List of United States graduate business school rankings

List of United States business school rankings is a tabular listing of all business schools and their affiliated universities located in the United States that are included in one or more of the major public rankings of full-time Master of Business Administration programs. This is not a comprehensive list of business schools in the United States. These rankings are a subset of college and university rankings. Business schools are university-level institutions generally affiliated with a university or college that produces students who attain business administration degrees. Most of the schools listed in the rankings below are accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Some of the publications shown here have related rankings for undergraduate, part-time and executive curricula. There is currently some controversy among faculty and administrators in American institutions of higher education regarding the request by the surveyors to have college presidents give their subjective opinion of other colleges because some of the methodologies are deemed misleading and a disservice. This has resulted in a movement surrounding the President's letter.[1]

Contents

Marketing significance

Business school rankings are important to the various business schools because they are an important marketing tool used to recruit top students, and lure recruiters from the top companies. Business schools attempt to achieve higher rankings in order that they may obtain the top students who will over the course of their careers most likely benefit the school by achieving high ranking positions, attaining great influence, and accumulating great wealth. Such students often are able to help other students attain better (higher paying, more respected and more influential) jobs. Students use the rankings to choose their school,[2] and creators of the rankings produce them to aid in this decision.[3]

Rankings have such importance that business school deans cite improving rankings under significant accomplishments and are said to hire and fire over such successes. A typical quote explaining a rise in rankings can be found by looking at summaries such as "Recruiters believe Georgetown's new dean and career-services director have made speedy progress in producing more polished, marketable graduates."[4] If a dean chooses the wrong strategy it is likely to show up in the results as well: "Recruiters criticized some of the Regional schools for lowering their standards and admitting less-qualified students when their applications plummeted a couple of years ago."[4]

Ranking techniques

Current #1 US Graduate Business Schools

The rankings are based on a variety of factors such as standardized test scores of students, salary of recent graduates, survey results of graduates and/or recruiters, the specific schools that choose to participate in a market survey, the number of top companies recruiting at the school and a variety of attributes.[4] The ratings vary significantly by method used to determine the success of each program. For instance, the Forbes and Financial Times results are based on long-term graduate career progress concerns, the Bloomberg Businessweek and Economist polls evaluate short-term experiences of the students with their program, U.S. News & World Report consider the recent experiences of recruiters with the program, and other rankings like the Aspen Institute Beyond Grey Pinstripes measure integration of sustainability material into business programs.[2]

The U.S. News & World Report uses a combination of the objective and subjective as well. The magazine seeks "expert opinion about program quality and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research, and students." However, it ranks a broad spectrum of professional school programs such as business schools, law schools, and medical schools as well as a variety of programs specific academic disciplines such as the social sciences or humanities.[5] The business opinion data incorporates responses from deans, program directors, and senior faculty about the academic quality of their programs as well as the opinions of professionals who actually do the hiring of the new MBA graduates from the schools. The statistical data combines measures of the qualities of the incoming students and as well as the faculty with measures of post graduate success as related to their degrees.[5] There were 382 programs that responded out of 402 solicited, and the formula used a strict combination of quality assessment (40%), placement success (35%), and student selectivity (25%).[6]

The Bloomberg Businessweek rankings, which are based on three sources of data (a student survey, a survey of corporate recruiters, and an intellectual capital rating), are published in mid-October of even numbered years.[7] The 2006 student survey of 45 online questions of students' ratings of their programs was distributed to 16,595 students three weeks before graduation; there were 9,290 responses. The recruiter survey determines how many MBAs a recruiter's company hired in the previous two years and which schools it actively recruits from. 223 respondents participated out of 426 solicited. The intellectual capital is determined based on a formula incorporating academic publications in journals, books written, and faculty size.[7]

The Forbes magazine methodology was to calculate a five year return on investment for 2002 graduates. Forbes surveyed 18,500 alumni of 102 MBA programs and used their pre-enrollment and post-graduate business school salary information as a basis for comparing post-MBA compensation with the cost of attending the programs.[8]

