It might seem like the US News & World Report rankings of top business schools is somewhat of a stagnant list. Aren’t we just watching the M7 play musical chairs? Well, let the 2013 roster dispel that misconception. In a recent article, PoetsandQuants.com founder, John A. Byrne, sympathizes at the whiplash twenty-one deans must be feeling from their respective school’s abrupt position gains and losses as well as the seven deans who might be wondering why they find themselves outside the bus or the other ten deans who are likely happy to be in it for the first time. In short, the US News & World Report 2013 MBA rankings are quite a ride indeed.
It is not surprising that Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business was hit hard in this year’s list in light of its recent GMAT score and application reporting scandal. But, Tulane’s 24-place drop was not the most severe and was, in fact, only the third worst tumble. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School in Troy, N.Y. and Claremont College’s Drucker School fell 26 and 25 places, respectively, between 2012 and 2013.
The new list is not all bad news, of course. The University of Utah’s Eccles School leaped 23 places to the 61st spot. The next two biggest gains we realized by City University of New York’s Zicklin School at Baruch College and the University of Alabama, each seeing respective gains of 22 and 20 places—very noteworthy to be sure.
As mentioned, we also have ten new players on deck. The most impressive debut was from the University of California at San Diego, which came in at the 73rd spot out of 105 total. From there, the newbies pepper the 70s, 80s, and 90s until the University of Mississippi and West Virginia University fill out the 101st and 104th spots.
Of course, the big question is why an institution would see such a massive swing from one year to the next (Tulane notwithstanding). The answer boils down to how US News derives its list. Mr. Byrne’s article does a great job granulating the mixture of data and weights that build US News’ ranking algorithm:
“The magazine does its own survey of B-school deans and MBA directors (25% of the score). It also does its own survey of corporate recruiters (accounting for 15% of the overall ranking), starting salaries and bonuses (14%), employment rates at and three months after graduation (7% to 14%, respectively), student GMATs (about 16%), undergrad GPAs (about 8%), and the percentage of applicants who are accepted to a school (a little over 1%).”
