Updated U.S. News Ranking Due March 11

U.S. NEWS RANKING BASED ON NINE DIFFERENT METRICS

U.S. News’ methodology takes into account a wealth of proprietary and school-supplied data to crank out its annual ranking of the best business schools. The magazine does its own survey of B-school deans and MBA directors (25% of the score). This year, U.S. News said about 43% of those surveyed responded, but it did not reveal how many deans were actually surveyed or how many replied.

It also does its own survey of corporate recruiters (accounting for 15% of the overall ranking and for which 16% of those surveyed responded), starting salaries and bonuses (14%), employment rates at and three months after graduation (7% to 14%, respectively), student GMATs and GREs scores (about 16%), undergrad GPAs (about 8%), and the percentage of applicants who are accepted to a school (a little over 1%). This will be the second year U.S. News will include GRE scores in its ranking methodology.

“The rankings should be a supplement for careful decision-making, not a substitute,” writes Morse on his blog, Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings. “U.S. News encourages students to use the rankings as a tool to help choose the right graduate school, not as the sole factor behind their final choice.”

As usual, Poets&Quants will provide detailed analysis of the updated rankings on the day they are published by U.S. News.