MBA Rankings - The Economist

Darden > MIT?
Tuck > Stanford?

hmmmm...and the list continues...

Henley (WTF!!!) > Wharton
OMG, it's pretty much everybody > Wharton!!!

Well it (Henley) is a tough one to get into


2004 2003 2002
Selectivity 35% 57% 65%
Yield 35% 76% 100%

Like most rankings, I'm guessing the Economist has their own random criterion, and the rankings probably aren't intended to reflect anything other than what the criteria emphasizes.

For instance, somebody posted here (or maybe it BW) recently, a ranking of business schools based on the strength of the school's research. And everyone responded with, "This is stupid, no way should Harvard be ranked seventh, it's the best school in the world!" But the rankings weren't meant to rank the "best school in the world" or prestige or reputation or selectivity, they were meant to show the best reserach schools.

If you had a rankings of the NBA's "best team players" it might not have ball-hogs like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant in the top ten even though they're some of the best to ever play the game, because a ranking of the "best team players" might have criteria that strongly weights assists rather than emphasizing points or "clutch moments."

So I'm guessing the Economist rankings are meant to reflect something other than prestige or selectivity, but I'm too lazy to actually go to the website and see what their criterion was.

If anyone is interested to read the ranking methodology...

"To qualify for inclusion in the Economist Intelligence Unit rankings, the schools with full-time MBA programmes that responded to our survey had to meet various thresholds of data provision, as well as attaining a minimum number of responses to a survey gauging the opinion of current students and alumni who graduated within the last three years......

Data were collected during spring 2006 using two web-based questionnaires, one for business schools and one for students and recent graduates. Schools distributed the web address of the latter questionnaire to their own students and graduates. Around 20,000 students and graduates participated. All data received from schools were subject to verification checks, including, where possible, comparison with historical data, peer schools and other published sources. Student and graduate questionnaires were audited for multiple or false entries.

Memory has been built into the rankings by taking a weighted average of 2006 (50%), 2005 (30%) and 2004 (20%) data to provide a rounded picture of the school. Sudden movements in data, which might not produce an immediate increase in quality, are thus reflected gradually, much as the improvement would affect students....."

https://mba.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_n ... ank_method

IESE First???

Who would have a ranking as per average GMAT score? That's the only objective common factor between BS.

This would not be the ideal ranking, but probably better than any other, like one for instance.

They should poll several thousand MBA grads and ask them where they would hire MBAs from. The FT actually asks this question but then it only accounts for only 2% of the overall score!

The Ekonomiste ranking super good, complete fantastico, I am say it most acurate of all! harvard suck! MIT suck! INSEAD total falure! wharton worst than my neighbor college!

Flame me. Wonder who takes EIU rankings seriously..

I like to look at the site just to see the schools' info, the map they put is very nice to know where the schools are located .

You can see that UK schools are over-ranked as well as some other european schools Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School is better ranked than Duke (at least FANTASTIC beer and chocolat in Belgium). I am not saying that Vlerick is not a good school, the point is that Duke has more prestige and history as a business school. Same thing occurs with Insead and LBS very under-ranked in my opinion.

Honestly, as already mentioned, there is no perfect ranking, methodologies will affect directly ranks what I do is: I know my goals: industry I want to work after degree, what kinf of life I want to have (small vs big cities) and then I take a glimpsy at ranks to see what schools to apply for (I will apply this october/nov). In few words: if I wanted finance, which is my case, I would not apply for NYU and let Wharton outside my list just because Wharton is number 17 on EIU rank.

The actual rank is from 2006, and I remember that in 2005 they didn't even ranked Wharton, MIT was like 30 or 40 in the rank...