3) Wharton vs. Columbia: The New Harvard vs. Stanford

In 2023, Columbia Business School made headlines by finishing 1st in The Financial Times ranking. It was the first time that CBS had reached the top spot. In fact, you could argue that the school was due after breaking into FT’s Top 5 schools 16 times from 1999-2022 (not to mention being the runner-up in 1999, 2007, and 2022).

Call it the culmination of a series of efforts, which included Columbia Business School opening its $600-million-dollar Manhattanville campus in 2022. Long known as one of the top finance schools in the world – just a 20 minute cab ride to Wall Street, no less – the program has invested heavily in areas that could define the future of business: Analytics, Blockchain, Climate Change, and Sustainability.

Compare that to the Wharton School. An Ivy like Columbia, Wharton has now held the top spot in The Financial Times MBA Ranking for the past two years – and 13 years total. In fact, Wharton has been the top MBA program with FT for three of the past five years, missing out in 2021 and 2023 – when it declined to participate. It’s also worth pointing out that Columbia claimed the top spot because Wharton could not meet the FT‘s minimum response rate for its alumni survey.

Like Columbia Business School, the Wharton School has been tagged with a “finance school” reputation. Even more, Wharton is also pouring resources into areas that are disrupting business at breakneck speech. While CBS aspires to be the leader in sustainability, Wharton is hell-bent on becoming the world’s experts on artificial intelligence. The school’s influence is only amplified by housing the top Undergraduate and Executive MBA programs according to Poets&Quants.

SIMILAR STRENGTHS, SIMILAR RESULTS

Yes, CBS and Wharton are big – each churning out nearly a thousand full-time graduates annually. Even more, they are urban, located nearly in the center of New York City and Philadelphia. Most of all, both schools are highly ambitious, positioning themselves as graduate business education’s thought leaders and innovation catalysts over the coming decades.

The general public often associates business school excellence with the bi-coastal behemoths: Harvard Business School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. And they’re not necessarily wrong. However, the real action is increasingly taking place along Interstate 95. With Harvard Business School dropping and Stanford GSB going AWOL, The Financial Times ranking is increasingly reflecting that the new rivalry is Wharton and Columbia Business School. After all, CBS has ranked 2nd, 1st, 3rd, and 2nd from 2022-2025.

Then again, over this period, there has only been one year when CBS has outranked Wharton – and that’s the year when their Quaker City counterpart couldn’t get enough of its alums to return a survey.

That begs the question: Is the Wharton School in a league of its own – or is Columbia Business School closer to the top spot than you might expect?

In true Rocky – or Raging Bull – spirit, it helps to look at the tale of the tape.

COLUMBIA SCORES MORE WINS…BUT STILL FINISHES SECOND

Among the 21 dimensions weighed by The Financial Times, Columbia outperformed Wharton across 12 of them – with both schools reporting 22% share of women on their boards. More than that, CBS ranked or scored higher than Wharton across dimensions with a combined 65% weight. This included Weighted Salary (16%) and Salary Increase (16%). With the former, the difference was a nominal $1,225, but the latter represented an 18-point swing. In addition, Columbia tended to score higher in career-oriented measures such as Career Progress (i.e. Level of Seniority and Size of Company) and Value for Money (A mix of current pay factored against Tuition, Missed Income, Course Length, etc.).

In contrast, Wharton performed better in measures related to Women, while CBS excelled among student and faculty data involving internationals. Based on student surveys, Wharton boasted a stronger alumni network, while Columbia offered the superior career services support. True to form, Wharton continued to crank out the best research in the most impactful journals (though CBS ranked 2nd in this area). By the same token, Wharton continues to school CBS in sustainability, both in practice (Carbon Footprint Rank) and the classroom (ESG and Net Zero Teaching Rank). Notably, CBS finished 22 spots behind Wharton in Net Zero Teaching. This measure included an alumni survey mixed with data involving the “proportion of teaching hours from core courses dedicated to Environment, Social, and Governance issues and climate solutions addressing how organizations can reach net zero.”

Bottom line: It is hard to say where CBS can improve to overtake Wharton in the FT Ranking. That would require deep math since both schools match up so closely across the various FT dimensions. Still, as CBS ramps us its sustainability programming, you can expect the school to move up in Net Zero Teaching. However, Columbia performed better than Wharton across the majority of dimensions. That means any subtle improvements by Wharton would enable the school to distance themselves from CBS too.

Call it what you will: a delicate balance or a fine line. Either way, you can expect these schools to compete with each other for bragging rights in the coming years.

4) IESE Overtakes INSEAD…But For How Long?

