Ten Biggest Surprises In The Financial Times 2022 MBA Ranking

Columbia Business School’s Kravis Hall at night, one of two buildings on its new campus at 130th and Broadway

Columbia Makes Another Splash

Every business school ranking contains an eye-catcher. In Bloomberg Businessweek, Dartmouth Tuck has ranked 2nd overall for two years straight, excelling in compensation and networking.  Last year, IESE and HEC Paris ran neck-and-neck at the top of The Economist ranking. According to Fortune, NYU Stern would be an M7 School. This year, The Financial Times turned in a big surprise too. Columbia Business School returned with a vengeance — literally — ranking 2nd overall and ahead of Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB, and Chicago Booth. 

You could say CBS’ jump came out of left field. In 2020, it ranked 8th in 2020, which fit with its historic norms of 7th (2017 and 2018) and 9th (2019). Why did Columbia vault ahead of Harvard, Stanford, and INSEAD this year? 

For starters, CBS ranked 3rd in weighted pay at $218,542. That’s $163 less than #2 Stanford GSB and $10,689 more than #4 Berkeley Haas. To put in perspective Columbia’s pay, which takes up 20% of the school’s ranking weight, it is a $16,307 boost from CBS’ pay in 2020, when the school ranked 4th. In the three previous years, the school ranked 8th, 4th, and 5th in weighted pay, making 2022 a distinct improvement. At the same time, CBS pay rose by 125% over pre-MBA earnings, which also represent an uptick over past years: 115% (2020), 114% (2019), 103% (2018), and 103% (2017). Technically, Columbia’s 125% pay increase ranks 23rd in The Financial Times ranking. However, it tops numbers produced at Wharton (115%), INSEAD (93%), Harvard Business School (104%), Northwestern Kellogg (117%), and Stanford GSB (114%). That makes a big difference when pay increase also represents 20% of the FT ranking’s weight. 

Where else did CBS excel? Take faculty research, which holds a 10% weight, Columbia ranked 4th, just behind Wharton, Harvard, and Chicago Booth. The school placed 20th in Career Progress (3%), up from 25th two years ago. In other weighted measures, CBS had higher percentages of female faculty than INSEAD and Kellogg, international faculty than Wharton and Harvard, and international students than Wharton, Harvard, and Kellogg. 

In other words, CBS finished among the best in overall pay and research, while remaining competitive with peers in the categories that mattered to The Financial Times. Does this mean Columbia Business School has a shot to catch Wharton in next year’s ranking? Well, let’s just say Wharton alums reported nearly $20K more in pay this past year, a gap that will likely take more than a year to close. Still, the Class of 2021 set a record for starting pay this summer. In January, CBS opened its new campus in Manhattanville that spans nearly 500,000 square feet. Not only does the new campus offer greater space and capabilities, but David Geffen’s $75 million dollar gift last September also makes the school flush in resources. Considering CBS’ goal to become the top MBA program for climate change programming, you can expect the school to improve on ranking 71st in ESG with the FT.  

In other words, CBS is less a one-year wonder and more of a long-term incumbent that’s positioned to fend off rivals in the coming years. 

Career Services Remains An American Strength

Career services only amounts to a 3% share of The Financial Times ranking.  That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t matter to students. Just ask alumni surveyed by the FT, who are asked to evaluate their career center based on its effectiveness in “career counseling, personal development, networking events, internship research, and recruitment.” Here, American MBA programs lead the way.    

According to its alumni survey, 19 of the 25 highest-scored career services centers were located in the United States. This year’s top performer is (again) the University of Florida’s Warrington College, home to roughly 105 first- and second-year MBAs. Of course, Warrington produced 98% placement within three months of graduation this past year. Graduate pay also jumped by 126% relative to their pre-MBA compensation. No wonder Warrington also ranked #1 for Value for Money, a FT calculation that combines post-MBA pay, course length, tuition, and lost income to show a return on investment. 

This year’s top career centers feature the usual suspects. Georgia Tech again placed 2nd, followed by UCLA Anderson, Indiana Kelley, and USC Marshall. Despite their renown the latter three are technically new to the Top 5, replacing Chicago Booth, Vanderbilt Owen, and Sungkyunkwan University. SDA Bocconi ranks as the top international program on the list, leaping a whopping 39 spots in the alumni survey to #8. China’s Fudan University also saw its center’s ranking climb 10 spots to #11.  

That said, the career services ranking seems de-coupled from other variables. For one, top MBA programs rarely boast top career centers. Northwestern Kellogg and Chicago Booth serve as outliers here. Overall, they rank 5th and 7th respectively, while their career centers received the 6th and 10th highest scores from alumni surveys. #1 Wharton and #10 IESE also house centers that ranked among the 20-best. Still, the centers at Harvard Business School (#37), MIT Sloan (#42), INSEAD (#47), and Stanford GSB (#50) punch well below their rankings would indicate. 

A high-ranking career center also doesn’t guarantee results. Collectively, the 10-highest-scored centers average a 62.8 ranking for Career Progress, placing anywhere between 33 and 96. In terms of compensation, there were just two Top 10 career centers (Kellogg and Booth) where graduates also enjoyed Top 10 pay. Aside from Warrington, just SDA Bocconi ranked in the Top 10 for both their career services score and Value for Money ranking. What’s more, you won’t find any Top 10 career centers whose school ranked among the ten best for Career Progress, a FT measure for changes in seniority between pre-MBA and post-MBA roles. Par for the course, there were just two schools — Kellogg and Booth — that ranked in the Top 10 for both career center and Alumni Recommendation score. 

One clear correlation involved placement. Here, every Top 15 career center had a three month placement rate of 94% or above.  

In other words, maybe the question to be asked is this: Does a top-tier school really need a blue ribbon career services center, considering their sizable resources and alumni base? Then again, maybe the pertinent question is this: Where would smaller schools be without the connections made and coaching supplied by their career centers? 

DON’T MISS: WHARTON RETURNS TO A FAMILIAR PLACE IN THE 2022 FINANCIAL TIMES MBA RANKING 

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