Newswise — In its first year of eligibility, the UCI Paul Merage School of Business Full-Time MBA program was ranked by The Economist in a report released today. The Merage School placed 39th in the nation, 16th among public schools, and 56th in the world.  The school scored well in categories including 29th in Open New Career Opportunities; 17th in alumnus rating of career services; and 13th in salary increase.

“Our Full-Time MBA program prepares business leaders for successful careers managing the disruption of today’s digitally driven world. By leveraging everything they learn at the Merage School, they are realizing a high return on their investment, not just in terms of salary, but also management responsibilities and opportunity,” said Jon Kaplan, assistant dean, Full-Time MBA and Specialty Masters programs at the Merage School.

Just last month, Forbes released its Top American MBA Programs report ranking the Merage School’s Full-Time MBA program at 41st in the nation based on return-on-investment.  

“Our recent rankings reflect the success our graduates and the quality of the students we recruit, combined with the expertise and professionalism of our faculty and staff.  With a new curricula focus on the strategies for leadership in a digitally driven world, we expect to climb even higher in the future,” said Eric Spangenberg, dean of the Merage School. 

“I’m pleased to see how well our alumni ranked our Career Center services,” said Tom Kozicki, executive director of the Career Center at the Merage School.  “We strive to help our graduates successfully launch, grow and manage their careers and this ranking reflects the fact that our alumni recognize the value and are benefitting from our career services. It also reflects the ability of our alumni to effectively navigate their careers.” 

To see The Economist’s full ranking report, visit http://www.economist.com/whichmba.

About the Methodology

Each year The Economist surveys thousands of MBA students and asks them why they decided to enroll in a full-time MBA program. The weightings they use for their ranking are based on the importance students themselves place on different criteria.  Data were collected during spring 2017, using two surveys. The first was completed by schools with eligible programs and covers quantitative matters such as the salary of graduates, the average GMAT scores of students and the number of registered alumni. This accounts for around 80 percent of the ranking. The remaining 20 percent comes from a qualitative survey filled out by current MBA students and a school's most recent graduating MBA class. For more details about the methodology visit, http://www.economist.com/whichmba/methodology-2017.

About The Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine

The Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine offers four dynamic MBA programs – plus PhD, specialty masters and undergraduate business degrees – designed to prepare business students to lead in a digitally driven world. Through on-campus and online programs, students acquire the exceptional ability to grow their organizations through strategic innovation, analytical decision-making, digital information technology and collaborative execution. While the Merage School is relatively young, it has quickly grown to rank consistently among the top five percent of all business programs worldwide through exceptional student recruitment, world-class faculty, a strong alumni network and close relationships with both individual business executives and global corporations. Additional information is available at merage.uci.edu

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