EMBA: The Most Likely Degree To Be Recommended By B-School Alumni

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Alumni of Executive MBA programs are the most likely graduate business school graduates to recommend their experience to others, according to a new study out today (Feb. 23). The report found that the net promoter score, a widely used metric of customer loyalty, for EMBA programs was +57, the highest for any graduate business program and a level that is 10 points higher than Apple.

The report, by the Graduate Management Admission Council, found that the NPS score for all advanced business degrees was +45, a dozen points below the EMBA approval rate, while the score for two-year, full-time MBA programs was +48, nine points lower than EMBA. Online MBA programs also did surprising well, gaining a net promoter score of +51 (see below table).

For the most expensive MBA degree and one that has faced increasingly competition from online and hybrid MBA programs, the willingness of alumni to recommend their EMBA experiences to peers is strong evidence of the value of Executive MBA programs.

“If business schools are brands, then their alumni are their most loyal customers,” according to the study. Using the Net Promoter® (NPS®) system for gauging customer loyalty, alumni across all graduate program types were asked the simple question: “How likely is it that you would recommend your graduate business school to a friend or colleague?” on a scale of 0 [Not likely at all] to 10 [Extremely likely]. Any score over zero is good; a score of +50 is excellent.

Outcomes Of Education By Program Type

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The GMAC study, which included the views of 1,604 EMBA graduates among the 14,279 respondents, largely tracked the opinions of alumni with advanced business degrees from 1990 to 2015. The report was called the GMAC 2016 Alumni Perspectives Survey.

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