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? The big news among the top US business schools is that Stanford GSB has displaced Harvard at #1, based on its top ranking in Forbes and US News.
Perhaps even more surprising is the fact Chicago Booth has also climbed above Harvard Business School to #2. Though HBS came top in the FT and shared the top spot in US News, it’s position in BusinessWeek means that when you take an average of the five major media rankings the fall to #3, just ahead of Wharton. These four schools place heads and shoulders above the rest.
Columbia Business School has climbed 3 places to #5, while Duke Fuqua, Michigan Ross, Yale SOM and UCLA Anderson have all had a good year. Further down the list the University of Washington Foster, Rice University Jones, and Michigan State all moved up 5 places in to the top 30. MIT Sloan, UV Darden, Cornell Johnson, largely because of their performance in BusinessWeek.
| 2014 Rank | 2013 Rank | 2012 Rank | 2011 Rank | Institution | Financial Times 2014* | BusWeek 2014 | Economist 2014* | US News 2014 | Forbes 2013 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Stanford Univ GSB | 2 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Univ of Chicago - Booth | 6 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Harvard Bus Sch | 1 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Univ of Pennsylvania - Wharton | 3 | 2 | 9 | 1 | 4 |
| 5 | 8 | 6 | 5 | Columbia Bus Sch | 4 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 7 |
| 6 | 5 | 7 | 7 | Northwestern Univ - Kellogg | 9 | 7 | 12 | 6 | 5 |
| 7 | 6 | 8 | 9 | Dartmouth College - Tuck | 12 | 15 | 2 | 9 | 6 |
| 8 | 6 | 5 | 6 | MIT Sloan Sch of Mgmt | 5 | 14 | 10 | 5 | 12 |
| 9 | 10 | 12 | 11 | Duke Univ - Fuqua | 10 | 1 | 18 | 14 | 8 |
| 10 | 9 | 9 | 8 | Univ of California at Berkeley - Haas | 8 | 19 | 5 | 7 | 14 |
| 11 | 13 | 14 | 13 | Univ of Michigan - Ross | 13 | 9 | 15 | 11 | 10 |
| 11 | 16 | 15 | 15 | Yale Sch of Mgmt | 7 | 6 | 14 | 13 | 18 |
| 13 | 11 | 10 | 10 | Univ of Virginia - Darden | 15 | 20 | 3 | 11 | 15 |
| 14 | 15 | 17 | 16 | UCLA - Anderson | 14 | 11 | 11 | 16 | 13 |
| 15 | 11 | 11 | 12 | Cornell Univ - Johnson | 15 | 13 | 17 | 17 | 9 |
| 15 | 14 | 13 | 14 | New York Univ - Stern | 10 | 22 | 6 | 10 | 23 |
| 17 | 17 | 16 | 17 | Carnegie Mellon - Tepper | 18 | 10 | 16 | 18 | 16 |
| 18 | 18 | 20 | 20 | Univ of North Carolina - Kenan-Flagler | 17 | 12 | 25 | 19 | 11 |
| 19 | 20 | 18 | 18 | Emory Univ - Goizueta | 22 | 18 | 13 | 20 | 24 |
| 20 | 21 | 21 | 21 | Indiana Univ - Kelley | 24 | 16 | 22 | 21 | 19 |
| 21 | 19 | 19 | 19 | Univ of Texas at Austin - McCombs | 21 | 23 | 23 | 15 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 22 | 22 | Georgetown Univ - McDonough | 20 | 24 | 26 | 23 | 33 |
| 23 | 22 | 27 | 27 | Univ of Notre Dame - Mendoza | - | 29 | 27 | 23 | 29 |
| 24 | 29 | 33 | 30 | Univ of Washington - Foster | 31 | 37 | 21 | 25 | 27 |
| 25 | 30 | 25 | 23 | Rice University - Jones | 19 | 25 | 24 | 33 | 41 |
| 26 | 24 | 30 | 31 | Washington Univ - Olin | 35 | 26 | 28 | 22 | 34 |
| 27 | 24 | 23 | 25 | Vanderbilt Univ - Owen | 32 | 30 | 20 | 25 | 39 |
| 28 | 33 | 37 | 32 | Michigan State - Broad | 27 | 33 | - | 35 | 22 |
| 29 | 26 | 31 | Minnesota - Carlson | 28 | 36 | - | 33 | 25 | |
| 30 | 28 | 24 | 25 | Ohio State - Fisher | 37 | 34 | 19 | 27 | 36 |
| 31 | 32 | 32 | 36 | Univ of Maryland - Smith | 26 | 17 | 30 | 41 | 42 |
| 32 | 34 | 25 | 24 | Univ of Southern California - Marshall | 36 | 21 | 36 | 27 | 37 |
| 33 | 27 | - | - | Georgia Tech - Scheller | 38 | 28 | - | 27 | 35 |
| 34 | 37 | 34 | 33 | Penn State - Smeal | 34 | 40 | 35 | 41 | 26 |
| 34 | 40 | 36 | 35 | Univ of Rochester - Simon | 29 | 38 | 34 | 37 | 38 |
| 36 | 36 | 38 | 38 | Purdue Univ - Krannert | 30 | 43 | - | 40 | 28 |
| 37 | 35 | 29 | 28 | Wisconsin Sch of Bus | 42 | 44 | 32 | 27 | 32 |
| 38 | 31 | 28 | 29 | Texas A&M - Mays | 39 | 42 | - | 37 | 30 |
| 38 | 38 | - | - | Illinois | 23 | 45 | - | 35 | 45 |
| 40 | 44 | - | - | UC Irvine | 25 | 31 | - | 45 | 61 |
| 41 | 42 | 39 | 37 | SMU - Cox | - | 32 | 48 | 55 | 31 |
| 42 | - | - | - | Pittsburg - Katz | 41 | 35 | 43 | 52 | 48 |
| 43 | 42 | 41 | - | Boston Univ | 40 | 57 | 41 | 45 | 44 |
| 44 | 41 | - | - | Arizona State - Carey | 45 | 67 | 29 | 27 | 60 |
| 45 | - | - | - | Wake Forest | 48 | 46 | 37 | 58 | 43 |
| 46 | 39 | 40 | 39 | Univ of Iowa - Tippie | - | 75 | 40 | 51 | 20 |
| 47 | 47 | - | - | Univ of Georgia - Terry | - | 50 | 42 | 48 | 49 |
| 48 | - | - | - | UC Davis | 50 | 60 | 39 | 41 | 50 |
| 49 | 46 | - | - | Univ of Florida - Hough | - | 48 | 45 | 41 | 63 |
| 50 | - | - | - | UC San Diego | 44 | 51 | 49 | 60 | - |
| *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.
We’ve compiled all the Twitter feeds, Facebook pages, Linkedin groups, MBA blogs, YouTube channels and iTunes podcasts of the top b-schools. Click for our listings of b-schools on social media.
