List of United States business school rankings is a tabular listing of some of the business schools and their affiliated universities located in the United States that are included in one or more of the rankings of full-time Master of Business Administration programs. Rankings are typically published by magazines or websites. This list is not a comprehensive list of business schools in the United States. These rankings are a subset of college and university rankings. Business schools are university-level institutions generally affiliated with a university or college that produces students who attain business administration degrees. Most of the schools listed in the rankings below are accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Some of the publications shown here have related rankings for undergraduate, part-time and executive curricula.
There is currently some controversy among faculty and administrators in American institutions of higher education regarding the request by the surveyors to have college presidents give their subjective opinion of other colleges because some of the methodologies are deemed misleading and a disservice. This has resulted in a movement surrounding the President's letter. [1]
Most modern university ranking systems are comparably young. The origins of ranking educational institutions based on their academic and other performance are usually traced back towards the end of the 19th / the beginning if the 20th century. [2] [3]
Business school rankings are important to the various business schools because they are an important marketing tool used to recruit top students, and lure recruiters from the top companies, with M7, or "Magnificent Seven", business schools often sitting at the top of the various rankings. Business schools attempt to achieve higher rankings in order that they may obtain the top students who will over the course of their careers most likely benefit the school by achieving high ranking positions, attaining great influence, and accumulating great wealth. Such students often are able to help other students attain better (higher paying, more respected and more influential) jobs. Students use the rankings to choose their school, [4] and creators of the rankings produce them to aid in this decision. [5]
More than half of recruiters said they believe the quality of MBA graduates is the same or better currently compared with past years.[ citation needed ] Some of the most renowned schools, such as Harvard and Stanford, do not rank as highly as their stature might suggest. Recruiters complain that they often find graduates of some of the most famous institutions more arrogant and less collegial than the MBAs they meet at other schools.[ citation needed ] Recruiters also noted that "some of the large, elite schools also don't seem to enjoy as many close, personal relationships with recruiters as smaller MBA programs do." [6]
The rankings are based on a variety of factors such as standardized test scores of students, salary of recent graduates, survey results of graduates and/or recruiters, the specific schools that choose to participate in a market survey, the number of top companies recruiting at the school and a variety of attributes. [7] The ratings vary significantly by method used to determine the success of each program. For instance, the Forbes and Financial Times results are based on long-term graduate career progress concerns, the Bloomberg Businessweek and Economist polls evaluate short-term experiences of the students with their program, U.S. News & World Report consider the recent experiences of recruiters with the program, and other rankings like the Aspen Institute Beyond Grey Pinstripes measure integration of sustainability material into business programs. [4]
The following is a short summary of the different recognized rankings:
The U.S. News & World Report uses a combination of the objective and subjective as well. The magazine seeks "expert opinion about program quality and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school's faculty, research, and students." However, it ranks a broad spectrum of professional school programs such as business schools, law schools, and medical schools as well as a variety of programs specific academic disciplines such as the social sciences or humanities. [8] The business opinion data incorporates responses from deans, program directors, and senior faculty about the academic quality of their programs as well as the opinions of professionals who actually do the hiring of the new MBA graduates from the schools. The statistical data combines measures of the qualities of the incoming students and as well as the faculty with measures of post graduate success as related to their degrees. [8] There were 382 programs that responded out of 402 solicited, and the formula used a strict combination of quality assessment (40%), placement success (35%), and student selectivity (25%). [9]
The Bloomberg Businessweek rankings, which are based on three sources of data (a student survey, a survey of corporate recruiters, and an intellectual capital rating), are published in mid-October of even numbered years. [10] The 2006 student survey of 45 online questions of students' ratings of their programs was distributed to 16,595 students three weeks before graduation; there were 9,290 responses. The recruiter survey determines how many MBAs a recruiter's company hired in the previous two years and which schools it actively recruits from. 223 respondents participated out of 426 solicited. The intellectual capital is determined based on a formula incorporating academic publications in journals, books written, and faculty size. [10]
The Forbes magazine methodology was to calculate a five-year return on investment for 2002 graduates. Forbes surveyed 18,500 alumni of 102 MBA programs and used their pre-enrollment and post-graduate business school salary information as a basis for comparing post-MBA compensation with the cost of attending the programs. [11]
QS MBA Ranking A British for-profit organization QS publishing The QS MBA and QS Executive MBA rankings have been used by Business Insider , a business magazine, in its ranking system, which is based on the popular rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). [12] [13]
A British newspaper, Financial Times poll, with 10,000 respondents to nearly 23,000 electronic questionnaires of alumni from 155 qualifying business schools, began in July 2006. All internationally accredited programs that are at least five years old and that have produced at least 30 graduates in each of the last three years were solicited. 113 of the 155 had at least 20 respondents and at least a 20 percent response rate. The questionnaire used twenty criteria in three main areas. The poll actually presents all twenty criteria to the reader. Eight criteria are based on alumni responses; eleven criteria are based on business school responses, and the final criterion is based on a research index produced by the Financial Times. [14] The survey responses are audited by KPMG. [15]
The Financial Times has also produced a "ranking of rankings" summarizing five of the individual rankings by The Economist , Bloomberg Businessweek , The Wall Street Journal , Forbes , and Financial Times, which produce U.S. and European summary rankings based on all five and a global summary ranking using The Wall Street Journal, Economist and Financial Times. The summary is based on underlying polls in which a school placed in the top ten using an average of the ordinal placements. The summary excludes the U.S. News & World Report results. [4]
Rankings based on attributes other than standardized test scores, salary of graduates, and similar attributes also exist. The Beyond Grey Pinstripes ranking, compiled by the Aspen Institute and published biannually, is based entirely on the integration of social and environmental stewardship into university curriculum and faculty research. Data for this survey is solicited from university administrators at accredited colleges, and audited by teams of Ph.D. scoring fellows. Rankings are calculated on the amount of sustainability coursework made available to students (20%), amount of student exposure to relevant material (25%), amount of coursework focused on stewardship by for-profit corporations (30%), and relevant faculty research (25%). [16] The 2011 survey and ranking include data from 150 universities. [17]
The ranking of business schools has been discussed in articles and on academic websites. [18] Critics of ranking methodologies maintain that any published rankings should be viewed with caution for the following reasons: [19]
In the specific case of MBA programs, one study found that ranking MBA programs by a combination of graduates' starting salaries and average student GMAT score can duplicate some of the ranking order found in top 20 lists of Business Week and U.S. News & World Report. [19]
A Master of Business Administration is a professional postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular area but an MBA is normally intended to be a general program. It originated in the United States in the early 20th century when the country industrialized and companies sought scientific management.
