Unaware of what people mean by a drop in the rankings. At least not recently, they're the same or better than the previous year.
Most relevant international-
Financial times: Rice 2024 - #42
Financial Times: Rice 2025 - #39
Most relevant domestic-
US News FT MBA: Rice 2024 - #29
US News FT MBA: Rice 2025 - #29
Rice had the worst drop off in a single year recruiting (72% FT job offer @3months as compared to their normal 85%+.)
https://poetsandquants.com/2025/03/21/d ... b-schools/However, despite this drop they retained their same ranking.
Vanderbilt on the other hand surged because of their job placement rates.
All things considered Rice isn't doing too bad and is poised to return back to their T25 status once employment rebounds back to normal.
Also neither of those two newspapers has exhibited any corruption when it comes to the rankings. There has been corruption by the schools manipulating their stats (see columbia a couple of years ago) but the rankings are certainly not pay to play.