List of United States graduate business school rankings

List of United States business school rankings is a tabular listing of some of the business schools and their affiliated universities located in the United States that are included in one or more of the rankings of full-time Master of Business Administration programs. Rankings are typically published by magazines or websites. This list 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]

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

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 criterion 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]

The Academic Ranking of World Universities includes every institution that has any Nobel Laureates, Fields Medals, and highly cited researchers. In addition, major universities of every country with significant amount of papers indexed by Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) are also included. Having alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes in Economics since 1951 attributes 10% of the score. Staff of an institution winning Turing Awards in computer science since 1961 contributes 15% of the score. Highly cited researchers in economics/business category get 25% weighting. Papers indexed in SSCI in economics/business fields gets 25%. Finally, the percentage of papers published in top 20% journals of economics/business fields to that in all economics/business journals gets 25% weighting.[12]

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%).[13] The 2011 survey and ranking include data from 150 universities.[14]

Criticism

The ranking of business schools has been discussed in articles and on academic websites.[15] Critics of ranking methodologies maintain that any published rankings should be viewed with caution for the following reasons:[16]

In the specific case of MBA programs, one study found that ranking MBA programs by a combination of graduates' starting salaries and average student GMAT score can duplicate some of the ranking order found in top 20 lists of Business Week and U.S. News & World Report.[16]

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.[18] These schools plus the Kellogg School of Management have always comprised the top 5 schools in every U.S. News & World Report ranking.[19] With the addition of Columbia Business School, 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".[20]

Current individual 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, BI - Business Insider, and ARWU - Academic Ranking of World Universities.