The Economist Intelligence Unit, the business information arm of the Economist Group, gathered results from two internet questionnaires, one of business schools and one of their students and recent graduates, and used them to rate business schools located all over the world. Information provided by the schools made up 80% of the ranking, with student and alumni responses accounting for only 20%. Factors in the evaluation included faculty:student ratio, GMAT scores of incoming students, student body diversity, foreign languages offered, percentage of graduates finding jobs within three months after graduation, percentage of graduates finding jobs through the school's career service, graduates' salaries and the comparison of pre-enrollment and post-graduation salaries, and student/alumni evaluations of the program, facilities, services, and alumni network. Results were tabulated using a smoothing method incorporating the three previous years' results. The organization used strict data provision thresholds, with the result that some highly regarded schools were omitted from the list of 100 ranked schools.[9]

The Financial Times poll was the result of over 10,000 respondents to nearly 23000 electronic questionnaires of alumni from 155 qualifying business schools. The survey began in July 2006 and all internationally accredited programs that are at least five years old and that have produced at least 30 graduates in each of the last three years were solicited. 113 of the 155 had at least 20 respondents and at least a 20 percent response rate. The questionnaire used twenty criteria in three main areas. The poll actually presents all twenty criteria to the reader. Eight criteria are based on alumni responses; eleven criteria are based on business school responses, and the final criteria is based on a research index produced by the Financial Times.[10] The survey responses are audited by KPMG.[11]

The Financial Times has also produced a "ranking of rankings" summarizing five of the individual rankings (The Economist, Bloomberg Businessweek, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Financial Times). They produce United States, and European summary rankings based on all five and a global summary ranking using the Wall Street Journal, Economist and Financial Times. The summary is based on underlying polls in which a school placed in the top ten using an average of the ordinal placements. The summary excludes the U.S. News & World Report results.[2]

Rankings based on attributes other than standardized test scores, salary of graduates, and similar attributes also exist. The Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking, compiled by the Aspen Institute and published biannually, is based entirely on the integration of social and environmental stewardship into university curriculum and faculty research. Data for this survey is solicited from university administrators at accredited colleges, and audited by teams of Ph.D. scoring fellows. Rankings are calculated on the amount of sustainability coursework made available to students (20%), amount of student exposure to relevant material (25%), amount of coursework focused on stewardship by for-profit corporations (30%), and relevant faculty research (25%).[12] The 2011 survey and ranking include data from 150 universities.[13]

Criticism

The ranking of business schools has been discussed in articles and on academic websites.[14] Critics of ranking methodologies maintain that any published rankings should be viewed with caution for the following reasons:[15]

In the specific case of MBA programs, one study found that objectively ranking MBA programs by a combination of graduates' starting salaries and average student GMAT score can reasonably duplicate the top 20 list of the national publications.[15]

Rankings

Historical rankings

The historical rankings of the top MBA programs show little variation, even over a long time period. In 1977, MBA Magazine surveyed business schools deans to come up with a ranking which listed the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, the Booth School of Business, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and The Wharton School as their top 5.[16] These schools and Columbia Business School and the Kellogg School of Management have always comprised the top 5 schools in every U.S. News & World Report ranking.[17] These seven schools, which are most frequently listed at the top of various rankings (and are the top seven worldwide in the Business Insider ranking) have been referred to as "America's seven most powerful schools".[18]

Current rankings

Below all schools that ranked on any of the lists below are ordered alphabetically and presented with their numerical rankings in the respective lists. The following abbreviations are used in the column headings: USN - U.S. News & World Report, BW - Bloomberg Businessweek, Ec - The Economist, FT - Financial Times, AE - América Economía, CNN - CNN Expansion, and BI - Business Insider.

