P&Q’s Must Reads: Ten Biggest Surprises In Businessweek’s 2024-2025 MBA Ranking

Hello everyone  — Welcome back to Poets&Quants’ Must Reads, a quick, digestible recap of the top business school news, sponsored by CentreCourt, P&Q’s virtual admission events.

I’m your host, Kristy Bleizeffer, and I’ll be highlighting the most important P&Q stories you might have missed. So, let’s get to it. 

No. 1: Ten Biggest Surprises In Businessweek’s 2024-2025 MBA Ranking

Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2024 MBA ranking dropped last month and it is chock full of surprises. 

That Stanford’s MBA program is deemed the best in the U.S. will hardly surprise many. That Harvard deserves to languish in sixth place, behind Chicago, Northwestern, Dartmouth, and the University of Virginia might astonish many. So will the 12-place fall for Columbia Business School which not only places CBS outside the Top Ten but at a rank of 17th, even behind Georgia Tech!

In this story, P&Q staffers explain the 10 most surprising findings for Businessweek’s 23rd MBA ranking. You can read it from our trending tab.

No. 2: MBA Class Of 2026: At Harvard, A Massive Rebound In MBA Applications 

It’s officially a rebound. The MBA is back — and at Harvard Business School, by one key metric, nearly as strong as ever.

The HBS MBA program drew 20.9% more applications in 2023-2024 than it did in the previous cycle, up more than 1,700 apps from a historic low of 8,149.

The bounce-back erased back-to-back years of declines that saw HBS lose 16.6% of its app volume, and drew the school back into the same ballpark as its all-time record of 10,351 apps set in 2017.

You can find more revealing facts about Harvard’s 2026 MBA Class in this story, which you will find on our homepage.

No. 3:  Dean Of The Year: H. Rao Unnava

Poets&Quants has named our Dean of the Year, and we’re excited to share the news. 

Congratulations to H. Rao Unnava, dean of UC Davis’ Graduate School of Management for the last eight years. 

We picked him for his ambitious change agenda and decisive, unpresuming leadership. The 65-year-old one-time marketing professor is the 14th dean to earn this honor, joining a stellar cast of academic talent over the years, coming from the top business schools from around the world.

Read all about his leadership in our profile, which you find featured on our homepage.

No. 4: Our Weekly Round Up of  News You Can Use

No matter where you are in your MBA journey, we bring several helpful stories for you this week. 

First up: 10 Tough MBA Interview Questions & How To Handle Them  In this article, available from our homepage, we offer the tips you need for meeting the unexpected with poise and confidence. 

Next: Harvard’s MBA Round 1 Interview Invites Have Gone Out. This article helps you prepare for that HBS admissions interview.  You can find it in our admissions hub.

Finally: How To Tackle Duke’s 25 Random Things Question. This article, up now in our admissions hub, also features an example essay to help guide you through.

And, that’s it for this week’s Must Reads recap. 

I also want to alert school seekers to our events tab from our main menu. There, you’ll find all the upcoming admissions events for a range of degrees and programs including full-time and online MBAs, specialized masters, entrepreneurship and more. Registration is free.

Again, I’m Kristy Bleizeffer, and you can join me next week, right here, for a recap of what’s important in the world of business education. Thanks for listening.