2) Columbia Business School Returns to Earth

It was just too good to stay true. Last year, Columbia Business School finally reached its potential. Home to a legendary finance program, CBS was long regaled as a feeder of Wall Street talent. Even more, it had ranked among The Financial Times’ Top 5 in 17 of the past 25 years. In recent years, it opened a new campus and established itself as a top destination for climate change programming. Esteemed faculty, deep resources, and perfect location: Columbia Business School enjoyed all the advantages. In 2023, The Financial Times finally recognized CBS as the top MBA program in the world.

Talk about a statement! It was a reminder that Harvard and Penn weren’t the only Ivies at the top of the heap. The ranking reflected the culmination of a long reinvention to turn CBS into a high-tech, future-focused program that connected every constituency and leveraged every imaginable Manhattan advantage.

It’s never easy to repeat as the world’s top business school. Stanford GSB last achieved the feat in 2018-2019. Now, the school ranks 23rd in the world. London Business School enjoyed a three-year run in the top spot from 2009-2011 and Wharton either held or tied for the #1 from 2001-2009. Could CBS be the latest to break out of being a one-year wonder?

Afraid not.

Talk about misfortune. The Wharton School – the #1 program in the 2022 FT ranking – didn’t participate last year. They didn’t make that mistake again in 2024, returning to claim the top spot. INSEAD, which has long followed CBS’ example of ranking 2nd-5th, clung to the #2 spot for the second consecutive year. To pile on, CBS ran into white-hot SDA Bocconi, which ultimately tied it for 3rd.

Disappointing? Maybe … but Columbia still ranked ahead of its M7 counterparts at Harvard, Stanford, Chicago Booth, Northwestern Kellogg, and MIT Sloan. A few years ago, you had to wonder if CBS might get replaced in the M7 by Yale SOM or Dartmouth Tuck. At times, you might even entertain the notion that NYU Stern might someday become the best program in New York City as NYU Stern considering how it tight-roped along the edge of the Top 10.

Well, you won’t hear that skepticism about Columbia Business School anymore! They may have fallen off their perch, but they are in a position to grab it back next year.

In the end, you could say CBS suffered the proverbial death by a thousand cuts in 2024.  On a positive note, salary rose from $226,359 to $232,760 – good for 4th. The problem is, it was $13,012 behind #1 Wharton, with the metric accounting for 16% of the ranking. In Salary Increase, another metric with a 16% weight, CBS slipped from 132% to 127%. While the percentage was higher than Wharton (121%) and INSEAD (110%), it fell short of SDA Bocconi (135%). At the same time, CBS dropped two spots to 4th on Faculty Research, which carries a 10% weight (and where Wharton ranked #1). While 3-Month Placement is only worth 2% of the rank, CBS fell hard here, going from 92% to 81% — the lowest percentage of the schools that either ranked above them (or tied them).

Compared against Wharton, INSEAD, and SDA Bocconi, Columbia Business School enjoyed the highest score for Alumni Network and Career Progress, even moving up 6 spots on the latter, for a combined 7% weight. With 89% of surveyed CBS survey respondents saying the school enabled them to Achieve Their Goals, CBS tied Wharton in a metric worth a 4% weight.

Beyond that, CBS fared poorly in remaining measures against Wharton, INSEAD and SDA Bocconi. Among the four schools, CBS ranked lowest for Carbon Footprint, ESG Coursework, International Coursework, and International Mobility. It ranked 2nd of four in Career Services and Section Diversity (behind SDA Bocconi in both), and 3rd for Value For Money (ranking 76th against Wharton’s 95th). The death blow: CBS finished 3rd for percentages of International Students, International Faculty, Female Students, and Female Faculty – a combined 12% weight.

With CBS’ new buildings earning LEED Gold Certification and the school’s increasing investment in Sustainability, you can expect Carbon Footprint and ESG Coursework to emerge as a strength. With Pay and Research being strengths – and carrying over a quarter of the weight – CBS will always remain competitive near the very top of the FT rankings. While 2024 may be a disappointment to CBS, they can take comfort in Schadenfreude: cross-town rival NYU Stern has fallen seven spots in two years.

 

3) Is Esade Poised For a Big Run?

SDA Bocconi has become a Financial Times legend. You’ve probably heard this story before. In 2008, SDA Bocconi ranked 48th in the world. Slowly – but surely – the school climbed. In 2013, SDA Bocconi finished 39th. Five years later, the school made it to 29th – a 19-spot improvement over a decade. By 2020, they’d reached 12th and clawed their way up to 6th last year.

