Yale Slips Out Of U.S. News’ Top Ten

When U.S. News & World Report unveils its new business school ranking March 12, Yale University’s School of Management will slip out of the top ten. Yale, which nudged out New York University’s Stern School last year for tenth place, now finds itself pushed aside by Stern.

In a “teaser” for its forthcoming rankings, U.S. News disclosed today (March 5) the top ten business schools in alphabetical order. The only top ten school not included on the list is Yale, replaced by NYU’s Stern School.

U.S. News said the other top ten schools in alphabetical order are Columbia University, Dartmouth College’s Tuck School, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Stanford University, UC-California at Berkeley’s Haas School, the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

A SMALL YET SURPRISING SETBACK FOR YALE’S SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

Yale’s slippage, presumably to 11th place, is something of a surprise because a relatively new dean of the school, Edward Snyder, has been working to remake SOM and improve its standings in rankings.

But the numerical rank of a school is often decided by fractions of an underlying index number with little, if any, statistical significance. So it is likely that Yale’s drop is inconsequential, in terms of the actual underlying data used to crank out the ranking. Even last year, for example, just one index number separated No. 10 Yale from No. 11 NYU. Yale was given an index number of 84, while NYU scored an 83. It’s possible that Yale slipped even further than one place because Duke University’s Fuqua School, ranked 12th last year, had an index number of 82.

As business school rankings go, U.S. News is widely followed, though not as influential as either Bloomberg BusinessWeek or The Financial Times. Nonetheless, no top  school—particularly one that is undergoing significant change to improve its overall standing–would want to fall out of the top ten.

YALE FALL IS REVEALED IN A ‘SNEAK PEEK’

U.S. News said its “sneak peek” is based on a survey of 488 accredited master’s programs in business. “The actual ranking and score of these and other graduate schools—including those offering full-time, part-time, and executive MBA programs—will be available March 12, 2013,” the magazine said.

Last year, U.S. News ranked Harvard and Stanford in a tie for first, with Wharton third, and MIT, Kellogg and Booth all tied for fourth place. The top ten were rounded out by No. 7 Berkeley, No. 8 Columbia, No. 9 Dartmouth, and No. 10 Yale.

 DON’T MISS: U.S. NEWS’ 2012 MBA RANKING or ALPHABETICAL LISTING OF TOP BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFILES