The Adschool at Auckland's Media Design School has been named the fourth best advertising school of the decade by the YoungGuns Awards, which recognise the world's hottest creative talent under the age of thirty.

The Media Design School's fourth placing is based on the number of YoungGuns awards its students have won in the last decade. Other winners included prestigious institutions such as the New York School of Visual Arts and the Miami Ad School. The Media Design School beat out Australian counterparts RMIT and AWARD School, who came 5th and 6th respectively.

"When we first began in 1999, our goal was to make the Adschool the best creative advertising course in the Southern Hemisphere. We never really knew if we'd pulled it off until now, so thanks YoungGuns for quantifying its successes," said Founding Course Leader David Bell.

"Now Kate has transformed the course to embrace all the exciting new possibilities in advertising, the course can set its sights on the rest of the planet!"

Kate Humphries, the current Course Leader, said "The mix of discipline and chaos this course thrives on is always a difficult balance to get right, but it's worth it when we witness so many young minds surprising themselves. That's why this confirmation from YoungGuns is really special, because although we teach the talent, it's YoungGuns that give them recognition".

YoungGuns winners from the Adschool now work with leading local agencies such as Colenso and Special Group, and international agencies such as DDB Switzerland, Taxi in Toronto and The Hive in Dublin.

"YoungGuns is all about celebrating young creative talent and we've seen some incredible work from students since the awards were founded in 2000," said YoungGuns founder Kristian Barnes.

"As we recognise the best of the past decade, it's an exceptional achievement for Media Design School to place within the top 10 schools, especially when you consider the size of some of the other schools in the top 10.

"New Zealand has long been a leader in the international advertising community and we'll see great things for years to come from the students of today."

Formerly known as Axis AdSchool, the School's Diploma of Creative Advertising is a 40-week creative problem-solving course that covers all mediums from traditional print through to social media. The Adschool has strong ties to the ad industry, with students developing campaigns for clients and local advertising agencies to 'real world' standards.

The complete Top 10 Awarded Schools are: 1 Miami Ad School, Europe Germany 2 School of Visual Arts, New York, USA 3 Miami Ad School, Florida, USA 4 Media Design School, Auckland, New Zealand 5 RMIT University, Australia 6 AWARD School, Australia 7 Berghs School of Communication, Sweden 8 Miami Ad School, Minneapolis, USA 9 Miami Ad School, San Francisco, USA 10 Westerdals School of Communication, Norway