New 2015 US News Business School rankings are up

So much Duke butthurt all over the internet today.

What's really fascinating to me are the ties.

USNews explains their methodology in full detail. Yet if you try to replicate the results yourself, you'll realize that there are no ties. In fact, Wharton is clearly ahead of Harvard, at a gap bigger than the gap between Harvard (#2) and Stanford (#3) or Stanford (#3) and Booth (#4). Among the top 10, the gap between MIT and Kellogg is the smallest, yet they're not tied.

Edit: I decided to do this analysis for the top 25. More interesting results. For example, NYU is in fact not #10 according to their methodolgy, but #11. Ross is at #10.

Here's a partial table. I put * because I'm not sure if this is data I'm supposed to share from US News. The top 10 I'm sharing as it can be obtained from Poets and Quants.

	Weight:	16.25%	7.5%	1.25%	14%	7%	14%	25%	15%
Rank	School	GMAT	GPA	Accept Rate	Average Pay	Jobs@Grad	Jobs Later	Peers	Recruiters	Index
1	Harvard University	727	3.70	11.3%	$138,346	78.7%	89.4%	4.8	4.6	99.37
1	Stanford University	732	3.73	6.8%	$137,525	71.7%	89.7%	4.8	4.6	99.03
1	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)	725	3.60	18.7%	$141,243	79.7%	93.4%	4.8	4.6	100
4	University of Chicago (Booth)	723	3.58	21.0%	$135,982	82.1%	90.8%	4.8	4.4	98.49
5	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)	713	3.58	13.1%	$137,057	80.9%	87.4%	4.7	4.5	97.66
6	Northwestern University (Kellogg)	713	3.54	21.6%	$135,838	78.8%	91.0%	4.7	4.4	97.40
7	University of California—​Berkeley (Haas)	714	3.60	14.3%	$134,078	74.0%	91.6%	4.6	4.2	96.00
8	Columbia University	716	3.50	18.1%	$137,654	74.9%	90.3%	4.4	4.3	95.26
9	Dartmouth College (Tuck)	718	3.53	20.8%	$139,036	80.8%	90.8%	4.3	4.0	94.47
10	New York University (Stern)	721	3.51	16.0%	$131,975	77.8%	93.2%	4.2	4.0	93.44
11	University of Michigan—​Ann Arbor (Ross)	704	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	93.85
11	University of Virginia (Darden)	706	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	93.00
13	Yale University	714	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	91.90
14	Duke University (Fuqua)	694	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	92.51
15	University of Texas—​Austin (McCombs)	690	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	90.96
16	University of California—​Los Angeles (Anderson)	706	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	89.29
17	Cornell University (Johnson)	691	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	90.40
18	Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)	691	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	89.66
19	University of North Carolina—​Chapel Hill (Kenan-​Flagler)	683	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	88.49
20	Emory University (Goizueta)	681	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	88.17
21	Indiana University—​Bloomington (Kelley)	664	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	87.09
22	Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	696	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	86.13
23	Georgetown University (McDonough)	688	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	84.68
23	University of Notre Dame (Mendoza)	690	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	85.59
25	University of Washington (Foster)	670	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	84.73

Edit: It's been brought to my attention that the Quality Assessment Scores worth 40% (includes the Peer and Recruiter assessment scores) may have rounding issues. USNews provides these scores to the nearest tenth, but perhaps they calculate using more exact values? This would obviously mean my indexing could be entirely off Nevertheless, it still doesn't explain ties.

Hey,

Vanderbilt is tied for 25 with Washington.

Thanks! Is it possible to fill in the details for 11-20?

I believe you have numbers mixed up between the top 3.

Wharton. GMAT is 725 not 732 (Its Stanford #), Wharton GPA not 3.73 (Its Stanford #).

Looks like you mixed Wharton for Stanford, HBS for Wharton, and Stanford for HBS. So to simplify, your first row should be Wharton, Second row should be HBS, third row should be Stanford.

So if your indexing is still correct, Stanford is ahead of Wharton by a big margin, and Wharton is ahead of HBS by a small margin. This is mainly due to salary #'s and Wharton having a great showing this year beating averages for all other schools.


School GMAT GPA Accept Rate Avg Pay Jobs At Grad Jobs Later Peers Recruiters
1. Harvard 727 3.70 11.3% $138,346 78.7% 89.4% 4.8 4.6
1. Stanford 732 3.73 6.8% $137,525 71.7% 89.7% 4.8 4.6
1. Wharton 725 3.60 18.7% $141,243 79.7% 93.4% 4.8 4.6
4. Chicago 723 3.58 21.0% $135,982 82.1% 90.8% 4.8 4.4
5. MIT 713 3.58 13.1% $137,057 80.9% 87.4% 4.7 4.5
6. Kellogg 713 3.54 21.6% $135,838 78.8% 91.0% 4.7 4.4
7. Berkeley 714 3.60 14.3% $134,078 74.0% 91.6% 4.6 4.2
8. Columbia 716 3.50 18.1% $137,654 74.9% 90.3% 4.4 4.3
9. Dartmouth 718 3.53 20.8% $139,036 80.8% 90.8% 4.3 4.0
10. NYU 721 3.51 16.0% $131,975 77.8% 93.2% 4.2 4.0

Crud, you are correct. I had reordered the top 10 using my index initially, then edited the post to include #11-25, and forgot to re-reorder back to the USNews rankings. I fixed the table.

