The US News Rankings 2022 That Should Have Been!

Question

What US News Rankings 2022 Should Have Been It's been 3 weeks month since the highly anticipated 2022 US News Rankings came out and I was sorely disappointed when they did - they did not seem to reflect the reality of today's world. The world where people have lost jobs, some folks could not take their GMAT, and others deferred for a year. The rankings looked too normal so we have decided to dig in. Regenerate has spent 20+ hours methodically recreating the US News rankings, auditing their math (it seems to be off in a few cases outside of the Top 30) and going deep into the data. The 2 issues in the 2022 US News Rankings This Year: Reduction in the number of applicants reporting GMAT/GRE Scores . E.g. Marshall's class had indicated GMAT scores for only 32% of the class and GRE scores for 25% of the class, leaving 43% of the other admitted students in the dark. We do not know if those students were admitted with other test scores such as EA, LSAT, MCAT, or if they did not have to submit any scores at all. The US News rankings does account for the reduced reporting numbers but only if the total is below 25% of the class (a change this year from 50% last year) Several schools and in particular Wharton and Sloan did not submit updated data and were ranked with last year's numbers. We understand it is a tough year - we all had a tough year but we felt that it was not right to rank schools this year with an old data without adjustments You can read more about the release and my thoughts here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/us-news-2022 ... 53176.html Here is What We Did to Fix the US News 2022 FT MBA Rankings: I kept the changes as minimal as possible . My goal was to fix the issues and not introduce any others. (We likely do a more advanced evaluation applying our opinions but in this case, the adjustments were kept to the minimum, aiming to balance out the data issues outlined above. ) Equalized the playing field by tackling schools that under-reported test scores or chose to make admissions test-optional. Proportionately scaled the Score component of the rankings and if one program reported only 57% of their student scores like Marshall did vs. 99% like Anderson did, then we have adjusted the weight of their contribution to the rankings by 43% and 1% appropriately. As a reminder, the score component is 16.25% Since schools admitting applicants with other or no scores, I also felt it would be fair if we adjusted the applicant weight by the similar measure. As a reminder, the admission rate component is 1.25% of the rankings. You may find adjusting 1.25% by 10% laughable but it did change things around. (more on the rankings and data sensitivity later) Applied this year's trends to the Wharton and Sloan data . We don't know what it is but we can assume it was impacted as much as the other M7 schools were. Reduced the employed at graduation and employed at 3-month parameters by the trend observed among the other 5 of the M7, which is -4.8% and -4% Adjusted the starting salary averages for Sloan and Wharton by 4.2% which is the average for the other 5 of the M7 schools No changes to categories, weights, or rankings methodology were made The Revised Top 10 US News Top 10 v2.0 Rankings Rank School 1 Stanford 2 Booth 3 Harvard 3 Kellogg 5 Wharton* 6 MIT Sloan* 7 Haas 7 Yale SOM 9 Columbia 9 Tuck 11 Stern 11 Fuqua Notes: - The Top 10 looks a lot more reasonable now. There are perfect explanations now why each school is at the exact spot - HBS is tied with Booth because HBS's employed at graduation and employed 3 months at graduation are 2nd worst out of Top 10. The only one worse is Stanford - Stanford the leader in all but Employment numbers with the worst parameter of 57% employed at graduation

. They still got the top spot based on the US News methodology - Tuck is included in Top 10 due to its very strong salary figures and strong employment numbers. It is tied with Kellogg for the first spot - Yale made it into the Top 10 well by having strong numbers across the board but standing out with the highest average GRE scores V164 and Q164, only second to Stanford. - Surprisingly we still got a few ties. The reason is that there are only so many decimal points and some of the rankings are really tight. Despite our adjustment and updates, we still eneded up with 2 ties in the Top 10

