The UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB) full-time MBA programme has taken a major step up the Financial Times' Global Top 100 MBA Rankings.

The UCT GSB is ranked at 66 in the 2006 survey, up 16 places from its ranking of 82 in 2005, and remains the only South African MBA to be ranked in the prestigious Top 100.

The UCT GSB became the first South African business school to receive an international MBA programme ranking in 2005, and according to Professor Frank Horwitz, Director of the School, this year's leap up the rankings is another important benchmark for the UCT GSB.

"This year's ranking represents an international affirmation of the continued refinement and development of our MBA, as well as the experience that students have at the School. It's also an important indicator of our progress relative to our international counterparts and bodes well for the future," he said.

Horwitz said that the ranking gives students and employers, locally and around the globe, the assurance that an MBA from UCT measures up to the best in the world in terms of a rigorous, high quality academic programme. "Moving up such a high profile global ranking is also a strong drawcard, and will attract increasing international attention to the UCT GSB," he added.

The 2006 Rankings saw a change at the top with Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania pipping Harvard Business School, which shared the top spot with Wharton in the 2005 rankings. Stanford and Columbia Business School took third and fourth places respectively, with London Business School rounding out the top five.

The UCT GSB has some 25 international student exchange programmes which include MBA student exchanges with eight of the Top 30 business schools and three in the Top 10, namely Columbia, Chicago and London Business Schools.

The Financial Times' rankings uses a three tiered evaluation method with 20 categories in total. The first tier ranks alumni career progress after graduation, the second ranks the business schools themselves in terms of the diversity of their students, faculty and board members, while the third tier ranks the schools performance in research.

Source: Cape Business News