Top MBA Programs
The MBA is unquestionably the hottest degree you can hold, particularly from an elite school. Over the last several years, the rules to the MBA admission have changed drastically. As a result of the increase in applications, the competition among applicants has intensified. You must decide MBA program fit you rather than having the schools decide that you fit them. Recently ranking lists of MBA programs are flourishing in magazines and newspapers around the world.
Rankings have had a powerful effect on the business school world. Recruiters, admissions directors, faculty, students, and applicants all keep a close eye on them. Over time, most schools have made positive changes to their facilities, curriculam, and recruiting processes as a result of issues that the media outlets have uncovered.
The current international rankings show diversity in the way business school performance is assessed and measured, and in who are considered customers of management education. Six of the rankers investigated here use some form of reputation measure in their rankings and aim to define customers of management education (The Wall Street Journal, US News, Financial Times, Business Week, Forbes, and The Economist ) although the weight given to reputation in the final rankings varies.
BusinessWeek's ranking methodology focuses on three components: student evaluations, recruiter evaluations, and the schools’ intellectual capital. The rankings are mainly based on responses to surveys taken by recent business school graduates and a majority of the recruiters who hire them.
Financial Times rankings based on the most complex methodology of all of the media outlets. Salary increase over three years, return on business school investment, career progress, achievement of post-MBA goals, job employment success, recruiter recommendations, women faculty, students, board members, international faculty, international mobility, curriculum, faculty with doctorates, number of doctoral graduates, and faculty publications.
U.S. News methodology is composed of eight criteria including: dean and program director evaluation, recruiter evaluation, starting compensation, job placement, GMAT score, undergraduate GPA, and percentage of application rejections.
The Wall Street Journal's methodology is based solely on the perspective of recruiters and Forbes' rankings are based on return on investment.
The Economist's rankings are based on short-term experiences of the students with their program.
The power of the rankings has also become the center of controversy. An underlying, inherent goal of media outlets is to sell newspapers, magazines, and books. Their core competency is probably not to provide suggestions for business school improvements. Nonetheless, this is often the result of their insights. Many would argue that the rankings’ ability to affect business school change has become too great and needs to be curtailed.