Business School University Location USN 2011 [19] BW 2010 [20] Forbes 2011 [21] Ec 2011 [22] FT 2011 [23] AE 2011 [24] CNN 2011 [25] BI 2011 [26]
Auburn University College of Business Auburn University Auburn, Alabama 63 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Babcock Graduate School of Management Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, North Carolina 47 48 30 1000 78 1000 1000 48
Bennett S. LeBow College of Business Drexel University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 107 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Booth School of Business University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois 5 1 3 2 12 10 7 6
Boston University School of Management Boston University Boston, Massachusetts 34 38 61 49 68 58 1000 35
Brandeis International Business School Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts 1000 1000 1000 92 1000 1000 1000 1000
Carl H. Lindner College of Business University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio 75 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Carlson School of Management University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Minneapolis, Minnesota 21 28 28 65 1000 1000 1000 1000
Carroll School of Management Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 34 50 53 1000 74 1000 1000 1000
Columbia Business School Columbia University New York, New York 9 9 5 7 7 7 9 5
Cox School of Business Southern Methodist University Dallas, Texas 57 12 25 79 88 51 49 1000
Crummer Graduate School of Business Rollins College Winter Park, Florida 107 1000 46 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Culverhouse College of Commerce University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Alabama 63 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia 13 11 9 4 41 26 1000 19
David Eccles School of Business University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah 80 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
E.J. Ourso College of Business Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, Louisiana 89 1000 64 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
E. Philip Saunders College of Business Rochester Institute of Technology Henrietta, New York 63 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Eli Broad College of Business Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 49 20 19 1000 1000 1000 1000 34
Eller College of Management University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 63 1000 60 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Fisher College of Business The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio 25 32 34 51 72 1000 1000 45
Fordham Graduate School of Business Fordham University New York, New York 97 1000 55 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Foster School of Business University of Washington Seattle, Washington 37 31 36 35 86 1000 1000 50
Fox School of Business Temple University Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 63 1000 73 89 1000 1000 1000 1000
F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business Babson College Wellesley, Massachusetts 52 39 44 1000 84 19 1000 39
Freeman School of Business Tulane University New Orleans, Louisiana 40 35 52 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Fuqua School of Business Duke University Durham, North Carolina 12 6 12 20 20 21 1000 13
Georgia Institute of Technology College of Management Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia 28 23 43 1000 97 1000 1000 44
Goizueta Business School Emory University Atlanta, Georgia 23 22 22 28 38 32 35 25
Graziadio School of Business and Management Pepperdine University Malibu, California 75 1000 74 1000 92 1000 1000 1000
Haas School of Business University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, California 7 8 13 6 25 24 11 10
Hankamer School of Business Baylor University Waco, Texas 60 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Harvard Business School Harvard University Boston, Massachusetts 2 2 1 5 3 1 1 1
Howard University School of Business Howard University Washington, D.C. 91 53 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Hult International Business School Hult International Business School Cambridge, Massachusetts 1000 1000 1000 29 61 1000 1000 1000
Iowa State University College of Business Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 69 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Isenberg School of Management University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst, Massachusetts 60 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management Rice University Houston, Texas 34 29 45 53 44 1000 25 1000
John Cook School of Business Saint Louis University St. Louis, Missouri 94 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Katz School of Business University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 85 54 51 98 1000 1000 1000 1000
Kelley School of Business Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 23 19 27 39 73 54 1000 38
Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois 5 4 7 18 21 11 14 7
Kenan-Flagler Business School University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 19 16 16 47 62 40 30 27
Kogod School of Business American University Washington, D.C. 1000 1000 68 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Krannert School of Management Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana 49 41 40 85 74 1000 1000 43
Leavey School of Business Santa Clara University Santa Clara, California 75 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Leeds School of Business University of Colorado, Boulder Boulder, Colorado 69 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Lubin School of Business Pace University New York, New York 97 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Marriott School of Management Brigham Young University Provo, Utah 32 27 15 1000 91 1000 1000 46
Marshall School of Business University of Southern California Los Angeles, California 21 26 39 22 64 57 1000 32
Martin J. Whitman School of Management Syracuse University Syracuse, New York 69 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Mason School of Business The College of William & Mary Williamsburg, Virginia 83 47 41 1000 86 1000 1000 1000
Mays Business School Texas A&M University College Station, Texas 32 30 24 1000 44 1000 45 1000
McCallum Graduate School of Business Bentley University Waltham, Massachusetts 73 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
