MBA Ranking System

How does the MBA ranking system work?

The objective of an MBA ranking system is to give information to the market regarding the repute and standing of schools and their programs. The problem in terms of which ranking system to trust is that the criteria on which the different rankings are based are not always declared, which makes some of the rankings rather misleading. Some of the school rankings are based on the opinions of recruiters on the quality of the MBA output of the schools, but this is relevant to the full-time programs - which "produce" MBAs as opposed to part-time, executive and full-time programs. So those types of rankings are only relevant to schools who have a large full-time program.

One of the problems of global ranking systems is that they seem to be a bit too much USA related. So, many of the rankings are influenced by the average score in the GMAT of students entering into the program, but these will say less about those programs located outside of the USA . The AACSB rankings also will ignore most of the non-American programs. Ultimately, as long as a school appears in the top league of a ranking system it doesn't really matter where it comes in that top league. Being in the right league is a more reliable indicator than the position of that school in one league table. The diversity of schools and the diversity of programs is extremely large, so there is no single ranking method that will do all schools justice.

That said, rankings are now a fact of life in the business/management education world. Rankings are published in many publications around the world, and there is demand for them from prospective students who want to know about the reputation, standing and quality of the schools or their programs. Yet, most of the published rankings deal more with American Schools. Also, they tend to take a broad based approach rather than being specific to a particular country or region or deal with a particular aspect or type of program.

So when you look at rankings, you should never just rely on one of them. You should also not attach a particular importance to one of them either. As we have said, if a school or program is consistently in the top league then whether it is ranked 2 or 4 in the world still makes it a top class MBA program. You just need to get an overall impression.

In general though, the top league consists of Harvard, Yale, Wharton in Pennsylvannia, and Kellogg in Chicago . London Business School and INSEAD in Paris are also very highly rated. Get into any of those, and you won't be wasting a penny.

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