- Wharton and Sloan are based on the estimated/trend data as they did not submit data this year US News Complete "Should Have Been" 2022 MBA Rankings New Rank Business School Peer Assessment Recruiter Assessment Salary + Bonus % Employed @ Graduation Employed @ 3Mo GMAT + GRE Scores GPA Acceptance % Old US News Rank Rank Delta 1 Stanford University (CA) 1 1 0.98 0.57 0.8 1 1 1 1 - 2 University of Chicago (Booth) (IL) 0.97 0.96 0.95 0.82 0.89 0.97 0.7 0.79 2 +1 3 Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL) 0.93 0.93 0.95 0.78 0.9 0.99 0.75 0.79 3 +1 3 Harvard University (MA) 1 0.96 0.94 0.67 0.77 0.99 0.88 1 3 +2 5 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)¹ 1 1 1 0.73 0.86 0.81 0.76 0.8 5 -3 6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)¹ 1 0.96 0.91 0.71 0.86 0.81 0.73 0.91 6 -1 7 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) 0.93 0.89 0.88 0.68 0.83 0.86 0.81 0.82 7 - 7 Yale University (CT) 0.87 0.89 0.88 0.72 0.81 0.95 0.78 0.77 7 +2 9 Columbia University (NY) 0.9 0.89 0.94 0.69 0.81 0.83 0.75 0.92 9 -2 9 Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH) 0.8 0.85 0.96 0.78 0.9 0.94 0.63 0.72 9 +1 11 New York University (Stern) 0.83 0.78 0.97 0.76 0.85 0.79 0.75 0.72 11 -1 11 Duke University (Fuqua) (NC) 0.83 0.81 0.91 0.83 0.88 0.81 0.63 0.81 11 +1 13 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) 0.83 0.85 0.89 0.77 0.85 0.87 0.56 0.68 13 - 14 University of Virginia (Darden) 0.77 0.81 0.93 0.82 0.88 0.77 0.63 0.65 14 -1 15 Cornell University (Johnson) (NY) 0.77 0.74 0.95 0.82 0.87 0.75 0.41 0.6 15 - 16 University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson) 0.77 0.78 0.82 0.59 0.71 0.92 0.61 0.72 16 +2 17 University of Texas--Austin (McCombs) 0.77 0.74 0.81 0.74 0.81 0.72 0.55 0.62 17 +1 18 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) (PA) 0.77 0.78 0.9 0.78 0.82 0.57 0.4 0.69 18 -2 19 University of Washington (Foster) 0.63 0.59 0.8 0.78 0.92 0.87 0.48 0.64 19 +3 20 University of Southern California (Marshall) 0.7 0.67 0.83 0.71 0.88 0.52 0.75 0.72 20 -4 20 Georgetown University (McDonough) (DC) 0.67 0.7 0.82 0.69 0.86 0.78 0.43 0.44 20 +1 22 Indiana University (Kelley) 0.7 0.7 0.73 0.72 0.81 0.74 0.4 0.63 22 +1 23 University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) 0.77 0.78 0.8 0.71 0.81 0.42 0.43 0.22 23 -3 24 University of Florida (Warrington) 0.6 0.63 0.63 0.73 0.87 0.75 0.58 0.8 24 +2 25 Vanderbilt University (Owen) (TN) 0.63 0.63 0.77 0.71 0.87 0.56 0.46 0.44 25 -2 25 Rice University (Jones) (TX) 0.6 0.63 0.77 0.72 0.85 0.57 0.53 0.53 25 - 27 University of Minnesota--Twin Cities (Carlson) 0.6 0.48 0.68 0.74 0.84 0.75 0.6 0.45 27 +1 28 Emory University (Goizueta) (GA) 0.67 0.63 0.8 0.73 0.87 0.61 0 0.45 28 -2 28 Arizona State University (W.P. Carey) 0.6 0.56 0.59 0.58 0.82 0.68 0.66 0.82 28 +2 28 Washington University in St. Louis (Olin) 0.67 0.63 0.65 0.56 0.63 0.73 0.5 0.58 28 +8 31 Ohio State University (Fisher) 0.63 0.52 0.65 0.67 0.79 0.67 0.56 0.63 31 +2 31 University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) (IN) 0.63 0.63 0.64 0.58 0.71 0.75 0.41 0.56 31 +5 33 Georgia Institute of Technology (Scheller) 0.6 0.56 0.72 0.73 0.87 0.51 0.38 0.53 33 -5 34 Pennsylvania State University--University Park (Smeal) 0.57 0.52 0.66 0.73 0.82 0.49 0.54 0.81 34 -1 35 University of Texas--Dallas 0.47 0.78 0.49 0.58 0.87 0.49 0.65 0.5 35 -4 36 Brigham Young University (Marriott) (UT) 0.43 0.59 0.6 0.68 0.86 0.49 0.73 0.44 36 -5 36 University of Rochester (Simon) (NY) 0.47 0.52 0.73 0.7 0.87 0.5 0.49 0.73 36 -3 36 Texas A&M University--College Station (Mays) 0.57 0.56 0.65 0.74 0.86 0.4 0.43 0.48 36 +2 39 University of Maryland--College Park (Smith) 0.57 0.52 0.7 0.7 0.75 0.42 0.38 0.42 39 +3 40 University of Georgia (Terry) 0.57 0.44 0.61 0.68 0.74 0.44 0.54 0.52 40 -1 40 Michigan State University (Broad) 0.57 0.56 0.62 0.68 0.75 0.41 0.38 0.38 40 -1 40 University of Wisconsin--Madison 0.6 0.48 0.61 0.48 0.69 0.53 0.5 0.45 40 +2 43 University of Tennessee--Knoxville (Haslam) 0.5 0.52 0.44 0.76 0.86 0.43 0.64 0.4 43 -4 44 University of Pittsburgh (Katz) (PA) 0.5 0.59 0.51 0.53 0.65 0.62 0.43 0.69 44 +8 45 University of Utah (Eccles) 0.47 0.56 0.47 0.52 0.67 0.57 0.63 0.51 45 -1 45 Boston College (Carroll) (MA) 0.53 0.59 0.57 0.55 0.68 0.48 0.38 0.29 45 -1 45 Rutgers University--Newark and New Brunswick (NJ) 0.4 0.48 0.51 0.76 0.84 0.5 0.51 0.47 45 -1 45 Boston University (Questrom) (MA) 0.5 0.48 0.53 0.4 0.8 0.6 0.44 0.45 45 +5 49 Southern Methodist University (Cox) (TX) 0.47 0.59 0.58 0.5 0.69 0.47 0.41 0.57 49 -5 49 Iowa State University (Ivy) 0.37 0.67 0.17 0.65 0.95 0.54 0.73 0.27 49 +1 51 University of Alabama (Manderson) 0.4 0.52 0.22 0.64 0.83 0.58 0.84 0.38 51 -7 52 Texas Christian University (Neeley) 0.37 0.48 0.48 0.61 0.82 0.51 0.5 0.71 52 +5 53 George Washington University 0.47 0.56 0.47 0.43 0.82 0.36 0.38 0.54 53 - 53 University of California--Davis 0.5 0.52 0.64 0.46 0.61 0.4 0.38 0.39 53 - 53 University of South Carolina (Moore) 0.5 0.44 0.39 0.51 0.68 0.46 0.63 0.13 53 +2 56 Purdue University--West Lafayette (Krannert) (IN) 0.53 0.56 0.45 0.52 0.75 0.25 0.46 0.22 56 -12 57 Howard University (DC) 0.33 0.59 0.61 0.64 0.72 0.36 