Why you shouldn't rely too much on rankings when choosing an MBA program

MBA rankings can be misleading. Learn why varying methodologies, non-participation from top schools, and controversial criteria mean you shouldn't rely on them for your MBA choice.

Rankings are an important guide when choosing the right MBA program. But what value do they have if leading universities no longer participate?

At the end of January 2021, the British business magazine "Economist" named IESE Business School from Barcelona as the world's best talent factory, two weeks later the "Financial Times" ("FT") named the French INSEAD as the global number one. Both are undoubtedly among the world's leading universities that award the renowned Master of Business Administration degree. However, they have never before topped the global MBA rankings. US rivals such as Harvard, Wharton, or Stanford, which occupied the first three places on the "FT" list in the previous year, are completely absent. So what had happened?

The rankings of international media are an important guide for prospective MBA students: nine out of ten candidates look at at least one when choosing their place of study. Anyone who invests a five-figure sum and one to two years of their professional life in the demanding education ultimately wants to ensure that it pays off in the end. In contrast to personal gut feeling or subjective experience reports, rankings promise objectivity and measurability.

The catch: there are many rankings, each using its own methodology and applying different criteria. It is also crucial which universities participate in the performance comparison at all. Although graduates are usually used for the evaluation, the surveys can hardly be carried out without active support from the business schools. This is also the reason for the changed results of the current rankings: numerous international heavyweights did not participate in 2021.

The criteria for creating the rankings are controversial

In the "Economist" ranking, 15 of the 25 best MBA providers from the previous evaluation in November 2019 canceled their participation – thus enabling their remaining rivals to achieve significantly improved placements. It is particularly striking that many American universities are missing. None of the seven most prestigious US business schools participated in the "Economist" survey, only two out of seven participated in the "FT".

Officially, the universities, also known as the "Magnificent Seven," justify their abstinence with the Corona pandemic, which made it difficult to collect data from students and alumni. But behind the scenes, a dispute has been brewing for some time about the informative value of the rankings, the relevant criteria, and the question of whom they favor or disadvantage. For example, the "FT" bases its evaluation very strongly on the salary development of graduates in the first years after graduation, while in the "Economist" the personal assessments of students and graduates play a major role. It is an open secret that, especially on this point, the US elite universities are extremely reluctant to be compared with their European competitors. With 500 to 1000 participants per year, each of the "Magnificent Seven" has more MBA students than all German providers represented in the rankings combined. Even in other European countries, only a few business schools can compete numerically with the US elite.