This past Monday, U.S. News and World Report released their 2015 MBA Rankings. The long and short of it, not much has changed within a year for Top Tier Schools. (Check out Poets & Quants’ analysis here) While Stanford obtained the #1 ranking as it bested out both Harvard and Chicago (Booth) very few schools moved more than 1-2 spots either way within the Top 25. The movement in these rankings (or lack thereof) makes sense in that year over year there tends to not be significant changes in the overall MBA experience at a Top MBA school. Having said that, the variability and volatility that can be seen in other rankings such as the Financial Times and Bloomberg is not typically seen in these rankings.
So what can cause the rankings to change year over year?
– Increase/Decrease in GMAT
– Increase/Decrease in Job placement
– Increase/Decrease in acceptance rate
Some of these categories have a tendency to change more than others in a given year. Furthermore, some of these changes happen as a result of a school having or not having control over the particular metric. For instance, a school can decide to increase their desired GMAT score and then use that as a basis for admitting or denying students. However, they might have less control over the metric/outcome for their students’ job placement percentage.
Many in the MBA circles tend to like the U.S News and World Reporting Rankings because it covers a wide variety of quantifiable data points that are considered to accurately evaluate the strengths of an MBA program. Furthermore, their ranking criteria tend to not change too much over time, nor do the methods to capture that data, so it can be relied upon for a year over year analysis. Like any of the rankings, you need to evaluate the criteria to understand what the numbered rankings mean, and then determine how they fit based on your own criteria that are important to you.
| School | GMAT | GPA | Accept Rate | Pay | Jobs at Grad | Jobs Later |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Stanford | 732 | 3.74 | 7.1% | $142,834 | 73.6% | 91.1% |
| 2. Harvard | 726 | 3.67 | 11.0% | $144,750 | 76.9% | 89.4% |
| 3. Wharton | 728 | 3.60 | 20.7% | $142,574 | 84.3% | 95.6% |
| 4. Booth | 724 | 3.60 | 23.5% | $137,615 | 87.4% | 97.2% |
| 5. MIT | 713 | 3.58 | 13.8% | $142,936 | 79.6% | 92.8% |
| 6. Kellogg | 713 | 3.60 | 23.2% | $136,357 | 80.7% | 88.6% |
| 7. Haas | 717 | 3.62 | 13.2% | $140,935 | 72.9% | 86.7% |
| 8. Columbia | 716 | 3.50 | 18.2% | $139,006 | 75.7% | 91.1% |
| 9. Tuck | 716 | 3.54 | 22.1% | $142,489 | 83.8% | 93.8% |
| 10. Darden | 706 | 3.50 | 26.0% | $136,474 | 86.8% | 93.4% |
U.S. News And World Report Ranking Criteria