B-Schools & MBA Candidates Agree: Rankings Stink

Business school candidates increasingly have a jaundiced view of MBA rankings. But as they decide where to apply, they have no intention of ignoring them.

That’s the verdict of a new poll by Kaplan and Manhattan Prep which found that a majority of respondents consider B-school rankings — including the one published April 9 by U.S. News & World Report — have lost prestige in recent years, making them less crucial sources of information on where to apply to MBA programs.

B-school admissions officers concur. In a separate poll, half agreed that rankings have lost their shine: As one admissions officer put it, “They are a joke and are simply ways to generate revenue for ranking publications. Many schools attempt to game them.”

55% SAY RANKINGS HAVE LOST PRESTIGE; HALF OF ADMIT OFFICERS AGREE

Kaplan, the global educational services company, and Manhattan Prep, a provider of test prep for the Graduate Management Admission Test and other entrance exams that is owned by Kaplan, conducted the survey of 306 aspiring B-school students in March and April. All were in the United States. In the survey, 55% of respondents said they believe that rankings “have lost some of their prestige over the last couple of years”; 21% don’t believe that to be the case, while 24% aren’t sure.

However, even as most of them disparaged the importance of polls, the candidates were nearly unanimous (97%) in saying that a business school’s ranking will be critical to them in deciding where to ultimately enroll: 65% called it “very important” and 32% called it “somewhat important.”

In the second survey, Manhattan Prep/Kaplan contacted 70 B-schools across the U.S., including 10 of the top 50 schools as ranked by U.S. News, between August 2023 and February 2024. Half of the admissions officers who responded said rankings have lost some of their prestige, a big jump from the 37% who held this opinion in Kaplan’s previous survey. However, some admissions officers took a measured approach in their criticism, with several saying they think rankings are especially important to international applicants who may be less familiar with U.S. B-schools.

“Rankings,” said one, “are still valuable as one of many informational tools students consider when deciding where to apply. There are so many other resources, like social media, that I believe are more influential.”

RISK IN ‘GIVING A SCHOOL’S RANKING TOO MUCH WEIGHT’

The survey results come after rankings scandals at a number of schools, including providing U.S. News with false data. They also come as rankings with bad or mysterious methodologies flood the market and several publications have walked away from ranking business schools, including The Economist, Forbes, and most recently, Fortune. Even U.S. News, usually seen as the premier ranking of U.S. B-schools, has run into trouble, with a delayed release in 2023 and an eventual ranking that was widely disparaged.

However, unlike some top colleges, law schools, and medical schools, so far B-schools have not organized a widespread rebellion against rankings — with the exception being a protest boycott during the pandemic that made a joke of The Economist‘s 2020 list (and may have contributed to the magazine’s decision to stop doing rankings altogether).

“We’ve spoken with hundreds of business school admissions officers over the years and more than a few have told us, using gallows humor, that the night before the U.S. News rankings come out is the longest night of the year because they don’t get much sleep,” says Stacey Koprince, director of content and curriculum for Manhattan Prep, which is owned by Kaplan. “Some truly believe their careers hang in the balance. That’s largely because so many business schools use their ranking as an important, if not the most important, student recruitment and fundraising tool.

“While we believe the rankings can be useful to applicants, the risk is giving a school’s ranking too much weight in determining where you ultimately enroll. One piece of advice we always give students is to strongly consider the location of the business school. It’s beneficial in the long-term to attend a business school in the city or region where you plan on building your career because of all the local connections you’ll make — connections that can turn into lucrative job offers upon graduation. It’s a big reason why so many schools in the financial and business hubs of New York, Boston, and San Francisco are so popular.”

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