In 2020, IESE Business School ranked as the #13 business school in the world. Back then, it rounded out a quintet of non-American schools that included INSEAD, CEIBS, London Business School, and HEC Paris. Admittedly, 13th seemed a little low for IESE, which went on to finish 1st a year later with The Economist. Alas, the top spot came an asterisk since seven schools previously ranked ahead of IESE opted not to participate in COVID’s wake.

Still, the precedent was set and the view was altered – IESE had the potential to be the highest-ranked business school in Europe (if not the world).

It wouldn’t be easy, particularly with The Financial Times Ranking – where INSEAD was lodged at the top. After wrapping up the #1 spot in 2021, INSEAD finished 3rd in 2022 and 2nd from 2023-2024. In contrast, IESE ping-ponged from 10th to 3rd to 5th during those years, never able to overtake INSEAD.

Would 2025 be any different? After all, didn’t P&Q hail IESE and INSEAD for being so steady and consistent?

You bet. This year’s ranking represents a changing of the guard – outside the United States, at least. IESE climbed two spots to 3rd. In the process, it also knocked INSEAD and SDA Bocconi out of the 2nd and 3rd spots to a 4th-place tie.

Here’s how the business schools compare:

IESE VS. INSEAD

Unlike Wharton and Columbia – schools who strengths closely aligned in The Financial Times methodology – IESE and INSEAD differ substantially. Want to earn more money? Go to INSEAD and you’ll rake in over $11,400 more a year within three years of graduation. However, INSEAD’s pay is negated by the Pre-MBA Salary Increase, where IESE holds a 22-point advantage. Want better support? That’s where IESE shines. In an annual survey conducted by The Financial Times with school alumni, IESE posted the 2nd-best score for Alumni Effectiveness, while ranking 11th for Career Services. Those rankings were 20th and 55th for INSEAD. Not surprisingly, IESE’s three-month placement is 16 points higher. Then again, Research ranks 4th in the world for its caliber of its research, an eye-catching 25 spots higher than IESE.

In other words, the IESE-INSEAD gap is tight. INSEAD scored higher in Value for the Money, but it is also a one-year program compared to IESE’s two-year format – an inherent disadvantage that translates to higher tuition and opportunity costs. IESE holds the edge among greater representation among women, but it isn’t quite as international as the self-described “Business school for the world.” While INSEAD may sport more nationalities, IESE thrived in Sector Diversity – the variety of industries where students worked before business school. In the end, the difference came down to Carbon Footprint Rank and ESG and Net Zero Teaching Rank. In these measures, IESE is a Top 10 program, while INSEAD falls into the Top 20.

Beyond IESE and INSEAD, you could argue that the 2025 Financial Times Global MBA Ranking may go down as the year when Europe took center stage. The London Business School (7th), ESADE (8th), and HEC Paris (9th) joined IESE, INSEAD, and SDA Bocconi in the Top 10. That makes it six European programs to reach this rare air, a better showing than the four (2024), three (2022-2023), and two (2021) schools of years past.

WHAT SET ESADE APART

Looking for growth? Take ESADE. Last year, P&Q made a bold prediction during its analysis of The Financial Times results. The headline: “Is Esade Poised For A Big Run?” After all, ESADE had moved from 30th to 17th last year. Sure enough, ESADE continued its slow climb into the Top 10. Certainly, pay helped push ESADE over the hump. Last year, the school reported that graduates were pulling in $182,414 within three years of graduation. This year, the number spiked to $205,044, moving the school’s pay rank from 25th to 17th. That’s particularly valuable since Pay accounts for the highest weight – 16%. This pay increase set in motion a virtuous cycle. Salary Increase – also worth a 16% weight – is the difference between pre-MBA pay and post-MBA pay. Here, ESADE moved from 151% to 173%. The program also inched up on its Career Services and Value for the Money scores. At the same time, the program leaned into its international programming. In measures worth a combined 8% weight, ESADE raised its International Mobility rank from 21st to 11th and International Course Experience rank from 13th to 4th. Alas, ESADE ranks 70th in Research, which relegates it below INSEAD and IESE in the coming years.

ESADE wasn’t the only business school to leave a mark. After a short stint at 16th, the London Business School bounced back to finish in the Top 10 for the second consecutive year.  LBS graduates earned the second-highest salaries among European schools at $214,823 – an uptick of nearly $12,500. In Faculty Research, a 10% weight, LBS ranked 8th, while improving its Career Services survey ranking from 26th to 16th. This year, HEC Paris, made a triumphant return to the Top 10 after a three-year absence. Notably, graduate pay rose by over $16,000, while the school’s carbon footprint rank jumped from 36th to 8th.

That said, the progress didn’t trickle down across Europe as a whole. 34 European programs made the 2025 Financial Times Global MBA Ranking, up by just one school from the previous year. As 2025 shows, that jockeying will cover the higher end of The Financial Times Global MBA ranking.