Anyone who knows me knows I’m not typically a fan of university rankings. Most of them use metrics that have nothing to do with a student’s actual experience or success. Take the Shanghai Rankings, for instance—great if you’re looking for a Nobel laureate, but not so helpful if you want to know if your university can actually teach. Some rankings weigh the number of published research papers or retired laureates. Some even rank the university based upon how much money they have in their endowment! See, you can buy rankings. Unfortunately, most of these rankings forget about things like student satisfaction or job placement rates. But not this one! We’ve been ranked again based on what really counts.
The Basel School of Business just hit #6 on UniversityGuru’s list of top Swiss business schools. And here’s the twist: they’re not ranking us on the size of our bank account or how many papers we churn out each year. UniversityGuru’s criteria are actually relevant. They focus on what our students get out of their education—satisfaction rates, employability, and practical learning opportunities. This is exactly why we designed our Practical Experiential Learning™ (PEL) model to ensure students leave with more than a diploma—they leave ready to jump into meaningful careers.
So, while I still think lots of the ratings metrics are nonsense, this one I’ll take. It speaks to what we do every day to make sure our students have the skills, networks, and experiences they need to make a difference in the real world. Hats off to UniversityGuru for actually caring about student outcomes.