Business School University Location (State, City) USN 2015 [21] BW 2014 [22] Forbes 2011[23] Ec 2013 [24] FT 2014 [25] AE 2011 [26] CNN 2011 [27] BI 2013[28] ARWU 2012[29]
Raymond J. Harbert College of Business Auburn University Alabama, Auburn 75
Babcock Graduate School of Management Wake Forest University North Carolina, Winston-Salem 47 46 30 60 94
Bennett S. LeBow College of Business Drexel University Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 76
Booth School of Business University of Chicago Illinois, Chicago 4 3 2 1 9 10 3 25 2
Boston University School of Management Boston University Massachusetts, Boston 45 57 61 73 75 58 10 35
Brandeis International Business School Brandeis University Massachusetts, Waltham 98
Carl H. Lindner College of Business University of Cincinnati Ohio, Cincinnati 60 47 151
Carlson School of Management University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Minnesota, Minneapolis 33 36 28 53 54 14
Carroll School of Management Boston College Massachusetts, Chestnut Hill 45 52 53 82 51
Columbia Business School Columbia University New York, New York City 8 5 7 10 5 7 9 4 5
Cox School of Business Southern Methodist University Texas, Dallas 52 32 25 93 88 51 49 101
Crummer Graduate School of Business Rollins College Florida, Winter Park 46
Manderson Graduate School of Business University of Alabama Alabama, Tuscaloosa 58 82 151
Darden Graduate School of Business Administration University of Virginia Virginia, Charlottesville 11 20 9 4 27 26 30 51
David Eccles School of Business University of Utah Utah, Salt Lake City 61 61 76
E. J. Ourso College of Business Louisiana State University Louisiana, Baton Rouge 61 64 151
E. Philip Saunders College of Business Rochester Institute of Technology New York, Henrietta 63
Eli Broad College of Business Michigan State University Michigan, East Lansing 35 33 19 52 34 30
Eller College of Management University of Arizona Arizona, Tucson 48 68 60 89 76
Fisher College of Business Ohio State University Ohio, Columbus 27 34 34 32 70 31 28
Fordham Graduate School of Business Fordham University New York, New York City 79 55 151
Foster School of Business University of Washington Washington, Seattle 25 37 36 33 58 36 26
Fox School of Business Temple University Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 48 73 77 151
F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business Babson College Massachusetts, Wellesley 56 58 44 95 19 40
Freeman School of Business Tulane University Louisiana, New Orleans 67 64 52 92
Fuqua School of Business Duke University North Carolina, Durham 14 1 8 29 17 21 5 21
Scheller College of Business Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia, Atlanta 27 28 43 71 76
Goizueta Business School Emory University Georgia, Atlanta 20 18 22 19 41 32 35 39 51
Graziadio School of Business and Management Pepperdine University California, Malibu 96 63 74 92
Haas School of Business University of California, Berkeley California, Berkeley 7 19 13 3 11 24 11 16 4
Hankamer School of Business Baylor University Texas, Waco 70 77
Harvard Business School Harvard University Massachusetts, Boston 1 8 3 6 1 1 1 1 1
Howard University School of Business Howard University Washington, D.C. 91
Hult International Business School Hult International Business School Massachusetts, Cambridge 59 61
Iowa State University College of Business Iowa State University Iowa, Ames 70 76
Isenberg School of Management University of Massachusetts Amherst Massachusetts, Amherst 51 101
Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management Rice University Texas, Houston 33 25 45 43 35 25 51
John Cook School of Business Saint Louis University Missouri, St. Louis 84
Katz School of Business University of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh 61 35 51 88 80 51
Kelley School of Business Indiana University Indiana, Bloomington 21 16 27 35 47 54 37 24
Kellogg School of Management Northwestern University Illinois, Evanston 6 7 5 23 15 11 14 11 11
Kenan-Flagler Business School University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill North Carolina, Chapel Hill 20 12 11 36 33 40 30 26 29
Kogod School of Business American University Washington, D.C. 100 68
Krannert School of Management Purdue University Indiana, West Lafayette 40 43 40 56 18 51
Leavey School of Business Santa Clara University California, Santa Clara 75
Leeds School of Business University of Colorado at Boulder Colorado, Boulder 79 83 51
Liautaud Graduate School of Business University of Illinois at Chicago Illinois, Chicago 92 151
Lubin School of Business Pace University New York, New York City 97
Marriott School of Management Brigham Young University Utah, Provo 27 27 15 93 23 51
Marshall School of Business University of Southern California California, Los Angeles 27 21 39 63 65 57 33 34
Martin J. Whitman School of Management Syracuse University New York, Syracuse 55 69 101
Mason School of Business College of William & Mary Virginia, Williamsburg 70 59 41 86 151
Mays Business School Texas A&M University Texas, College Station 37 42 24 75 45 45
McCallum Graduate School of Business Bentley University Massachusetts, Waltham 84
McCombs School of Business University of Texas at Austin Texas, Austin 15 23 17 31 39 28 29 24 20
McDonough School of Business Georgetown University Washington, D.C. 23 24 35 44 36 25 32 14 51
Mendoza College of Business University of Notre Dame Indiana, South Bend 23 29 31 38 80 52 31 17 101
Merage School of Business University of California, Irvine California, Irvine 45 31 69 48 50 47 76
MIT Sloan School of Management Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts, Cambridge 5 14 12 12 8 6 5 7 3
Moore School of Business University of South Carolina South Carolina, Columbia 73 71 70 80 48 42
Naveen Jindal School of Management University of Texas at Dallas Texas, Richardson 37 41 43
Neeley School of Business Texas Christian University Texas, Fort Worth 79 49 76
Northeastern Graduate School of Business Administration Northeastern University Massachusetts, Boston 61 73 65 151
Olin Business School Washington University in St. Louis Missouri, St. Louis 19 26 34 48 64 38 32
Owen Graduate School of Management Vanderbilt University Tennessee, Nashville 25 30 33 34 59 41 39 21 41
Pamplin College of Business Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Virginia, Blacksburg 46[30] 74 151
Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management Claremont Graduate University California, Claremont 101
Robert H. Smith School of Business University of Maryland, College Park Maryland, College Park 41 17 38 51 50 42 23
Ross School of Business University of Michigan Michigan, Ann Arbor 11 9 10 25 23 30 28 27 14
Rutgers Business School Rutgers University New Jersey, New Brunswick and Newark 61 65 51
Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management Cornell University New York, Ithaca 17 13 9 17 27 39 6 25
Sam M. Walton College of Business University of Arkansas Arkansas, Fayetteville 66 76
Simon School of Business University of Rochester New York, Rochester 37 40 32 78 55 37 39
Smeal College of Business Penn State University Pennsylvania, University Park 41 38 26 71 62 33
Stanford Graduate School of Business Stanford University California, Stanford 1 4 1 9 2 8 2 3 6
Stern School of Business New York University New York, New York City 10 22 18 7 17 12 13 20 9
Tepper School of Business Carnegie Mellon University Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh 18 10 23 21 34 29 24 15 12
Terry College of Business University of Georgia Georgia, Athens 48 50 42 79 93 76
The George Washington University School of Business George Washington University Washington, D.C. 56 53 66 99 22 101
The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1 2 4 15 4 3 4 12 8
Thunderbird School of Global Management Arizona, Glendale 88 62 54 97 68 56 41
Tippie College of Business University of Iowa Iowa, Iowa City 44 75 21 67 64 101
Trulaske College of Business University of Missouri Missouri, Columbia 52 70 63 101
Tuck School of Business Dartmouth College New Hampshire, Hanover 9 15 6 2 20 17 11 13 38
UC Davis Graduate School of Management University of California, Davis California, Davis 41 60 72 65 98 101
UCLA Anderson School of Management University of California, Los Angeles California, Los Angeles 16 11 13 18 26 22 23 28 16
Rady School of Management University of California, San Diego California, San Diego 60 51 81 84
UIUC College of Business University of Illinois Illinois, Champaign 35 45 56 44 32 44
University at Buffalo School of Management University at Buffalo, The State University of New York New York, Buffalo 75 39 48 151
University of Connecticut School of Business University of Connecticut Connecticut, Hartford 58 66 37 101
University of Miami School of Business Administration University of Miami Florida, Coral Gables 88 72 59 51
Haslam College of Business University of Tennessee Tennessee, Knoxville 67 55 151
W. P. Carey School of Business Arizona State University Arizona, Tempe 27 67 66 45 87 18
Hough Graduate School of Business University of Florida Florida, Gainesville 41 48 67 90 94 51
Weatherhead School of Management Case Western Reserve University Ohio, Cleveland 52 84 49 86 101
Wisconsin School of Business University of Wisconsin at Madison Wisconsin, Madison 27 44 29 49 81 31
Yale School of Management Yale University Connecticut, New Haven 13 6 18 28 10 14 16 2 10
Zicklin School of Business Baruch College New York, New York City 75 50 76

