Clear Admit's MBA Ranking News
A comprehensive archive of all Clear Admit MBA Blog posts covering graduate business school rankings according to leading news and media agencies.
Published: September 25, 2017
Wharton Tops Forbes Rankings for the First Time with Highest Compensation World Wide
The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School claimed the number one spot in Forbes’ 10th biennial ranking of U.S. business schools, released yesterday. The Philadelphia school shot up six spots from its seventh-place 2015 finish to claim first for the first time ever in a ranking that focuses primarily on return on investment for MBA graduates. Wharton did rank second twice before, in 2001 and 2005.
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Published: September 13, 2017
Top MBA Programs for Producing Founders: 2017-2018 Report
Recently, PitchBook released its latest 2017-2018 Top 50 Universities Report. The ranking focused on those universities that produced the “ultimate building blocks of the venture industry: founders.”
This ranking is vastly different from rankings of top schools for entrepreneurship by U.S. News & World Report, Princeton Review, and Entrepreneur Magazine, all of which focus on factors like peer assessment surveys, curriculum, and entrepreneurial study options. Instead, PitchBook looked at a single criterion: founders of companies who received venture capital (VC) funding between January 1, 2006, and August 18, 2017, and where they went to school.
The report provides a fairly detailed breakdown of top undergraduate programs, companies (by capital raised), MBA programs, female founders, unicorns (companies that have attained the coveted $1 billion evaluation), and more. This article will focus solely on the results that relate to MBA programs, including information on female founders and unicorns.
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The MBA Rankings Debate
As reported earlier this week by the Wall Street Journal, deans and research faculty at more than 20 business schools are urging their peers at other schools to refuse to participate in academic rankings published by leading media outlets such as Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the Financial Times, and the Economist.
“Rather than ‘acquiesce to methods of comparison we know to be fundamentally misleading,’ the administrators are urging their peers at other schools to stop participating in a process they say rates programs on an overly narrow set of criteria,” read the Journal article, published May 9th.
Deans and faculty from USC Marshall School of Business, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, and OSU Fisher College of Business are among those protesting the approaches used by media outlets to aggregate multiple factors into a single ordinal rank—and they are airing their grievances in the form of a research paper scheduled for publication in the May issue of Decision Sciences Journal.
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Published: March 20, 2017
Wharton Admissions Dean Weighs in on Topping U.S. News Ranking
Last week, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School tied for first place with Harvard Business School (HBS) in U.S. News & World Report’s closely watched annual ranking of top MBA programs in the nation. Though Wharton has only claimed the top spot once before in the ranking’s 28-year history, it has traditionally been considered part of the “holy trinity” of schools, behind only HBS and Stanford Graduate School of Business in many people’s eyes. That made last year’s fourth-place finish after the University of Chicago Booth School of Business a real blow and this year’s strong showing an important rebound.
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Published: March 13, 2017
7 Takeaways from the 2018 U.S. News Business School Ranking
The schools making up the top 10 in this year’s U.S. News & World Report ranking of the nation’s best MBA programs—released today—were exactly the same as last year. That said, there are a smattering of surprises in terms of how top schools rose and fell relative to one another—and in movement among schools outside of the top 15. At quick glance, here are this year’s top 10, in order of their 2018 rank (2017 rank in parentheses): 1 Harvard Business School (1) 1 University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (4) 3 University of Chicago Booth
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DecisionWire Data Suggests a Tiered Business School Ranking
As many of our readers know, U.S. News & World Report is scheduled to release its annual ranking of leading MBA programs next week. We wanted to use this time—ahead of the ranking’s release—to highlight some key insights from our MBA DecisionWire data, which we think will provide context for the upcoming rankings and perhaps even foretell some of the results. Our analysis of DecisionWire data yielded some fascinating findings that we believe support a tiered ranking system for schools, one in which the peer group a school finds itself in serves as a better indicator of
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Published: January 29, 2017
INSEAD Tops Financial Times Global MBA Rankings for Second Year Running
INSEAD liked making it to the top of the Financial Times Global MBA rankings last year so much that it decided to stick around for another first-place showing. The global business school—which features campuses in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi—had been inching its way up the ranking for the past few years, from sixth to fifth to fourth, before jumping three spots last year and knocking reigning Harvard Business School (HBS) down to No. 2. In doing so, INSEAD also became the first one-year MBA program to ever hold top honors. HBS, prior to last year’s
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Published: December 5, 2016
London Business School Leads 2016 International MBA Rankings from Bloomberg BusinessWeek
London Business School (LBS) climbed to the very top spot on Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Best International Business Schools of 2016 list, released yesterday, up a notch from last year’s second-place showing. INSEAD, which has campuses in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, followed right behind, inching up from number three last year to second place this year. The United Kingdom’s other powerhouse business schools, Oxford’s Saïd Business School and Cambridge’s Judge Business School, fell in line at third and fourth respectively, representing a three-spot jump for Saïd over last year and a four-spot jump for Judge. Spain’s IESE also experienced gains year over year, sidling up two spots from last year’s seventh place to round out this year’s top five.
