MBA50.com has compiled the results of the big five MBA rankings of the last twelve months to produce the MBA50.com Premiership.
How do the top business schools in the U.S. perform when you combine these results?
2013 Rank | 2012 Rank | 2011 Rank | Institution | Financial Times 2013* | BusWeek 2012 | Economist 2013* | US News 2013 | Forbes 2013 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | 1 | Harvard Bus Sch | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 3 |
2 | 3 | 3 | Stanford Univ GSB | 2 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 1 |
3 | 2 | 2 | Univ of Chicago - Booth | 6 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 |
4 | 4 | 4 | Univ of Pennsylvania - Wharton | 3 | 3 | 10 | 3 | 4 |
5 | 7 | 7 | Northwestern Univ - Kellogg | 8 | 5 | 15 | 4 | 5 |
6 | 5 | 6 | MIT Sloan Sch of Mgmt | 5 | 9 | 9 | 4 | 12 |
6 | 8 | 9 | Dartmouth College - Tuck | 10 | 12 | 2 | 9 | 6 |
8 | 6 | 5 | Columbia Bus Sch | 4 | 14 | 8 | 8 | 7 |
9 | 9 | 8 | Univ of California at Berkeley - Haas | 7 | 13 | 3 | 7 | 14 |
10 | 12 | 11 | Duke Univ - Fuqua | 11 | 6 | 18 | 11 | 8 |
11 | 10 | 10 | Univ of Virginia - Darden | 16 | 10 | 4 | 12 | 15 |
11 | 11 | 12 | Cornell Univ - Johnson | 14 | 7 | 11 | 16 | 9 |
13 | 14 | 13 | Univ of Michigan - Ross | 15 | 8 | 16 | 14 | 10 |
14 | 13 | 14 | New York Univ - Stern | 12 | 16 | 6 | 10 | 23 |
15 | 17 | 16 | UCLA - Anderson | 13 | 18 | 12 | 14 | 13 |
16 | 15 | 15 | Yale Sch of Mgmt | 9 | 21 | 17 | 13 | 18 |
17 | 16 | 17 | Carnegie Mellon - Tepper | 19 | 11 | 14 | 19 | 16 |
18 | 20 | 20 | Univ of North Carolina - Kenan-Flagler | 21 | 17 | 24 | 20 | 11 |
19 | 19 | 19 | Univ of Texas at Austin - McCombs | 22 | 19 | 19 | 17 | 21 |
20 | 18 | 18 | Emory Univ - Goizueta | 23 | 22 | 13 | 18 | 24 |
21 | 21 | 21 | Indiana Univ - Kelley | 27 | 15 | 23 | 22 | 19 |
22 | 27 | 27 | Univ of Notre Dame - Mendoza | - | 20 | 25 | 27 | 29 |
23 | 22 | 22 | Georgetown Univ - McDonough | 18 | 30 | 27 | 25 | 33 |
24 | 23 | 25 | Vanderbilt Univ - Owen | 25 | 25 | 22 | 30 | 39 |
24 | 30 | 31 | Washington Univ - Olin | 26 | 31 | 29 | 21 | 34 |
26 | 31 | Minnesota - Carlson | - | 33 | 32 | 23 | 25 | |
27 | Georgia Tech | 30 | 23 | - | 27 | 35 | ||
28 | 24 | 25 | Ohio State - Fisher | 34 | 27 | 20 | 27 | 36 |
29 | 33 | 30 | Univ of Washington - Foster | 37 | 37 | 21 | 23 | 27 |
30 | 25 | 23 | Rice University - Jones | 17 | 36 | 26 | 30 | 41 |
31 | 28 | 29 | Texas A&M - Mays | 33 | 26 | - | 35 | 30 |
32 | 32 | 36 | Univ of Maryland - Smith | 24 | 24 | 31 | 37 | 42 |
33 | 37 | 32 | Michigan State - Broad | 31 | 35 | - | 43 | 22 |
34 | 25 | 24 | Univ of Southern California - Marshall | 40 | 28 | 36 | 26 | 37 |
35 | 29 | 28 | Wisconsin Sch of Bus | 43 | 34 | 30 | 34 | 32 |
36 | 38 | 38 | Purdue Univ - Krannert | 32 | 41 | - | 44 | 28 |
37 | 34 | 33 | Penn State - Smeal | 36 | 38 | 40 | 49 | 26 |
38 | Illinois | 20 | 40 | - | 47 | 45 | ||
39 | 40 | 39 | Univ of Iowa - Tippie | 35 | 53 | 39 | 44 | 20 |
40 | 36 | 35 | Univ of Rochester - Simon | 29 | 50 | 43 | 37 | 38 |
41 | Arizona State | 42 | 49 | 28 | 30 | 60 | ||
42 | 39 | 37 | SMU - Cox | 49 | 29 | 50 | 52 | 31 |
42 | 41 | Boston Univ | 47 | 39 | 41 | 40 | 44 | |
44 | UC Irvine | 28 | 43 | - | 49 | 61 | ||
45 | George Washington | 41 | 54 | 38 | 56 | - | ||
46 | Univ of Florida - Hough | - | 47 | 49 | 36 | 63 | ||
47 | Univ of Georgia - Terry | - | 52 | 44 | 52 | 49 | ||
48 | Case Western | 45 | - | 46 | 52 | 62 | ||
49 | Univ of South Caroline - Moore | 50 | 62 | - | 73 | 53 | ||
*Ranking figure above is relative to other U.S. b-schools |
Methodology
Only the U.S. business schools are ranked by all five major media rankings. MBA50.com has calculated their overall performance by looking at each ranking position compared to other U.S. schools, and taking an average of those results divided by five.
In the case of the FT and Economist rankings, if a U.S. business school ranked #45 in the overall FT ranking and #40 in the overall Economist ranking, but among U.S. business schools was #23 in the FT and #15 in The Economist, then the relative U.S. regional figure was used for the calculation, and added to those of BusinessWeek, Forbes and US News, before dividing by five to achieve an average score.
The idea of the MBA50.com Premiership is to compare the performance of schools in multiple rankings, and therefore does not include the many good U.S. business schools that appear in fewer than four rankings.
Candidates should remember that this is not scientific approach, and there is no attempt to weight any one ranking greater than the others. As stated before, each ranking uses a different methodology and measures different things with the inherent limitations of each assessment, so doing particularly well in one ranking and less well in another is reflected in the overall average score.