0.23 0.59 57 +7 58 Northeastern University (School of Business) (MA) 0.47 0.52 0.36 0.54 0.71 0.35 0.5 0.47 58 -3 59 University of Massachusetts--Amherst (Isenberg) 0.43 0.56 0.36 0.52 0.64 0.36 0.59 0.47 59 -2 59 Babson College (Olin) (MA) 0.5 0.52 0.38 0.52 0.75 0.41 0.16 0 59 +4 59 Pepperdine University (Graziadio) (CA) 0.43 0.48 0.43 0.43 0.58 0.51 0.43 0.19 59 +9 59 CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College (Zicklin) (NY) 0.37 0.59 0.3 0.37 0.53 0.73 0.26 0.67 59 +18 63 University of California--Irvine (Merage) 0.5 0.48 0.46 0.3 0.51 0.38 0.55 0.75 63 -6 63 Baylor University (Hankamer) (TX) 0.4 0.48 0.23 0.61 0.73 0.41 0.65 0.13 63 -3 65 University of Connecticut 0.43 0.48 0.43 0.35 0.64 0.27 0.6 0.43 65 -5 65 North Carolina State University (Poole) 0.4 0.44 0.48 0.52 0.65 0.3 0.5 0.3 65 -1 67 University of Miami (FL) 0.43 0.44 0.36 0.62 0.78 0.21 0.4 0.08 67 -7 67 University of Arizona (Eller) 0.57 0.44 0.37 0.45 0.52 0.2 0.45 0.62 67 -3 67 Auburn University (Harbert) (AL) 0.4 0.48 0.19 0.61 0.75 0.35 0.39 0.64 67 +7 70 Fordham University (Gabelli) (NY) 0.4 0.59 0.48 0.42 0.63 0.26 0.29 0 70 -6 70 Louisiana State University--Baton Rouge (Ourso) 0.4 0.41 0.27 0.7 0.8 0.2 0.5 0.03 70 -2 70 Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ) 0.3 0.78 0.35 0.31 0.95 0.23 0 0 70 -2 70 William & Mary (VA) 0.43 0.56 0.37 0.48 0.63 0.3 0.26 0.03 70 +1 70 University of California--San Diego (Rady) 0.43 0.37 0.35 0.18 0.35 0.79 0.36 0.56 70 +17 75 University of Colorado--Boulder (Leeds) 0.5 0.56 0.27 0.29 0.55 0.37 0.28 0.24 75 -1 75 University of Kentucky (Gatton) 0.4 0.56 0.11 0.37 0.4 0.61 0.65 0.2 75 +8 77 University of Kansas 0.4 0.37 0.26 0.54 0.73 0.34 0.44 0 77 -5 77 University at Buffalo--SUNY (NY) 0.33 0.74 0.18 0.32 0.74 0.23 0.44 0 77 - 77 Temple University (Fox) (PA) 0.33 0.41 0.43 0.48 0.64 0.36 0.38 0.39 77 +7 80 University of Oklahoma (Price) 0.43 0.37 0.28 0.41 0.72 0.25 0.51 0 80 +1 81 Saint Louis University (Chaifetz) (MO) 0.33 0.52 0.12 0.62 0.89 0.1 0.44 0 81 -9 81 University of Denver (Daniels) (CO) 0.33 0.44 0.34 0.37 0.6 0.33 0.45 0.03 81 -4 83 Clemson University (SC) 0.4 0.52 0.15 0.49 0.91 0 0.38 0 83 -9 83 Tulane University (Freeman) (LA) 0.47 0.48 0.32 0.23 0.31 0.42 0.33 0.18 83 +9 85 Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead) (OH) 0.47 0.52 0.24 0.21 0.44 0.31 0.38 0 85 -4 85 American University (Kogod) (DC) 0.37 0.44 0.32 0.4 0.62 0.27 0.18 0.32 85 +2 85 Rochester Institute of Technology (Saunders) (NY) 0.4 0.41 0.16 0.63 0.89 0.02 0.31 0 85 +5 85 University of San Diego (CA) 0.27 0.3 0.43 0.43 0.71 0.34 0.25 0.24 85 +7 89 North Carolina A&T State University 0.1 0.44 0.25 0.93 0.92 0 0.63 0 89 +7 90 Chapman University (Argyros)¹ (CA) 0.23 0.56 0.22 0.59 0.79 0 0.5 0 90 -13 90 University of San Francisco (CA) 0.27 0.33 0.36 0.51 0.71 0.16 0.4 0 90 -3 90 University of Mississippi 0.33 0.37 0.08 0.63 0.73 0.18 0.43 0.48 90 - 93 Binghamton University--SUNY (NY) 0.27 0.44 0.19 0.47 0.6 0.16 0.68 0 93 -9 93 University of Oregon (Lundquist) 0.43 0.41 0.29 0.21 0.37 0.27 0.5 0 93 -1 93 University of Houston (Bauer) (TX) 0.37 0.41 0.33 0.35 0.38 0.32 0.35 0.19 93 +4 96 Syracuse University (Whitman) (NY) 0.43 0.56 0.1 0.31 0.47 0.17 0.3 0 96 -12 97 Drexel University (LeBow) (PA) 0.33 0.48 0.35 0.35 0.62 0 0.28 0 97 - 97 Belmont University (Massey) (TN) 0.17 0.3 0.07 0.66 0.85 0.12 0.73 0 97 - 99 Mississippi State University 0.23 0.37 0.11 0.65 0.77 0 0.66 0 99 -7 99 Texas State University (McCoy) 0.13 0.22 0.17 0.77 1 0.08 0.43 0 99 +2 99 Bentley University (MA) 0.4 0.37 0.28 0.35 0.48 0.07 0.41 0 99 +2 99 Missouri University of Science & Technology 0.13 0.37 0.16 0.59 0.71 0.14 0.66 0.21 99 +2 Note that the data has been normalized into a value between 0 and 1 where the best parameter was ranked as 1 and the worst as 0. Winners and Losers of the New Rankings The winners are the schools that have provided all data and did not loosen their admissions standards. Schools that continued requiring test scores and admitted only a small % of the applicants without scores or with scores other than GMAT and GRE gained ground. MBA programs such as HBS, Anderson, Foster, and Mendoza all gained ground. On the other hand USC Marshall, UNC Kenan-Flagler, and Krannert lost ground. US News Ranking Methodology: We did not change or adjust the methodology. The weights were left the same as in previous years and we only made slight adjustments to the score and admissions reporting as well as applied trends to Wharton and Sloan. Do we agree that 40% of the ranking should be peer and recruiter assessment scores? Not really but for this exercise, we wanted to stay as close to the pure concept of the US News rankings as we could, just putting a different lens, hopefully more accurate. Here is the original methodology: Peer assessment score - 25% Recruiter assessment score - 15% Mean starting compensation - 14% Employed at graduation - 7% Employed 3 months after graduation - 14% Test scores - 16.25% Undergrad GPA - 7.5% MBA Acceptance Rate - 1.25% Why? It just had to be done. We had to address the inconsistency in numbers. It seemed like it would be a small fix but it took way too long. Lesson learned I guess.