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Published: November 15, 2016
Amid Roller Coaster Rides for Some, HBS Stays Put atop Bloomberg BusinessWeek Ranking
For the second consecutive year, Harvard Business School (HBS) tops the Bloomberg BusinessWeek annual ranking of MBA programs—released today—making it one of the few leading schools that didn’t experience shifts in a list that holds lots of changes this year over last.
Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) shot up to second, from its seventh spot last year, and Duke’s Fuqua School followed right on its heels, moving from eighth last year to number three. Together, they knocked the University of Chicago Booth School of Business down from second to fourth.
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Published: October 13, 2016
Chicago Booth Remains Atop Economist Ranking Amid Drastic Fluctuations by Other Schools
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business claimed bragging rights for the fifth year in a row as it was once again crowned the top full-time MBA program in the world by the Economist, which published its annual global ranking of MBA programs yesterday. Other schools, though, took wild rides up and down the ranks—a trend that has caused many industry insiders to question the validity of the British publication's "Which MBA?" list.
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GMAC Launches New Online MBA Rankings Tool to Demystify Rankings
In their most recent rankings, U.S. News & World Report and Bloomberg BusinessWeek named Harvard Business School the number one business school around. But wait…according to the Economist, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business gets top bragging rights. And then there’s the Financial Times, which names INSEAD number one, and Forbes, which says it’s Stanford Graduate School of Business. Confused yet? Many applicants to business school look to rankings as a way to make sense of the many different choices that exist for getting an MBA—but making sense of the
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Published: March 15, 2016
7 Things You Need to Know About the 2017 U.S. News Business School Ranking
Harvard Business School (HBS) reclaimed the number one spot in this year’s U.S. News & World Report ranking of the nation’s best MBA programs after a two-year stint in second place. Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), which has passed the crown back and forth with HBS for more than a decade, took second this year, tying with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
In addition to the subtle movements of programs rising or losing a rank, there were quite a few surprises in this year's list. The Clear Admit team of admissions experts has sifted through the data and compiled a summary of seven key things to note this year:
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Published: January 24, 2016
INSEAD Knocks HBS from Top Spot in Financial Times 2016 Global MBA Rankings
INSEAD jumped three spots to claim No. 1 in the Financial Times 2016 Global MBA rankings, released today, knocking reigning Harvard Business School (HBS) to No. 2. The global business school—which features campuses in France, Singapore and Abu Dhabi—has been on an upward trajectory over the past few years, sidling from sixth to fifth to fourth, but this year marks the first time it has claimed the top spot. Incidentally, it’s also the first one-year MBA program to ever do so. HBS, for its part, held steady at No. 1 each of the past three years and has taken top honors six times since the FT’s rankings debuted in 1999.
HBS wasn’t the only school displaced by INSEAD’s upward climb. London Business School (LBS) was knocked back down to third from the second-place spot it claimed last year. The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania also backslid a spot, to fourth. And Stanford Graduate School of Business, which shared fourth with INSEAD last year, fell to fifth.
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Published: December 7, 2015
U.S. News Short List Takes a Closer Look at How Many Applications Top Business Schools Receive
As Round 1 applicants anxiously await word from their top-choice MBA programs, does it help or hurt to know just how many applications those programs receive each year? U.S. News, best known in the MBA space for its annual ranking of top business schools, this week devoted its separate Short List—in which it parses data collected as part of the rankings process to spotlight individual data points—to overall application volume at leading schools.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the schools that draw the greatest number of applicants also occupy most of the top spots in the U.S. News rankings. Specifically, in 2014 the three schools that received the most applications were also ranked as the top three business schools.
