Ranking The 2016 Business School Rankings

The Marriott School of Management

9) The Most Popular MBA Programs: Follow the herd. Isn’t that what business school teaches you not to do? Sure, but it helps to know which schools are the most appealing to applicants before you decide to blaze your own path. In 2016, Poets&Quants covered school popularity from several angles.

One is yield rate, the percentage of students who ultimately accept a school offer. On one level, this is a measure of perception and desirability. It reflects which programs are applicants’ first choice, an indication of the passion that first years will bring into the class…and beyond. Considering this metric is based on student choice, it may also be a harbinger of which schools are most willing to dangle goodies (i.e. financial aid) to sweeten the pot, too.

As you might guess, the top MBA programs perform the best here. Harvard converts 90.7% of acceptance letters into actual students. Stanford is no slouch either at 83.9%. Applicants are still gravitating towards Columbia Business School, which brings nearly three out of every four acceptances to the west side. While most programs struggle to turn 50% of acceptances into students, you’ll find several top programs performing well above the norm, including Wharton (65.7%), MIT Sloan (64.7%), and Duke Fuqua (61.7%). That doesn’t even count second-tier schools whose students consider them more of a destination than an option, including Brigham Young Marriott (80.2%), U.C.-Davis (70.9%), Wisconsin (61.9%), and Penn State Smeal (61.5%).

The most popular programs also tend to be the most exclusive. While the number of applicants can tip you off to where the action is, the ratio of actual seats to applicants may be a better gauge. Here, Stanford is the hands-down winner. While Harvard inspires nearly 1,800 more applications than Stanford, the GSB had 19.5 applicants for every open seat in the Class of 2017, nearly double the 10.6 number posted by their Cambridge comrades. No doubt, smaller programs enjoy an advantage in this area, as U.C.-Berkeley Haas (246 students) and Washington Olin (141 students) planted the second best numbers at 14.6 and 11.2 applicants-to-seats respectively. Bottom line: These are your odds of getting in. By that measure, you may want to take a second look at INSEAD (2.5), let alone London Business School (5.7), Cornell (6.2), Chicago Booth (7.3), and Wharton (7.7).

Alas, school inquires are another indicator. Take Ready4GMAT, which tapped into their database of 250,000 graduate business school surveys to pinpoint the most “popular” business schools among their users. As you’d expect, Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton topped the list. The big surprise: The Indian School of Business crashed the top five. At the same time, U.C.-Berkeley Haas and Duke Fuqua gained the most interest over the previous year, while Oxford Said and UCLA Anderson leveled off over the same time.

UCLA Anderson School of Management

10) How MBAs Rank Their Schools: Satisfaction guaranteed? Not always where business schools are concerned. With the advent of rankings (and social media), MBA students have a megaphone to broadcast their devotion or disillusionment for the whole world to hear.

At P&Q, we heard them, too. Let’s start with the ever-maligned Economist ranking. Remember how we noted that the methodology, more than the data itself, was the issue. This is an example. Here, students and recent graduates alike can make their voices heard in a variety of areas. Where will you find the best school facilities? Think Duke Fuqua and UCLA Anderson. Is a strong faculty critical to you? The survey says the University of Virginia Darden and Fuqua are the places to be. Everyone wants an inclusive culture and supportive peers — and Economist respondents voted U.C.-Berkeley Haas and Darden as the best. Career services? That’s the forte of Anderson and Chicago Booth.

The Financial Times also collects an excess of data. P&Q put that to work in 2016, too. One question posed to alumni was to name the three schools where they would be most apt to hire their alumni. Translation: Which MBAs perform the best in the workplace? Like many rankings, Harvard and Stanford ran neck-and-neck in this metric, with Harvard holding the edge. Among international programs, INSEAD and the London Business School mimicked the Harvard-Stanford rivalry, with INSEAD eking out this round.

Another dimension of satisfaction tracked by The Financial Times: How well MBAs feel they were able to attain the goals behind starting their degree (i.e. “Aims Achieved”). Surprisingly, most schools clustered in the 80%-90% range. Yale and Minnesota Carlson led the American pack at 87%, with IMD posting the best overall score at 88%.

Here are some additional 2016 business school rankings that just missed the cut:

The Best Paid Alumni

Starting MBA Pay By School and Function

Starting MBA Pay By Region

Highest MBA Signing Bonuses

Highest & Lowest Paid MBAs of 2015

What Graduating MBAs Made In 2015

Average GMAT Scores For the Top 50 MBA Programs

Average GPAs for the Top 50 Business Schools

Acceptance Rates for the Top 50 Business Schools

Total Cost of An MBA Degree Among The Top 50 Schools

Top MBA Employers