APPLICANT RESOURCES

Admissions Director Q&A (New!) Below are links to Clear Admit's exclusive admissions director Q&A sessions.
Dawna Clarke (Tuck)
Rose Martinelli (Chicago)
Judith Hodara (Wharton)
Sarah Neher (Darden)
Soojin Kwon Koh (Michigan)
Randall Sawyer (Cornell)
Beth Flye (Kellogg)
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Clear Admit School Guides
Eighteen titles available! Understand how the leading programs compare and learn more about the MBA experience in and beyond the classroom through Clear Admit School Guides. As featured in the Economist.

Clear Admit Interview Guides
Be as prepared as possible for your MBA interviews this season with the Clear Admit Interview Guides! School-specific sample questions and in-depth strategy, campus visit details and places to stay.

Essay Topic Analysis
Below are links to our comments on some of the top programs' essay topics.
The Career Goals Essay*
Berkeley / Haas*
Chicago GSB*
CMU / Tepper*
Columbia*
Cornell / Johnson*
Dartmouth / Tuck*
Duke / Fuqua*
Harvard*
IESE*
INSEAD*
London Business School*
MIT / Sloan*
Michigan / Ross*
Northwestern / Kellogg*
NYU / Stern*
Oxford / Said*
Penn / Wharton*
Stanford GSB*
UCLA / Anderson*
UNC / Kenan-Flagler*
USC / Marshall*
UT Austin / McCombs*
UVA / Darden*
Yale SOM*
* denotes '08-'09 commentary

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CATEGORY - SCHOOL: IMD

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

IMD School of Business Deadlines 2008-2009

The five deadlines for the IMD School of Business remain unchanged from last year’s. Although the IMD admissions process is rolling, the school encourages applicants to apply to one of the earlier deadlines.

The five deadlines for the 2008-2009 deadline season are:

February 1, 2009

April 1, 2009

June 1, 2009

August 1, 2009

September 1, 2009

The admissions committee will notify you within 6 weeks of a received application to inform you if you have been invited to an on-campus interview.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The Next Decade in Business School Education

In releasing its 10th annual MBA rankings yesterday, the Financial Times looked at more than just the performance of business schools over the past year. It also took the opportunity to issue forecasts for the decade to come. Innovation will alter the landscape of business management education, carbon-free campuses will grow more prevalent worldwide and the current economic crisis may spur a surge in applications even as it threatens to make employment opportunities upon graduation more uncertain.

Innovation to Continue
Innovation, considered a hallmark of the past decade by many deans, will be even more pronounced in the years to come, according to the FT analysis. Two major factors are expected to contribute. The first is the sharp rise in the number of world-class Asian business schools. As an increase in European programs reshaped the landscape in the past decade – leading to the development of the one-year program and diversifying student bodies – so, too, will the growing emergence of Asian schools onto the scene.

In Asia, where economies are fast moving and infrastructure is limited, innovation may be even more marked. “People have to be extremely creative in managing when infrastructure is under-developed,” Arnoud De Meyer, director of the Judge School of Business at Cambridge, told the FT. European schools, too, will move beyond emulating U.S. schools and continue to make important contributions of their own, according to De Meyer. “I think in the next 10 years we will want to differentiate ourselves and build on our own strengths,” he said.

Widespread adoption of advanced technology will be the second major driver of innovation, according to the FT. As entering MBA classes are increasingly made up of students born into the digital age, business schools will be forced to adapt. “The workspace, living space and learning space will all be linked together,” predicts Nigel Banister, chief executive of Manchester Business School Worldwide. “There will be personalised learning spaces,” he told the FT. “Traditional teaching methods will go.” Faculty members, not students, have resisted the change up until now, according to Banister, but they will no longer have a choice.

Campuses Go Green
The FT report also called attention to a growing trend among business schools with regard to environmental responsibility. Increasingly, business schools – often led by student initiatives – are paying closer attention to their carbon footprint and taking concrete steps to reduce it.