Huge thanks to Regenerate ! His excel skills are much more superior to mine and this would definitely not been possible without his involvement.

QuabityAssurance · Answer

This is pretty interesting and yes I am surprised that how sensitive the rankings are when a parameter weighed 1% is change too.

Posted from my mobile device

2021mbacand · Answer

Is it crazy that I disagree with this?

US News heavily weights starting salary and employment % which really are the two reasons most people get MBAs. This ranking sorta ignores Anderson's slip in both and negatively weights some schools like Tepper, Johnson, and McDonough with better stats in both.

bb · Answer

Hi. No, not crazy.... but what do you mean by "this"?

I have not changed the US News Methodology https://www.usnews.com/education/best-g ... ethodology

I simply applied proportionate reported to the test scores and admissions %. I realize it was a long read but curious what you disagree with

P.S. I agree that employment numbers are important by the way. US news puts 35% on the Employment-related items such how many people had jobs at graduation, at 3 months, and their salary. The ranking potentially penalizes schools that are in cheaper states such as Texas vs those in major metro areas such as New York since there is no cost of living adjustment.

MBASomeTime · Answer

Was the GPA weighting also adjusted? It's mentioned that the 16.25% for the GMAT has been adjusted, but it looks like the GPA has been as well - for example, Ross has a 3.45, Fuqua has a 3.5, and Stern has a 3.6 but they are all ranked the same.

The GMAT weighting is a difficult route to take in all honesty. Some programs take a higher percentage of incoming students from India/China in order to increase GMAT/GRE averages - and similarly, those programs report a much smaller percentage of domestic GPAs; the combination of the two looks "better" rankings wise. Applicants can also submit both types of exam, and we have no way to differentiate between those that did and those that did not, other than looking at the individual class profiles. At Stern for example, you have quite a few JD/MBA applicants which are included in the class profile - the % that took LSAT is not reported in the rankings. I also disagree that the admit rate should be recalibrated - there is no indication that applicants who did not submit test scores were less likely to get in, and the recalibration is based off the incoming class rather than the applicant pool, which further invalidates the data. It absolutely makes sense that Wharton and Sloan should use this year's data for the ranking though.

Edit: Numbers on the assessments seem off as well.

Edit2: I did some napkin math on the rankings - with a few assumptions for the M7 (same GRE/GMAT %, as CBS, Kellogg, and Booth do not disclose) and fixed the recruiter and peer scores, which may have been from last year or mixed up between the two categories. (Haas and CBS are just swapped, Darden is way too high, Anderson does not have the same scores as USC, etc.)

No points were given to schools with no "reporting" in the GMAT/GRE. Which is a bit extreme IMO, because it essentially implies that if the candidates did not take the exam, they would score equivalently as the lowest ranking school. Perhaps if it was in place beforehand, all schools would've done so, instead of staying above the 75% threshold which USN begins to penalize at. I'm of the opinion that the GRE is a backdoor to MBA admissions in the first place, and many schools have reported a double digit increase in the exam last year. (Tuck had 39% GRE this year with an average score which converts to 640, for example, Ross had 37% with a 610)

Rank School Points
1 GSB 94
2 Wharton 93
3 Booth 92
3 HBS 92
5 Kellogg 91
5 Sloan 91
7 CBS 88
8 Haas 87
8 SOM 87
10 Tuck 86
11 Fuqua 84
12 Stern 83
13 Ross 82
14 Darden 81
15 Johnson 80
16 Anderson 79

Regenerate · Answer

Sexy stuff,  bb !

