Rankings Slip: Just 29% Of B-School Candidates Now Call Them A Top‑3 Factor

Across business education, prospective students have long used rankings as an easy proxy for a program’s quality, reputation, and competitive edge.

Today, that is changing. Prospective students are weighing schools against a slightly different set of criteria than they once did.

The qualities captured by traditional rankings still matter, but they are no longer the top concern for most students. That is the finding of GMAC’s 2025 Prospective Students Survey. The share of global candidates who cite rankings as a top‑three research factor when choosing a school fell from 37% in 2023 to just 29% in 2024.

The report draws on responses from nearly 4,300 individuals across 145 countries, all actively researching or applying to graduate business programs.

Increasingly, GMAC finds, students want to know which schools deliver the best ROI, along with transparent career outcomes, relevant skills, employer confidence, and affordability.

‘NOW, THE NORM IS THAT THERE ISN’T A NORM’

GMAC’s regional director for the Americas and Europe, Nalisha Patel, says she has seen a marked difference in how students evaluate schools.

“Previously, students could look at rankings and feel secure about what they tell in terms of outcomes,” Patel explains. “Now, it seems as though candidates are looking at methodology and their metrics in much greater detail.”

Patel has spent more than a decade close to business schools, including ten years running programs at London Business School. That has given her a front‑row seat to a shifting management education industry.

“Every year we say, ‘This is a really interesting time, a really disrupted year,’ and that’s just become the norm,” she says. “But the new norm is nonexistent. The norm is that there isn’t a norm.”

Students today are watching industries transform constantly. Career outcomes have become top of mind, especially for Gen Z, and AI literacy is now an expectation. “Employers don’t just want students with AI literacy – they want AI literacy that helps them make business decisions for the future,” Patel says.

ROI, OUTCOMES & JOB-READY SKILLS

Many schools have been reworking their messaging to highlight their strengths.

“Rankings have huge value,” Patel says. “But candidates want more evidence behind them.”

That evidence increasingly includes ROI, transparent career outcomes, and skills‑based metrics. Patel believes future rankings will need to lean more heavily on these measures, though she is quick to acknowledge the challenge.

“The only problem here is how do you measure someone’s AI literacy coming out of a program? How do you evaluate learning outcomes? How do you measure ROI?” she says.

It is a complex and often subjective exercise. ROI is notoriously difficult to calculate. Even highly prestigious programs sometimes report lower ROI than lesser‑known schools, Patel says, depending on methodology, salary baselines, geography, and the time window used to measure.

So what should schools focus on when attracting candidates?

“It’s important to highlight which metrics matter the most for the candidates you’re trying to reach,” she says.

SCHOOLS ARE FACTORING IN NEW PRIORITIES

As student values shift, schools are becoming increasingly attuned to how those expectations are changing.

At Imperial Business School, ranked No. 19 in the Poets&Quants International MBA ranking this year, Executive Director of Marketing, Communications and Enrollment Aram Karakashian has a clear view of what students want from a program today.

“Candidates today are factoring in far more than ‘is this a top‑ranked school?’ That alone doesn’t determine whether students want to apply,” he explains.

From what he has observed, employability is still at the heart of the conversation. “Once candidates have an affinity for certain schools, they start asking more detailed questions,” Karakashian says.

At Imperial, this typically happens through one‑on‑one chats, interviews, or alumni conversations – opportunities the school has been deliberately building in for students early on.

AI LITERACY IS A CORE EXPECTATION

AI and data capabilities, in particular, have become front‑of‑mind for prospective students. The topic shifts daily, and Imperial is fortunate to have hundreds of AI researchers across engineering and computing right on campus to provide guidance. In fact, conversations with those experts have been driving a major curriculum review at the business school.

In general, it is critical that business schools teach AI literacy today, Karakashian says.

“It’s transformative,” he says. “Schools need to bring AI learning into their curriculum because it’s shaping leadership, management, company operations, and interactions across sovereignties all over the world.”

Some rankings are evolving to meet that need. “Financial Times has introduced student satisfaction as a parameter,” he explains.

All in all, Karakashian believes rankings remain the richest source for what a school can offer.

“Rankings remain one of the more credible areas where students can find an accumulation of truth, even if they’re weighing other factors outside of what rankings typically measure,” he says.

WHAT CANDIDATES ARE ASKING NOW

At Vlerick Business School, where the programs are smaller and more specialized, head of MBA programs Yolanda Habets has noticed a change in what applicants want.

“We’re a smaller program, not consistently ranked, and we attract many entrepreneurial, non‑traditional candidates who already look beyond rankings,” Habets explains.

She has also noticed a change in the breadth of the questions applicants now bring. Salary and placement still matter, she says, but increasingly they sit in the background of the conversation.

“Our candidates are looking more broadly now – at work‑life balance, at the financial commitment, and at the time investment. Those factors seem to matter more than before.”

That shift has reshaped how Vlerick communicates value. Rather than leading with rankings, the school highlights its other strengths. “We focus more on what you get out of the program – how it helps you grow, the skills you gain,” Habets says.

THE VALUE TRADITIONAL RANKINGS MIGHT MISS

At Vlerick, curriculum expectations have evolved as well, with a heavier focus on soft‑skills development, leadership programming, and peer coaching.

“We’re focusing on these topics because they are so important to employers today,” she says.

As AI continues to shape the skills graduates need, the curriculum has been adjusting in response. “We introduced an AI track in our full‑time MBA and are looking to extend it,” she says. “The aim isn’t technical mastery, but rather fluency in the landscape graduates will enter.”

What stands out to Habets most is how much of the MBA experience falls outside what traditional rankings capture. “One thing rankings don’t measure is the impact someone can have when they come out of an MBA – their leadership foundation, what they can contribute to stakeholders. That’s increasingly so important.”

When students ask her about the importance of rankings, she tells them rankings aren’t everything. “Rankings aren’t in my top three things to look at,” she says.

They don’t tell a student whether they will fit with the program, the culture, or the ecosystem, she says.

“Some students overlook schools where they could have performed better and gotten more support, simply because they’re focused on rankings,” she says.

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