The 10 Biggest Surprises In The Economist’s Strange 2021 MBA Ranking

6) Georgia Tech — What the heck?  

U.S. News ranks them 27th…in the United States. The Financial Times? 53rd? Bloomberg Businessweek and Forbes had them pegged at 24th and 28th in their last rankings. And then there is The Economist, which has a soft spot for this school. They ranked them 23rd in the world last year. This year, The Economist elevated George Tech all the way to #5 – the same spot held by the Wharton School last year.

Technically, The Economist didn’t boost the Scheller College of Business. You can credit students and alumni with that. Start with Career Services – long considered one of Scheller’s strengths. Here, Scheller ranked 2nd, just one spot up from last year. Not surprisingly, Scheller scored well in Providing Career Opportunities, an area where its rank rose from 6th to 4th. In Culture, Scheller was the runner-up to IESE, just .03 of a point behind. Along the way, Scheller produced top 10 scores from respondents in Personal Development, Faculty Quality, and Education Experience.

It isn’t just the high survey scores that makes Scheller stick out in the 2021 ranking. The program climbed 40 spots in Potential To Network and 30 places for Alumni Effectiveness. Add to that, it rose 32 and 26 spots respectively in Student and Faculty Diversity and Student Quality. In Personal Development, student and alumni respondents gave it a score that enabled it to rise another 22 places.  

Oh – and Scheller jumped 21 spots for post-MBA pay. 

What does this mean? First, Scheller delivers when it comes to graduate satisfaction and increased pay. Even more, the program is on the upswing. It doesn’t matter that 14 programs that ranked above Scheller went AWOL this year. The school still would’ve climbed in the rankings. Maybe not to #5 – but by three spots minimum…making Scheller a top 20 program globally. 

In a nutshell, Scheller’s rise begs a question: Is Scheller’s ranking a COVID anomaly…or are outlets rewarding the wrong things to get to the same tired results?

7) Better Ranking? Doesn’t Mean You Had A Good Year

2021 was the year that The Economist spiked the punch bowl and everyone had a good time – well, almost everyone.

Fact is, 85% of returning schools saw their rankings increase. That makes for good PR copy.  Here’s another way of looking at The Economist ranking: 41 of the top 50 schools watched their rank rise by 10 points or more (not counting the two newcomers). 24 of these program boosted their rank by 20 spots or more (and you can tack on another 9 schools in the top 50 whose rank increased by 18 or 19 places). 

See a pattern here? In 2021, schools didn’t just have the opportunity to creep up a spot or two like most years. This was a chance to blow their numbers out, to enter an entirely new tier and make a name for themselves. Some schools capitalized on this unique proposition. North Carolina State’s Poole School, which ranked 93rd last year, raced up 57 spots to reach 36th. EDHEC Business School vaulted 25 spots to #7 – a spot where it would’ve ranked ahead of Stanford GSB, Columbia Business School, and MIT Sloan last year (not to mention this year’s #1 IESE). 

The shifts are staggering with all of the opt outs. They include ESSEC Business School (+45), Michigan State Broad (+41), George Washington University (+40), and the University of St. Gallen (+38). The International University of Monaco and Texas Christian University’s Neeley School – two names not often mentioned – each surged 38 spots to crack The Economist’s Top 50.

The field was so widen open that the University of Maryland’s Smith School actually debuted at #35 – a feat nearly equaled by the Indian Business School (#44).

That means the expectations rose for everyone this year…and a handful of schools sadly fell short. Two programs actually lost ground: Melbourne Business School (-6) and the Cranfield School of Management (-1). Below the top 50, Ivey Business School managed to clamber just 7 spots, the same as the University of Edinburgh Business School.

Still, a 7-spot improvement is a game-changer in two cases. For example, the Warwick Business School cracked the top 20 thanks to a 7 spot swing. That same difference carried SDA Bocconi into the top 10 at #7. Regardless, 2021 was the year to make a statement for business schools – and The Economist was the platform to do it. For many, the ranking was a time to step out of the shadows and boost their profile. For a few, it will also be remembered as a moment missed and an opportunity squandered.

8) The Best MBA Educational Experience Award Goes To Michigan Ross

One of the more valuable insights The Economist’s student satisfaction surveys provide is which business schools deliver the best educational experience. The University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business is almost always the winner in this category. Not this year, largely because UVA decided not to participate in the ranking.

Another public university took the top prize: the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Ross is a worthy winner, with a differentiated MBA thanks to having one of the most consequential experiential learning opportunity in its MBA program. Every January, Ross first-years pair up in teams of 4-6 to complete a consulting project, with the previous class ultimately completing 83 projects in 25 countries. Unlike most other MBA programs, the course is considered so important and all-encompassing that Ross breaks its academic calendar for it, making these consulting assignments fill the entire first part of the second semester.

In recent years, Ross MBA candidates have partnered with firms like Amazon, Dell, Facebook, Ford, PayPal, PepsiCo, WalMart, and the World Bank. In the process, Ross MBAs have developed market entry strategies for Expedia in China; formulated global diversity and sustainability programs for MGM Resorts International; researched early adopter practices for Oracle; boosted the appeal of Kellogg’s breakfast products to Millennials; evaluated a potential car sharing service for General Motors; and built tools to help Make-A-Wish America reach 17,000 children a year.

Here’s this year’s top 20 in educational experience: