Winners & Losers In The 2010 BW Ranking

The big news in the new 2010 ranking out today (Nov. 11, 2010) from BusinessWeek is that for the very first time the magazine is now ranking 57 U.S. schools, up from 30 in earlier years. That means the list contains a larger number of winners and losers.

Many schools that had never made the list appear on the newly expanded ranking, including No. 57 University of Buffalo, No. 56 Northeastern University in Boston, and No. 55 Rutgers University in New Jersey. Howard University’s B-school makes the new list at a rank of 53.

Four schools dropped out of the magic top 30 list this year (and four schools replaced those dropouts). The top 30 newcomers were No. 20 Michigan State’s Broad School of Business, which had been deemed one of 15 second-tier schools by BusinessWeek, two years ago; No. 28 University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Business, also a second-tier school in 2008; and two previously unranked schools, No. 29 Rice University’s Jones School of Business and No. 30 Texas A&M University”s Mays School.

The four schools that fell out of the magazine’s top 30 were Washington University’s Olin School of Business, which last time was ranked 28th and had been in the top list in seven previous BW surveys. The Olin School fell to a rank of 40. Also dropping off the list was the University of Maryland, which was ranked 26th two years ago and had been in the BW top 30 for the previous six surveys. It dropped to a rank of 42 this time around. Vanderbilt University’s business school, which was No. 30 on the list in 2008 and had been on the previous four top 30 surveys, fell to 37th. And finally, the University of Washington, which had been ranked 27th last time, dropped to a rank of 31. Instead of falling into an unranked “second tier” as these schools would have in the past, BusinessWeek for the first time has assigned ranks to more schools, increasing the total number of ranked institutions to 75 from 40.

Besides the four business schools which dropped out of the top 30, other big losers in the 2010 ranking by BusinessWeek included New York University’s Stern School of Business and Brigham Young University’s Marriott School. Both institutions dropped five full places: NYU to 18 from 13 in 2008, and BYU to 27 from 22. The drop for the Stern School nows put it nine places against its New York City rival, Columbia University, which placed ninth, a drop of two places from its seventh-ranked post in 2008.

BIGGEST LOSERS IN THE 2010 BUSINESSWEEK RANKING

School Difference in Ranks 2010 Rank 2008 Rank
University of Maryland -16 42 26
Washington University (Olin) -12 40 28
Vanderbilt University -7 37 30
New York University (Stern) -5 18 13
Brigham Young -5 27 22
University of Washington -4 31 27
Texas-Austin (McCoombs) -4 25 21
Indiana (Kelley) -4 19 15
Notre Dame (Mendoza) -4 24 20
UCLA (Anderson) -3 17 14

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Source: BusinessWeek 2010 ranking of Best B-schools

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Besides the four new schools that cracked the top 30 list this year, other big winners in BW’s 2010 ranking included the business schools at Southern Methodist University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Those schools both jumped six places. SMU’s Cox School moved to 12th from 18th in 2008, while the Georgia Institute rose to 23 from 29th in the last BW ranking.

BIGGEST WINNERS IN THE 2010 BUSINESSWEEK RANKING

School Difference in Ranks 2010 Rank 2008 Rank
Michigan State (Broad) Won top 30 status 20 ST*
Minnesota (Carlson) Won top 30 status 28 ST*
Rice University (Jones) Won top 30 status 29 Unranked
Texas A&M (Mays) Won top 30 status 30 Unranked
SMU (Cox) +6 12 18
Georgia Institute of Tech +6 23 29
Virginia (Darden) +5 11 16
Carnegie Mellon (Tepper) +4 15 19
Yale University +3 21 24

Source: BusinessWeek 2010 ranking of Best B-Schools

ST — Second-tier school among 15 identified by BusinessWeek

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