This year, SDA Bocconi is tied for 3rd, beating out everyone from the Stanford Graduate School of Business to London Business School. And it wasn’t just a methodology-driven anomaly either, as Esade ranked 1st in Bloomberg Businessweek’s European Business School Ranking last year.

So who is on deck to repeat SDA’s Bocconi’s historic rise? Well, all the highest-ranked non-American programs – INSEAD, HEC Paris, London Business School, IESE – have been Top 10 programs with The Financial Times at one point or another. In 2019, CEIBS was the pride of Asia, ranking 5th in the world. This year, the school continued its freefall to 21st. IE Business School might come close to being a SDA Bocconi-level wonder. However, the program’s seesawing invites skepticism. After all, IE ranked 8th in 2017 before cratering to 31st in 2019, dipping further to 40th in 2022 before rocketing back to 20th in 2024.

For our money, Esade Business School is the one to keep your eyes on in the coming year. This year, the program leaped from 30th to 17th, putting the program in striking distance of an entirely new class of business schools. A case-driven program known for innovation and technology, ESADE ranked as the #3 MBA entrepreneurship program in the world by Poets&Quants last year. Launched by entrepreneurs in 1958, the Barcelona program also finished as the 3rd-best program for Entrepreneurship by Bloomberg Businessweek in 2023 as well.

Sure enough, the program operates off a credo that fits the modern MBA aesthetic: “We don’t predict the future, we create it.”

How did Esade boost itsstock through The Financial Times MBA Ranking this year? Like most programs, Esade’s ranking was a matter of hits-and-misses. Over the past year, the program lost ground in Alumni Network (47th to 54th), Career Progress (11th to 21st), Career Services (48th to 53rd), and International Course Experience (3rd to 13th). Together, these measures account for 18% of the FT weight. Funny thing is, weighted salary rose from $157,209 to $182,414 in a measure that holds a 16% weight. In terms of salary increase, that improved from 131% to 151% in another metric with a 16% weight. In Faculty Research, worth a 10% weight, Esade boosted its rank from 78th to 65th. For Carbon Footprint, Esade actually leaped 47 spots from 51st to 4th – in just one year (at 4% weight). At the same time, Esade finished 2nd for Sector Diversity – the range of industries students worked in before starting their MBA (3% weight).

In other words, Esade is increasingly scoring high in the areas valued by The Financial Times, with plenty of ceiling for improvement in areas where the school has shown past strength. Overall, the program is devoting even greater resources to STEM and international learning according to Jan Hohberger, associate director of the Esade Full-Time MBA, in a 2023 interview with P&Q. Hohberger notes that the school’s objective is “to be recognized as the most relevant and connected business school in the world.” That’s particularly valuable for a program where, Hohberger says, “over 30% of our students are “triple jumpers” (changing their countries, functions, and industries) and more than 70% are “double jumpers.””

“It’s fair to say that the Esade MBA provides a transformational experience, which goes far beyond professional knowledge,” Hohberger adds. “I’ve had several conversations with students who dreamed of a specific role and got a relevant offer through the MBA. However, the MBA also made them refocus their dreams and they ended up pursuing a very different option. This shows that the Esade MBA is a place to prepare and accelerate careers but also a space for learning, reflection, and potential reorientation.”

And that doesn’t count Esade’s Barcelona’s digs, either. “In winter, you can go skiing in the Pyrenees and, on the same day, eat mussels at the beach, drink a glass of sangria, and enjoy the sun,” says ’23 alum Florian Burmeister.

Alas, Esade isn’t the only viable candidate to be the next SDA Bocconi. Look no further than France’s ESCP Business School. In 2022, ESCP ranked 52nd.  Five years earlier, it had finished 74th. This year, it slid into the 25th spot with The Financial Times. In other words, it has moved up 49 spots in seven years! In some ways, the ESCP difference resembles Esade. For one, ESCP ranked #1 in Sector Diversity, along with going 3rd and 11th for International Course Experience and Internal Mobility – with the former being exactly where Esade ranked in 2023. In addition, ESCP also finished 2nd for Value for Money and 3rd for ESG and Net Zero Teaching, each representing a one-spot improvement.

So what’s holding ESCP back? Think money. For pay, ESCP comes in at $143,907. And salary percentage increase – 106% — ranks 69th. Considering ESCP’s 99% placement rate – and increasing prestige – those numbers may be poised to rise too. That could be the ticket for ESCP breaking into the global elite.

Next Page: INSEAD and IESE keep a steady course.