<p>1 IESE Business School - University of Navarra Spain
2 IMD - International Institute for Management Development Switzerland
3 California at Berkeley, University of - Haas School of Business
4 Chicago, University of - Booth School of Business
5 Harvard Business School
6 Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business
7 Stanford Graduate School of Business
8 London Business School
9 Pennsylvania, University of - Wharton School
10 Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School Belgium
11 Cambridge, University of - Judge Business School
12 York University - Schulich School of Business
13 New York University - Leonard N Stern School of Business
14 HEC School of Management, Paris France
15 Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management
16 IE Business School Spain
17 Melbourne Business School - University of Melbourne
18 Cranfield School of Management
19 Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT Sloan School of Management20 Columbia Business School
21 Henley Business School<br>
22 Warwick Business School<br>
23 INSEAD France / Singapore
24 Virginia, University of - Darden Graduate School of Business Administration
25 Michigan, University of - Stephen M. Ross School of Business</p>
<ol>
<li>California at Berkeley, University of - Haas School of Business </li>
<li>Chicago, University of - Booth School of Business </li>
<li>Harvard Business School </li>
<li>Dartmouth College - Tuck School of Business </li>
<li>Stanford Graduate School of Business </li>
<li>Pennsylvania, University of - Wharton School </li>
<li>New York University - Leonard N Stern School of Business </li>
<li>Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management </li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT Sloan School of Management </li>
<li>Columbia Business School </li>
<li>Virginia, University of - Darden Graduate School of Business Administration </li>
<li>Michigan, University of - Stephen M. Ross School of Business </li>
</ol>
<p>No Yale-SOM in the top 12. :D</p>
<p>Ranking business schools can be a contentious issue. But with even a cheap MBA costing upwards of $100,000, once all of those tuition fees, living expenses and foregone earnings are accounted for, students will continue to demand an independent assessment of business schools.</p>
<p>This year we publish our eighth annual ranking of full-time MBA programmes. In the past, schools including Northwestern (Kellogg), Chicago (Booth)and IMD in Switzerland have held the top spot. This year Spanish school iese has prevailed. It, too, has form, having previously come first in both 2005 and 2006.</p>
<p>Business school rankings are not perfect. What makes a good MBA programme will vary for each individual. Our ethos is to look at business schools from the students perspective. Indeed, over the past 21 years we have asked close to 150,000 of them why they decided to sign up for an MBA. It is their responses that inform the criteria we measure and the weightings we apply.</p>
<p>Over that time, four factors have consistently emerged:</p>
<p>to open new career opportunities and/or further current career;</p>
<p>personal development and educational experience;</p>
<p>to increase salary;</p>
<p>the potential to network.</p>
<p>The Economist ranks full-time programmes on their ability to deliver to students the things that they themselves cite as most important. It weights each element according to the average importance given to it by students surveyed over the past five years (see full methodology).</p>
<p>Other rankings have different standpoints. They may give a higher weighting to the research output of faculty, the salaries of graduates or the perception of a school among employers. All are valid, and it is up to each prospective student to understand the various methodologies and decide which are most relevant. Whats more, the rankings should form only part of a students selection process. It is equally important to look at issues such as school culture, employment prospects and areas of speciality.</p>
<p>With the job market for MBA graduates at its most competitive for many years, now, more than ever, schools which can demonstrate the effectiveness of their careers services will be highly sought after. At IESE, our top-placed school, 98% of graduates found employment within three months of graduation, with an average basic salary of $125,000. It is a similar story of success throughout our top-ranked schools. Harvard, fifth in our ranking, attracted recruiters from 11 different sectors, paying graduates an average $124,000. Graduates at second-placed IMD earned even more, which is perhaps one reason why they rated its careers service the best in the world.</p>
<p>A hard-working and effective careers office at a school undoubtedly makes a huge difference to MBA Mstudents. But in many ways, the employment credentials of schools graduates is just a product of the quality of students accepted on the programme in the first place, and the ability of schools to give those students the best education. Two of the most important measures are the average GMAT score of those admitted to the programmethe de facto MBA entrance examand how much previous work experience they bring to the classroom.</p>