NOTE to the readers: If we had another decimal place on GPA, Peer Assessment and Recruiter Assessment we could have probably gotten rid of all the ties (at least in the top 20).

2nd NOTE to the readers: Putting 40% of the ranking in (1) what peers thought about each other and (2) what alumni (who, generally are the ones who go to a school to recruit at it) say about the current round of graduates from their school ... is ... well ... more than a bit biased. Personally, I think it's ludicrous and one of the reasons I agreed to build the rankings for GMATClub last year (and am doing it again this year; nearly done, btw).

variantguy · Answer

bb  Didn't look at the table of stats in detail but I could see that the Haas employment numbers are way off! The table reports 68% got jobs at graduation and 83% 3 months post-graduation, but the actual numbers in the Haas employment report are 76.4% and 89.5%? What's the reasoning behind this (if any)?

And to the point that  Regenerate  made about peer and recruiter (not all of whom are alums, btw) scores being biased, sure but having 16.25% allocated to standardized scores doesn't make much sense either. It encourages schools to pad their stats, without necessarily creating a better MBA program overall, the most obvious case in point being Yale. Yale above Haas and Tuck is laughable.

2021mbacand · Answer

The employers pay the same everywhere. I just don't see how Anderson deserves 16 when they flopped so hard.

bb · Answer

Thank you variantguy . The data has been "normalized" (I think that is the right term?) Meaning the data you see in the table above is AFTER it was converted into a percentile data by taking the biggest number in the range and smallest and dividing them into 100 parts. So 0.83 does not mean that 83% got jobs 3 months after graduation. This means that when compared to all other programs, Haas was ranked as 83rd percentile. I can also post some of the exact data but that has to be normalized before it can be used for rankings calculations. I hope it is somewhat clear

sorry if I confused anyone...

bb · Answer

I don't disagree about the Anderson flip but this is the US News Rankings and how they chose to weigh things. It definitely weighed Anderson down. They scored in the 59th percentile for employed at graduation and 71st employed 3 months after. Their comp numbers are 82nd percentile when it comes to salary so they were not penalized there. I can tell you that all west-coast schools took a beating in their placement numbers this year. Stanford ranked 57th percentile for Employed at Graduation. Haas was 68th percentile. So technically, Anderson was ahead of Stanford there...

Anyway, as a matter of experiment, and to check how elastic the model is, I just tried to run a few scenarios with employment numbers for Anderson and tried a few scenarios to see what impact employment numbers have on the rankings. In my trial spreadsheet I tried a scenario where Anderson gets AVERAGE TOP 15 numbers which is 74th percentile for employed at graduation and 85th percentile 3 months after (which is a meaningful bump for them). That would improve their ranking by only 1 rank. They would get Spot #15. Which is surprising for this much of a difference. But it indicates that perhaps US News Ranking methodology is not that great for changes to employment numbers. That is why Regenerate has been working on the GMAT Club's rankings. You can see last year's results here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmat-club-mb ... 35846.html and he may publish something based on this data as well

P.S. To clarify specifically Anderson - my adjustments of GMAT scores and Admission percentages did not impact Anderson much at all since Anderson has reported 99% of their applicants with GMAT and GRE scores and thus their scores were captured properly in the rankings. Other schools on the other hand, did see bigger score adjustments because of partial reports of GMAT/GRE rankings. So in other words, I did not bump up Anderson... rather several programs were bumped down though not by that much in the Top 20. Here are the score multipliers that affected each of the programs. As a reminder, this means that the GMAT/GRE Score weight of a particular program was adjusted down by this factor. Sloan and Wharton were adjusted by 0.17 with an explanation provided in the original post why that number. Also note that if a school has a factor of -0.50, it does not mean its rank was adjusted by 50% down. It just means its scores normalized calculation was adjusted 50% down which ranks differently and likely higher. E.g. Marsha's -0.43 adjustment changed its Score Rank from 89th percentile to 50th percentile. Again, as a reminder, the Score component is 16.25% in the US News Rankings. No changes have been made to the weights of individual categories. Old US News Rank MBA Program Incomplete Score Factor 1 Stanford University (CA) 0 2 University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)¹ -0.17 3 University of Chicago (Booth) (IL) 0 4 Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL) 0 5 Harvard University (MA) 0 5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)¹ -0.17 7 University of California--Berkeley (Haas) -0.1 7 Columbia University (NY) -0.16 9 Yale University (CT) -0.02 10 New York University (Stern) -0.18 10 Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH) 0 12 Duke University (Fuqua) (NC) -0.05 13 University of Virginia (Darden) -0.16 13 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross) -0.03 15 Cornell University (Johnson) (NY) -0.14 16 University of Southern California (Marshall) -0.43 16 Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) (PA) -0.33 18 University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson) -0.01 18 University of Texas--Austin (McCombs) -0.17 20 University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) -0.52

bb · Answer

Thank you for your question! No GPA adjustments were made. I have used US News Data and they report 2 decimal points: Stern: 3.60 Ross: 3.45 Fuqua: 3.50 However!!! in a few schools (Stern being one of them) the data was somehow taking the numbers from adjacent cells in an unexplainable manner so I found a calculation mistake that was using adjacent cells. So I really appreciate you pointing it out. The calculation mistake also impacted the peer assessment score but not others

I have rerun the data and checked each cell multiple times now to make sure this error does not happen any other programs (Sorry about this) While the error forced a recalculation for 2 programs in the Top 20, notably Stern, Haas, Columbia and Marshall, the change in one school also impacts others in profound ways. Meaning, changing Stern, does not only make it go up down but also impacts other schools and thus HBS slide to Spot #3 and now tied with Kellogg. Stern moved up to spot #11 and tied with Fuqua and Marshall stayed unchanged however.

