10 Biggest Surprises In Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2016 MBA Ranking

7. Biggest Drop Among The Top 25 This Year: UCLA Anderson School of Management

In most rankings, schools near the top rarely rise or fall very much. But this year, UCLA’s Anderson School sunk nine places to fall out of the Top 20. Businessweek assigned a rank of 22nd place to Anderson, only a year after claiming it was ranked 13th. It was the absolute worst ranking UCLA’s business school ever received from Businessweek, much worse than the 18th place showing only four years ago in 2012.

What went wrong? According to Businessweek, every thing. UCLA was one of the few schools to decline in all five metrics that the magazine uses to create its rankings. It fell 11 places in the employer survey to 28 from 19; a dozen places in the alumni survey to 18th from sixth; 12 places in the student survey to 15th from third; one position in starting salaries to 17th from 16th, and seven spots in job placement to 53rd from 40. Ouch.

We’re not entirely sure how a school as good as UCLA Anderson can fall in every single category in one year. But we know that very little has changed at the school in the past year, certainly nothing to warrant such a disaster of a ranking. So we’ll simply remind every one to look at the school’s performance in this ranking over the years, excluding the highest rank of ninth in 1994 and the lowest rank of 22 this year. The result: Anderson places 13th best in the U.S.

8. How Can Any School Suffer A total Ranking Free Fall, Dropping 40 Places In A Single Year? 

While double-digit rises and declines are not uncommon in business school rankings, a plunge of 40 places in a single year is certainly rare if not unprecedented. Yet, North Carolina State’s Jenkins Graduate School of Management was in a free fall, dropping 40 spots to a rank of 69th from 29th only a year ago. It’s possible to say that it could have been worse. After all, two schools completely disappeared from last year: No. 62 Hult International Business School and No. 64 University of Tennessee, even though Businessweek expanded this year’s ranking to 13 more schools.

But 40 places? Really? Unlike UCLA’s fall in all of the five categories, NC State fell in three of the five metrics. But in each case the declines were steep. Jenkins lost 35 positions in the employer survey, going to 55th from 20th, and a whopping 53 places in the alumni survey to 78th from 25; a decline of 29 places in the student poll to 67th from 38th. The truth? This school never should have been ranked as highly as it was in the previous year by Businessweek. That was an anomaly of sorts that you can chalk up to the magazine’s flawed methodology.

But here’s the dirty little secret of why it’s even remotely possible for a school to fall by 40 places in one year: Clustering. It’s the term that statisticians give to data that is close together. Though Businessweek wants to assign different numerical ranks to each school, the data is so clustered together that it is statistically meaningful to say one school is No. 29 and another is No. 34. At least U.S. News permits ties. Businesslike does not. If you look at the underlying index score for NC State this year, it’s 50.2. There are 21 schools with index score either ten or fewer points above and below it. That’s not a whole lot of difference. So when the slightest metrics fall, the decline can be very steep, indeed.

9. McCombs Vs. Mays? The Improbable Winner Is Texas A&M Over UT-Austin

For the first time ever, No. 18 Texas A&M’s Mays School ranked ahead of UT-Austin’s McCombs School of Business by three places. Only three years ago, McCombs had a 19-place advantage over Mays, ranking 23rd to Texas A&M”s 42nd place finish. Mays, in fact, wasn’t even ranked by Businessweek until 2010.

What’s up? If you can trust the Businessweek data–and that is a very big if–Texas A&M now beats UT in three of the five ranking metrics: Alumni, students and job placement. But UT actually improved on the all-important employer survey, moving up six notches to 16th from 22nd. Texas A&M also showed progress here, gaining three spots to rank 21st from 24th among employers. And in starting salaries, UT has a big lead over Texas A&M, ranking 15th to Mays’ 36th.

This is another great example that underlines the benefit of looking for greater truth in the consensus of all the rankings. On that score, UT just kills A&M. In U.S. News this year, UT ranked 16th versus May’s 31st place showing. In Forbes’ last ranking, UT ranked 14th vs. A&M’s 24th. In both The Financial Times and The Economist global lists this year, UT is47th and 39th, respectively. Texas A&M doesn’t even show up.

Advantage: McCombs.

10. Why Bloomberg Businessweek Doesn’t Really Care About Business Schools Or MBAs

On the left (above) is how Businessweek used to cover management education. It placed its rankings on the cover of the magazine, ran numerous stories inside its pages, massive tables loaded with information, and devoted more space to business schools and MBAs than any other subject when the rankings came out. But that was long ago. On the right is the latest cover which has many readers of the magazine aghast. This is the issue with the latest MBA ranking, though there’s not even a single promotional line on the cover about it.

Only a few weeks before the magazine’s publication of its latest ranking, ad sales people for Businessweek were desperately asking business schools to place full-page ads in the magazine for $14,000 a shot, a huge discount off the $40,000-a-page rate card for the magazine. Even on the day when Businessweek released the MBA ranking, the brief story on the list wasn’t even among the most viewed stories on its website. How come?

A new generation of editors do not believe rankings or business schools are very important. That’s why the magazine no longer has a team of journalists on the B-school beat. That’s also why the so-called business school page on its website doesn’t contain any stories on business education. It’s just one of many reasons why Bloomberg just installed new editorial leadership at the magazine and why it will revamp the publication next year. Readers may no longer get puppies, pussy cats and chocolates, but they are just as unlikely to get serious coverage of management education.

DON’T MISS: BIG CHANGES IN BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK’S 2016 MBA RANKING