NUCB International MBA Review
Bottom line up front: I recommend NUCB Business School. It’s not perfect, lots of complaints actually, but overall it’s a fun and worthwhile experience. Note: From now on when I reference NUCB, I specifically mean the Graduate School of Management’s international MBA program, not the larger NUCB university.
Key Things to Know
- The most important thing to know is almost every class has a perfect curve grading system. Basically you are ranked against your peers in class and the top 10% get an A, the next 20% get a B, all the way down to F. That means 30% of the class will always fail (D or F). This is, in my opinion, a fair assessment, if everyone gets an A, then an A means nothing, your grades should reflect your ability among your peers. However, there’s one key characteristic of NUCB where this falls apart: 70% of the grade composition is class participation and the classes are 4 days. So this becomes a hugely subjective matter, thereby making NUCB’s grading the most hated aspect by students and professors alike. This is most relevant for 1 year MBA students who need a 3.0 GPA, which means only 10% of 1 year MBA students complete the program in 1 year. You will not have an objective grade that reflects your understanding of the subject matter at NUCB.
- NUCB MBA classes run on the weekends and MiM classes during the week every other week. Classes are 4 days long, 8 hours a day. This gives you a huge amount of free days to work or explore Japan. And let’s be real here, who attends an MBA for the lecture? This is one of the most beloved features of NUCB and it’s best selling point.
- NUCB is full of exceptional students, including Japanese businessmen from the C-suites of top Japanese companies. Among the international students you will find a very wide range of intelligent and… lesser students. NUCB will not help you network, there is no job search and no student organizations. You will have very limited interactions with the Japanese MBA students and even among your peers created by the school. You must do the networking yourself, which is very possible, but don’t expect the opportunities to fall into your lap in this case.
Is NUCB a good school?
The financial times are largely considered the de facto ranking for MBA programs. No Japanese schools rank on the top 100 list they publish. It’s usually dominated by western schools, with small exceptions in India, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, and perhaps most notably Sasin in Thailand. NUCB has appeared twice in their Asia Pacific top 25 ranking, typically near or at the bottom. No other Japanese schools have appeared on the list, therefore NUCB is likely the top MBA in Japan. It’s a safe assumption that NUCB would rank in the top 200 MBAs globally if FT ranked that many. In Japan MBAs are not as common in the west and private universities are typically less prestigious than the public ones, so no one will know what you’re talking about when you say you’re attending NUCB. The quality of the executive MBA given in Japanese is much higher than the other programs. It’s actually the only reason NUCB was on the FT rankings at all, the top companies in Japan send their executives to NUCB.
Facilities
I have had the pleasure of attending 10 different universities now across the world, including Harvard and USC. The NUCB city campus has the nicest facilities of any of those schools. The city campus is a beautiful, clean, well furnished, and upscale building. It’s sparse with more space than students and even a bloomberg terminal that’s always open. Higashiyama dorm is a repurposed luxury ryokan with room service and breakfast for exchange students. Chiyoda dorm is in the heart of Nagoya next to Osu. Though Chiyoda is not as clean and new as the other buildings, its location more than makes up for its shortcomings. It’s next to Osu, a shopping district that is like a combined Shinjuku and Akihabara with less crowds. It’s also walkable from Sakae, where you’ll be spending many nights drinking past last train.
Case Method Learning
NUCB sticks strictly to the Harvard MBA style, they’ve even copied the Harvard lecture hall with nicer furniture. This means you will read case studies about a company, then debate in class about the direction they should take. There will be very few lectures, only class discussion. A lot of exchange students lack the English proficiency to properly contribute and English native students have a huge edge.
People
As I mentioned before NUCB has a… wide variety of students when it comes to performance. This is highly dependent on the cohort you enter with but in my experience meeting alumnus across years, the people will be the best part of NUCB.
Triple Crown Accreditation
This school is accredited by all three major business accreditations, which is why I was able to attend as an American. This is rare from an American point of view. In America, where MBAs are more common, the AACSB does not require work experience like the other two accreditation. So most schools do not get all three accreditation to circumvent this requirement, thereby opening them to a larger pool of students.
What about their MiM or MSBA programs?
I would recommend waiting to gain the requirements for entry into the MBA than applying for the MiM. MBA learning comes from your fellow students and you will learn more from the MBAs who are professionals in their fields. An MiM is seen as a baby MBA in the business world and might as well get the “full” thing if you’re going to do a master’s anyway.
In Defense of the NUCB style Case Method and Grading System
Many say they learn nothing from the case method and the grading system is unfair. I actually argue that there’s no way around it. Here are the options: You can make the classes a semester long, thereby giving professors adequate time to know everyone’s ability personally. You can make the class test based by giving a written case exam on paper at the end of the class to prevent cheating. Or you can get rid of curved participating grading and no-one will say anything in class.
Now I know you don’t want to take the same class every Monday for 14 weeks and spread your classes through the week, you’re in Japan. You don’t want to write a hand written essay to determine your grade right? You certainly wouldn’t speak up in class if you knew you could do nothing. And lastly, not even an option, you can’t make the grades homework based because all the assignments are AI assisted.
So if you want an accredited MBA that lets you spend time enjoying Japan the trade off is: you don’t get a fair grade, then you graduate anyways because the GPA requirements for two year students is like a 2.0, and no one will even care about your GPA afterwards anyway.