How Duke Achieved Its No. 1 Businessweek Ranking

METRICS THAT MEASURE QUALITY NOT A PART OF THE BW RANKING

Consider the real facts, not an embarrassingly biased survey of recruiters or an oddball attempt to rank the intellectual capital of the faculty. Harvard Business School is more than twice as selective as Fuqua, accepting 12% of its applicants vs. 25% at Duke. Just about half (51% to be exact) of the applicants who are invited to attend Fuqua turn the school down. That companies with one out of ten accepted candidates at HBS who say no (the highest yield of any business school in the U.S.). The average GMAT of an incoming MBA student at Harvard is 727, a full 30 points above the 697 average at Duke. Employers, moreover, willingly pay Harvard MBAs significantly more than they do those at Duke: an average $127,236 this year, versus $114,109.

Harvard beats Duke on applicants, acceptance rate, yield, GMAT and GPA scores, and starting salaries—all important and telling quality metrics not measured by Businessweek in its ranking. In fact, many of the schools ranked well below Duke have more impressive stats.

One obvious question: How come Duke benefitted from alumni recruiter votes and Harvard didn’t? While Duke did better than five times its historical average in the Businessweek employer survey, a 2 ranking vs. a 10.2 average, Harvard did more than twice as poorly, a seven against a 3.2 average in the past 26 years. How to explain that difference, especially when employers agree to pay Harvard MBAs more money?

DID HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL ENVY MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

One potential reason is HBS envy. Many of the alumni votes in this quirky election, after all, had been rejected by Harvard when they applied to business schools. Here was a chance to give some recognition to not only their alma maters but also to other HBS rivals. And Harvard alums were, in all likelihood, less willing to complete a survey—because they are confident enough in their own school and degree and don’t need additional recognition.

In contrast, as Businessweek pointed out, “Fuqua students got high marks from recruiters, particularly those from companies that hire large numbers of MBAs, and these were given additional weight in the ranking. In our survey, recruiters noted that Fuqua students are exceptionally good at working collaboratively…Students echoed the theme: The word “team” and its variants appeared 73 times in the 200 survey responses we received from Duke students, including one that read ‘Learning how to effectively work in a team has been priceless.’”

And, no doubt, this new No. 1 ranking will be priceless, too. Expect applicant volume to soar at Fuqua over the next year–until Businessweek comes out with its next ranking and yet another school finds itself on top.

Bloomberg Businessweek STUDENT Rankings From 2014 to 1996

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek rankings

DON’T MISS: BOOTH A LIKELY VICTIM OF BW’S RANKING CHANGES or DUKE TOPS 2014 BUSINESSWEEK RANKING