But basically, it looks like Wharton takes the cake because they have the best placement success (for the top 3) which accounts for 35% of the total score. They lag behind in the student selectivity (worth 25%) but combined, it looks like Wharton is at #1.

Tables in bbcode are a pain.

Their setup of the weights is interesting.

For me, the major weights would be on expected salary (salary * employed %) and recruiter reputation, and I wouldn't be sure if peer reputation would even merit a column (let alone a quarter of the ranking score).

Recruiter reputation alleviates that concern a little imo.

Can anyone post the ranking for Masters in Business Analytics / Analytics?

Rankings have never been a fair contest. It’s pretty much there to perpetuate the established order of the world. To upset that order would mean risking the legitimacy of the ranking. For example, how much do you trust the Economist ranking? Your lack of trust is probably because it is counter to your “gut” feeling.

US News is especially keen to that. If a school gets out of line with the established order, I guarantee that any success will be rationalized out through “legitimate” changes in ranking methodology. Hence, there is never significant movement in the top tier schools.

There have been changes with US News, it just that it takes a decade or more to become apparent: which is the way it should be, schools shouldn't be jumping a ton of spots in a year or two:

https://www.mba50.com/a-history-of-the-u ... 1990-2013/

You can clearly see the rise of Booth, Berkeley and Stern; along with the relatives declines in in Fuqua and Ross (both were top 10's).

True true. I should always caveat my statements Never earthshaking changes at the top, where the focus is. However, there are always seismic shifts at the 50-100s, because those schools can move double digit in one year.

To address some of your issues:

Why do I not trust rankings by the Economist?
1) Greater than 20% of the ranking are based on student and alumni ratings. Asking the opinions of student/alumni is not something I trust.
2) 5% of the ranking comes from salary change from pre-MBA to post-MBA. This clearly puts higher ranked MBA progarms at a disadvantage as their incoming salaries tend to be higher.
3) The measure "Breadth of alumni network" is disadvantageous towards newer programs like Yale and Duke.
4) 8.75% of the ranking is based on "jobs found through career services" as a measure, but "jobs found through alumni network" doesn't exist.
5) "Length of work experience" of incoming students is another measure. I don't agree.
6) I could go on with the other indicators that I disagree with... but the point is that there are too many. Hence, I don't trust the rankings by the Economist.

All that said, the Economist does do a weighted average of rankings of its previous three years to prevent significant movements in general - which seems to have been a concern of yours.

Regarding US News:
60% of their ranking comes from data provided by schools. They can't fudge this. This is hard data, and unlike the Economist, I do feel the measures used by USNews make a bit more sense than the Economist. Even if you create a ranking based on this 60% of hard data (leaving out the other 40%), the top 10 schools are still placed in the top 10.

In regards to the 40% of data that comes from surveys (aka pulled out of the sky), USNews should really make this data available. To do a ranking based on surverys properly, one should look at Brian Leiter's ranking of philosophy faculties - he does a damn good job of it. He includes detailed a methodology and exactly whom he surveyed. But perhaps philosophy rankings is a bit easier as the community is smaller and everyone tends to know everyone else pretty well.

My thoughts:
All rankings should provide an index (or mean score) of each school evaluated, and students should be looking at these scores as opposed to the ordinal rankings. Poets and Quants does this, and you can see that the top 4 programs are all fairly close to each other. Or that there's a fairly big gap from rank 21 to 22.

Most people only use rankings as a guide to select their initial list. This is what rankings should be for. Otherwise, the choices are overwhelming. Coming from a place where the only bschool I heard of was Wharton, I appreciate that rankings exist and know not to bother with schools like Harvard and Stanford where it would be a waste of my time as it's out of reach. Likewise, it's nice to immediately eliminate most programs ranked 50+.

The only aspect of "ranking is not a fair contest" that I agree with is that it tends to be a self-fulfilling prophesy... the best students will apply to the top ranking programs which attracts the best students.

You are right to use the ranking only as a “guide”. Too often, people place so much emphasis on a couple of spots differences in ranking.

Any of the methodology is imperfect. For example, using employment statistics and average salary have its flaws as well. In the US, the cost of living is much lower on in the non-coastal areas and the South. This give an advantage to schools located in the higher cost of living areas, since the salaries in the areas are higher to compensate. In California, the Federal + State tax is ~50%, in addition to the higher cost of living. One would need to make significantly more in California to have the same standard of living and take home pay than someone in Texas, for example. Ever wonder why all the top schools are in the Northeast and California? It also benefits schools with focus in fields with higher pay, banking and consulting, for example.

% employment gets tricky, because schools have different graduation dates, but employers do not change their hiring cycles. So schools that graduate students earlier tend to get penalized in the % employment 3-months and 6-months post graduation. This maybe one of the reasons why US schools are not as welcoming of the 18-month MBA. If you graduate your students in December, and company typically starts it’s recruiting in January/February, you will be significantly disadvantaged.

It’s gotten so bad with law school rankings, that even the T14 schools pay companies to hire their students for a “trial” period, so that they can have a 99-100% employment stat. When in actuality, law employments have been a blood bath the last few years.

The fact that ranking is not only a self-fulfilling prophecy, but also drives bad school behavior is something that I dislike. I think a better way to go would be to rank in groups of 10-15, and do not differentiate differences within the group. I think it will drive more innovative behaviors with business education.