bb · Answer

Thank you again MBASomeTime for spotting an error in the data! That was my purpose for providing the data to give more people the tools to evaluate and review the calculations!
I have updated the numbers and re-posted the rankings.... maybe I should call it The should have been should have been rankings

The Revised Top 10

US News Top 10 v2.0 Rankings
Rank	School
1	Stanford
2	Booth
3	Harvard
3	Kellogg
5	Wharton*
6	MIT Sloan*
7	Haas
7	Yale SOM
9	Columbia
9	Tuck
11	Stern
11	Fuqua

The Revised Top 10 US News Top 10 v2.0 Rankings Rank School 1 Stanford 2 Booth 3 Harvard 3 Kellogg 5 Wharton* 6 MIT Sloan* 7 Haas 7 Yale SOM 9 Columbia 9 Tuck 11 Stern 11 Fuqua

variantguy · Answer

I still don't get it I think. If I understand correctly, after normalization, the school that performed the best should get a score of 1 and the worst should get 0, right? That doesn't seem to be the case for the "% employed at graduation column" - North Carolina at the top got a 0.93, which doesn't make sense because there's no seven-way tie. Also, the worst-performing schools in five out of eight categories haven't been given a score of 0!! Feels like it defeats the purpose of normalizaiton.

bb · Answer

No problem. It is important to get to the bottom of it. The US news ranks about 143 schools. The last 34 schools they don't even rank and put into the bottom category of "non-ranked" though they use their data to derive the overall min levels. Those are the schools that feed those min numbers (i did not publish them for the sake of saving time and space) but the 0 rating for employed at graduation belongs to the University of Vermont as well as Duquesne and Brandies University that did not supply any data and thus received a 0 ranking in that category. P.S. I will PM you the original spreadsheet

MBAbot · Answer

Hello from the GMAT Club MBAbot!

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The US News Rankings 2022 That Should Have Been!