The FT highlighted an effort at Switzerland’s IMD to use water from nearby Lake Geneva to cool the school’s buildings. Meanwhile, at MIT Sloan, environmental issues are driving both the architecture and the curriculum. The school is currently constructing a new green building. At the same time, it’s offering an elective through its Laboratory for Sustainability (S-Lab) designed to encourage students to complete team projects focused on sustainability issues.

Other schools are following suit. New York University’s Stern School of Business last fall launched its own campus greening initiative, spearheaded by a second-year MBA student. A cross-disciplinary taskforce called the Stern Campus Greening Initiative (SCGI) was founded to establish and implement sustainability protocols throughout the university at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

In fact, campus greening is one of the most prominent initiatives of Net Impact, an international non-profit organization geared toward creating leaders who use business to make a positive impact on the world. As a resource to schools considering starting a sustainability initiative at their own schools, Net Impact’s website provides case studies from almost a dozen MBA programs that have already begun to take action.

Economy Downturn, Application Uptick?
Of course, given the current state of the economy, long-term outlooks are clouded for many by more short-term concerns. What will the climate be like for this year’s graduates seeking jobs, and will the number of applicants to business schools rise or fall as a result of widespread economic uncertainty? A closer look at those questions in tomorrow’s post.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Business Schools Stream to the Web Using Video

Be it through their own channels on YouTube, podcasts posted through iTunes or the advent of new video-sharing sites like BigThink (founded by ex-Harvard President Larry Summers as a “YouTube for ideas”), business schools and business thinkers are finding even more of a presence on the Web as they begin en masse to embrace streaming video.

An article yesterday in the Chronicle of Higher Education (itself highlighted on the BizDeansTalk blog) called attention to YouTube’s latest video phenomenon – professors posting lectures. “Web video opens a new form of public intellectualism to scholars looking to participate in an increasingly visual culture,” read the article.

According to the Chronicle, several colleges and universities have signed agreements with YouTube to set up their own official channels on the video-sharing site. The deals, which do not involve any monetary exchange, allow the schools to brand their section of the site with school logos or colors and to upload longer videos than allowed by typical users.

“We expect that education will be a vibrant category on YouTube,” Obadiah Greenberg, strategic partner manager at YouTube, told the Chronicle in an e-mail interview. “Everybody loves to learn,” he continued.

It’s hard to provide an exact count of how many business schools have established YouTube channels. As noted in the Chronicle article, YouTube doesn’t make it easy to quickly find its educational offerings. So far, the site’s education category offers up as many videos seemingly unrelated to education as videos that are on topic.

Some schools, though, are taking steps themselves to help users find them on YouTube. In an announcement last week, the Saïd School of Business at Oxford University directed prospective students to its new YouTube channel – set up in mid-December – which includes two new promotional videos outlining the benefits of studying at Oxford and of the Oxford MBA. In addition to these promos, the Saïd YouTube channel currently features 12 other videos, including several interviews with individual students and alumni as well as one video devoted to campus life.

Other universities and colleges also have YouTube channels, including the University of California at Berkeley, Vanderbilt University and the University of Southern California. But though each of these institutions boasts its own business school, only USC’s Marshall School of Business seems to have established its own YouTube channel.

iTunes Podcasts, Feeds and More
Even schools that haven’t yet set up their own YouTube channels are embracing podcasts and streaming video in ever-growing numbers. Dan Colman, director and associate dean of Stanford University’s continuing-studies program, runs a blog tracking podcasts and videos made by colleges and professors, an entire section of which is devoted to business schools.

More top business schools are listed here than aren’t, offering video and audio content that ranges from the school’s latest research results (IMD) to digital interviews with top business leaders (Tuck, Harvard, Wharton) to how to optimize your b-school applications (Stanford). According to Colman, Duke’s Fuqua School of Business offers “one of the richest collections out there.”