<p>As a rule of thumb, students at North American schools have the higher test scores and Europeans the greater work experience. All six of the American schools in our top ten have average gmat scores of over 710 (out of 800). In contrast, students at London average 693, at iese 685 and at imd just 675. But IMD students will have nearly double the work experience of those at Stanford, for example.</p>
<p>This also helps explain why European students, on average, will earn more than their North American counterparts immediately after they graduate. Tenth-placed Vlerick Leuven may not have the cachet of Wharton, but that probably doesnt concern its graduates, who will typically out-earn their prestigious American counterparts by $26,000 a year.</p>
<p>European schools also do well in the networking category, often because their alumni are more international. HEC Paris, for example, has 63 overseas alumni associations in 49 countries. Even in Asia and Australasia, where schools are often younger and havent had the time to build up extensive links, it is not unusual to find an international alumni network. The National University of Singapores business school has an impressive 37 overseas alumni associations.</p>
<p>Many American schools, however, have yet to open a single overseas branch. However, they undoubtedly have the edge when it comes to keeping their alumni active once they have left the programme. In this they are helped to some extent by having graduated more mbas each year for a longer time, meaning they have a bigger alumni base. But they also expend a lot of time and effort keeping their alumni engaged. Northwestern (Kellogg), for example, has 40,000 active mba alumni; Chicago (Booth) has even more.</p>
<p>Regional rankings</p>
<p>North America
These are difficult times for North American business schools. They have been widely pilloried for supplying the chief executives who were at the helm as some of the worlds most prestigious companies sankfor example, Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers is a New York (Stern) alumnus, and Andy Hornby of hbos and Rick Wagoner of General Motors are both Harvard alumni. The financial crisis has hit mba students particularly hard. Not only are jobs harder to come by, but as banks started to feel the pinch, they pulled out of a scheme to supply loans to foreign mba students. Added to that was President Obamas edict that firms receiving government bail-out money should hire Americans where possible. The result has been a drop in the number of foreign business students choosing American schoolshitting both revenue and class diversity. As if that wasnt enough, schools have found that the generous donors on whom they had relied for years had stopped returning deans phone calls as endowment funds withered.</p>
<p>But all of these problems are relative. With the exception of just a handful of European schools, America remains the standard bearer for business education. With endowments still in billions of dollars, schools such as Harvard and Stanford are hardly on their uppersand no other business schools in the world come close to competing.</p>
<p>[Which</a> MBA?: About the ranking | The Economist](<a href=“http://www.economist.com/business-education/whichmba/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14632300]Which”>http://www.economist.com/business-education/whichmba/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14632300)</p>
<p>RML,</p>
<p>LOL. </p>
<p>I love how you cut off that US ranking at a “random” Top 12, when Yale was ranked no. 13 and then you smugly state, “no SOM in top 12.” It’s a perfect example of intellectual dishonesty.</p>
<p>Next, any MBA ranking that has Haas ranked above Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, MIT, Chicago, Kellogg – heck, any MBA ranking that has Haas no. 1 is total and utter crap. All else being equal, no one would pass up HBS, Stanford GSB or Wharton to go to Haas.</p>
<p>The European rankings are just as crappy. INSEAD is the best European b-school (and probably the best non-US b-school and on par with the lower half of the M7), yet its European rank is outside the top 10 behind schools like Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School, Henley and Cranfield, programs no one has ever heard of…</p>
<p>And the ultimate litmus test – what is ranked as the world’s BEST b-school?</p>
<p>IESE Business School - University of Navarra Spain</p>
<p>(that’s not even the best b-school on the continent let alone the world).</p>
<p>agreed, this ranking is nonsense</p>
<p>lol @ the intellectual dishonesty part 
haha</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s not intellectual dishonesty if it is true.</p>