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Published: November 17, 2015
Bloomberg BusinessWeek Rankings Data Reveal High Cost of MBA Networking
While most who are contemplating an MBA at a leading business school are well aware of the steep costs of tuition and foregone earnings, the budget line item for “extras” is sometimes overlooked. Bloomberg BusinessWeek, as part of its annual ranking of full-time MBA programs, asked students from the Class of 2015 just what they spend on nonessential items. The findings? The more prestigious the school, the higher the cost of networking.
Harvard Business School (HBS), which was number one in Bloomberg BW’s most recent overall rankings, also topped the charts in terms of students’ median expenditure on nonessential items, at $16,290.
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Published: October 20, 2015
HBS Soars to Top of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s New MBA Rankings
When Duke’s Fuqua School of Business topped Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s MBA rankings last year, the magazine came under fire for a methodology that many claimed was flawed. This year, an overhauled methodology has yielded vastly different results, including Harvard Business School’s taking the No. 1 spot for the first time in the 27-year history of the rankings.
“Our annual ranking of full-time MBA programs now focuses on what most people hope to get after business school: a satisfying, well-paying job,” read the commentary that accompanied the rankings. Using a deeper and broader set of data than ever before—drawn from 13,150 current students, 18,540 alumni and 1,460 recruiters from 177 different MBA programs—Bloomberg BW's rankings are now the combination of five weighted measurements: an employer survey (accounting for 35 percent of the total score); an alumni survey drawing feedback from the classes of 2007, 2008 and 2009 (30 percent); a student survey of members of the Class of 2015 (15 percent); the school's job placement rate (10 percent) and average starting salary (10 percent).
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Published: October 14, 2015
Chicago Booth Maintains No. 1 Spot in Economist’s Ranking of Full-Time MBA Programs
The University of Chicago Booth School of Business snagged the number one spot for the fourth year running in the Economist's ranking of full-time MBA programs, the Which MBA? 2015, released today. Using a methodology that gives great weight to student and alumni experiences, the Economist each year generates a list of the top 100 full-time international MBA programs.
Booth’s strong performance in the overall rankings can be attributed chiefly to its ability to provide new career opportunities to its graduates. The school ranked tops out of all 100 schools both for the diversity of its recruiters and in terms of its students’ assessment of career services.
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Published: April 12, 2015
Financial Times Data Suggest MBA ROI Is Greater for Younger Students
Parsing through data from its 2015 Global MBA rankings, the Financial Times has come to the conclusion that the earlier you get your MBA degree, the more you stand to boost your salary, both in percentage and absolute terms. Combining survey responses from the MBA class of 2011 with analyses of their career progress and salaries, the latest FT rankings data reveal a more significant jump in pay for younger graduates in the three years after graduation than for their older classmates.
According to the FT analysis, participants aged 24 and under when they began their degree enjoyed salary increases of nearly $69,000 three years out from graduation, a 145 percent increase over their pre-MBA salary. Those who were 27 to 28 when they began their degree program reported an average pay increase of $67,000, to nearly double their pre-MBA salary. The oldest members of the class, those aged 31 or above, had an average pay increase of $56,000, representing a roughly 70 percent bump over their pre-MBA salaries. This pattern was observed in all industry sectors and countries, regardless of whether graduates worked overseas or changed industries, according to the FT.
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Columbia Business School Dean Proposes Radically Simple B-School Rankings Methodology
Penning a recent column for Forbes, the dean of Columbia Business School (CBS) took on the question of whether and how much the seemingly ever-multiplying rankings of leading business schools matter. His answer: yes – but an applicant’s individual needs should outrank any number affixed to a school in the many rankings that abound.
CBS Dean Glenn Hubbard, an economist, argues that the quality of a business school can be measured by two simple metrics, input and output. By input he means applications, specifically how many applications a school gets and whether application volume is trending up or down. “It stands to reason that the marketplace of prospective students will send the most applications to the best schools, which will, in turn, have more selective admission rates,” Hubbard wrote.
