MBA Rankings for the best business schools

If you came here looking for a list of the best MBA programs, here’s our recently updated Global MBA rankings.

For many MBA applicants, the search for their top bschools starts with the MBA rankings list. We have our own business school rankings based on a popularity index.

However, there are several challenges.

1. There are too many of these MBA ranking lists floating around
2. The methodology of how bschools are ranked isn’t entirely clear
3. The definition of ‘best’ isn’t universal. Different MBA rankings show different heroes
4. Bschool ranks aren’t sancto sanct. They change frequently.

Despite these drawbacks, whenever there’s news of a new MBA rankings list being release, there’s a mad rush of applicants to check out which ones have won the battle for that year. Alumni (new graduates especially), driven by ego or curiosity (or both) also make a beeline to these sites to see if their alma mater is still on the pedestal it was one when they graduated.

Who has the best MBA Rankings?

We aren’t going to regurgitate the numerous existing bschool lists here. Instead we’ll list down the most influential and the most tracked MBA rankings list and give you a little bit of what actually drives these rankings. Understand how various leading publications approach the rankings game and then check out the actual list of the best bschools on the parent sites.
 

US News MBA rankings

One of the oldest bschool ranking lists, US News takes it the extra distance and also publishes speciality rankings. So apart from the general list of the best MBA programs, you also get the best finance MBA programs, the best entrepreneurship / marketing /logistics / information systems programs.
 

US News MBA Ranking methodology

Quality of the program (40%) [Peer assessment score (25%), recruiter assessment (15%)
Placement success (35%) [Average MBA salary (14%), employment rate on graduation (7%) & after 3 months (14%)
Student selectivity (25%) [Average GMAT (16.25%), Average undergrad GPA (7.5%), Acceptance rate (1.25%)]

Specialty rankings work very differently. If you thought the list that you so religiously followed was a result of painstaking scientific process, here’s how US News explains the speciality ranking methodology. The inputs entirely comes from subjective views of the deans of the MBA programs surveyed. They are asked to nominate 10 program in each specialty category and schools are ranked based on the votes. Life’s simple, naa?
 

Businessweek MBA rankings

Another old and well-respected MBA ranking. However this list has been perceived to be US-focussed as American programs get the limelight, whereas the rest of the international MBA programs play second-fiddle.
 

Businessweek MBA Ranking Methodology

Employer Survey (35%), Alumni Survey (30%), Student Survey (15%), Job Placement Rate (10%), and Starting Salary (10%).

The methodology uses measures to involve only the fair weights from recruiters – indexing recruiters that hire only a few MBAs, to begin with, so the numbers don’t play against a program. A B-school is ranked based on average ratings by employers and the number of ratings it has received. Alumni favouritism among recruits is also accounted for. Alumni Survey measures a bunch of career satisfaction aspects like salary growth, job satisfaction, etc.
 

Financial Times MBA rankings

The FT rankings bring a European flavour to the global business school ratings game. Compared to the earlier two (US News and Businessweek), Financial times makes the mix a little more international.
 

FT MBA Ranking Methodology

Weighted salary (20), Salary increase (20), Value for money (3), Career progress (3), Aims achieved (3), Placement success (2), Employed at three months (2), Alumni recommend (2), Women faculty (2), Women students (2), Women board (1), International faculty (4), International students (4), International board (2), International mobility (6), International experience (2), Languages (2), Faculty with doctorates (5), FT doctoral rank (5), FT research rank (10)

Financial Times also gives 50% to the current year data and 25% to the past 2 years’ data. This is an annual ranking, so the data influencing the ranking can be 2-3 years old.
 

Economist MBA Rankings

This one manages to ruffle a lot of feathers each year. That’s because it brings up names which the traditional management education fraternity might not overwhelmingly support. For instance, IESE finds a place above MIT Sloan.
 

Economist MBA Rankings Methodology

Career opportunities (35%), personal development/education quality (35%), Salary increase (20%), Networking potential (10%)
 

Poets & Quants MBA Rankings

This one’s interesting as John Byron (founder of P&Q), who pioneered MBA rankings at Businessweek, creates a ranking-of-rankings list.
 

Poets & Quants MBA Ranking Methodology

Instead of creating a completely independent list (and duplicating what John did at BW), Poets & Quants looks at the other existing rankings and assigns them different weights.
 
The respective ranking sites provide further details on how they gather, process and present data. If you have the patience to study these methodologies, you’ll realise that most of the information gathered is quantifiable data and the rest is intangible data that’s been quantified so that the weighted average score can be derived. That’s the only way to compare bschools that are as different as chalk and cheese.

Now that you know what actually happens behind the scenes, we hope you will look at this annual (biannual in some cases) event objectively and not get carried away like the others by what you see. Who knows? Even if all these MBA rankings were to agree upon (say) Harvard as the top school, there may be reasons why you’d think Harvard is not the best bschool in the world.

Note: Information updated in 2018