<p>I agree that currently HSW > Haas, and while it may seem inconceivable in the near future, Haas or any top ten MBA program for that matter has a chance of surpassing HSW. </p>
<p>Any MBA program can be ranked #1 depending on the methodology used. Even online or distance programs can be #1 if the percentage of graduates unemployed six month out were weighed accordingly. </p>
<p>It is comical to watch the two of you bicker over whether Berkeley or Yale is better. The only numbers that matter is ROI 5/10 years out, average starting salary, and graduate placement 0/3/6 months out. IMO everything else is IRRELEVANT.</p>
<p>That’s right, it’s all about the $$$, it is foolish to pursue an MBA for any other reason.</p>
<p>most people make make decisions based upon what they think will make them happy, not what will make them the most money. for an unfortunate few, money does indeed = happiness, others might care more about prestige, or helping others, or power, or any combination of these things as well as numerous others</p>
<p>so, your statement that its foolish to pursue an MBA for any reason other than “the $$$” doesn’t really ring true (along with most of the rest of what you said)</p>
<p>also, five years is too short a period to compute a proper roi</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I will be shocked if you score above the 25th percentile in verbal.</p>
<p>the_prestige,</p>
<p>Using the Economist’ criteria, Haas is superior to HSW. For prestige alone, however, HSW would trounce Berkeley-Haas to the ground; no contest there. But the Economist’s criteria aren’t just about prestige.</p>
<p>About a few months ago, you showed a ranking where Tuck was ranked number 1, outranking HSW. You argued that the ranking was credible and reliable. How’s that any different from this one?</p>
<p>And, yes, there’s no Yale-SOM in the top 12. Yale was ranked number 13 in this league table, and any sensible person would know that 13 is not 12. </p>
<p>Berkeley-Haas is superior to Yale-SOM. This league table has shown us that it’s not even close - 11 schools separated between the two. And at the rate that these 2 business schools are going, Berkeley-Haas would even trail in a considerable distance in the next few years. Yale-SOM =/= Yale undergrad or Yale Law. The educated community is aware about that. On the contrary, Berkeley-Haas is > than Berkeley undergrad, just like Wharton is > then UPenn is, and most educated people know that as a fact.</p>
<p>Tax Bear;</p>
<p>I scored a 44/51 on the verbal portion of the GMAT. That was in the 97th percentile, what did you get? </p>
<p>A quick post pointing out the idiocy of your thinking - which wasn’t checked for grammar - is not indicative of much as far as verbal ability is concerned. Even if it was, that doesn’t alleviate the regrettable fact that your post was pure nonsense.</p>
<p>So, I suggest that instead of throwing around insults like a 15 year old, you spend more time on writing things that make sense.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>exactly. so you agree that this ranking is completely absurd.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First impressions are everything and I am judging you on what you wrote. Read your post again and then call me an idiot boy. I guess I am one of those unfortunate few that is happily rich.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If the ranking was all about prestige, then, yes, i would agree that the league table is absurd. But the ranking wasn’t all about prestige. Did you read the methodology?</p>
<p>too much confusion as each ranking is so different!</p>
<p>RML,</p>
<p>HSW will always (certainly for as long as we’ll ever care) surpass Haas. Look at the money. Do you really believe that with an endowment around $25 billion Harvard will ever let Berkeley become a better program? Stanford has around $15 billion, Yale close to $20 billion. Same argument there. Even UPenn at $5 billion is twice as rich as Berkeley. The private/public factor is in no way favorable to Haas considering the fact that California is in a very bad place right about now. This is another reason why Yale SOM will widely be considered better than Haas within the coming years; in fact, the “uneducated” people, to use your term, already think it is.</p>
<p>Did you see BW’s recent ranking of the top 30 re: current job placement? Take a look at the slideshow here:</p>
<p>[MBAs</a> Confront a Savage Job Market - BusinessWeek](<a href=“Businessweek - Bloomberg”>Businessweek - Bloomberg)</p>
<p>"
No. 1 YALE UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT</p>
<p>Students without job offers three months after graduation
in 2009: 8%
in 2007: 6%</p>
<p>Median starting salary
in 2009: $96,000
in 2007: $95,000</p>
<p>Yale grads emerged almost shockingly unscathed by the financial turmoil, hardly registering a blip in the placement rate. At the same time signing bonuses, actually increased from 2008 by 15 percentage points, with 76% of the students who found jobs also getting a bonus.