As mentioned in recent Clear Admit posts, podcasts from students and alumni can help provide applicants with a fuller sense of the schools they are considering and can round out more traditional admissions material from the schools themselves. Increasingly, schools’ YouTube channels may make it into the mix of must-consult resources when applying to business programs. Finally, sites like BigThink suggest that video sharing may soon change even the way the larger business world functions. More on that in an upcoming post…

Monday, December 03, 2007

Financial Times Releases 2007 European Business School Rankings

The Financial Times (FT) has released its 2007 European Business School Rankings, and gold and silver go to the Paris HEC School of Management and the London School of Business respectively, echoing last year’s results. The battle for bronze, though, was more exciting to watch. INSEAD shot up from the number-10 spot it held last year to steal third, knocking Switzerland’s IMD down to fourth.

The European Business Schools Ranking is a meta ranking of European schools according to their results in five other FT rankings released this year, which look specifically at MBA, EMBA, open executive education, executive education, and management masters programs at business schools around the globe.

The EMBA program at INSEAD, with campuses in Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore, was included in the European ranking for the first time this year, helping the school make its ascent toward the top.

European schools in general are optimistic about the future, according to the FT. This is especially true given the approaching 2010 deadline for implementation of the Bologna Accord, which is designed to harmonize the European higher educational system and provide a more internationally recognized bachelors-masters progression for awarding degrees at schools in each of the 46 signatory countries. The anticipated consequence of the accord – and resulting parity between graduate program degrees across countries – is greater mobility for students and faculty.

In anticipation of the Bologna Accord’s implementation, there has been an explosion in masters programs across Europe. Of these, more than 12,000 are set to teach management, according to a report by the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC).

The exact impact this will have on the traditional MBA market is unclear, but applications appear to be steady, the FT reports. “Most schools are reporting an increase in uptake of all courses,” Jeanette Purcell, chief executive of the Association of MBAs, told the FT. Interest in part-time MBAs, executive MBAs and distance learning seem to be on the rise, she says, but not to the detriment of traditional MBAs.

Purcell points to declining employer sponsorship of graduate management education as a contributing factor to the trend toward part-time programs, as students increasingly look for ways to pay their own way while working. Advances in technology, too, have made distance learning more attractive, she says.

Some European schools are reporting greater interest from abroad, especially as the Bologna Accord promises to make European degrees carry the same significance as those from other schools around the globe. Increased U.S. marketing and interest in one-year MBA programs are also cited as driving factors.

According to the FT, the Instituto de Empresa (IE) in Madrid counts 21 U.S. participants in its international MBA program this year and sees increased interest from Asia and consistently strong demand from India. Applicants at IE rose by 30 percent this year, and student numbers by 15 percent, the FT reports. The school is considering moving to two intakes – in April and November – and combining its full-time Spanish MBA program with its international MBA program taught in English.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

BusinessWeek 2007 EMBA Rankings Preview

For our readers with an interest in executive education, we wanted to point out that BusinessWeek Online is poised to announce its bi-annual ranking of global EMBA programs. Though the main ranking page still points to the 2005 addition, the site has just published a slideshow featuring the top 25 schools. We’ll post again with some commentary once the feature is made more official, but in the meantime, here’s a preview of this year’s top-ranked programs:

1. Northwestern (Kellogg)
2. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
3. University of Chicago
4. University of Michigan
5. USC (Marshall)
6. Columbia Business School
7. Emory (Goizueta)
8. UCLA (Anderson)
9. Duke (Fuqua - global)
10. UNC (Kenan Flagler)
11. Southern Methodist University (Cox)
12. Georgetown (McDonough)
13. Cornell (Johnson)
14. Ohio State (Fisher)
15. Instituto de Empressa
16. IMD
17. IESE
18. INSEAD
19. NYU (Stern)
20. London Business School
21. ESADE
22. Thunderbird
23. Queen’s University
24. Washington (Olin)
25. Villanova University

Monday, October 01, 2007

Economist Intelligence Unit Full-Time MBA Ranking 2007

The Economist Intelligence Unit released its annual ranking of MBA programs last week. The ranking methodology for this list considers four factors - new career opportunities, personal development/educational experience, increase in salary and networking potential - as evaluated based on data from the schools and surveys from students and recent alumni. Another interesting feature of the Economist ranking is that a school’s ratings over the three previous years are also taken into account, tempering the effect of dramatic changes in policies or resources and reflecting and more gradual increase in quality as a student would experience them.

