Ten Biggest Surprises In U.S. News’ 2021 MBA Ranking

Harvard vs. Stanford

5) Has Stanford Finally Eclipsed Harvard As The World’s Top MBA Experience?

When it comes to MBA rankings, Harvard Business School has always had the advantage. In U.S. News, HBS has been the number one winner for 14 years vs. Stanford’s 11. In the Financial Times, HBS has outnumbered Stanford for top honors in six years, twice as many as its West Coast rival.

And while there will be plenty of people who will think Harvard’s MBA could not possibly be behind Wharton, Booth and Kellogg—as it now is being ranked fifth by U.S. News. But it’s worth asking whether Harvard has more permanently lost its long-held presumed position for having the quintessential MBA experience. In Poets&Quants‘ composite ranking–which is a mashup of the top five most influential MBA rankings–Harvard Business School was last in first place in 2016. For the past two years, Stanford has claimed the top spot.

After all, Stanford not only beat out HBS this year in the U.S. News ranking. It also defeated Harvard last year when the school posted its worst U.S. News performance ever, ranking sixth in the nation. And in the Financial Times, Stanford has bested HBS in two of the past three years in which both schools cooperated with the FT ranking. And in head-to-head contests when both schools admit the same candidate, that person more often chooses Stanford over Harvard. A 2015 analysis by Bloomberg Businessweek found that Stanford handily won the vast majority of dual admits, bagging 66.2% of them versus Harvard’s 16.2%.

STANFORD MORE OFTEN THAN NOT WINS THE U.S. NEWS METRICS BATTLE OVER HARVARD

Stanford consistently beats Harvard in many of the metrics U.S. News uses to rank programs. Stanford is more selective, with an admit rate that has almost always been lower than HBS. For the cohorts that entered in the fall, Stanford admitted 8.9% versus Harvard’s 9.2%. Stanford’s average class GMAT score of 733 is above Harvard’s 727 by six points.

U.S. News’ data shows that the average salaries and sign-on bonuses of Harvard MBAs last year of $171,785 not only was well behind Stanford’s $176,083 but it trailed trailed six other rivals: NYU Stern ($175,148), Dartmouth Tuck ($173,882), Northwestern Kellogg ($173,057), Chicago Booth ($172,683), Cornell Johnson ($172,254), and (Wharton ($172,016). That data point is a standard measure of the market worth of a school’s MBAs, even though it is also influenced by industry choice and geography. It’s not as if HBS grads are going into the social sector, after all.

And while other deans and academics both rate HBS and Stanford equal with a score of 4.8, corporate recruiters mark down Harvard, giving it a combined score of 4.4, a tad below Stanford’s 4.5, the highest recruiter score achieved by any school and shared with Wharton. Harvard does better on employment stats than Stanford, both at graduation and three months later, but a larger share of the GSB’s grads seek jobs outside the MBA recruiting mainstream at Silicon Valley startups, early-stage companies, private equity shops, and venture capital firms.

Besides, Harvard’s latest job stats hardly give it bragging rights in this department. Nine of the top ten schools beat Harvard on the metric. In fact, 23 of the top 25 business schools did better than HBS. Nearly 30% of Harvard’s MBAs were unemployed by graduation,with employment at graduation. Three months later, nearly 18% of the Class of 2020 at HBS still didn’t land a job.

You could argue, of course, that rankings matter less to Harvard and Stanford than they do at any other business school. That’s because those two exceptionally resourced brands are embedded in people’s brains as the best B-schools in the world, no matter what U.S. News or any other ranking has to say about it. But increasingly, it’s looking that the advantage is on Stanford’s side.

A case discussion extends beyond the classroom at Darden

6) The “DMV” Sticks Together

Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.’

That maxim really doesn’t apply to the University of Virginia’s Darden School, the University of Michigan’s Ross School, and Duke University’s Fuqua School. For some reason, this trio tends to cluster together in rankings, like freshmen fending off a common foe. Each program boasts a distinct calling card. 

Darden is best-known as the academic school, where students absorb over 500 cases under the watchful gaze of some of the world’s top business professors. Duke is where you head to be part of Team Fuqua, a supportive band of students who epitomize the well-worn observation that ‘The strength of the wolf is found in the pack.’ At Ross, MBAs enjoy maybe the largest portfolio of hands-on activities to prepare them to hit the ground running when they return to work. 

These schools’ identities may cater to different types of students, but they still find their way back to each other, rankings-wise at least. This year, Ross, Fuqua, and Darden ranked 12th, 12th, and 13th respectively.  The year before, that order went 12, 12, and 11 (with Dartmouth College’s Tuck School also placing 12th before moving into 10th this year). Yes, you might find Dartmouth Tuck or New York University’s Stern School sometimes orbiting this troika. Overall, the DMV – Duke, Michigan, Virginia – doesn’t spend much time apart for very long. In the 2019 ranking, the DMV went 10th, 10th, and 12th respectively. In 2018, Ross vaulted into the top 10, making the DMV order 11th, 7th, and 13th. A year earlier, the order went 12th, 11th, and 14th.  In 2016, Darden enjoyed its turn atop the DMV, as the ranking went 12th, 12th, and 11th.

Yes, the DMV are the misfits…in the most positive way imaginable. Ross is the innovator that is constantly rolling out inventive programming. When Fuqua students band together; they can outperform any team – but prefer to shine the spotlight on their peers. And Darden grads come equipped to work through just about any problem; after all, that’s what they’ve been preparing to do for two years 

In other words, the DMV are the outsiders, forever circling the Top 10 as the likes of NYU Stern, Dartmouth Tuck, and the Yale School of Management eye them warily. 

What’s holding the DMV back? For starters, Fuqua and Darden accept applicants with slightly lower GMATs, confident that their structures and cultures can coach their students up above their Ivy League counterparts. Their acceptance rates, which range from 24.9% (Fuqua) to 37% (Ross), aren’t particularly onerous. And their pay packages – running from $169,190 (Darden) to $164,040 (Ross) lag behind most of the programs ranked above them. And that doesn’t seem to matter to the DMV. They aren’t going to compromise themselves to inch up a few spots in the U.S. News.  These programs know who they are and what matters in the market – be it teamwork, experience, or problem-solving. Despite their differing approaches, this shared commitment may be the real reason why these schools can never seem to separate themselves from each other. 

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