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Published: March 18, 2015
Another Shake-Up in the Works for Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s MBA Rankings
When Duke’s Fuqua School of Business shot to the top of Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s 2014 rankings, Fuqua celebrated, but many others in the admissions world scratched their heads. How could a school ranked 22nd in student satisfaction kick long-standing, top-ranked schools to the curb? (FYI : Duke had only ever finished in BW's top five once, 14 years ago, when it came in fifth.)
Amid widespread questions of credibility regarding the new methodology that led to the 2014 results, Bloomberg BW this week (March 16) emailed business school officials to say that it has plans for yet another overhaul of its rankings methodology and plans to publish a new ranking incorporating new and differently weighted core metrics next October. It also announced that beginning with the October publication, its MBA rankings will now be published annually, a major shift from the biennial schedule it has upheld since the BW rankings launched in 1988.
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Published: March 10, 2015
Stanford GSB Edges Out HBS, Wharton in 2016 U.S. News & World Report Rankings
Stanford’s Graduate School of Business took the number one spot in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings of the nation’s best MBA programs, released yesterday, knocking Harvard Business School (HBS) to second and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School to third. Last year, the three powerhouse schools tied for first place, but slight differences on core metrics caused HBS and Wharton to slip this year.
U.S. News uses multiple core measurements to compile its rankings, with the greatest weight given to quality assessments by deans and MBA directors at peer schools and corporate recruiter survey scores. Wharton’s scores slipped in both these regards, as well as in average pay for its MBA graduates, precipitating its drop this year in the rankings.
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Published: February 10, 2015
Which Business School’s Alumni Network Reigns Supreme?
Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business can claim top honors for the strength of its alumni network, according to a recent Economist ranking, in which current MBA students were asked to rate their school’s network. Nine of the top 10 strongest alumni networks are affiliated with U.S. schools, the Economist notes. “They, after all, have the biggest incentive, being the world leaders at tapping into their alumni networks to secure huge financial gifts. Such schools spend a lot of resources on maintaining relations with ex-students,” read the Economist’s analysis.
As for what helped Tuck secure the very top spot, here’s what the Economist hypothesized: “Its fierce collegiate spirit is famous, perhaps fostered by its setting in the small, sleepy town of Hanover, New Hampshire, which means that students have little else to do but bond.”
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Published: November 11, 2014
Demystifying the Mysterious World of Business School Rankings
It’s not every day that MBA rankings end up trending on Facebook, and yet yesterday that’s exactly what happened. When Bloomberg BusinessWeek released its biennial ranking of full-time MBA programs, the results shocked many and created quite a buzz. According to Bloomberg BW’s most recent calculations, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business has stolen the number one spot, knocking Harvard Business School out of the top five for the first time in history.
Just how did Bloomberg BW decide which programs rose to the top and which fell from grace? As it turns out, the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University just a few weeks ago released an infographic that provides a clear and concise overview showcasing the rankings methodologies employed by five major publications: Bloomberg BW, along with U.S. News & World Report, the Financial Times, the Economist and Forbes.
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Published: November 10, 2014
Duke’s Fuqua School of Business Tops Latest Bloomberg BusinessWeek Ranking
Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business shot to the top of Bloomberg Businessweek’s biennial ranking of full-time MBA programs, released today, up from No. 6 two years ago. In the process, the North Carolina school unseated the reigning University of Chicago Booth School of Business and pushed Harvard Business School (HBS) out of the top five for the first time in the history of the rankings.
The formula Bloomberg BW employs to arrive at its rankings is as follows: 45 percent of the score is based on how recruiters rate MBA hires from the school, another 45 percent is determined by how graduating MBAs judge their program and the remaining 10 percent is based on faculty productivity, as measured by a tally of research published in leading journals.
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Published: October 22, 2014
U.S. News & World Report Ranks Business Schools by Graduates’ Indebtedness
Rankings of graduate management education programs abound, each with their own particular criteria for assessing which business schools ultimately come out on top. Separate from its overall business school rankings, U.S. News & World Report recently used data collected from schools to determine the top 10 programs from which MBA students graduate with the most debt.
The number one spot goes to Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, where full-time MBA students from the 2013 class who borrowed for business school had an average indebtedness of $108,186. Fuqua’s full-time MBA students had more debt than any of the other 86 ranked institutions, according to data submitted to U.S. News.
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