Readers can visit the EIU site for a great interactive MBA ranking chart to see how the schools stack up in a number of different criteria. The top 20 overall, meanwhile, are listed below:

1. University of Chicago Graduate School of Business
2. Stanford Graduate School of Business
3. IESE Business School - University of Navarra
4. Dartmouth College–Tuck School of Business
5. IMD - International Institute for Management Development
6. California at Berkeley, University of–Haas School of Business
7. University of Cambridge Judge Business School
8. New York University Stern School of Business
9. IE Business School
10. Henley Management College
11. Cranfield School of Management
12. Michigan, University of - Stephen M Ross School of Business
13. Harvard Business School
14. Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management
15. London Business School
16. MIT Sloan School of Management
17. INSEAD
18. Columbia Business School
19. Ashridge
20. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology School of Business and Management

Chicago has moved into the #1 position this year, propelled to the top by its stellar career service resources, displacing IESE, which had enjoyed the top spot for two years in a row. Other notable movers include Haas (up four stops from a 10th place finish last year), Cambridge (to 7th from 11th) and IE, which rose from a #16 ranking to crack the top 10.

The Economist rankings have historically shaken up the generally held notions about how schools stack up (evidenced by Stern’s #8 status as compared to Wharton’s absence from this year’s top 20), highlighting the importance of careful research and consideration of what one is looking for from an MBA program.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Wall Street Journal 2007 MBA Rankings Released

As many of our readers know, the Wall Street Journal released their business school rankings online late yesterday. The Wall Street 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 may 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. Dartmouth College (Tuck)
2. University of California, Berkeley (Haas)
3. Columbia University
4. MIT Sloan
5. Carnegie Mellon University (Tepper)
6. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)
7. University of Michigan (Ross)
8. Yale University
9. University of Chicago
10. University of Virginia (Darden)

It’s interesting to note that Wharton and Kellogg have continued to slip in these rankings, moving out of the top five last year and out of the top ten this year. Ross likewise moved down within the rankings this year, from first to seventh, while Haas and MIT Sloan each moved up several notches to enter the top five. Harvard and Stanford continue to miss out on the top 10, holding steady at 14 and 19, respectively.

Beyond the US national ranking, the Journal also published an international ranking - using a slightly different methodology that measures non-US-based employment upon graduation. Here are this year’s top “international” business schools:

1. ESADE
2. IMD
3. London Business School
4. IPADE
5. MIT Sloan
6. Columbia Business School
7. Essec
8. Tecnológico de Monterrey (EGADE)
9. HEC Paris
10. Thunderbird

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.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Admissions Tip: Off-Campus Information Sessions

For all those applicants who have recently opened a calendar to plot out the next few months, only to realize they can’t possibly fit campus visits in on top of full time jobs and essay writing, never fear! It’s true that traveling to a school’s campus is the ideal way to learn about their MBA program, but this is simply not a viable option for applicants who are located remotely or unsure of their level of interest in a given school - the good news is that the school might very well come to them. Many b-schools are getting ready to hit the road and embark on worldwide tours to dispense information and recruit qualified applicants. Such events offer a great opportunity for applicants to meet with admissions staff (and sometimes with current students and/or alumni), learn about the program and ask specific questions.

