Almost every student aspiring for a graduate management education has come across business school rankings. And to cater to the ever-increasing number of business school applicants, many publications release ranking data every year or once every 2 years.
However, you may wonder, what do these b-school rankings mean? How much importance should you give to it while deciding your target business schools? We answer these questions and more in this article.
Some of the other most commonly asked questions about business school rankings we will cover are:
- What are the Top 25 Business School Rankings 2022
- What are some of the most popular business school rankings and their methodologies?
- What do business school rankings signify?
- How are business school rankings calculated?
- Key Takeaways
Let’s get started.
Business School Rankings 2022: Top 25
The top 25 business school rankings according to US News & World Report ranking is presented below. The corresponding rankings according to other business publications are also listed:
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Top 25 Business school rankings: Significance and Methodology
Since each ranking uses different factors, below we present a brief overview of the methodologies used by each. A detailed description wherever available has been linked as well.
Some of the Top Business School rankings are:
- U.S News & World Report Best Business Schools
- Financial Times Global MBA Rankings
- QS World University Global MBA Rankings
- Economist Full-Time MBA Rankings
- Bloomberg Businessweek Best Business Schools Rankings
US News & World Report Best Business School Rankings 2022
Published yearly, U.S News & World Report ranks business schools using a vast amount of data. The methodology employed takes into account its own survey of business school deans and MBA directors (25%), corporate recruiters (15%), starting salaries and bonuses (14%), employment rates at and shortly after graduation (14% to 7%), student GMATs (about 16%), undergrad GPAs (about 8%), and the percentage of applicants who are accepted to a school (a little over 1%).
Financial Times Global MBA Rankings 2022
This 2022 ranking is the 23rd year the Financial Times has ranked the best MBA schools. The winner: University of Pennsylvania: Wharton. The ranking is based on data collected from business schools and from alums three years after graduation. A total of 156 schools took part in the survey, with 7,920 alums of the Class of 2016. Most of the results are combined with two previous class surveys. The ranking also includes a research component, weighted at 10%, counting papers written by the faculty of each school in 50 academic journals from January 2017 to August 2019.
QS World University Global MBA Rankings 2022
Uses data collected through 3 different surveys of employers, recruiters, and alumni. With the greatest weightage being assigned to Employability and Return on investment.
Economist Full-Time MBA Rankings
This is probably the most flawed, if not downright silly, of all the MBA rankings cranked out by a major media brand. With the publication of its 2019 lists, the magazine is now up to its eighteenth annual ranking of full-time MBA programs. The ranking is based on 20% on student and alumni surveys and 80% on data provided by the schools. There are some incredibly peculiar results in this ranking, which raise significant credibility issues. For e.g. pretty much no one in business education would agree that IESE is better than Dartmouth or MIT (Sloan).
Bloomberg Businessweek MBA
The granddaddy of the MBA rankings, BusinessWeek’s Best-B Schools list made its debut in 1988 with what was then a radical approach to judging the quality of a school: pure customer satisfaction. It was the first to systematically survey recent MBA grads and ask them about their satisfaction levels with their educational experience and the first to ask corporate recruiters their opinions of the MBAs they interview and hire. However, in 2019-20 they have completely revamped their ranking methodology. And because of this, one cannot compare the latest rankings with their last years’ findings.
Here is an article on top 50 business schools ranking.
Business school rankings: What does it signify?
Business school rankings weigh different factors such as employment rates, student satisfaction, selectivity, and program reputation.
It helps students in their school selection process by providing an independent assessment of the academic quality of graduate business schools and their programs. However, these rankings over time have been used by business schools to establish their popularity and brand value.
This helps them attract the best students and makes thousands of students apply and compete for limited seats.
Your natural next question would be how much do business school rankings matter? And how to separate the noise from the actual valuable signals? To answer these, we need to understand how these rankings are calculated and whether they measure the criteria that you value in the business school experience.
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Business school rankings: How are they calculated?
Business publications use different criteria and methodologies to calculate business school rankings. The methods used by these business publications assign a varying amount of importance to key areas of the business school experience. The factors used to determine business school rankings are:
- Network
- Accreditation
- Return on Investment
- Entrepreneurship and Alumni Outcomes
- Learning
- Diversity
Factors used to determine Top Business School Rankings #1: Networking
It is one of the central tenets of a good business school education and one of the biggest benefits students expect from attending business schools. Thus, networking as a factor of business school rankings aims to measure the quality of networks being built by classmates, students’ interactions with alumni, the success of the career services office, etc. The primary way this is measured is through surveys of students, alumni and recruiters.
