Ranking Business Schools By Teamwork, Social Impact, and Ethics

Students at Fordham’s Lincoln Center Campus

BUSINESS WITH PURPOSE

The final survey results publicized by Bloomberg Businessweek covered social impact. Here, the question was couched this way: “My school emphasized the principles of corporate, social, and environmental responsibility.” In this measure, Fordham Gabelli topped all MBA programs with a perfect 7.0 average from survey respondents. Consider it an extension of Gabelli’s Jesuit values, which expects students to provide service to those in need and take action to address larger social problems.

“As I looked more into it, I liked the Jesuit part of it,” explains Zachary Hands, who’ll be graduating from Gabelli next spring. “My admittedly limited understanding is that the Jesuit mission is to educate students with a focus on instilling them with good values. These educated individuals will then enter the world in hopefully influential places and use their skills and values to make the world a better place. As someone who served in the military with the hope of doing my part to make our country and planet a better place, this really resonated with me.”

Larger scale, the Gabelli MBA has adopted a “Business With Purpose” philosophy that guides every aspect of its programming, adds Dylan Mosenthal, associate director of MBA programs, in a 2021 interview with P&Q. “Simply put, “Business with Purpose” means that we want to train mindful business leaders who are passionate not only about making a profit, but also making an impact on their communities and society. Gabelli students want to develop business acumen and become agents of societal change, and beyond the students, this philosophy is a part of our identity, from the board of trustees and administration down to the faculty and staff.”

The remainder of the Top 10 in social impact is separated by just 0.1 of a point, starting with Dartmouth Tuck (6.79) and concluding with Michigan Ross and the Rochester Institute of Technology (Both 6.69). The bottom of this list features the lowest score of any category — 5.08 — courtesy of the Wharton School. Chicago Booth also ranked in the bottom ten with a 5.77 average.

Overall, Fordham Gabelli earned Top 10 averages in every category. At the same time, Michigan Ross, Georgetown McDonough, Dartmouth Tuck, Duke Fuqua, and Texas-Dallas Jindal placed among the ten-best in two categories. By the same token, Chicago Booth produced bottom 10 scores in all three categories. There were also several programs that finished near the bottom in two measures: Wharton School, Tulane Freeman, Florida Hough, South Carolina Darla Moore, and George Washington University.

That doesn’t count the mediocre middle, as Stanford GSB, Columbia Business School, MIT Sloan, and Berkeley Haas didn’t rank in either list, good or bad.

DON’T MISS: WHARTON PLUNGES TO NINTH IN NEW BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK MBA RANKING or BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK’S MBA RANKING CANNOT BE REPLICATED BY THE PUBLISHED DATA & METHODOLOGY