Some of the top schools are already on the road, so we recommend looking into the travel schedules for programs of interest and planning accordingly. Keeping in mind that these schedules are updated and amended throughout the fall, here are some of the top programs’ itineraries for the months ahead:

Berkeley / Haas:
https://ssl.haas.berkeley.edu/Admissions/Events/index.cfm
Chicago GSB:
http://gsb.uchicago.edu/fulltime/admissions/events/
Columbia:
http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/events
Duke / Fuqua:
https://www.fuquaworld.duke.edu/www/public/infosess_all_view.jsp
HBS:
http://www.hbs.edu/mba/admissions/generalevents.html
Northwestern / Kellogg:
http://www1.kellogg.northwestern.edu/receptions/main.asp
Michigan / Ross:
http://www.bus.umich.edu/Admissions/Mba/forumsreceptions/ForumsTours.htm
MIT / Sloan:
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/mba/admissions/sotr.php
Stanford GSB:
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/outreach/info_sessions.html
NYU / Stern:
http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/admissions/cgibin/sched_events2006F.cgi
Dartmouth / Tuck:
http://www.tuck.dartmouth.edu/admissions/events.html
UCLA / Anderson:
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x5542.xml
UNC / Kenan Flagler:
http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/News/Events/embambainfo.cfm
UVA / Darden:
https://apply.darden.virginia.edu/admissions/app…
U Penn / Wharton:
http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/mba/admissions/events/
Yale SOM:
http://mba.yale.edu/MBA/admissions/events.shtml

IESE:
http://www.iese.edu/aplicaciones/emba/events/events_emba.asp?lang=en
IMD:
http://www.imd.ch/programs/mba/infosessions/index.cfm?bhcp=1
INSEAD:
http://www.insead.edu/mba/offevents/index.cfm?fuseaction=offcampus
LBS:
http://www.london.edu/programmes/informationsessions.html

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Upcoming International Deadlines

Though the majority of MBA applicants are finished with or in advanced stages of the application process, we know that there are a significant number who are still working toward the later deadlines coming up over the next few months. For those thinking about the international elements of a potential post-MBA career, we thought we’d post a quick reminder of the upcoming deadlines for some of the leading European schools:

February 14: IESE Round 4
February 23: LBS Round 3
March 23: Oxford/Said Round 3
March 28: INSEAD Round 4
April 1: IMD Round 2 (January Term)
June 5: Cambridge/Judge (rolling)
June 30: ESADE (rolling)

One thing to note is that while time is running out to apply to London Business School, prospective students interested in completing an MBA in the UK still have a good amount of time to prepare a solid application to Oxford or Cambridge.

Best of luck to those planning on applying! Stay tuned to this blog in the coming days for some tips on handling the essay questions for each of these programs. For an evaluation of your candidacy at these and other leading schools, feel free to send your resume or CV to info@clearadmit.com for a free initial assessment.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

IMD’s Emission Reduction Initiative

We’ve been writing a good deal this week about the importance of learning as much as possible about the top business schools, both for the sake of identifying suitable programs to target when first applying and to present a strong case when explaining one’s fit in an interview. Yet another valid reason is that you might discover an interesting way that the school is aligned with your personal priorities and values, the kind of nuance that could really differentiate your essays and interview performance.

For instance, environmentally aware applicants thinking about European business schools might be interested to learn about an initiative that IMD recently announced. In the coming months, the institution will be taking measures to reduce its current carbon emissions and offset those of the past, with proposed steps including an investment in a more sustainable cooling system, a donation to support reforestation in India and Nepal, and a conscious effort to cut back on fossil fuel consumption.

More information is available on the school’s site at:
http://www.imd.ch/news/IMD-reduces-and-offsets-its-carbon-emissions.cfm

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Financial Times Global MBA Rankings 2007

The Financial Times just released it’s 2007 ranking of global MBA programs. The rankings take into account school data, a survey of recent alumni, and an assessment of research at each school. The rankings are made based on the career progess of alumni, the global focus of the program, and the intellectual capital generated by the school. The full list, which can be found here, includes 100 MBA programs and can be sorted based on a variety of criteria. The top 20 schools in the overall ranking are listed below.

