The Financial Times European MBA Ranking for 2012 has been released. IE Business School has taken the top spot, followed by HEC Paris and London Business School. The FT ranking is different from other rankings as it also provides MBA aspirants with the three Year Average ranks, which is an important metric to measure consistency. If you consider the three-year average rank, HEC Paris is ranked number one, followed by a tie between London Business School and Insead, with the third position taken by IE Business School.
Methodology: Financial Times European MBA ranking is based on evaluating four FT rankings: Full-time MBA, Executive MBA, Masters in Management and Non-Degree Executive Education Programs. Equal weightage is given to each of the four rankings.
Do keep in mind that if a Business School does not participate in any of the four rankings, the scores will be deducted accordingly. If you want to evaluate the Full-time MBA program, consider only the Full-time MBA ranking in Column-5. For the Full-time MBA programs, London Business School takes the top spot, followed by Insead and IE Business School.
To see the summary of the Financial Times top 20 MBA programs, see the table below. For details, visit the FT Rankings page.
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.