VOTE NOW: Which schools do you consider to be "Top 10"

Interesting poll. Given how high reputation is weighted for many of the prominent rankings, I suppose perception can to some extent become a self-reinforcing reality....

The first choice is on the correct order as well.

I think this will probably end up being a question of who's #10. I think Haas and Tuck are fairly well planted in the top 10 and that would leave #10 to be battled out between NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, and Yale SOM. I picked NYU for the #10 spot.

I think the Poets and Quants rankings - ranking of the rankings is probably the most accurate. Just my 2 cents. But overall, it depends on the specialty as to which school is better. The M7 schools are probably not arguable in terms of being tier 1. The rest of the schools are very close.

https://poetsandquants.com/2010/12/14/po ... the-u-s/3/

I had to put Ross in the top 10. While Tuck has an outstanding reputation, I believe Ross is a more comprehensive business school and deserves a place in the top 10. I also think Fuqua should be one of the options!

To me it is Fuqua, in fact. It has the best average ranking of Business Week and US News of #9. And is #10 on Poets and Quants too. Ross and Fuqua are definitely there along with Tuck & Haas.

I actually find specialty rankings to not be very useful. Kellogg is #1 in marketing but most if not all marketing companies would still give preference to H/S when recruiting for marketing. Thunderbird is #1 in international business but any of the top 15 schools would have the advantage over that school for international business recruiting. I can the more technical rankings having some meaning (MIT for supply chain and operations, etc.) but for general categories like marketing, general management, entrepreneurship, finance, etc., I think general rankings/perception/prestige trumps specialty rankings.

Good points!

Eskimoroll is correct: this really is a poll about which school rounds out the Top 10.

Notice the raw scores in the US News Ranking: there is a significant drop off after number 9. Reproduced below:

1. Stanford 100
2. Harvard 98
3. MIT 93
3. Wharton 93
5. Kellogg 92
5. Booth 91
7. Tuck 88
7. Berkeley Haas 88
9. Columbia 87
10. NYU Stern 81
10. Yale SOM 81

Also note that last year, Columbia and Stern were tied at 9th (the rest being in roughly the same order, with a few ties or tiebreakers).

As you can see, based on US News, the real question here is "who rounds out the Top 10"?

I also note that there are some recent threads on BusinessWeek where Columbia's position is discussed: is it a peer of Kellogg, Sloan, Wharton and Booth, or is it in the same tier as Tuck and Haas?

A comparison between P&Q and USN shows that this remains unclarified: P&Q has Tuck and Columbia switching places at 5th and 6th, USN has Columbia below Tuck and Haas for several years running now, and BWeek has Haas and Columbia fairly close (lower Top 10), with Tuck behind.

The actual ordering of the top 10 is up for some debate, but most agree on the composition of the Top 9. Who's 10th?

What about... A list of top 10 schools only contains 9 schools?
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I agree partly and disagree partly with eskimoroll and osbornecox. The top 9 for me too is kind of set, although outside of the M7 in terms of reputation, Ross, Haas, Tuck, Duke, NYU, Yale and Darden are probably very close, not much to choose between and would probably come down to your own fit and goals. UCLA and Cornell definitely maybe a tier below.

In any case, my top 10 is as follows and my# 10 is Duke. To me Ross and Darden come close, but NYU does not. Its a simple average of Business Week 2010 Ranking, USNews 2011 Ranking and Poets and Quants 2010 Rankings. And its sorted by average - lowest to highest.

BW USNews P&Q Average
HBS 2 1 1 1.333333333
Stanford 5 1 2 2.666666667
Chicago 1 5 3 3
Wharton 3 5 4 4
Kellogg 4 4 7 5
MIT 10 3 8 7
Columbia 9 9 5 7.666666667
Haas 8 7 9 8
Tuck 14 7 6 9
Duke 6 12 10 9.333333333
Ross 7 14 13 11.33333333
Darden 11 13 11 11.66666667
NYU 18 9 12 13
Yale 21 11 14 15.33333333
Cornell 13 18 15 15.33333333
UCLA 17 15 17 16.33333333

For #10, it's a tight race between Ross, Fuqua, Stern, and Darden WITHIN the US.

Stern obviously stands out when it comes to INTERNATIONAL brand recognition though. To be fair, Haas, Stern, Fuqua, Ross, Darden are all solid MBA programs. Haas and Stern both just have an unfair advantage situated in SF and NYC - two of the most desirable US cities for internationals. As an international (in Asia at least), you rarely have to explain going for an MBA at Berkeley/NYU. But when it comes to Michigan/Ross, Virginia/Darden there is much much more explanation needed.

I'd give Stern #10 just because of that and I agree that Haas and Tuck are both around the 8-9th places.

Here's how I divide them into leagues based on brand recognition:

Top 10: Strong international
11-16: Strong nationwide (US)
17-30: Strong regional (NC, TX, SoCal, etc.)

Pardon the shameless plug, but don't you think that Yale has a stronger international brand than any of Haas, Stern, Ross or Darden? Just sayin'.

Same with Cornell too (they love drinking the Ivy league Kool Aid outside of the US). However, I'm only considering international brand recognition as the tiebreaker after evaluating domestic reputation. (Yes, I tend to heavily weight in a top MBA program's US reputation)

Yale has been gaining a lot of ground in recent years. So I wouldn't argue much against it if someone would place Yale at #10 this year. Although accounting ongoing/historical reputation, I think it's a bit shaky IMHO.

So, I'm hearing that Ross, Duke, Yale, NYU and possibly Darden could each legitimately round out the "Top 10" . When it comes to MBA rankings, I have always felt that the first 9 positions are fairly concrete but there are 4-5 programs who could rightfully claim that 10th position. Rankings do fluctuate slightly and the margins between those 4-5 programs is so small that they tend to shift from year to year and between rankings publications.

Here is an alternate ranking to consider as well. It is an interesting methodology--mostly using metrics based on employment information and perception from recruiters and top executives:

https://www.topmba.com/mba-rankings/top- ... th-america

1. HBS
2. Wharton
3. Kellogg
4. Stanford
5. Columbia
6. Chicago
7. MIT
8. Haas
9. Michigan
10.Duke

Not saying it's right or wrong, but this ranking seems to skew toward schools with larger class sizes. It also is PRIMARILY an international perspective (over 90% of corporate recruiters surveyed were OUTSIDE the US). I have heard some applicants claim that several employers (mostly international) use this list as their "top-10" when recruiitng.

Leaving aside the inclusion of Ross and Fuqua, there are no real surprises in the top 10. It's in the 10-20 range that this ranking gets...interesting. Anderson places above Stern, Yale and Tuck. Ivey, Thunderbird and Queen's College place ahead of Darden, UNC and Cornell.

This reminds me that (outside of the M7) rankings are incredibly subjective and hard to take seriously.

Touché

Interesting results, I wouldn't have thought that would b the distribution.. Haas makes sense but I wouldn't consider many of the others in That list top 10 at all...

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