"</p>
<p>versus:</p>
<p>"
No. 10 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY, HAAS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS</p>
<p>Students without job offers three months after graduation
in 2009: 14%
in 2007: 4%</p>
<p>Median starting salary
in 2009: $110,000
in 2007: $100,000</p>
<p>Haas had a decent showing in 2009, with relatively few students not reporting job offers. Salaries were a bright spot for this year’s Haas graduates, with a considerable increase in pay since 2007, though no increase from 2008. Singing bonuses fell five percentage points since 2007, settling at 64% of students who accepted jobs in 2009.
"</p>
<p>Like most things in life, the quality of an MBA program largely come down to financial resources. Somebody should amalgamate several rankings (w/ different methodologies), average the rankings for each school, and then compare that with each school’s endowment. I’d reckon there would be a pretty high correlation even beyond the elite programs.</p>
<p>In short, I wouldn’t hold my breath on Haas > HSW anytime soon.</p>
<p>^ I never claimed and will never ever claim that Haas is superior to HBS. I think anyone who is in his right mind would never ever claim such a thing. However, HBS does not have the monopoly of everything. Whilst it is the “king” of all the best B-Schools in the entire universe, it also has a few weak points. For example, HBS isn’t the “king” for finance. That title rightly belongs to Wharton (and some may argue that it’s Chicago-Booth). In this particular ranking, it did not appear number 1 because the methodology used does not favor HBS. Regardless of how HBS performs in any ranking game, only quite a few will argue that it is not the number 1 b-school in the entire universe. </p>
<p>On topic about endowment, I think you got it wrong. B-Schools do have their own endowment fund which have entirely separated books and accounts of their own. B-Schools don’t generally rely on the endowment fund of their parent universities. Yale-SOM does not rely on Yale University’s endowment fund. (Noticed how Yale-SOM’s building construction was put on hold because the parent university isn’t willing to provide any assistance to Yale-SOM?) Berkeley-Haas does not rely on UC Berkeley’s endowment fund (but fortunately it’s more than $330M endowment fund isn’t meager for its size.) And so are the others.</p>
<p>Berkeley does not have as much endowment fund as HYS do because it’s a public institution which rely funding from the government. HYS cannot and don’t rely funding from the government. But Berkeley has finally realised that in order for them to rival with the best schools around, they don’t have to rely from the government funds all the time, that’s why Berkeley is now soliciting funds from their alumni and friends. My wife (who’s from Cal) has since donated to Berkeley when she was contacted by the alumni office. </p>
<p>Lastly, I wouldn’t really care if the school that I go to is ranked #4 or # 8 or # 15. If you want to go to Yale-SOM, it’s all up to you. If you want to go to Haas, it’s your call completely and I would not say that you will be in a disadvantage for going there (or even Yale-SOM) than going to HSW. (Most people that are attracted to Haas are engineers, tech-oriented or finance jocks. I’m not sure what type of people are attracted to Yale-SOM.) In reality, it’s how you will use your MBA that makes it worthy. Like I said, even some HBS grads don’t make as much as some Haas grads do. The link I provided showed that to be true.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m curious; did you check how many grads from that pool went into entrepreneurship?
Many Haas grads form companies of their own making them self-employed and thus wouldn’t have to go through the whole length of job application process.</p>
<p>It appeared you were advocating the relevancy of this ranking which gave Haas the higher position. One can develop a methodology that would make most any school outshine HSW. The crux of the matter is that reputation drives the quality of any program. The brand has a great influence on the merit of the applicant pool any given school will draw; the quality of the students, in turn, will perpetuate that reputation whatever it may be. It seems that for this reason it is very difficult for schools to make much progress in the rankings, at least not in a short period of time (i.e. give Yale SOM more time).</p>
<p>Regarding endowment, surely a business school can easily tap the funds of the parent university? HBS is still Harvard and it is in the university’s best interest that the business school retain its preeminence. It still stands that Berkeley will have a very difficult time increasing its standing w/o considerably more $.</p>
<p>No, I did not check the eps yield. Good point. Nonetheless, I am sure that even you will agree Yale’s relative immunity to this contraction is still very impressive. It is not a stretch to argue the Yale brand is partly responsible for this.</p>