References

  1. ↑ "President's Letter". The Education Conservancy.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Bradshaw, Della and Wai Kwen Chan (2007-01-29). "How the rankings compare: A matter of judgment". The Financial Times Ltd. Retrieved 2007-12-25.
  3. ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions–Rankings". U.S.News & World Report. L.P. Retrieved 2007-12-18.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Alsop, Ronald (2006-09-20). "The Top Business Schools: Something Old, Something New". The Wall Street Journal Online. Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Retrieved 2007-12-18.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Morse, Robert J. and Samuel Flanigan. "How We Do the Numbers". U.S.News & World Report. L.P. Retrieved 2007-12-07.
  6. ↑ "Business Methodology". U.S.News & World Report. L.P. Retrieved 2007-12-18.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "MBA Rankings: Updated October 2006". BusinessWeek.com. The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. Retrieved 2007-12-18.
  8. ↑ "Best Business Schools: Methodology". Forbes.com LLC. 2007-08-16. Retrieved 2007-12-18.
  9. ↑ "Rankings methodology". The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited. Retrieved 2007-12-19.
  10. ↑ Milton, Ursula (2007-01-29). "How to read the rankings: How the raw data are processed". The Financial Times Ltd. Retrieved 2007-12-25.
  11. ↑ Bradshaw, Della (2007-01-29). "Auditing: Aim for accuracy". The Financial Times Ltd. Retrieved 2007-12-25.
  12. ↑ "Ranking methodology". Shanghai Jiaotong University. Retrieved 2013-03-05.
  13. ↑ "Methodology". Beyond Grey Pinstripes. Retrieved 2011-06-18.
  14. ↑ Samuelson, Judy (Summer 2011). "The Business of Education: Why change-minded MBA candidates turn to the Institute before they pick a business school" (PDF). The Aspen Idea: 66–67. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
  15. ↑ "Caution and Controversy". University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 2007-06-22. Retrieved 2008-01-27. The article contains an extensive bibliography of critical sources.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Schatz, Martin; Crummer, Roy E. (1993). "What's Wrong with MBA Ranking Surveys?". Management Research News 16 (7): 15–18. doi:10.1108/eb028322.
  17. ↑ Hemel, Daniel J (12 April 2004). "HBS Blocks Media Access to Students". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 29 January 2008.
  18. ↑ "The Rush to the M.B.A.". Kiplinger's Personal Finance. January 1979. Retrieved 26 November 2011.
  19. ↑ "Best Business Schools". US News and World Report. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
  20. ↑ "News from the schools, April 2010". The Economist. 12 April 2010. Retrieved 26 November 2011.
  21. ↑ "Best Business Schools".
  22. ↑ "Top Business School Rankings: MBA, Undergrad, Executive & Online MBA -Businessweek". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  23. ↑ Badenhausen, Kurt. "The Best Business Schools, 2011". Forbes. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
  24. ↑ "Which MBA? | 2013 Full time MBA rankings". The Economist. Retrieved 2014-05-07.
  25. ↑ "Global MBA Rankings 2014". Financial Times. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
  26. ↑ "Ránking Global de las Mejores Escuelas de Negocios". América Economía. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  27. ↑ "Ranking:Los Mejores MBA en el mundo 2010". CNN Expansion. Retrieved 30 October 2011.
  28. ↑ "The World's Best Business Schools 2013". Business Insider. 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2013.
  29. ↑ "Academic Ranking of World Universities in Economics / Business - 2012". Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. 2012. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  30. ↑ http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/part-time-rankings/page+3