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New Rank	Business School	Peer Assessment	Recruiter Assessment	Salary + Bonus	% Employed @ Graduation	Employed @ 3Mo	GMAT + GRE Scores	GPA	Acceptance %	Old US News Rank	Rank Delta
US News Complete "Should Have Been" 2022 MBA Rankings
1	Stanford University (CA)	1	1	0.98	0.57	0.8	1	1	1	1	-
2	University of Chicago (Booth) (IL)	0.97	0.96	0.95	0.82	0.89	0.97	0.7	0.79	2	+1
3	Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)	0.93	0.93	0.95	0.78	0.9	0.99	0.75	0.79	3	+1
3	Harvard University (MA)	1	0.96	0.94	0.67	0.77	0.99	0.88	1	3	+2
5	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)¹	1	1	1	0.73	0.86	0.81	0.76	0.8	5	-3
6	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)¹	1	0.96	0.91	0.71	0.86	0.81	0.73	0.91	6	-1
7	University of California--Berkeley (Haas)	0.93	0.89	0.88	0.68	0.83	0.86	0.81	0.82	7	-
7	Yale University (CT)	0.87	0.89	0.88	0.72	0.81	0.95	0.78	0.77	7	+2
9	Columbia University (NY)	0.9	0.89	0.94	0.69	0.81	0.83	0.75	0.92	9	-2
9	Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)	0.8	0.85	0.96	0.78	0.9	0.94	0.63	0.72	9	+1
11	New York University (Stern)	0.83	0.78	0.97	0.76	0.85	0.79	0.75	0.72	11	-1
11	Duke University (Fuqua) (NC)	0.83	0.81	0.91	0.83	0.88	0.81	0.63	0.81	11	+1
13	University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross)	0.83	0.85	0.89	0.77	0.85	0.87	0.56	0.68	13	-
14	University of Virginia (Darden)	0.77	0.81	0.93	0.82	0.88	0.77	0.63	0.65	14	-1
15	Cornell University (Johnson) (NY)	0.77	0.74	0.95	0.82	0.87	0.75	0.41	0.6	15	-
16	University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson)	0.77	0.78	0.82	0.59	0.71	0.92	0.61	0.72	16	+2
17	University of Texas--Austin (McCombs)	0.77	0.74	0.81	0.74	0.81	0.72	0.55	0.62	17	+1
18	Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) (PA)	0.77	0.78	0.9	0.78	0.82	0.57	0.4	0.69	18	-2
19	University of Washington (Foster)	0.63	0.59	0.8	0.78	0.92	0.87	0.48	0.64	19	+3
20	University of Southern California (Marshall)	0.7	0.67	0.83	0.71	0.88	0.52	0.75	0.72	20	-4
20	Georgetown University (McDonough) (DC)	0.67	0.7	0.82	0.69	0.86	0.78	0.43	0.44	20	+1
22	Indiana University (Kelley)	0.7	0.7	0.73	0.72	0.81	0.74	0.4	0.63	22	+1
23	University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)	0.77	0.78	0.8	0.71	0.81	0.42	0.43	0.22	23	-3
24	University of Florida (Warrington)	0.6	0.63	0.63	0.73	0.87	0.75	0.58	0.8	24	+2
25	Vanderbilt University (Owen) (TN)	0.63	0.63	0.77	0.71	0.87	0.56	0.46	0.44	25	-2
25	Rice University (Jones) (TX)	0.6	0.63	0.77	0.72	0.85	0.57	0.53	0.53	25	-
27	University of Minnesota--Twin Cities (Carlson)	0.6	0.48	0.68	0.74	0.84	0.75	0.6	0.45	27	+1
28	Emory University (Goizueta) (GA)	0.67	0.63	0.8	0.73	0.87	0.61	0	0.45	28	-2
28	Arizona State University (W.P. Carey)	0.6	0.56	0.59	0.58	0.82	0.68	0.66	0.82	28	+2
28	Washington University in St. Louis (Olin)	0.67	0.63	0.65	0.56	0.63	0.73	0.5	0.58	28	+8
31	Ohio State University (Fisher)	0.63	0.52	0.65	0.67	0.79	0.67	0.56	0.63	31	+2
31	University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) (IN)	0.63	0.63	0.64	0.58	0.71	0.75	0.41	0.56	31	+5
33	Georgia Institute of Technology (Scheller)	0.6	0.56	0.72	0.73	0.87	0.51	0.38	0.53	33	-5
34	Pennsylvania State University--University Park (Smeal)	0.57	0.52	0.66	0.73	0.82	0.49	0.54	0.81	34	-1
35	University of Texas--Dallas	0.47	0.78	0.49	0.58	0.87	0.49	0.65	0.5	35	-4
36	Brigham Young University (Marriott) (UT)	0.43	0.59	0.6	0.68	0.86	0.49	0.73	0.44	36	-5
36	University of Rochester (Simon) (NY)	0.47	0.52	0.73	0.7	0.87	0.5	0.49	0.73	36	-3
36	Texas A&M University--College Station (Mays)	0.57	0.56	0.65	0.74	0.86	0.4	0.43	0.48	36	+2
39	University of Maryland--College Park (Smith)	0.57	0.52	0.7	0.7	0.75	0.42	0.38	0.42	39	+3
40	University of Georgia (Terry)	0.57	0.44	0.61	0.68	0.74	0.44	0.54	0.52	40	-1
40	Michigan State University (Broad)	0.57	0.56	0.62	0.68	0.75	0.41	0.38	0.38	40	-1
40	University of Wisconsin--Madison	0.6	0.48	0.61	0.48	0.69	0.53	0.5	0.45	40	+2
43	University of Tennessee--Knoxville (Haslam)	0.5	0.52	0.44	0.76	0.86	0.43	0.64	0.4	43	-4
44	University of Pittsburgh (Katz) (PA)	0.5	0.59	0.51	0.53	0.65	0.62	0.43	0.69	44	+8
45	University of Utah (Eccles)	0.47	0.56	0.47	0.52	0.67	0.57	0.63	0.51	45	-1
45	Boston College (Carroll) (MA)	0.53	0.59	0.57	0.55	0.68	0.48	0.38	0.29	45	-1
45	Rutgers University--Newark and New Brunswick (NJ)	0.4	0.48	0.51	0.76	0.84	0.5	0.51	0.47	45	-1
45	Boston University (Questrom) (MA)	0.5	0.48	0.53	0.4	0.8	0.6	0.44	0.45	45	+5
49	Southern Methodist University (Cox) (TX)	0.47	0.59	0.58	0.5	0.69	0.47	0.41	0.57	49	-5
49	Iowa State University (Ivy)	0.37	0.67	0.17	0.65	0.95	0.54	0.73	0.27	49	+1
51	University of Alabama (Manderson)	0.4	0.52	0.22	0.64	0.83	0.58	0.84	0.38	51	-7
52	Texas Christian University (Neeley)	0.37	0.48	0.48	0.61	0.82	0.51	0.5	0.71	52	+5
53	George Washington University	0.47	0.56	0.47	0.43	0.82	0.36	0.38	0.54	53	-
53	University of California--Davis	0.5	0.52	0.64	0.46	0.61	0.4	0.38	0.39	53	-