McCombs School of Business University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas 17 25 17 31 49 28 29 23
McDonough School of Business Georgetown University Washington, D.C. 25 33 35 44 38 25 32 24
Mendoza College of Business University of Notre Dame South Bend, Indiana 37 24 31 40 80 52 31 29
Merage School of Business University of California, Irvine Irvine, California 40 1000 69 1000 53 50 47 40
MIT Sloan School of Management Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 3 10 10 11 9 6 5 4
Moore School of Business University of South Carolina Columbia, South Carolina 54 1000 70 99 80 1000 48 1000
Naveen Jindal School of Management University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, Texas 40 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Neeley School of Business Texas Christian University Fort Worth, Texas 80 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Northeastern Graduate School of Business Administration Northeastern University Boston, Massachusetts 56 56 65 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Olin Business School Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, Missouri 20 40 47 56 1000 1000 1000 36
Owen Graduate School of Management Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee 28 37 33 34 51 41 39 37
Pamplin College of Business Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, Virginia 73 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management Claremont Graduate University Claremont, California 63 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Robert H. Smith School of Business University of Maryland, College Park College Park, Maryland 45 42 38 52 40 42 1000 1000
Ross School of Business University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan 14 7 14 30 24 30 28 20
Rutgers Business School Rutgers University Newark and New Brunswick, New Jersey 57 55 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management Cornell University Ithaca, New York 16 13 8 25 30 39 1000 14
Sam M. Walton College of Business University of Arkansas Fayetteville, Arkansas 51 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Simon School of Business University of Rochester Rochester, New York 45 43 32 1000 52 37 1000 47
Smeal College of Business Penn State University University Park, Pennsylvania 40 44 26 50 59 1000 1000 1000
Stanford Graduate School of Business Stanford University Stanford, California 1 5 2 8 4 8 2 2
Stern School of Business New York University New York, New York 10 18 18 12 15 12 13 15
Tepper School of Business Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 18 15 23 16 41 29 24 18
Terry College of Business University of Georgia Athens, Georgia 57 36 42 90 93 1000 1000 1000
The George Washington University School of Business George Washington University Washington, D.C. 52 52 1000 68 1000 1000 1000 42
The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 3 3 4 15 1 3 4 3
Thunderbird School of Global Management 1000 Glendale, Arizona 75 45 54 87 68 56 1000 33
Tippie College of Business University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa 40 1000 21 59 64 1000 1000 1000
Trulaske College of Business University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri 54 1000 63 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Tuck School of Business Dartmouth College Hanover, New Hampshire 7 14 6 1 18 17 11 8
UC Davis Graduate School of Management University of California, Davis Davis, California 28 1000 72 61 83 1000 1000 1000
UCLA Anderson School of Management University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, California 14 17 20 27 31 22 23 21
UIUC College of Business University of Illinois Champaign, Illinois 37 46 56 1000 46 1000 1000 1000
University at Buffalo School of Management University at Buffalo, The State University of New York Buffalo, New York 75 57 48 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
University of Connecticut School of Business University of Connecticut Hartford, Connecticut 69 1000 37 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
University of Miami School of Business Administration University of Miami Coral Gables, Florida 85 1000 59 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
University of Tennessee College of Business Administration University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee 60 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
W. P. Carey School of Business Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 27 49 66 1000 64 1000 1000 1000
Warrington College of Business Administration University of Florida Gainesville, Florida 47 1000 67 97 94 1000 1000 1000
Weatherhead School of Management Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio 80 51 49 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000
Wisconsin School of Business University of Wisconsin, Madison Madison, Wisconsin 28 34 29 45 63 1000 1000 1000
Yale School of Management Yale University New Haven, Connecticut 10 21 11 26 15 14 16 12
Zicklin School of Business Baruch College New York, New York 85 1000 50 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000

References

  1. ^ "President's Letter". The Education Conservancy. http://www.educationconservancy.org/presidents_letter.html. 
  2. ^ a b c Bradshaw, Della and Wai Kwen Chan (2007-01-29). "How the rankings compare: A matter of judgment". The Financial Times Ltd. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3ed8a91e-ad5a-11db-8709-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=991cbd66-9258-11da-977b-0000779e2340.html. Retrieved 2007-12-25. 
  3. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions–Rankings". U.S.News & World Report. L.P.. http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/about/faq_meth_brief.php#one. Retrieved 2007-12-18. 
  4. ^ a b c Alsop, Ronald (2006-09-20). "The Top Business Schools: Something Old, Something New". The Wall Street Journal Online. Dow Jones & Company, Inc.. http://www.careerjournal.com/reports/bschool06/20060920-alsop-mblede.html. Retrieved 2007-12-18. 
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  14. ^ "Caution and Controversy". University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 2007-06-22. http://www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankoversy.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-27.  The article contains an extensive bibliography of critical sources.
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External links