MBA draws big demand from overseas students
The appetite for taking an MBA in London remains strong, despite Brexit
International students make up 91% of London Business School’s (LBS) 2019 MBA class intake, showing a strong appetite for higher education in post-Brexit Britain.
The latest MBA cohort has 432 students representing 62 nationalities and with an average age of 29. Women account for 39% of the intake, some of whom feature in Poets & Quants’ Meet London Business School’s Class of 2019.
Sir Andrew Likierman, Professor of Management Practice in Accounting at LBS, said that the short-term effects of Brexit had largely been positive for the School.
“Students coming here have seen increased purchasing power (due to the fall in the pound), while LBS has succeeded in hiring excellent faculty for the 2017–18 school year,” he said in a video on the Brexit effect.
He added that 94% of the 2016 full-time MBA class had accepted jobs within three months of graduation.
Sherry Stolar joined the 2019 MBA class to draw on her classmates’ life and career experiences. “I’ve lived in London twice before and there’s no other place in the world with such diversity,” she said. “LBS’s class reflects that, with students from 70 countries and from diverse backgrounds.
“It’s important that I feel part of a community of people from different industries and countries and with varying experiences. I want to build a diverse global network and have a truly international business school experience, which LBS offers in the truest sense.”
Stolar’s compatriot Amanda Morgan was also drawn to LBS’s international community. “I chose the LBS MBA because it provided opportunities that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Key to this was the international nature of the LBS student body and faculty, which were more diverse than the other business schools I’d considered.
“Diversity is important because a large part of what you learn on an MBA is from your peers. Students and faculty at LBS offer a vast range of perspectives from which I can learn and later apply in a consciously global context.”
