My research is that two schools are in a reasonable price range in Spain: IE in Madrid and EADA in Barcelona. IE is a better option because is much better ranked and is 15 month long, than EADA is climbing up fast the ranking because it is a good school too and offers a 10 months period. Both are accredited.
Then Barcelona has several other selfclaimed business schools, much cheaper, but not recommedable since they are not ranked neither accredited.

Thank you for your reply. Could you let me know what you mean by "accredited"? What requirements should business schools meet to be accredited?

Best wishes,

Hi Sarah,

Basically, MBA accreditation is exactly like the accreditation most degree courses require before they can be officially considered a proper qualification. So jsut as a BA, an MA, A PhD in any subject must be officially accredited (usually by an external examining body of some sort), and standards governed. This allows both students and employers to know the true value of the qualifications on offer, so it's very much to your short and long-term advantage to make sure the place you apply to is properly accredited.

There are many different governing bodies which offer accreditation to schools and programmes which they consider meet their standards; some operate nationally, some internationally, whilst others within more local boundaries. The AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), operates world-wide, whilst there are six accrediting bodies in the US. In Europe, the main ones are AMBA (Association of MBAs), EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System, which also covers some Asian schools), and FIBAA (Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation).

You can check out some of their official websites for further clarification of the standards institutions are required to meet before they are officially accredited. See, for example:

http://www.mbaworld.com/page/welcome/index.html

http://www.efmd.org/html/home.asp (look for the section on accreditation)

and

http://www.fibaa.de/engl/home.htm

Best,

lukeh

Dear Lukeh,

Many thanks for your very informative and helpful message.

Best regards

Sarah,

I would also point that it is very important to go to the accreditation agencies web pages to find out which schools/programs are accredited. Do not believe what schools tell you in their web sites. Some schools try to make you believe that they are accredited, but they are not. In particular, sometimes it is possible for a school to be a member of an accrediting agency but not be accredited. Some schools take advantage of this to claim that they are accredited, but being a member and being accredited are two different things --to be a member, the school just has to pay a fee, whereas to be accredited the school has to be successfully evaluated by an external panel.

Thanks very much indeed for your message my friend!