Simon Business School is the business school of the University of Rochester. It is located on the university's River Campus in Rochester, New York. It was renamed in 1986 after William E. Simon (1927–2000), the 63rd United States Secretary of the Treasury. The school's current dean is Sevin Yeltekin.
College and university rankings order higher education institutions based on various criteria, with factors differing depending on the specific ranking system. These rankings can be conducted at the national or international level, assessing institutions within a single country, within a specific geographical region, or worldwide. Rankings are typically conducted by magazines, newspapers, websites, governments, or academics.
The Kelley School of Business (KSB) is an undergraduate and graduate business school at Indiana University Bloomington, the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. As of 2022, approximately 13,538 full-time undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled on its Bloomington campus, as well as 1,596 students at the Indianapolis campus. In addition, more than 800 students study for graduate degrees through the school's online MBA and MS programs through "Kelley Direct".
Three national rankings of universities in the United Kingdom are published annually by The Complete University Guide, The Guardian and jointly by The Times and The Sunday Times. Rankings have also been produced in the past by The Daily Telegraph and Financial Times. UK Universities also rank highly in global university rankings with 8 UK Universities ranking in the top 100 of all three major global rankings as of 2023/24: QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings and Academic Ranking of World Universities.
The Australian Graduate School of Management is a postgraduate management and business school that is part of the UNSW Business School at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The AGSM offers general management, executive and leadership development programs.
Copenhagen Business School often abbreviated and referred to as CBS, is a public university situated in Copenhagen, Denmark and is considered one of the most prestigious business schools in Western Europe and the world.
The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College is the graduate business school of Dartmouth College, a private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. The school only offers a Master of Business Administration degree program.
Imperial College Business School is the business school of Imperial College London, located in London, United Kingdom. The business school was established in 2003 and officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II. The school is known for its entrepreneurial culture, which merges business disciplines with a science-based curriculum.
Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University is the international business school of the Erasmus University Rotterdam located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. RSM offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes taught mostly in English, including MBA, executive education, and PhD programmes.
The QUT Business School is one of six faculties at the Queensland University of Technology. It is home to the QUT Graduate School of Business, as well as four-discipline focused schools; the School of Accountancy, the School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, the School of Economics and Finance, and the School of Management. In 2015, the QUT Business School had enrolled a total of 8,971 students across the faculty, including 2,962 international students.
Alliance Manchester Business School is the business school of the University of Manchester in Manchester, England. It is one of the oldest business schools in the UK, and provides education to undergraduates, postgraduates and executives.
IE Business School is a graduate and undergraduate school of business, located in Madrid, Spain. It was founded in 1973 under the name Instituto de Empresa and since 2009 is part of IE University. IE Business School runs BBA, MBA, Executive MBA, master's degree programs in finance and management, executive education programs, PhD, and DBA programs.
The Desautels Faculty of Management is a faculty of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The faculty offers a range of undergraduate and graduate-level business programs, including the Bachelor of Commerce, Master of Business Administration and Doctor of Philosophy in management degrees. The Faculty of Management also offers a joint MBA/Law program with McGill's Faculty of Law.
Austral University is a private university in Argentina, based in Pilar, Buenos Aires. Austral is the best private university and the best in employability in the country according to QS University Rankings.
The Leonard N. Stern School of Business is the business school of New York University, a private research university based in New York City. Founded as the School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance in 1900, the school received its current name in 1988.
Ibmec is a private research university with five campuses in Brazil's main cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, and Brasília. Founded in 1970, it is one of Latin America's most prestigious business and economics school and today offers undergraduate and graduate programs in several other disciplines.
The traditional MBA degree requires coursework and other study of business from a primarily financial standpoint, with some attention to management of people, to conventional economic theory, and to business ethics. A sustainable MBA program includes these subjects, and also study of managing for environmental and social sustainability. These programs are sometimes called "green MBAs".
The QS World University Rankings is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with Times Higher Education (THE) magazine as Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings, inaugurated in 2004 to provide an independent source of comparative data about university performance. In 2009, the two organizations parted ways to produce independent university rankings, the QS World University Rankings and THE World University Rankings.
Rankings of universities in Canada are typically published annually by a variety of nationally, and internationally based publications. Rankings of post-secondary institutions have most often been conducted by magazines, newspapers, websites, governments, or academia. Ranking are established to help inform potential applicants about universities in Canada based on a range of criteria, including student body characteristics, classes, faculty, finances, library, and reputation. Various rankings consider combinations of factors, including funding and endowment, research excellence and/or influence, specialization expertise, admissions, student options, award numbers, internationalization, graduate employment, industrial linkage, historical reputation and other criteria. Various rankings also evaluate universities based on research output.