1. University of Pennsylvania: Wharton
2. Columbia Business School
3. Harvard Business School
3. Stanford University GSB
5. London Business School
6. University of Chicago GSB
7. INSEAD
8. New York University: Stern
9. Dartmouth College: Tuck
10. Yale School of Management
11. Ceibs (China)
11. Instituto de Empresa
13. IMD
14. MIT: Sloan
15. University of Cambridge: Judge
16. IESE Business School
17. UCLA: Anderson
18. HEC Paris
19. Northwestern University: Kellogg
19. University of Michigan: Ross
19. University of Oxford: Said

Alongside the rankings, the Financial Times also released a special report on MBA education, including interviews with business school deans, alumni and professors, analysis of recruitment trends, and additional information on the rankings.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

MBA News: B-School Buzz

Today we’re bringing you a few of the news stories, interviews, and chats from this week in the MBA world.

First, as some of our readers know, London Business School recently announced the appointment of their new Dean, Robin Buchanan, an American consultant who is currently a senior managing partner at Bain and Co. operations in the UK. The outgoing Dean, Laura Tyson, will depart at the end of this year to return to UC-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business as a professor of business administration and economics. Buchanan will be LBS’s seventh dean and should step into the post by the end of the current school year. For more on Mr. Buchanan’s appointment (and speculation on IMD’s ongoing dean search) check out the this story in the Financial Times, or read the full text of LBS’s press release.

In MBA admissions news, BusinessWeek reporter Kerry Miller recently sat down with INSEAD director of admissions Caroline Diarte Edwards to discuss the INSEAD experience and the admissions process at the school. While the full text of the article is only available to subscribers, the available Q&A should provide some interesting points to ponder for applicants considering INSEAD’s Fontainebleau or Singapore campuses.

Finally, any applicants interested in the University of Chicago GSB are invited to a live chat with Rosemaria Martinelli, associate dean of Admissions at the Chicago GSB, and Chicago MBA students Penny Petropoulos and Jorge Gallardo. The chat, hosted by BusinessWeek, will take place tonight at 9 p.m. EST. To access the chat, go to http://www.businessweek.com/bschools approximately 10 minutes before the chat’s start time and click on the chat promo. Registration is required, but the event is free and open to all. Be sure to bring your questions about BW’s top-ranked b-school!

Friday, October 13, 2006

Economist Intelligence Unit Full-Time MBA Ranking 2006

It’s a big day for releasing rankings, as the Economist Intelligence Unit has also come out with its annual ranking of MBA programs this morning.  The ranking methodology for this list considers four factors - new career opportunities, personal development/educational experience, increase in salary and networking potential - as evaluated based on data from the schools and surveys from students and recent alumni. Readers can visit the EIU site for a great interactive MBA ranking chart to see how the schools stack up in a number of different criteria, and the overall top 20 is just below:

1. IESE, University of Navarra
2. Dartmouth / Tuck
3. Stanford GSB
4. Chicago GSB
5. IMD
6. Northwestern / Kellogg
7. Harvard Business School
8. NYU / Stern
9. Michigan / Ross
10. Berkeley / Haas
11. Cambridge / Judge
12. Columbia Business School
13. UVA / Darden
14. Henley Management College
15. UCLA / Anderson
16. Instituto de Empresa
17. UPenn / Wharton
18. MIT / Sloan
19. Cranfield School of Management
20. London Business School

Though U.S. schools still dominate the list due to their sizeable endowments (which translate into more opportunities for students) and expansive networks, Barcelona-based IESE tops the ranking for the second consecutive year.  The Economist rankings have historically shaken up the generally held notions about how schools stack up (evidenced by Stern’s #8 status as compared to Wharton’s finish at #17), highlighting the importance of careful research and consideration of what one is looking for from an MBA program.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Wall Street Journal MBA Rankings 2006

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.