Factors used to determine Top Business School Rankings #2: Accreditation
Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met. If standards are met, accredited status is granted by the appropriate agency. In some business school rankings, accreditation serves as an entry criterion to be considered the rankings. The most popular business school accreditations are:
AACSB: Association of Advance Collegiate Schools of Business
AMBA: Association of MBAs
EQUIS by EFMD: European Foundation for Management Development Quality Improvement System
Factors used to determine Top Business School Rankings #3: Return on Investment
Also referred to as value for money by some business school rankings. Rankings use different data points to calculate the return on investment, while some focus just on starting salaries and bonuses post MBA others also consider the cost of going to school (tuition + cost of living), foregone wages, and increases in both pre-MBA and Post-MBA salaries. The period over which this return on investment is calculated also varies. While the QS Global MBA Rankings calculates investment over a 10-year period, the Financial Times Global MBA 2020 rankings calculate return on investment over a 3-year period.
Factors used to determine Top Business School Rankings #4: Entrepreneurship and alumni outcomes
Traditionally business schools were looked at as a good starting point on the journey to your dream job. However, a growing trend reflects business school graduates interested in setting up their own ventures post-graduation. Thus, in assessing favorable alumni outcomes i.e. if a business school can deliver on its promise of gainful employment after graduation in their fields of specialty or training, entrepreneurship has become central to students’ overall training. Rankings systems use surveys of alumni and students as well as recruiters to arrive at a quantitative measure.
Factors used to determine Top Business School Rankings #5: Learning
This aims to measure the quality, depth, and range of instruction provided at the business school. Quantitative factors measured include the number of faculty/instructors, and class size. Qualitative factors try to measure the focus of the curriculum and its application to real-world business situations, the degree of emphasis on innovation, problem-solving and strategic thinking.
Factors used to determine Top Business School Rankings #6: Diversity
This is a qualitative measure of the business school environment. Business publications look at female students and faculty members, the percentage of international faculty overall at the business school, and the international mix of students in the MBA program to measure diversity.
Thus, due to a large number of factors that are considered in the process of ranking business schools, it is important to identify the criteria which matter the most to you. That is the only way to identify if a certain business school ranking methodology aligns with your learning and post-MBA career goals.
How to identify your target business schools through rankings?
Now that you know the different criteria that are evaluated to determine business school rankings let us look at how you should use them. Arriving at a list of your target business schools solely based on rankings would be doing yourself a disservice.
It is important to remember that there are no perfect measurement systems to determine the best business schools. The methodology behind every ranking has inherent flaws, for e.g. in measuring alumni and recruiter outcomes, rankings use surveys taken by alumni and recruiters as a method to arrive at a number. However, MBA recruiting by major employers at most business schools is done by alumni of the business school. Thus, there is bound to be some bias attached to the survey responses that are received.
Some business publications use unaudited data supplied by business schools. And some business schools may have plenty of reasons to present the information in the best possible light to get a better ranking.
On the other hand, some rankings only measure the return on investment graduates have achieved after 5 years in the market. Thus, it does not measure the quality of the MBA experience or the actual education you receive at all. Thus, if you value return on investment higher than all other criteria the Forbes Business School rankings are the one you should refer to.
Thus, while business school rankings do reflect in some way or other the ground reality of the quality of business school experience, it is but one factor among many to weigh in your decision of which business school is the best fit for you.
Read this article to understand the factors you should consider in evaluating business school fit.
Key Takeaways
Following are the key takeaways from this article:
- Business school rankings can serve as a valuable resource of information to understand the strengths and value of a graduate management program
- The underlying data points used to calculate these rankings are a far more valuable resource that the actual number rank of B-schools.
- It is important to understand the different methods used to compute these rankings and account for the inherent bias and error in them while selecting your target business schools.
- And to arrive at a target list of business schools that you would apply to, your research should align with your professional goals, personality, study habits, and personal preferences.
We hope you find this article useful, you can write to us at acethegmat@e-gmat.com with your questions and our strategy experts would be happy to help you out. Good Luck!
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