As many of our readers know, the Wall Street Journal released their business school rankings online late yesterday. The Journal’s ranking of the national (US) MBA programs relies on feedback from corporate recruiters at key firms in order to rate the b-schools. More specifically, the results are based on the following criteria:
1. Recruiter feedback on each school (for 21 different attributes)
2. Recruiter plans to hire graduates from the schools in the future
3. Recent hiring patterns of corporate recruiters
While traditionally less popular than the Business Week or US News MBA rankings, the Journal has been gaining ground with increased fanfare surrounding their rankings each year. Their related hard-copy publication, WSJ Guide to the Top Business Schools, helps in this effort. In addition, a GMAC survey showed that the WSJ rankings were viewed as “most credible” by MBA applicants (although we’d like to suggest that the reputation of the newspaper itself may help this perception along).
While the ’recruiters only’ focus of the WSJ rankings will always provoke criticism, the rankings appear to be here to stay. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the top national programs for this year:
1. U. Michigan (Ross), 2. Dartmouth (Tuck), 3. CMU (Tepper), 4. Columbia (CBS), 5. UC Berkeley (Haas), 6. Northwestern (Kellogg), 7. U. Penn (Wharton), 8. UNC (Kenan-Flagler), 9. Yale (SOM), 10. MIT (Sloan), 11. U. Chicago (GSB), 12. Duke (Fuqua), 13. UVA (Darden), 14. Harvard (HBS), 15. USC (Marshall), 16. Cornell (Johnson), 17. NYU (Stern), 18. Stanford, 19. UCLA (Anderson)
What’s interesting to note is that both Kellogg and Wharton have slipped down a bit in the ‘top 10′ this year, largely to make room for new ‘top 5′ entrants Haas and CBS. The triumvirate of Ross, Tuck and Tepper have held solid at the top for another year, with Tuck and Ross merely swapping first place honors. Harvard and Stanford continue to miss out on ‘top 10′ status in this ranking, with HBS holding steady in the #14 slot and Stanford slipping to #18 from #15 last year.
Beyond the US national ranking, the Journal also published an international ranking – using a slightly different methodology this time out (to more closely measure non-US-based employment upon graduation). Here are this year’s top ‘international’ business schools:
1. ESADE, 2. IMD, 3. IPADE, 4. London Business School, 5. Thunderbird, 6. Columbia (CBS), 7. EGADE, 8. MIT (Sloan), 9. U. Western Ontario (Ivey), 10. INCAE, 11. UC Berkeley (Haas), 12. Instituto de Empresa, 13. York (Schulich), 14. U. Chicago (GSB), 15. IESE, 16. HEC Paris, 17. U. Penn (Wharton), 18. INSEAD, 19. Erasmus (Rotterdam), 20. Harvard (HBS), 21. Bocconi, 22. U. Toronto (Rotman), 23. NYU (Stern), 24. Stanford
Finally, top honors in a few academic disciplines:
- Accounting: Chicago GSB
- Corporate Social Responsibility: Yale
- Entrepreneurship: Stanford
- Finance: Wharton
- General Management: Harvard
- IT: MIT Sloan
- Marketing: Kellogg
- Operations: CMU Tepper
- Strategy: Harvard
We encourage our readers to review the WSJ Career Journal site for further details about the rankings methodologies. As always, please remember that rankings are one of many resources for information regarding MBA programs.
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