out of 18 criteria. Sandwiched between it and salary today in 1st place is aims achieved, career progress rank, and ESG rank. These are the areas which correlate most to higher rankings this year and are areas where schools can really shift the needle.

E for Experience

Why doesn’t salary uplift correlate better with a school’s ranking? Partly it’s because those with a bigger increase in salary are those who had lower salaries to begin with. This category is overwhelmingly represented by younger candidates; there is a negative correlation (-0.16) between salary uplift and a program’s experience rank. And, whilst their salaries might have increased more than others, they are still often lower than the more experienced alumni three years after graduation when the data is collected. For schools who want to boost diversity, though, this is also where the female students are. The female student percentage is the fifth biggest indicator of a program’s salary uplift out of the 18 metrics. Conversely, the experience rank has a decent correlation with salary today, and, at 0.32, is in 6th place on that list.

The network is where the jobs are

So what other areas correlate with a high salary today? Top of the list is a high salary uplift. This makes sense. In second place? The school’s alumni network rank, a new metric designed by the FT to measure the effectiveness of a school’s alumnus network. Also of biggest impact here is, interestingly, how highly the FT ranks the school’s research, and how international its board is. At 0.45 and 0.38, though, the correlations for these last two are moderate and weak – as are most of the correlations throughout. Schools, then, need to focus on a combination of several rankings criteria rather than just picking a few and hoping for the best.

But what about the metrics in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places in correlation with ranking position?

If you want to achieve your aims, you’ll want a strong network of experienced professionals

The 2nd highest rankings correlator, aims achieved, itself correlates most with career progress ranking – an interesting validation for Programme Directors who see more value in career accelerators rather than career shifters in the classroom. It also has a moderate correlation with overall satisfaction, showing a connection with a return on investment and the overall value an alumnus sees in the program they completed. What is interesting is that the alumni network rank and the work experience rank feature in 3rd and 4th places, and, whilst weak correlations, they feature ahead of other criteria like salary uplift and salary today.

Academic elements impact career progression

As for career progress, aside from the correlation with aims achieved, it also correlates moderately well with a school’s ESG rank, the percentage of international faculty, and the school’s FT research rank. This is interesting – and likely heartening to faculty – given that for career progression three key academic criteria appear before those which focus on students and alumni.

The more international schools tend to be more focused on ESG

There is a strong international theme to the ESG ranking. A higher ESG ranking has a moderate correlation with both the percentage of international board members (0.46), and the percentage of international students (0.41). Also moderately correlated are the percentage of faculty with doctorates and the career progression ranking.

Do EMBA programs have a woman problem?

So what about the bottom of the table? Worryingly, the elements which contribute least to a school’s strong ranking are the female categories, with the percentage of female board members at the school, the percentage of female students, and the percentage of female faculty taking the last three places. Should a program focus less on recruiting women, both in the classroom and in the faculty halls? The short answer is no.

There are probably prejudices at play here, both individual and institutional. The schools with more female faculty do worse on aims achieved and overall program satisfaction (negative correlations of -0.27 and -0.19 respectively) but this isn’t news. With classes often two-thirds full of men, female faculty have long dealt with lower satisfaction ratings than their male colleagues. That there is also a negative correlation between the female student percentage and salaries today is also hardly surprising. The lack of gender parity on salaries will ultimately harm the average salaries for those programs with more women. Business schools act as leaders in change in these areas and they absolutely should. There is evidence of some good results; the percentage of women in an EMBA class is the fifth best indicator of salary uplift, showing that companies value what women bring to their organisations after graduation. Perhaps, though, EMBA programs should focus more on change within the classroom to improve the level of satisfaction in those programs which are more inclusive of women.

The secret sauce

It is relatively clear that, in order to rank highly, an EMBA program should aim to produce wealthy alumni. At 0.72, there is a strong correlation between the two. How does a school produce wealthy alumni? It’s a little more complicated, but with a correlation of 0.48, a good alumnus network rank is probably a very good place to start. Which begs the question: how does a school get a good alumnus network ranking? At 0.79 the correlation between overall program satisfaction and a good alumnus network rank is the strongest to feature between criteria in this year’s FT EMBA ranking. It’s a bit chicken-and-egg, but it seems that if you want to build good, engaged networks, you probably want to build satisfied classes.

The top 5 correlators for that are aims achieved, salary today, salary uplift, ESG rank, and career progression. In other words, if you want to keep your alumni connected to your school, make sure you help them get to where they want to be, help them make more money, and focus on areas that will achieve this – and that means the areas that employers see as most valuable in EMBA alumni. From this year’s survey this seems to be ESG more than any other area.

This is all also probably top of the page on most EMBAs’ wish lists as they go into their programs. Unpublished data from the FT survey indicates that development, networking and salaries are the biggest motivators behind doing the program.

If a school wants to focus on a handful of areas, these are probably a good place to start. Oh, and work more on inclusion, especially of women. There is clearly still a long way to go.