INSEAD Claims First For Fifth Time In A Row

Macquarie University Graduate School of Management had the largest year-over-year rankings gain of any non-U.S. MBA program, soaring 35 places to a rank of 36th from 71 in 2018

THIS YEAR’S RANKING WINNERS & LOSERS

Given the annual ups-and-downs on these ranking lists, combining them led to some big swings. Some 18 of the schools saw either double-digit gains or declines year-over-year. On the plus side, the largest single gain was achieved by the Macquarie Graduate School of Management in Sydney, Australia. The school’s MBA program soared by 35 places to rank 36th best outside the U.S., up from 71st a year ago. The Indian School of Business scored the next biggest improvement of the year, rising 29 spots, to rank 16th from 45th in 2018.

What can cause such wild swings? In ISB’s case, the school improved its Financial Times ranking but more importantly managed to get ranked by both Businessweek and Forbes for the first time. The additional prominence with those new two rankings that ISB never had made a big difference for the school. Macquarie, meantime, was unranked by the Financial Times in 2018 but managed to place 35th among non-U.S. schools on the FT list this year. The school also improved its Economist ranking by four places, rising to 29th from 33rd.

On the negative side, ten schools had double-digit declines, not including the two schools that fell off the list completely. The biggest drop occurred for the MBA program at Copenhagen Business School, which slumped 27 places to a rank of 54th from 27th. While Copenhagen improved its showing on the Businessweek survey, rising to 24th from 36th among non-U.S. schools, it left the radar screen at both the Financial Times, where it had ranked 50th among non-U.S. programs in 2018, and The Economist, which ranked Copenhagen 39th among non-U.S. schools last year. Losing two rankings proved devastating to the school, especially because the school’s MBA program doesn’t make the Forbes list of the best international MBAs.

Leeds University Business School did nearly as poorly as Copenhagen, falling 26 places to 64th from 38th. The culprit: Leeds lost its MBA ranking from the Financial Times and saw its Economist rank fall by four places to 33rd from 29th. That means only one of the four most influential global rankings now puts Leeds on its list. Lancaster University Management School plunged 22 places to rank 41st from 19th a year ago. The reason: It’s MBA fell off the Forbes ranking but also declined on both the Financial Times and The Economist lists this year.

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