Which MBA?

Rankings are little more than an indication of the MBA market at a particular moment. They reflect the prevailing conditions such as salaries, jobs available and the situation at a school at the time the survey was carried out. Results of rankings can be volatile, so they should be treated with caution. The various media rankings of MBA programmes all employ a different methodology. None are definitive, so our advice to prospective students is to understand the ethos behind each one before deciding whether what it is measuring is important for you.

Each year The Economist surveys thousands of MBA students and asks them why they decided to enrol on a full-time MBA programme. The weightings that we use for our ranking (see table below) are based on the importance students themselves place on different criteria. 

Data were collected during spring 2016, using two surveys. The first is completed by schools with eligible programmes and covers quantitative matters such as the salary of graduates, the average GMAT scores of students and the number of registered alumni. This accounts for around 80% of the ranking. The remaining 20% comes from a qualitative survey filled out by current MBA students and a school's most recent graduating MBA class. We ask respondents to rate things such as the quality of the faculty, facilities and career services department. We also ask them to give details of their salary, so that we can verify the data provided by the schools. For schools that have not signed up to the “Agreed Upon Procedures” of the MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance, an industry body that sets standards for reporting salaries, student data are used rather than those supplied by the institution. A minimum response rate—equivalent to 25% of the latest intake or 50 students/alumni (whichever is lower)—is required for schools to be included in the ranking. 

All data received from schools were subject to verification checks, including, where possible, comparison with historical data, peer schools and other published sources. Student and graduate questionnaires were audited for multiple or false entries. Memory has been built into the rankings by taking a weighted average of data from 2016 (50%), 2015 (30%) and 2014 (20%) to provide a rounded picture of the school over a period of time. 

The table below summarises the measures used to calculate the rankings together with their respective weightings. Salaries were converted at average 2015 exchange rates. The statistical methodology adopted for the ranking gives each business school a unique score (known to statisticians as a z-score). Unlike some other rankings, we do not include any “equal” schools (for example, four schools ranked equal sixth followed by one ranked tenth). However, it should be noted that differences between some schools might be slight.

The Economist only publishes a list of the top 100 schools. In all, 143 schools were invited to participate. The reasons for the omission of the remaining 43 are listed  below.

Schools omitted from the ranking

Outside the top 100
American University
Arizona
Asian Institute of Management
California at San Diego
Cape Town
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Concordia University
EADA
Glasgow
HEC Montréal
Japan, Int'l University
Leeds University Business School
MIP Politecnico di Milano
Newcastle University
Portland State
Ryerson
San Diego State
South Carolina University
Tilburg University / TIAS
Universidad Austral

First year of participation, eligible for rankings in 2017
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
California at Irvine
Fordham
Imperial College
Rutgers

Insufficient data
Calgary
S P Jain

Declined to participate*
Aston University
Bradford
Brandeis
CEIBS
EGADE-Tecnologico de Monterrey
Manchester
McGill University
Toronto University
Vlerick Leuven Gent
University of the Witwatersand
Yonsei
Seoul National University
Brunel Business School
New York/Baruch
Texas – Arlington
Indian School of business

*Which MBA? does on occasion rank a school that has declined to participate, using other data sources. This is noted in their ranking