53	University of South Carolina (Moore)	0.5	0.44	0.39	0.51	0.68	0.46	0.63	0.13	53	+2
56	Purdue University--West Lafayette (Krannert) (IN)	0.53	0.56	0.45	0.52	0.75	0.25	0.46	0.22	56	-12
57	Howard University (DC)	0.33	0.59	0.61	0.64	0.72	0.36	0.23	0.59	57	+7
58	Northeastern University (School of Business) (MA)	0.47	0.52	0.36	0.54	0.71	0.35	0.5	0.47	58	-3
59	University of Massachusetts--Amherst (Isenberg)	0.43	0.56	0.36	0.52	0.64	0.36	0.59	0.47	59	-2
59	Babson College (Olin) (MA)	0.5	0.52	0.38	0.52	0.75	0.41	0.16	0	59	+4
59	Pepperdine University (Graziadio) (CA)	0.43	0.48	0.43	0.43	0.58	0.51	0.43	0.19	59	+9
59	CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College (Zicklin) (NY)	0.37	0.59	0.3	0.37	0.53	0.73	0.26	0.67	59	+18
63	University of California--Irvine (Merage)	0.5	0.48	0.46	0.3	0.51	0.38	0.55	0.75	63	-6
63	Baylor University (Hankamer) (TX)	0.4	0.48	0.23	0.61	0.73	0.41	0.65	0.13	63	-3
65	University of Connecticut	0.43	0.48	0.43	0.35	0.64	0.27	0.6	0.43	65	-5
65	North Carolina State University (Poole)	0.4	0.44	0.48	0.52	0.65	0.3	0.5	0.3	65	-1
67	University of Miami (FL)	0.43	0.44	0.36	0.62	0.78	0.21	0.4	0.08	67	-7
67	University of Arizona (Eller)	0.57	0.44	0.37	0.45	0.52	0.2	0.45	0.62	67	-3
67	Auburn University (Harbert) (AL)	0.4	0.48	0.19	0.61	0.75	0.35	0.39	0.64	67	+7
70	Fordham University (Gabelli) (NY)	0.4	0.59	0.48	0.42	0.63	0.26	0.29	0	70	-6
70	Louisiana State University--Baton Rouge (Ourso)	0.4	0.41	0.27	0.7	0.8	0.2	0.5	0.03	70	-2
70	Stevens Institute of Technology (NJ)	0.3	0.78	0.35	0.31	0.95	0.23	0	0	70	-2
70	William & Mary (VA)	0.43	0.56	0.37	0.48	0.63	0.3	0.26	0.03	70	+1
70	University of California--San Diego (Rady)	0.43	0.37	0.35	0.18	0.35	0.79	0.36	0.56	70	+17
75	University of Colorado--Boulder (Leeds)	0.5	0.56	0.27	0.29	0.55	0.37	0.28	0.24	75	-1
75	University of Kentucky (Gatton)	0.4	0.56	0.11	0.37	0.4	0.61	0.65	0.2	75	+8
77	University of Kansas	0.4	0.37	0.26	0.54	0.73	0.34	0.44	0	77	-5
77	University at Buffalo--SUNY (NY)	0.33	0.74	0.18	0.32	0.74	0.23	0.44	0	77	-
77	Temple University (Fox) (PA)	0.33	0.41	0.43	0.48	0.64	0.36	0.38	0.39	77	+7
80	University of Oklahoma (Price)	0.43	0.37	0.28	0.41	0.72	0.25	0.51	0	80	+1
81	Saint Louis University (Chaifetz) (MO)	0.33	0.52	0.12	0.62	0.89	0.1	0.44	0	81	-9
81	University of Denver (Daniels) (CO)	0.33	0.44	0.34	0.37	0.6	0.33	0.45	0.03	81	-4
83	Clemson University (SC)	0.4	0.52	0.15	0.49	0.91	0	0.38	0	83	-9
83	Tulane University (Freeman) (LA)	0.47	0.48	0.32	0.23	0.31	0.42	0.33	0.18	83	+9
85	Case Western Reserve University (Weatherhead) (OH)	0.47	0.52	0.24	0.21	0.44	0.31	0.38	0	85	-4
85	American University (Kogod) (DC)	0.37	0.44	0.32	0.4	0.62	0.27	0.18	0.32	85	+2
85	Rochester Institute of Technology (Saunders) (NY)	0.4	0.41	0.16	0.63	0.89	0.02	0.31	0	85	+5
85	University of San Diego (CA)	0.27	0.3	0.43	0.43	0.71	0.34	0.25	0.24	85	+7
89	North Carolina A&T State University	0.1	0.44	0.25	0.93	0.92	0	0.63	0	89	+7
90	Chapman University (Argyros)¹ (CA)	0.23	0.56	0.22	0.59	0.79	0	0.5	0	90	-13
90	University of San Francisco (CA)	0.27	0.33	0.36	0.51	0.71	0.16	0.4	0	90	-3
90	University of Mississippi	0.33	0.37	0.08	0.63	0.73	0.18	0.43	0.48	90	-
93	Binghamton University--SUNY (NY)	0.27	0.44	0.19	0.47	0.6	0.16	0.68	0	93	-9
93	University of Oregon (Lundquist)	0.43	0.41	0.29	0.21	0.37	0.27	0.5	0	93	-1
93	University of Houston (Bauer) (TX)	0.37	0.41	0.33	0.35	0.38	0.32	0.35	0.19	93	+4
96	Syracuse University (Whitman) (NY)	0.43	0.56	0.1	0.31	0.47	0.17	0.3	0	96	-12
97	Drexel University (LeBow) (PA)	0.33	0.48	0.35	0.35	0.62	0	0.28	0	97	-
97	Belmont University (Massey) (TN)	0.17	0.3	0.07	0.66	0.85	0.12	0.73	0	97	-
99	Mississippi State University	0.23	0.37	0.11	0.65	0.77	0	0.66	0	99	-7
99	Texas State University (McCoy)	0.13	0.22	0.17	0.77	1	0.08	0.43	0	99	+2
99	Bentley University (MA)	0.4	0.37	0.28	0.35	0.48	0.07	0.41	0	99	+2
99	Missouri University of Science & Technology	0.13	0.37	0.16	0.59	0.71	0.14	0.66	0.21	99	+2

Old US News Rank	MBA Program	Incomplete Score Factor
1	Stanford University (CA)	0
2	University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)¹	-0.17
3	University of Chicago (Booth) (IL)	0
4	Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)	0
5	Harvard University (MA)	0
5	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)¹	-0.17
7	University of California--Berkeley (Haas)	-0.1
7	Columbia University (NY)	-0.16
9	Yale University (CT)	-0.02
10	New York University (Stern)	-0.18
10	Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)	0
12	Duke University (Fuqua) (NC)	-0.05
13	University of Virginia (Darden)	-0.16
13	University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross)	-0.03
15	Cornell University (Johnson) (NY)	-0.14
16	University of Southern California (Marshall)	-0.43
16	Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper) (PA)	-0.33
18	University of California--Los Angeles (Anderson)	-0.01
18	University of Texas--Austin (McCombs)	-0.17
20	University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)	-0.52