The Wall Street Journal devoted a recent feature to the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), turning to Clear Admit co-founder Graham Richmond for his view on how well the Shanghai school has managed to raise its global profile.
CEIBS, which opened 18 years ago, stepped up its efforts last year to secure a spot among the top-tier business schools around the globe. It brought in John Quelch, a former administrator at Harvard Business School and a former dean at London Business School, to lead the charge. According to the WSJ report, Quelch has been trying to draw big-name faculty members from elite schools with large salaries and generous perks, believing that outstanding faculty will draw outstanding students, which in turn will attract recruiters and establish a successful alumni body.
Henry Moon, a professor of organizational behavior who relocated to CEIBS from LBS last year, told the WSJ that a 30 percent pay raise, tax breaks, a housing subsidy and funding for his four sons’ schooling helped convince him. Before Quelch called, “I had never even heard of CEIBS,” Moon told the WSJ.
Is Quelch’s investment in big-name faculty paying off? CEIBS has “entered the conversation” among applicants to top-tier schools, Clear Admit’s Richmond told the WSJ, but so far it’s mostly just talk.
CEIBS boasts that its students also apply to the best business schools in Europe and the United States, but the WSJ article suggests that though this may be true, they don’t necessarily gain acceptance, leaving CEIBS more of a fallback.
With its lower price tag ($56,000 for international students and 336,000 yuan, or about $54,000, for Chinese students for the 18-month MBA program) and potential to serve as a gateway to Chinese business opportunities, CEIBS could still make inroads among applicants to top MBA programs. But the WSJ article points out that it faces tough competition from an influx of Western business schools setting up shop in Asia. So whether CEIBS will do more than enter the conversation remains to be seen.
Read the complete WSJ article, “Shanghai Business School Vies with Top Programs.”
