How MBA Students & Alumni Rank Their Business Schools

Students meeting inside MIT Sloan

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES

Beyond MIT Sloan, the Prestige ranking is dotted with Ivy League schools. In fact, they account for 5 of the 10 highest-scoring schools in this category, including a run that includes Harvard Business School (4th), Wharton School (5th), and the Yale School of Management (6th).

One major difference in this year’s Bloomberg Businessweek survey? The data released covers both alumni and students. In other words, the survey combines responses from respondents who experienced the program at two different times. Translation: it is difficult to discern if the results reflect current sentiment…or act as lagging indicators.

Look no further than the 2018 survey. Among the student segment, Bloomberg Businessweek removed questions relating to areas like applicable skills, faculty quality, and competitiveness in 2019.  The Prestige question appears in the previous year’s student survey. However, it related to a school’s ability to attract recruiters. Here, the 2018 student survey results run completely askew. In terms of Prestige, Stanford GSB ranked 8th among students only last year, with Cambridge Judge not even ranking among the Top 12. That said, MIT Sloan also placed 3rd in the 2018 survey, topped only by Harvard Business School and the Wharton School.

DIFFICULT TO COMPARE TO PREVIOUS SURVEYS

MBA students at SDA Bocconi in Milan, Italy. Courtesy photo

Comparing 2019 and 2018 results, the alumni surveys also differ substantively in spots. In the 2018 alumni survey, Bloomberg Businessweek did ask MBA alumni to score their alma maters in relation to Innovation and Creativity, Entrepreneurship Training, and Prestige. Like the student surveys, there is a key difference when it comes to scoring. Last year, Bloomberg Businessweek applied a 100 point index to scores, which doesn’t align with this year’s 7-point rubric. As a result, it is impossible to know how respondent sentiment has shifted, particularly after the student and alumni segments were combined this year. As noted earlier, Bloomberg Businessweek only released the Top 12 scores in each category, down from the Top 30 revealed a year before. This creates another obstacle to knowing just how far school scores have risen or fallen over the past year.

In Innovation and Creativity, for example, Stanford GSB ranked #1 with a perfect 100 index score in the 2018 alumni survey. However, Imperial College of London and Babson College – which placed 2nd and 4th in the same alumni survey, didn’t make the Top 12 in the latest survey. Their spots were taken by Cornell Johnson and SDA Bocconi respectively, which didn’t even post Top 30 scored a year ago. Imperial and Babson also tumbled out of the Top 5 in Entrepreneurship, though Stanford GSB and MIT Sloan remained in the Top 5 (with IE Business School jumping from 12th to 2nd). In Prestige, Stanford GSB also held the top spot both years among alumni, beating out the likes of Harvard Business School, Wharton School, and MIT Sloan. That said, Cambridge Judge did rise, prestige-wise, from 7th to 2nd over the past year.

On the plus side, Bloomberg Businessweek also conducted a mirror survey with recruiters last year. It applied the same 7-point scale to measuring satisfaction, while also covering Innovation and Creativity, Brand Value (aka Prestige) and Entrepreneurship Training. Here, the differences were staggering.

MBA students at Georgetown’s McDonough School

RECRUITERS SCORE LOWER THAN STUDENTS AND ALUMNI

The best MBA program for Innovation and Creativity according to recruiters? It wasn’t Stanford GSB, which placed 7th. Instead, it was Georgetown University’s McDonough School, which didn’t even make the list among MBA students and alumni. The same is true for the next six schools ranked by recruiters: Washington Foster, Brigham Young Marriott, Georgia Tech Scheller, Virginia Darden, and Yale SOM. At the same time, recruiters scored business schools far lower than students and alumni. For example, the highest score given by recruiters in Innovation and Creativity was 5.79. In contrast, Stanford GSB scored a 6.74 among students and alumni. When it came to recruiters, Stanford GSB averaged 5.58 – more than a point lower.

That trend followed in Brand Value/Prestige. Among recruiters, IMD notched the highest value score (6.0), with Washington Foster (5.75) also making the Top 5. Neither graced the Student and Recruiter survey, where the highest averages belonged to Stanford GSB (6.97) and Cambridge Judge and MIT Sloan (6.94). True to form, neither of these schools made recruiters’ Top 12 according to Bloomberg Businesweek. For Entrepreneurship, Stanford GSB did rank 2nd among recruiters, though its 5.50 average fell well short of how students and alumni scored the program (6.88). Employers also ranked Washington Foster as the top MBA program for Entrepreneurial training, with Maryland Smith, Georgia Tech Scheller and Georgetown McDonough rounding out its Top 5 in this category. Aside from Stanford, MBA students and alumni produced a far different Top 5 in entrepreneurship, with the 2nd through 5th spots held respectively by Cornell Johnson, IE Business School, Berkeley Haas, and MIT Sloan.

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